First things first. If anyone asks you for 키알 or 섹알 in an online forum / chatting app, please get out immediately and block the person.
Been reading quite a few disturbing news in Korea these days. Just today, there is an article published by Chosun Ilbo (original Korean article here) that talks about the kinds of ‘알바’ (part time jobs) that middle school and even elementary school students get into these days. Try searching for 초등학생 알바 / 중학생 알바 on major online portal sites and you will get many search results on 카페 (‘cafes’ / groups) dedicated to the topic. Back in my days, no elementary school student (in Singapore) do part time jobs, and none will know how to use the internet to find those jobs. Scary how the internet and society has evolved. What happened to minimum age requirement to work???
It’s still not such a bad thing (although still questionable) if the part time jobs were legitimate. But the most common jobs posted / sought after were 키알 and 섹알. Which is a short form of 키스 알바 (Kissing part time job) and 섹알 .. yes you guessed it. Sex as a part time job. Postings such as 12녀/ 친구들이랑 놀러 가는데 돈 필요해요 ㅠㅠ 키알합니다 (12/female. I want to hang out with friends but I need money. I will do kissing part time job) were not uncommon. (taken from article). It’s scary how these youths can say such stuff with no particular feelings and everything feels so.. normalized.
The reporter also pretended to be a 12 yr old elementary girl and posted up similar stuff (leaving a kakao ID) and more than 50 people actually came and enquired!!!! Seriously, what has the world got to. With the easy access to smartphones for youths and also the increasing popularity of private messaging apps, such ‘transactions’ are made even easier. Of course, it is not to say that such apps are a bad invention, but I guess it makes monitoring even harder for the authorities.
Even though steps have been taken to enforce content filtering etc, people on the internet are an innovative bunch. 키알 is now shortened to ㅋㅇ. Seriously, there needs to be more measures to combat this.
Next time you are chatting with some unknown people on the internet, please be aware of these new slangs!
UPDATE. omfg why are people searching this to get to my blog -.- I hope… that they are looking for the news and not you know….
I’m not even kidding. Some guy just leave a comment on this blog post with his name and phone number asking for ……… o.O Okay I need to delete it..
18 Comments
Vanessa
25 September, 2012 at 10:41 AMThere are no words to express how disgusting is this, and sad :/ And I don’t even know who is the worst: the kid selling their “service”, their parents (because of lack on educating the kid), or the person that buys this kind of service. But, well, talking about this is not exactly what your blog is about.
Anyways, thank you so much for making me be aware of this.
hangukdrama
25 September, 2012 at 11:04 AMyeah I’m not really the kind of person to talk about social issues etc so I did try to frame this post into something more of the language and slang instead of focusing on the news. ><;; Just hope that people will be careful. Cos sometimes we may end up saying 네~ 네~ etc even if we are not that sure of what people had just said o.O
Firionna
25 September, 2012 at 3:21 PMSo true! Thanks for sharing this, Shanna!
Shanice
26 September, 2012 at 12:06 PMoo.. the update’s kinda scary. wow. thanks~
hope these people don’t end up harrassing you and this blog~
i recently had an incident via a korean app: 보지보여줘 (show me your vulva/pussy). not a slang, but just another term to be careful of. 😉
(on a side note wondering, why would anyone pay for 키알 @.@)
hangukdrama
26 September, 2012 at 12:40 PMno harassment yet, i’m glad. ^^ lol that’s pretty vulgar -.- I don’t understand how people can say such shit even though its all anonymous.
amyhangukolic
26 September, 2012 at 3:15 PMJust back from my exam and I quickly dig up some blogs to update with world XD. This is a helpful post. Some people tends to bend around the rule and do horrible things. Thanks for sharing!
p/s: Your new addition maths verification make my retarded mind jammed for a spilt second. ^^
hangukdrama
26 September, 2012 at 3:37 PMhahaha!! Done with all your exams? All the best 😀 😀
p.s. I’m so glad I don’t have to do the verification when I reply to comments 😛
Lucie D
26 September, 2012 at 5:08 PMInteresting to know about this as well…. yet it seems scary to know that young students just go freely offering themselves for money. Where is the world coming to? I often wonder whether things are getting worse or this has always existed. Are relationships becoming empty?
hangukdrama
27 September, 2012 at 8:40 PMI think it’s getting worse D:
Sjdjfj
27 September, 2012 at 3:26 AMThey have a similar problem in Japan. It’s called enjokousai and there’s also 神待ち for runaway girls.
hangukdrama
27 September, 2012 at 8:40 PMohh didnt know about the term. thanks for sharing!
hanneebuff
27 September, 2012 at 3:25 PMThanks a lot for sharing this piece of news. I’ll be more careful when somebody tries to speak to me in Korean and try these slang. (Not that I understand a lot of Korean anyway…) But this piece of news is really bothering. I observed that there is an increase in the number of sexual molestation cases that are reported in the media. I wonder, is this an old issue or something that is just coming to light because of technology?
hangukdrama
27 September, 2012 at 8:37 PMI do agree that there is an increase in the number of cases ><
Ana
7 May, 2013 at 4:00 PMI recently downloaded a chatting app in korean. It’s difficult for me because I’m a beginner in korean, but yes,there are lots of guys who ask for sex u.u I wonder if you know the meaning of 변? I have seen it a lot but I don’t know the meaning. I have searched in the net and it translates to “side”. I still don’t understand what it means, but something tells me is something related to this. Is it?
hangukdrama
7 May, 2013 at 4:36 PMinteresting. I have no idea, I’ll need to see the entire sentence or phrase to make a guess. ^^
Ana
9 May, 2013 at 1:39 PMI went to the app again and some guy told all of this. I don’t understand anything. Sorry if there are bad words or something, I can’t figure it out if there is something like that. Take it down from here if it’s necessary =)
hangukdrama
9 May, 2013 at 5:38 PM><;;; still don't understand what's 변 but yeah the rest are well... very suggestive (to put it mildly). I'll delete the link from your comment ^^
Karla
21 December, 2013 at 10:31 PMit must be 변태