Feeling the Seasons

by Kerri Strothard
Photo by Sean Dailey

Join Kerri Strothard as she explains Korean expressions.

If you’ve ever read a Korean poem or read a Korean book, you are probably familiar with the great focus placed on connecting nature and emotions. This connection is found in languages around the world, and the Korean language too has many everyday expressions showing the romantic connection between emotions and the seasons.

Have any of your Korean female friends told you they are feeling the spring? There is a romantic expression in Korean, 봄 탑니다, or more casually, 봄 타냐, which gets right at the heart of how we feel near the end of winter.

My friend explained to me, “After the long winter, everything starts moving and melting”.  We hugely anticipate the arrival of spring and in Korean there is even a specific word for the first day when insects come out from their winter homes, called 경칩. After this day, we start to look forward to the warmth of Mother Nature, and might even pick the first fresh flower we see out of our delight that spring is coming.

Feeling the spring was originally used to describe girls and women who are excited by the arrival of warmer weather. These days, though, it can also be used to describe boys and men. If we ask a friend if they feel the spring, it has a different meaning than just being excited by the weather. It has an implied meaning closer to “Do you have someone in mind to share this new spring feeling with?”

We can express a similar mood change in the fall, by saying I feel the fall, or in Korean 가을 탄다. To feel the fall means something different though than feeling the spring.  Fall comes after the bright and lively summer. As the cool nights approach, and the leaves fall off the trees, it is said that people consider their lives, and might feel a sense of loneliness when watching a leaf fall from a branch. For those who feel the fall, they usually say가을 탄다 in the hopes that their friends might set them up on a blind date.

If your friends seem excited and happy at the arrival of spring, go ahead and ask them “너 봄타냐?” And if you’re feeling like you’d like to meet someone to enjoy the spring with, say to your friends “난 봄타요” and you’ll probably have a blind date before you can choose an outfit.

Recommended spots in Gwangju for those feeling the spring

For those of you who can’t wait to dance hand-in-hand in the grassy spring fields, you can try to find someone to share spring with at the back gate of Chonnam University. This is a very popular area for night clubs and bars, and there are even some romantic restaurants around there too. If you seek a good spring atmosphere, you can go to JukNokWon bamboo forest and take in the fresh air. Once you’ve found someone, Jungoe park is a great place for a first date since there’s something for all tastes, including a few art galleries, an amusement park, and a biennale museum.

Other nature-related expressions in Korean

• When someone stares blankly into space, you can ask them “먼 산을 바라보면, 무슨 생각을 그리 하냐?” which is directly translated as “what do you think of when you stare at a mountain?” It means that the person appears to be contemplating something very serious.

• When I taught a group of Korean children about the four seasons, I asked them to pick a season and do a drawing. I was blown away by the consistency of their art, as nearly all of the students who chose autumn drew a picture of someone reading a book outside. I later found out about the Korean proverb 가을은 독서의 계절이다 which translates as “autumn is the season for reading.”

• 꽃샘추위 is when we experience a week of cold weather right before the arrival of spring. It is said that the flowers make the coldness jealous, so the cold persists for one final week before surrendering to the spring.