Hangul 방 Revised Romanization bang | Hanja 房 McCune–Reischauer pang or bang | |
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Bang is a romanization of the Korean word 방, meaning "room". In a traditional Korean house, a sarangbang (Hangul: 사랑방; Hanja: 舍廊房) is the study or drawing room, for example.
In modern Korea (especially in the South), the concept of a bang has expanded and diversified from being merely a walled segment in a domestic space, to including buildings or enterprises in commercial, urban, space, such as a PC bang (an internet café), a noraebang (a karaoke room), sojubang (a soju room, i.e. a pub), manhwabang (a manhwa room, where people read or borrow manhwa) and a jjimjilbang (elaborate Korean public bathhouse). This can be compared with the similar expansion of the concept of a "house" to include upper houses, opera houses, coffee houses, and publishing houses.
Phonetically more tensed word ppang (빵) is used as an abbreviation of a noun gambang (Hangul: 감방; Hanja: 監房; McCune-Reischauer: kambang), meaning "jail".