# 뻘건 내복 한 벌 사다



## 조금만

Another query from my TV drama-watching habit...

A man and woman are on cordial but not at all intimate terms (he's married to someone else and there is no suggestion of existing or planned impropriety). He wants to show his gratitude to her for doing his family a great favour. Under the (false) impression that he's currently unemployed she says the best way he can thank her is to find himself a job, and then 첫월급 타시면 뻘건 내복 한 벌 사오시고요. 

My question: is there some sort of folk significance to buying someone a set of red underwear? (assuming I have understood the Korean correctly). It seems, to Western ears, a rather strange gift for her to suggest he might buy her out of his first pay packet. But it recalls to mind an incident in a drama some time back, where a man on a trip abroad sent back to a woman with whom he was on friendly, but not romantic terms, a set of red undies, and she was not at all embarrassed or annoyed, nor were her girlfriends shocked. I filed that away in my "unsolved enigmas" file, but this new reference in a current drama prompts me to ask if there's something I'm missing here.


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## want8

In the 60's and 70's, underwears for protecting against the cold were booming. Above all the colors 'red underwears' were beloved because the easiest color to dye is red. Also, back then underwears were pretty high-priced so people were eager to show off their underwears and as you know, red is the most noticeable color.

Until 80's underwears were a symbol of filial piety. So a set of red underwear has become '첫 월급을 타면 부모님께 드리는 선물 1순위'. 

After all these years, even though people merely wear those kind of underwears these days, red underwears for protecting against the cold (not the usual ones) are still a symbol of filial devotion and a gift to parents.


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## 조금만

Splendid!  Many thanks, want8

In the meantime, a Chinese contact came up with something that, although from a different angle, seems to complement your explanation very well. Namely the notion that red should be worn by people in the final year of a zodiacal subcycle (eg when they are 23 going on 24, 35 going on 36 etc) when they are held to be particularly prone to malign influences at those stages in their life. But since wearing red outer clothing for a whole year would be somewhat sartorially limiting, red underwear can have the same propitious effect. So such a gift is a way of expressing a wish to guard the recipient against malign influences. 

I don't know whether this belief extends into some parts of Korean culture, but it would actually fit in quite well with some other motifs in the drama concerned.

Incidentally, I also asked this question (before raising it here, since it didn't seem to me to be a strictly lexical issue) on a board frequented by Kdrama fans, some of whom are bilingual or nearly-bilingual 1.5 and later generation Korean emigrants. None of them had any idea what this red underwear present thing meant. Yet it's plain that it must have meant something obvious to the target audience of the drama in Korea. Goes to show how complex and perishable a thing cultural knowledge is, especially when exported to a foreign climate.


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## want8

Yes, Chinese people enthusiastically love red color. Even their traditional costume is red! In China red stands for good luck. However, this has nothing to do with the Korean red underwear thing. Oddly enough, in Korea red usually means death or bad luck. Red underwear is a very exceptional case indeed.


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