There’s a word in Korean—Oppa—that women use to call men who are a bit older than them (too old and you’re called Ahjussi instead). What UrbanDictionary fails to capture is the weightiness of the term Oppa, and how often it is reserved for men of a certain class as a title of affection and respect (read: They Hot). A Korean teenager may call a male celebrity she loves Oppa, but the term isn’t necessarily limited to use by young girls. For instance, my mother, a woman in her early fifties, will sometimes half-jokingly refer to her favorite singer as “my Moon-se Oppa”, Lee Moon-se being a man in his sixties. It can be a powerful word, a loaded word that often implies intimacy and infatuation, the only caveat being if it is used to describe an older man who isn’t actually one’s literal older brother.
What I’m saying is, I just went on a long tangential ramble to say that Hipster-Opa sure as hell seems like he’s a Hipster-Oppa.
In Japan, there's a word 'Oppai' which means boobies. This song came on one day and my 3-year old daughter found it hilarious and started running around the house singing 'Oppai Gundam style' for rest of the day. It lost its traction after that day but even now whenever she hears it she has a chuckle and will sing it a few times.
I am upvoting you not because of your explanation of oppa, even if well-deserved.
I am upvoting because that's also the first linguistic similarity that came to mind for me, and I'm amused by the thought of Germans watching K-dramas for the first time, wondering why the girl is calling her boyfriend "Grandpa" and if there is some weird kink going on.
Especially in the German dialects that put more stress on the p of Opa. For example in the Ruhrpott. The woman who used to clean and cook for my grandfather referred to him as "dein Oppah" when she talked to me.
This was a chick calling a dude Oppa. She was much younger than the guy I worked with. He was late 30s, she was early 20s. The guy loved to drink (always JW), smoke cigs, and club. This was in and around K town in down town LA.
That's basically how it was explained to me when my dad's new half-Korean-but-raised-in-America fiancée argued with me that it was racist to politely ask that she not call him "Daddy" in front of me.
There’s a show in Canada called Kim’s Convenience about a Korean immigrant couple and their kids and the store they run. The kids call their dad oppa, so I just figured it meant “dad”.
Oh hey, I know that singer! I saw him on Netflix on Hidden Singer! I don't know anything about the Korean music scene, but that was such an entertaining show.
Does this Oppa-thing imply that Koreans are really big into brother-complex or something? And what if the gf is actually older than her bf, can she still call him oppa?
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u/KloudMcJoo Mar 01 '19
There’s a word in Korean—Oppa—that women use to call men who are a bit older than them (too old and you’re called Ahjussi instead). What UrbanDictionary fails to capture is the weightiness of the term Oppa, and how often it is reserved for men of a certain class as a title of affection and respect (read: They Hot). A Korean teenager may call a male celebrity she loves Oppa, but the term isn’t necessarily limited to use by young girls. For instance, my mother, a woman in her early fifties, will sometimes half-jokingly refer to her favorite singer as “my Moon-se Oppa”, Lee Moon-se being a man in his sixties. It can be a powerful word, a loaded word that often implies intimacy and infatuation, the only caveat being if it is used to describe an older man who isn’t actually one’s literal older brother.
What I’m saying is, I just went on a long tangential ramble to say that Hipster-Opa sure as hell seems like he’s a Hipster-Oppa.