I’m fine, thanks.

Why this spelling

This romanisation is not the spelling copied letter by letter. It is built from the National Institute of Korean Language’s Revised Romanization, which writes what the word sounds like once the sounds next to each other have changed it.

When you would say it

I’ll pass. — Declines the scrub, the massage chair, the extra anything. Said once, it ends the conversation.

The scrub, and whether to get one

세신 is a separate service, not part of your ticket. You lie on a vinyl table and someone in dark swimwear works over you with a coarse mitt until a surprising amount of your skin is on the table beside you. It is thorough and it is brisk. Whatever else you call it, it is not a massage, and the person doing it is working rather than pampering you.

From the same chapter

The Bathhouse and the Jjimjilbang

Card number 59 of the book

The guidebook prints these as numbered cards, so you can hold up a number instead of trying to pronounce it. The Korean edition comes with it and has the same numbers in the same places.

See the guidebook