[Korean Culture & Language ] Dry humor in Korea


Hello, this is Uptempo Marketers!


If you’re a foreigner living in Korea, I’m sure you have experienced an awkward moment when everyone else is laughing at a joke except you. Not understanding jokes can make you feel left out. According to Why a sense of humor is an essential life skill | World Economic Forum (weforum.org) humor can help guard against depression and improves people’s overall quality of life. It does not only work as a mental immune system, but even improve our physical immune system. We all know that laughter can improve cardiovascular health and lowers heart rates, blood pressure, and muscular tension.

Living in a foreign country is hard, and a true laughter always helps, so let’s start out by understanding the meme below. This meme may seem serious at first or a bit dry. Dry humor has become increasingly popular in Korea.

유머글 모음 3 | 명언, 웃긴, 웃긴 유머

(56) Pinterest

It reads: I’m not sure if this is because autumn is here or because I'm getting older… I was sitting on a bus wistfully looking out the window, and the scenery seemed new to me. I guess this is the moment when everything starts looking different… After daydreaming for a while, I realized that I took the wrong bus.

Did you get it? This is funny because many people can relate to it. With the weather change, people get sentimental. But the guy realized that everything looked different not because he was getting older or because of the weather change, but just because he took the wrong bus. xD 

Being able to communicate well in a foreign language may give you satisfaction. Then what about even being able to joke around in a foreign language? I’ll write more about Korean humor in my upcoming articles so you will be able to not only have a conversation but even joke with your Korean friends. 

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