Like every other language, Korean has tons of fun and witty idiomatic expressions.
The question that can arise when learning Korean idioms on your own is, "But do native Korean speakers actually use these expressions in everyday life?".
So here's a heads up. I guarantee that the Korean idioms I introduce in this blog are only the ones that are actually very common among the many Korean idioms.
Today, we're going to learn "콩밥 먹다" as an idiomatic expression in Korean.
First, let's break down the words that make up the phrase "콩밥 먹다".
콩 : beans
밥 : rice or cooked rice(=Bop)
먹다 : eat
So the sentence "콩밥 먹다" is literally "Eating rice cooked with beans."
To fully explain this idiom, we need to look back a bit into the past of Korea.
Unlike today's Korea, which has made remarkable progress in many aspects, just a few decades ago, the country's economy was not doing well and many Koreans did not have enough to eat.
As you may know, the staple food of Koreans is rice (Bap=cooked rice), and in the past, rice production was not sufficient, so when making Bop, people would add various grains like barley, corn, etc (often cheaper than rice) to the rice to increase the amount.
(Of course, many Koreans still eat bean-rice today. But it’s not because it's cheaper than rice, but because it's better for you nutritionally because it contains a lot of protein, or because they enjoy the flavor of the beans themselves).
OK, let's go back to Korea in the past.
In terms of cost, there was a fact that bean-rice was cheaper than pure rice.
So there's a story that in the past, prisoners in Korean jails were given bean-rice.
They needed rice because the prisoners also needed to eat, but the government couldn't give them pure rice because they wanted to minimize the amount of tax money that went to the prisoners.
Okay, don't want to read anymore because it was too long?
We're getting close. Read a little more, we're almost to the end.
I haven’t been in prison so far, so I can't attest to this with certainty, but what I do know about whether or not South Korean prisons still serve bean-rice to inmates is that the answer is "no".
Actually, In the current situation in South Korea, there is too much rice left over to dispose of.
We're either producing too much rice or we're not consuming enough rice to warrant a campaign to consume more rice.
So it's actually necessary to increase rice consumption by providing pure rice to prison inmates.
Now, finally, the conclusion.
The Korean idiom "콩밥 먹다" means "to live in prison for a crime".
Despite the fact that prisoners are no longer fed bean-rice in jail in Korea, this idiom is still commonly used in everyday Korean life.
Here are some realistic examples.
[1] 당장 내 돈 갚아! 콩밥 먹고 싶어?!!
Pay me back my money now! Do you want to eat bean-rice?!!
[2] 너 사람들한테 사기쳤지? 콩밥을 먹어봐야 정신을 차리지!
You've been scamming people, haven't you? You'll only come to your senses when you eat bean-rice!
[3] 저 사람 조심해. 옛날에 콩밥 먹은 적 있대.
Be careful with that guy, he's had bean-rice before.
As you can see above, I'm considering making a series of posts explaining Korean idioms.
If your response to this post is good, I'll do it with enthusiasm. If this post was helpful to you, please leave a comment, it will be a great motivation.
