Sunbae at WorkĪnyone who joined your company before you is sunbae. Sunbae-hoobae relations are mostly found at elite schools with fewer students, including special-purpose (특목고) or autonomous private high schools (자사고), as well as arts (예고), physical education (체고), or specialized vocational high schools (특성화고) with frequent exchanges between sunbae and hoobae. (We used to call some poor hoobae in a dance club, “flip phone” because they were bowing to their sunbae, almost touching the floor.) Some strict clubs with military-style rules make hoobae bow 90 degrees to their sunbae. In middle and high school, Koreans use sunbae only when they join a social club. Korean elementary students use hyung, noona, unnie or oppa. Since oppa may sound flirty, female students might prefer calling them sunbae. Male sunbae like to hear “oppa” from female hoobae. If your donggi is jaesusaeng, you can use unnie, oppa, hyung or noona. They usually drop honorifics after becoming friends. Also, jaesusaeng (재수생 or someone who spends one more year studying after high school graduation to take suneung again to get into a better university) needs to call someone with higher hakbeon, sunbae, even if they’re the same age. An 8-year-old genius was sunbae to me since he entered uni before I did. ※ Being older doesn’t always equal being sunbae.

Someone who entered uni this year would be “21학번 or ee-il-hakbeon (class of 2021)”. Hakbeon means “college entrance year” or “class of XX”.

What does bae mean