Korean makes the distinction between different kinds of indebtedness in a way we typically don’t in English–or at least, the conceptual lines between terms are drawn somewhat differently. Generally speaking, the broader concept of ‘indebtedness’ is subdivided into ‘bij’ (빚), ‘shinse’ (신세), and ‘eunhye’ (은혜), though there can be some conceptual overlap, depending upon the speaker’s mindset. Because of this, the choice of one word versus another can be illuminating at times, since it reveals something about how the speaker is thinking/feeling about the ‘debt’ they’ve incurred. I’ve pulled out a few examples from the shows covered on this site to (hopefully) help illustrate the differences between the three.
※Contains spoilers
Bij [Bit] (빚)
Bij (빚)–pronounced ‘bit’ when not immediately followed by a particle (은, 을, 이, etc.)–is debt in the traditional sense, if you will. Typically, the word is used to refer to a debt that is monetary or otherwise transactional in some way. Naver Dictionary defines it as ‘money that must be repaid to another; money spent on credit, a tab, etc.’ It can also be used figuratively to refer to a favour owed if the speaker thinks of the favour as somehow transactional or burdensome.
For example, when Soo-ho buys Young-ro the cassette tape in Snowdrop EP01 and she insists on paying him back for it, she says:
Young-ro: I’m someone who can’t stand to be indebted.* I’ll pay you for the tape, so come to Roma Café tomorrow. At three o’clock. Okay? You have to come, you have to!
*n.b. be indebted/incur a bij = bij-eul jida (빚을 지다)
~ Snowdrop EP01
The phrase, ‘someone who can’t stand to live in debt’ (빚 지고는 못 사는 사람) is used fairly often in Korea, where this is (as you’d expect) a virtue. However, as in this case, there are times when it’s used partly as a pretense for something else–e.g. seeing him again. The point is, even though the gesture was well meant (as a gift, essentially), since the ‘debt’ is monetary in nature, the word ‘bij’ gets used.
As mentioned above, however, there are also times when the ‘debt’ is not strictly monetary. To pull an example from Rain or Shine, in EP06, Moon-soo finds Halmeom collapsed on the side of the road and brings her to the hospital to be checked out. After Halmeom gets discharged, they have the following exchange:
Halmeom: I’ll repay this bij no matter what, so input your phone number.
~ Rain or Shine EP06
Moon-soo: Bij? It’s not a bij, though.
Since the two are complete strangers at this point and Moon-soo wasn’t at all obligated to help her, the assistance feels like a bij (i.e. burdensome) to Halmeom. However Moon-soo, who feels she just did what a person ought to, doesn’t see it that way.
To that point, when used figuratively, a bij is often thought of as something either calculatory or outright negative in nature. For example, according to the mythos established in Tale of the Nine Tailed, foxes are cosmically obligated to ‘repay what they owe’ (갚을 건 갚는다). Usually, this refers to eunhye (explained below), but when Eodukshini traps Rang and Ji-ah in their subconsciouses, Yeon delivers the following threat:
Yeon: Ajumma. Just you wait. I’ll repay this bij properly soon enough.
~ Tale of the Nine Tailed EP08
Unlike eunhye, which is repayment for a good turn, Yeon is saying he’ll make sure to pay her back for the disservice(?) of messing with people he considers to be under his protection. Since there is zero good will involved, he uses the word ‘bij’ instead.
Ji-ah also identifies these two concepts as opposite sides of the same coin when Rang offers to do her a ‘favour’ and help her find her long-lost parents:
Ji-ah: You said foxes make sure to repay whatever eunhye they incur. Turn that around, and it must mean that if you owe them a bij it’s never free, right?
~ Tale of the Nine Tailed EP03
In other words, since their relationship (if they can be said to have one) is antagonistic, if Rang were to do her a ‘favour,’ she would owe him a bij, since he wouldn’t be doing it out of the goodness of his heart and would surely exact repayment.
