Korean Proverb - Expression about an ugly person

There is an expression in a Korean proverb about a person who is ugly. When expressing a Korean proverb in English, it may be difficult to completely convey the meaning or feeling of the original language depending on the translation, but it can be translated as follows.

English translation: It is the baby octopus which causes shame in the fish market.

Korean: 어물전 망신은 꼴두기가 시킨다.

Pronunciation: eomuljeon mangsin-eun kkoldugiga sikinda.

<Meaning>

The dictionary meaning of Eomuljeon is ‘a store that specializes in selling seafood such as fish, seaweed’ To put it simply, Eomuljeon is a seafood store.

Baby octopus is a type of fish. However, unlike other seafood, its appearance is unusually small and unattractive.

A variety of seafood is displayed and sold at the fish market, the appearance of the baby octopus among which is so poor that it is not attractive to look at.

To paraphrase this again, it means that a person who is ugly even lowers the dignity of those around him.

This proverb is one of the mostly used proverbs in Korea.

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