After the Hallyu wave (rise of South Korean culture), most of us are familiar with the K-pop boy band, BTS. Not to forget, Korean TV shows, aka K-dramas, have also taken the world by storm; in fact, Squid Game garnered 1.65 billion view hours in the first 28 days of its premiere!

With its popularity, instances in which Korean cultural appreciation has turned to cultural appropriation have increased. Just look at Anna, who kept calling the original poster’s (OP) cousin “oppa” even when asked not to, so she finally got shamed publicly.

More info: Reddit

Cultural appreciation is slowly turning to cultural appropriation after the Korean wave, or the Hallyu wave

Image credits: Singkham / Pexels (not the actual photo)

The poster was born in South Korea but adopted by a white American couple so she grew up in the US and didn’t know much about her birth culture

Image credits: curious_georgie456

Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)

In college, she joined the Korean club to learn more about the culture and made a “friend”, Anna, who was very enthusiastic about it

Image credits: curious_georgie456

Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)

The poster even went to Korea, met her family, and her cousin also came to the same college as her where she introduced him to Anna, who started calling him “Oppa”

Image credits: curious_georgie456

Her cousin was uncomfortable with it, so she asked Anna to stop multiple times, but after being ignored, she finally called her out publicly

In today’s story, Reddit user curious_georgie456 narrates how she publicly shamed her “friend” who simply refused to listen to her. What happened was that the poster is South Korean but she was adopted by a white American couple at birth, so the Korean culture was quite alien to her. 

It was not until she signed up for the Korean club in college that she started learning and getting familiar with it. There, she also made a white friend, Anna, who was super “enthu” about K-pop and K-dramas, but OP thought nothing of it. Well, it’s not only Anna, because research states that the number of K-pop fans worldwide surpassed 225 million in 2023—up 25 times since 2012.

The poster tells us that a year ago, she traveled to Korea and met her birth family, and luckily, she also found out that her male cousin was going to come and study at her college. When he did, of course, she introduced him to her friends, including Anna, and guess what she did? Started calling him “oppa”!

For those who don’t know, it has a cultural significance, as women refer to elder siblings or close ones this way and it’s like the “oppa” becomes responsible for the younger one. OP told Anna multiple times to call quits on it as he was highly shy and uncomfortable with it, but Anna just apologized and said it again, unabashedly.

One day at a party, OP simply snapped when Anna called him oppa in front of everyone and the guy was so uneasy that he said he wanted to leave. So, the poster called out Anna in front of everyone and asked her to stop treating him like her prop because she was not in some K-drama! 

Anna burst into tears and everyone at the party said that the poster was quite mean to do so. Probably feeling confused by it all, OP vented on Reddit and asked for people’s opinions.

Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels (not the actual photo)

People online were simply stumped by Anna and her insensitivity towards the guy, and they agreed with the poster that it was blatant cultural appropriation, without understanding the depth of it. They also said that her “white tears” were all anyone could see, that’s why the people at the party accused OP of being mean to her.

Bored Panda reached out to Shriya Acharya, a student at the Indo-Korean Centre: King Sejong Institute, Pune. As a non-Korean who has been learning the Korean language and culture for the past four years, she explained how Koreans use formal and informal speech while speaking, and informal speech is used only when the person is younger or the same age as you. 

“Korean culture is deeply rooted in respect for elders and social hierarchy. This is reflected in the language through the use of honorifics like ‘-ssi’ or ‘-nim’, and the formal speech levels used depend on the relationship and social status of the people involved. Newcomers might miss out on how much significance these carry in everyday interactions,” she added.

When we asked her to comment on the situation, she mentioned that girls generally use the word oppa to show love and respect towards a guy, and it’s supposed to be used either when the two get along with each other well, or the guy allows it.

So, Shriya said, that when a random girl calls a Korean guy oppa, it might trigger the guy because they are not friends or close to each other. She also added that from her experience, and the people she has met, not every Korean guy likes to be called oppa.

Quite a few Koreans responded in the comments and applauded the poster for shutting Anna down because even they had experienced similar situations. People also pointed out how thin the line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation has become because of K-pop and K-dramas.

“As a K-pop and K-drama enthusiast myself, I personally like the fact that a small country like South Korea is becoming popular worldwide, and many talented artists are being recognized. Through K-pop and K-dramas, Koreans try to convey as many cultural aspects as they can, that’s why some terms like ‘oppa’, ‘unnie’, ‘annyeong’, etc are getting popular abroad.”

“However, when I started learning the language and appreciating the culture, I realized that it cannot be deeply understood through K-dramas and K-pop, because we never know what natives think of foreigners calling them oppa or unnie,” Shriya informed us.

Many people online agreed that Anna had it coming as she completely ignored all the private warnings that OP gave her and folks said that being called out publicly was the only way. What do you think? Would you have tackled it differently? Let us know in the comments!

Redditors jumped to her rescue and claimed that she was not in the wrong as she had explained it privately to Anna and calling her out publicly was the only option left

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