Korean Expression of the Day

I've decided to start writing some of these down. They're so interesting!


1. When it is raining but the sun is out:
"It's like the fox and the tiger got married."
It means that it's an unlikely pairing. 

I had one of those, "Wow, I'm really living in Asia" epiphanies when my co-teacher told me this one the other day. Since tigers are not indigenous to North America any tiger metaphor gives me a profound sense of where I am in the world. 


2. "A man can only cry three times in his life:  when he is born, when his parents die, and when he loses his country."
It means that men really can't cry in Korean culture. "When he loses his country" is pretty poignant for a country that has been occupied and invaded by China and Japan throughout the centuries.