# 가는 날이 장날이다



## vientito

I have looked this up but I would like to know the reason behind its meaning.  Is it because of the hullabaloo caused by 장날 that this phrase comes about?

I would suppose this expression only has negative connotation as well, right?


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## Kross

I think you can get the information you are looking for from this thread:  http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/가는-날이-장날이라고-확장-공사를-하고-있지-뭐예요.2907246/


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## vientito

Thank you for the pointer.


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## Rance

The story goes like this.
One man decided to visit a friend for some errand.
As there were no means of public transporatiton, unless rich, and no telephone back in old days, he had to walk a long distance hoping his friend was at his house.
When he arrived, he found out it was 장날 and the friend was at 장터 and not at his house.
Since market was pretty far, he had to give up and return home before it got too late.
장날 was usually one in every five days(오일장),so your 20%, or low, chance can ruin your day.


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## vientito

Interesting, I hope you won't mind I lead into another somewhat related question.  In English there is a current expression - so-called Murphy's Law - whatever that can go wrong will go wrong, regardless of the chance of its happening.  I am wondering if there's a similar yet common adage in Korean culture to express that concept?  Please steer off konglish - I need an expression that stems from the past and all walk of life (whether they are 9 or 90) can understand.


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## Kross

I think 가는 날이 장날이다 can be replaced by Murph's Law in some cases. So the former for people of almost all ages, the latter for ones of relatively young ages.


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## Rance

가는 날이 장날이다 seems fine, and there are two others  I can think of.
1)개똥도 약에 쓰려면 없다. (There were so many dog shit around, but when you need them you can't find any.)
2)뒤로 자빠져도 코가 깨진다. (One falls backward and he somehow manages to break his nose. Don't ask me how. It's just trying to show how unlucky one can be.)

While the other two usually refer to one unlucky incident that happened in real life, the last old saying(뒤로 자빠져도 코가 깨진다) usually refers to unlucky person.


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