My Korean coworker taught me to never write a name in red ink, and I learned the hard way why

Tara Mitchell · 2026-10-09T13:00:05.364177+00:00

I manage a hardware store and I was making a going away card for one of my cashiers, Min-ji, who was moving back to Seoul after two years in Oregon. I grabbed the only pen that still worked from the register drawer, which happened to be red, and wrote everyone's names on the card without thinking twice. My other coworker Grace, who grew up in Busan, went quiet when she saw it and then pulled me aside and said writing a living person's name in red is basically a death wish in Korea, that it's tied to old beliefs about blood and funeral records and it genuinely freaked Min-ji out when she opened it. I felt like absolute garbage, and I spent two hours that night looking it up, and she was right, it's a real thing that shows up in Japan and China too in different forms. Min-ji was cool about it and even laughed, but she admitted her mom would have had a fit if she saw it. So now I keep a black pen in my apron at all times. What other innocent office supply habits are secretly loaded in other cultures? I want to know before I offend anyone else.

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My Korean coworker taught me to never write a name in red ink, and I learned the hard way why | Cultural Taboo Topics - Discusd