What did you say, boy?

Koreans have two main different ways of speaking:  You use a respected form when you are talking to somebody who are strangers to you or who are older than you; and you use a non-respected form when you are talking to somebody you know well.

Even in the respected form, there are different levels of respect or formality... those who watch a lot Korean drama can tell that some sentences end often with "... -ni-da".. and some end with "... -yo"... these are the different levels of formality.  You also have to some different vocabularity for this form.  There are three different words for "birthday"... talk about redundancies...

Likewise, in the non-respected form, there are variations... For example, you can use this form of the language to somebody older than you, but you can never call them "you"... you call them by their relations to you, like "big brother" "mom" "mister" and you cannot ever swear at somebody older than you.  You can only talk freely to people who are familiar to you and same age or younger.

It's all BS, really.. because you talk differently to people based on age.  It limits the control you have over the language.  I sometimes garnish my appreciation towards a friend with some vulgarity..."You son of a bitch, I'm glad to have a fucker like you as a friend."  I can't say that to somebody who's even one year older than me.  "Big brother, I'm glad to have a big brother like you."  They don't hold the same meaning....  Two people can talk in casual form to each other only when they're "friends" (i.e. same age) and not in "big brother - little brother" or "big sister - little sister" relationships.

Age is an unnecessarily complex factor in determining how you talk to somebody.  You could be the same age (i.e. born on the same year) but if you're talking to somebody who was born in January or February (i.e. born on the previous lunar new year), he/she might expect to give him/her proper respects.  Also, you have situations where somebody who was born in January can be "friends" with one person 9 months older and another 9 months younger, but the way they talk to each other is different.  It makes absolutely no sense that some dude born in April calls another dude born in previous December (4 months apart) "big brother".. while he's "friends" with somebody born in the following December (8 months apart).

Also, you just met somebody... that person is around the same age as you and you are getting to know this person quite well.  When do you switch from respected form to the casual form?  I never know.  I make the switch too fast and they go "how old did you say you were?"... (enter awkwardness)...  I miss the chance to switch and I end up in a perpetual state of using a mix of the two different forms of the language.

Ok... if you're talking to who's like 20 years older than you, fine, you could show some respect in the language you speak, but come on... why should you and I talk differently to one another because you lived one more year??  Why can't everybody be friends?

This Korean culture will not change overnight but it's something I will never get fully accustomed to.

I'm 5 minutes older than you, so watch what you say.