Shinse (신세・身世)
Shinse (신세), on the other hand, has more to do with accepting aid from someone and/or imposing upon them in some way. Which is exactly how the dictionary defines it: ‘receiving help from someone else or inconveniencing them.’ Here, the focus is more on how someone is forced to go out of their way or be otherwise troubled in the process of rendering assistance. Because of this, the word usually gets translated as ‘debt’ or ‘imposition’ depending upon the context in which it’s used.
For example, in Snowdrop EP02 when Young-ro and her roommates hide a bloodied and battered Soo-ho from the ANSP agents pursuing him, the consequences she stands to face if they’re caught (eviction and interrogation at the very least) are at the forefront of his mind. Likely because of this, he uses the word ‘shinse’ in the following exchange:
Soo-ho: Then, I’ll only impose* on you for tonight.
Young-ro: Will one night be enough? Stay here until your wounds are fully healed. No matter what, I’ll see about finding a place you might stay.
Soo-ho: How can I repay this shinse?
Young-ro: Wh-who said they’d help you for free? The cost of the tape. Call us even for the cost of the tape with this, then.*n.b. impose/incur a shinse = shinse-reul jida (신세를 지다)
~ Snowdrop EP02
Even if hiding him from the ANSP hadn’t likely saved his life, since she feeds, houses, and treats Soo-ho for the week he spends in the dorm, this more than constitutes a shinse. For that matter, it could be called a bij, too, if she were mercenary about it, but Young-ro is clearly helping him willingly, out of the goodness of her heart, and not necessarily expecting anything in return–despite the trouble.
Eunhye (은혜・恩惠)
In contrast to bij and shinse, ‘eunhye’ (은혜) is essentially repayment for a good turn, gladly rendered. So, even though it is a debt of sorts, it’s generally thought of as positive in nature. Eunhye is also a strictly more consequential form of indebtedness than bij or shinse. That is to say, the word is rarely (if ever) used lightly. Someone usually has to provide you with significant, perhaps even life-saving, aid in order for it to be classified as eunhye.
To that point, the word sometimes gets translated as ‘favour,’ but the concepts don’t map perfectly. For instance, if you were to ask someone, ‘Could you do me a favour?’ in Korean, you wouldn’t use the word eunhye. Nor would you use the word to say ‘So-and-so has the king’s favour,’ or some such. Positive though it is, eunhye is a form of indebtedness–a consequential, positive debt repaid with gratitude, if you will.
The concept features prominently in the the folktale The Grateful Magpies (lit. ‘the magpies who repaid their eunhye’) as well as in the mythos developed in TotNT. As mentioned above, in TotNT, foxes are cosmically bound to repay whatever eunhye they incur, large or small. Yeon and Shin-joo have an exchange about it (and reference the folktale) in EP02:
Shin-joo: It’s not as if we’re the Grateful Magpies meticulously repaying our eunhye! How long do we have to be bound by that sort of outdated contractual relationship?
Yeon: We repay what’s owed. It’s old fashioned but romantic.* It’s also a fox’s dignity.
Shin-joo: It can also be a curse. Since the greater the eunhye we incur, the more it [becomes] a spell rendering us into puppets.*n.b. The word here is ‘nanmang’ (浪漫), as in, ‘anything marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized.’
~ Tale of the Nine Tailed EP02
Therefore, since Yeon owed Ah-eum an eunhye life-debt for having saved him from the villagers, when she called in that debt, he had no choice but to obey:
Ah-eum: Repay your eunhye, Lee Yeon....End me.
~ Tale of the Nine Tailed EP10
The word gets used to similarly devastating effect in the final episode of Snowdrop (spoilers ahead). We learn in the flashback sequence in EP11 that North Korean operatives all operate under assumed names and that Kang Cheong-ya is just another alias. Which is why the character’s final line in the final episode lands so hard. When Cheong-ya and Soo-ho part ways at the port, she promises to see to it that the other operatives’ families make it out of North Korea safely in Soo-ho’s stead. It’s then that she tells him her true name:
Cheong-ya: All right. No matter what happens, I’ll be sure to keep that promise. (…) My name is Eun-hye. Kim Eun-hye.
