Cyworld

An on-line community site originated in South Korea. It functions like America's Myspace or Facebook. The difference is that it has tons of icons/buttons that you have to use in order to decorate your homepage. And that you actually have to "buy" stuff to make your homepage prettier. They count the money by acorns where 1 acorn equals approximately 10 cents. You can now use cyworld in your own language if you are: chinese, japanes, taiwanese, or american. Your homepage is called "mini hompy," which is a Conglish word. "Cy" means "relationships" in Korean. Koreans ranging from 10 ~ 45 years old use cyworld, with the exception of some grandmas and little cho-dings(means elementary school students in Korean) using it, and are crazy about it. The middle and high school students go into cyworld even in their exam week. There are Il-chons which are like "friends" of Myspace. But, of course, it is more complicated to ask/accept/reject and you even have to have nicknames for each of the il-chons. It is considered as an obligation to reply a comment ASAP or that person will never visit your hompy again. You can also make secret comments, which only the owner of the hompy and you can read. Cyworld is also one of the main factors that made people believe in the stupid blood type theories which Koreans take toooooooo seriously. (It was said that the Koreans were the only people who ask what somebody's blood type is when they first meet other people.) People tend to visit others' hompies and not leave a comment, not letting the owner know that they were there. A lot of people tend to put up pictures of themselves taken by themselves. Overall, it is a good community site where people get to meet a lot of new people and keep in contact with old friends. Slang/abbreviation for Cyworld: cy, hompy