— Overview
The notes stay with that word and with the unlicensed trade it named, and they stay with the word as it was heard and used.
— Contents and key concepts
A word heard in the news
The notes take up Park Sang-hyun’s The Language of the Border, on Japanese inside Korean. As a child, the writer had often heard the expression narashi — or nagashi — taxi in newspapers and on television news.
It named a private car used illegally as a taxi: no proper operating report or license, and a trade with a character different from a legal cab. The notes stay with that first chapter.
The 1960s and 1970s, and a July 2018 article
Narashi taxis are said to have first appeared around the 1960s and 1970s, when the press already wrote about the illegality. Drivers often had no insurance, so compensation after an accident was hard; passengers were overcharged, and fair fares were not the rule.
A July 2018 Dong-A article took up the illegality and the exposure to crime. Refusal of legal cabs, rough driving, and overcharging are among the reasons they give for the trade’s rise, along with the social and economic conditions of the time.
Getting used to, and a new possibility
The notes derive the word from Japanese for “getting used to” — narashi — and they do not keep a garbled form of that etymology. For a long time, they write, the word was hard to praise.
Then came Tada, appearing under the banner of a sharing economy as a “narashi taxi with an app,” and opening, they write, a new possibility. The notes leave the subject there, before later tables on other words. You can find the same Korean report, written out further, on CampusDown.
Sources
- Student notes on Park Sang-hyun’s The Language of the Border, on Japanese in Korean.
Last updated 15 November 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is a narashi, or nagashi, taxi in Park Sang-hyun’s book, as the notes tell it?
A private car used illegally as a taxi, without a proper operating license, and different from a legal cab. The writer had often heard the word in newspapers and on television news as a child.
What problems do the notes keep, and from when?
The trade is said to have appeared around the 1960s and 1970s. Cars often had no insurance, overcharged, and left passengers poorly protected after an accident. A July 2018 Dong-A article took up the illegality and the exposure to crime.
How do they treat the word’s origin, and Tada?
The notes derive narashi from Japanese for “getting used to.” They do not keep a garbled etymology. Tada, appearing as a “narashi taxi with an app” under the banner of a sharing economy, is read as opening a new possibility, even if the older word was hard to praise.
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