Jessy Delfino's Blog

Other Countries Do Things Better (Sometimes)

You learn the neatest things from drunken strangers at a bar. I guess this is a perk to being a bar tender. It's certainly a perk to being a bar drinker.

Last night at Lolita bar, a shiny faced college grad type gal got to chatting with me for some reason, not quite sure how that happened, but before I knew it, I was knee deep in her life history, which turned out to be pretty interesting. She told me that she'd taught English in Korea for the better part of a year which I thought sounded kinda awesome. The only thing I can think of that I've done for a year straight is live in New York City, saddened that my rent is too high and wondering what the hell I'm still doing here.

Of course, when someone tells you that they know another language, what's the first thing you ask? Well, maybe the first thing YOU ask is, "How do you say, 'I love you'" or something like that. But myself and all my friends, what we want to know is, "How do you say, 'go fuck yourself?'" Luckily, she knew just how.

"Chigrlro", she said, rolling the odd word perfectly off of her tongue. "Hm," I said, trying to keep the bar chatter moving along, clearly with aplomb. "No kidding." Then she told me what it translated to, exactly, and I got very excited.

Turns out, "Chigrlro" (which kind of sounds like a combination of "chigro" and "chigaro" depending on where you put the tongue roll) means, "Do you want to die?" and apparently, it's serious fightin' words in Korea. Like, yeah, no shit. If you ask someone if they want to die, you should be prepared to have a Fight Club style duel in the street or watch a person run away for their lives.

But how totally bad ass. I love that in Korea, apparently, they are very to the point like that. So, you're out with your buddies, having a nice time. All of a sudden, some dick for neck starts messing with you. How many times has this happened? Don't you only wish you had the perfect words? Now, usually, you and your friends will be like, "This guy's a dick, check please" or you'll tell the guy to get lost. But have you ever asked a trouble maker, "Excuse me sir, DO YOU WANT TO DIE?"

I'm going to start using "chiglrlo" in every day vernacular. I plan to develop it into the newest hipster slang and make my own tee shirt.

If Korean isn't your speed, try telling someone "Go fuck your mother" in Russian, which sounds something like "Yup toy much", also extreme fightin' words, but only to Russians, probably only in Russia. If you say it to a Russian here, they'd probably misunderstand your awful accent, think that you were filming a Borat style movie or partially mentally re-handi-cap-tarded and just leave you alone.