My Friend is a Dokkebi 도깨비 | Learning Korean “Pig Latin” 도깨비어

English has “Pig Latin” and Korean has 도깨비어 (“Goblin Language”). If you already know Korean, then you can learn Goblin Language rather easily, just with some practice.

Korean goblins are misunderstood. Many people (including Koreans) assume that 도깨비 (“Korean goblin”) have two horns on their head, but those are actually “Oni” from Japanese culture. Korean goblins (도깨비) are actually more like humans, sometimes with a single horn on top of their head. They wear regular human clothes (white clothes), and do regular human things for the most part. But they also have super strength, and enjoy playing games and tricks (and singing too). They also like wrestling, which is where their skills shine – they’re impossible to beat in wrestling due to their superhuman strength… unless you know their weakness. They’re able to use 도술 (“magic,” essentially), and one of their legs is actually fake – created themselves through magic. If you can identify which of their two legs is fake, then you can attack that when wrestling and possibly win.

Of course Korean goblins don’t actually exist, but that didn’t stop Korea from making a popular Korean drama called “도깨비” in 2016. Because of that drama, goblins became (a little bit) more mainstream.

And in that drama, the main character is supposed to be a real Korean goblin too, despite his good looks. Korean goblins are known to also love buckwheat – specifically buckwheat jelly.

So when I learned my friend Soyeong could speak 도깨비어 and wanted to teach me, I thought of the perfect place to meet – at a buckwheat restaurant. This place is located in Suwon (address in the video description) and serves a menu entirely composed of buckwheat. They had buckwheat noodles, buckwheat dumplings, buckwheat tea, and even buckwheat cookies for dessert. Although buckwheat sounded bland to me, when I tried it the taste was very soothing and subtle. I really enjoyed the meal and ended up going again the week after filming the video. (This is not a sponsored video)