An idiom of a year. 2003

In last post I presented the idiom of the year 2002.
Let's move on ^^

2003's idiom is 우왕좌왕 (右往左往)

右 - right
往 - to go; direction
左 - left
往 - to go direction

So,  우왕좌왕 means to run pell-mell; hither and thither

An idiom of a year

The idiom of the year 2002 is 이합집산.

In characters (hanja): 離合集散

離 - to separate
合 - to cooperate
集 - to collect
散 - to scatter, strew

So, the meaning of the idiom is 헤어졌다가 모였다가 하는 일  or meeting and parting TT.TT

An idiom of a year

Since a year 2001 Korean scholars (교수신문) choose an idiom of a current year. This is 4-characters expression (사자성어) that reflects an image of the year in the most suitable way and perfectly characterize it.

사자성어 are supposed to be learnt by pupils at school but it's extremelly hard to keep in mind it!! It seems to me that idioms chosen are the most diffucult ((

Well, there is a list of idioms:

Let's sort out this idiom one by one starting with the year 2001:

2001 - 오리무중

 五- five
 里- a village, ri
 霧- a mist, a fog
 中- the middle

The meaning of this idiom is"to be befogged", "to be puzzled"

각골난망

Recently I've take up learning  사자성어=) It's a kind of expression consisted of 4 chinese characters.

Having submitted my  previuos post  about Gyeongju, I've remembered this expression -
각골난망 (刻骨難忘). This means "remembering forever", "cherish the memory of..."
I never forget my trip to Korea and especially in Gyeongju  !! 각골난망

Let's analyze the characters:
   刻 means "to cut out, to engrave, to carve"
   骨 means "a bone, a secret, an essense"
   難 means "difficult"
   忘 means "to forget'

So, 각골난망 literally means "something engraved in bone (mind) is difficult to forget"....