Minjuhwa originally meant "
democratization" in the
Korean language, and is still used in this positive context. However, in certain communities, the word was used in a different sense for violent campus activism, in which
minjuhwa was satirically used to describe "
anti-democratic" or "totalitarian" behaviour, or "
populism", and in some cases,
democracy disguised as an "
fascism". Some trace the usage of the word from
apolitical undergraduates in the June of 1991, when leftist undergraduates became angry in reaction to
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies professor
Jeong Won-sik becoming the
prime minister of the
Roh Tae-Woo government, and threw eggs and attacked Jeong. Dong-A ilbo traces the origin of the negative usage to the
2008 US beef protest in South Korea, where false rumors about
mad cow disease were propagated among leftist groups. In the 2010s, the meaning of the word expanded to include suffering from violence and forcing deprivation of money and a common satirical meaning of assaulting disorderly students, or assaulted by a ruffian. The term is also used to jokingly refer to the appearance of unattractive people. ==Examples==