KSL mental block in Korean class this afternoon:
During our discussion about Korean politics, Professor Choi used the abbreviation 반미 (反美), which means anti-American, as in anti-U.S. policies or sentiment.
It's not a rare or difficult word—반미 is a common term in the news, and even the
hanja are quite basic—but, perhaps due to my hunger, the first possible definition that popped into my head was
bánh mì, the delicious French-Vietnamese sandwich
with which I have been known to be obsessed.
Clearing my head of images of pâté and pickled carrots, I began thinking about possible
hanja matches and correctly concluded that the 미 was equivalent to 美. Unfortunately, I also thought that 반 might refer to 半, meaning half. Logically then, 반미 would be half-beauty or half-America (the "beautiful country"). What an interesting word for 'butterface'!
The next iteration finally reached the correct
hanja (反美), but it occurred to me that this might mean anti-beauty. "How unfortunate," I thought. Haters gonna hate, right?
Finally, I remembered the correct definition of 반미, and suddenly the world seemed a less amusing place. Granted, this entire process of
hanja mixing and matching probably lasted for less than five seconds, but it was five seconds of absurd hilarity that had me laughing out loud by myself in the middle of Professor Choi's rather serious explanation of Korean party politics.
Oh, the strange and solitarily humorous things that happen inside my brain...
