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Episodes Season 1 · Inside

Episode 4March 24, 20261:56

Nunchi: reading a room

Ok Ha-eun runs the floor of a busy restaurant in Busan. Nunchi, measuring a room with your eyes, is the part of her job nobody can write down.

0:00 / 1:56The word

With Ok Ha-eun · Restaurant floor manager, Busan

Show notes

Nun is the eye; nunchi is what the eye measures before anyone speaks. Ok Ha-eun manages the floor of a restaurant in Busan and teaches new staff without rules: after each shift she asks what table seven wanted, not what it ordered.

The last episode of season one.

In this episode

Fast nunchi, and none at all
The quiet table, the glance at the door, the grandfather with the bottle
Teaching something that cannot be told

Transcript

Click a time to play from there.

0:00
TeodorThis is The Long Vowel. I'm Teodor Halvorsen.
0:04
OdileI'm Odile Marchetti. Our guest runs the floor of a busy restaurant in Busan: Ok Ha-eun. Ha-eun, the word, please.
0:12
Ha-eunNunchi. Nun is the eye. And nunchi is, how to say, measuring a room with your eyes. Knowing what people feel before they say it.
0:22
TeodorSo, tact?
0:23
Ha-eunTact is what you do. Nunchi is what you notice first. You can have nunchi and still decide to be rude.
0:32
OdileHow do you use it in a sentence?
0:35
Ha-eunWe say your nunchi is fast. That's a compliment. Or, he has no nunchi. That's the guest who keeps telling a long story while everyone is putting on their coats.
0:47
TeodorI may have been that guest.
0:49
Ha-eunEverybody has been that guest once.
0:53
OdileWhere does it matter most in your job?
0:56
Ha-eunEverywhere. A table goes quiet; maybe they are arguing, so I don't go and ask about dessert. Somebody looks at the door twice; they want the bill, but they are too polite to wave. A grandfather is pouring for everyone; I bring the bottle to him, not to the young man who ordered it.
1:17
TeodorNobody told you any of that.
1:20
Ha-eunNo. That's the point. If you have to be told, it's too late.
1:26
OdileCan you teach it?
1:28
Ha-eunSlowly. When new staff start, I don't give them rules. After the shift I ask, what did table seven want? Not what they ordered: what they wanted. After a few weeks they start to see it.
1:42
TeodorDo you switch it off at home?
1:44
Ha-eunNever. My husband says I read him like a menu.
1:48
OdileOk Ha-eun, thank you.
1:50
TeodorThat was nunchi, and the end of our first season. Season two goes outside.

Download the transcript: WebVTT · SRT

In this episode