~ Snowdrop EP16
Beyond being a final show of sincerity, this is Cheong-ya’s way of assuring Soo-ho she’ll see the task done, no matter what. Since Soo-ho is essentially the catalyst that pushes her to win her freedom, in a sense she ‘owes’ him the life that she’s now free to lead. So she promises to repay that eunhye by saving someone he loves in his place–a life for a life; a debt gladly repaid. It’s in her name. I had wondered why, in the EP11 flashback sequence, Cheong-ya uses the word ‘bij’ in reference to the life-debt she owes him, and I’m fairly certain it’s because the writer was saving the word ‘eunhye’ just for this reveal. Diabolical.
n.b. Dramas, especially drama titles, love playing with characters’ names in this way. Punning abounds. Sometimes, so do tears.Below are a couple of concepts related to eunhye. You’ll notice they all share the hanja ‘eun’ (恩).
Boeun (보은・報恩)
Boeun is the repayment of eunhye. The word appears in the title of a number of Korean folktales wherein various animals (tiger, carp, serpent, etc.) repay kindnesses done to them.
On a related linguistic note, the title of Studio Ghibli’s The Cat Returns (猫の恩返し) features the Japanese analogue of this: ‘ongaeshi’ (恩返し). You can see how it uses the same kanji (恩). While not clear in English, ‘returns’ here is not ‘returns [to a place]’ but ‘returns [a favour].’
Eunin (은인・恩人)
An eunin is the person to whom eunhye is owed–one’s benefactor, saviour, etc. For example, Nam Tae-il’s character profile states that:
He has a track record of having betrayed his direct superior, who had saved his life three times, in order to actively participate in the 12.12 coup d’état–ultimately leading to the death of his commander and eunin.
It’s worth noting that someone can be considered an eunin, even if they aren’t one’s literal life-saviour (though that is the case here).
Sometimes, when what’s owed is a life-debt, this gets elaborated as ‘saengmyeong-ui eunin.’ This is how Rang explains his relationship to Yoo-ri in TotNT EP15:
Rang: I’m her saengmyeong-ui eunin. If it wasn’t for me, she’d have either been beaten to death or starved to death in that zoo.
n.b. saengmyeong-ui eunin (생명의 은인) = life’s saviour
~ Tale of the Nine Tailed EP15
Repaying Eunhye with Enmity (은혜를 원수로 갚다)
The phrase ‘eunhye-reul wonsoo-ro gapta’ literally means ‘to repay eunhye with enmity,’ and is more or less equivalent to the English phrase ‘repaying good with ill’ or ‘biting the hand that feeds you.’ This comes up in EP02 of TotNT when Yeon recounts rescuing Ji-ah as a child after she tranqs him (ha):
Yeon: I smelled blood and followed it, and ended up saving some little girl, but now I see that that child is trying to repay eunhye with enmity.
~ Tale of the Nine Tailed EP02
Yeon uses the phrase again in EP10 after recounting Ah-eum’s end for Ji-ah, asking if she doesn’t want to know why he repaid his eunhye to Ah-eum with enmity (i.e. ending her). Needless to say, the phrase also gets used in more mundane circumstances.
Additional Terms:
- buchae (부채・負責・負債) – a monetary debt
- chaemu (채무・債務) – debt, liabilities, payables; largely synonymous with bij
- oesang-gaps (외상값) – a tab
- maeum-ui jim (마음의 짐) – a felt sense of indebtedness (lit. ‘baggage of the heart/mind’)
- eundeok (은덕・惠德) – a benefit/favour; favour and indebtedness
- hye’eun (혜은・惠恩) – largely synonymous with eunhye
- hyetaek (혜택・惠澤) – largely synonymous with eunhye
- eundae (은대・恩貸) – largely synonymous with eunhye
- hyeui (혜의・惠義) – largely synonymous with eunhye
- bogweon (보권・寶眷) – largely synonymous with eunhye
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