10 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
A 고시원 is a building packed with tiny, barely-furnished rooms originally rented by students studying for civil-service exams. Today they are some of the cheapest housing in Korean cities and are often home to people in financial hardship. The ghost worries her mother will see the bare fridge — in Korean culture a full fridge signals that someone is being cared for and eating well.
The Grim Reaper (저승사자, jeoseungsaja) is telling a newly deceased soul to travel safely to the next life (다음 생). In Korean folk belief, the jeoseungsaja escorts the dead rather than simply harvesting them — it is closer to a guide than a destroyer, which is why his tone here is gentle and formal.
오시 (午時) is the Hour of the Horse in the traditional East Asian twelve-hour clock, corresponding to around 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. — the brightest, most energetic part of the day. Kim Shin is a 900-year-old goblin, so he naturally reaches for classical time-keeping when he wants to describe the most dazzling midday sunlight.
The wooden sign reading 요금 ("fee" or "fare") hangs outside what appears to be an old-fashioned drinking spot or pojangmacha-style establishment. Small hand-written or carved fee signs are a nostalgic fixture of older Korean street culture, and their appearance here underlines the timeless, slightly out-of-the-world atmosphere the two immortals inhabit.
Eun-tak is riffing on the Korean expression 찬밥 더운밥 가릴 처지가 아니다, literally "I'm not in a position to pick between cold rice and warm rice," meaning she can't afford to be picky. She swaps 밥 (rice) for 도깨비 (goblin) for a funny, situation-specific twist that shows she's making the best of a bizarre circumstance.
Kim Shin says the deity appeared to him simply as a butterfly (나비). In Korean shamanic tradition (무속, musok), divine or spiritual presences often manifest through nature rather than in human form. The butterfly also echoes the famous Daoist parable of Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly — a story well known across East Asia — fitting for a being who has existed across centuries and cultures.
The scene plays on the joke that an immortal goblin and a Grim Reaper have gone centuries without needing technology. When the Reaper says he saw people video-calling in a drama (드라마), he means a Korean TV serial — Koreans often learn about current trends or social norms through watching dramas, and the writers are poking gentle fun at that habit.
Eun-tak rattles off Hyun Bin, Won Bin, and Kim Woo-bin as the top names Korean women supposedly love. All three were hugely popular actors at the time, and the shared syllable 빈 (彬/斌, meaning elegant or refined) became a running joke about what makes a name sound like a leading man in Korea. The Reaper immediately latches onto 빈 as his new name.
Deok-hwa's uncle named him 유덕화, the Korean reading of Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau's Chinese name (劉德華). Andy Lau was enormously popular in Korea in the early 1990s through films and pop music. Deok-hwa is mortified at sharing his name with a celebrity born in 1961, because Korean internet searches for his own name will always surface the actor first.
Sunny warns Eun-tak about going abroad during her 아홉수, the year ending in nine (29, 39, 49…). In Korean folk belief, years ending in nine are considered particularly precarious because they come just before a major life milestone — bad luck is thought to cluster around that threshold. Sunny says she barely left her house the year she turned 29.