밀가루 얼굴?

[carsont]

Can anyone explain what it means to say that someone has a 밀가루 얼굴?

I first heard this in a movie, and the subtitles very unhelpfully just said "wheat-flour face."
I couldn't find anything about it in any of my books.

In the movie, the phrase was used by a factory worker to describe a high-ranking company manager during a round of layoffs.

I also searched for the phrase on naver, and found this sentence in a novel:
"참기름을 바른 밀가루 얼굴이 예의 바르게 고개를 숙였다."
... which I think means roughly:
"The person with a wheat-flour face coated in sesame oil bowed his/her head politely (?)."
(I'm also a little unclear on what 예의 바르다 means.)

My best guess is that this describes a dishonest person with an excessively friendly demeanor, like calling a salesman "slick", "oily", or "slimy" in English.

But I'm afraid it might just be that I'm being misled by the reference to sesame oil in the sentence from the novel. It could easily mean the opposite of what I think, or it could purely be a description of physical appearance with no connotations about personality at all. Would anyone like to explain it?

Thanks!

[manyakumi]

I guess it's a literary expression.
It means we don't use it in daily conversations.
It could mean "very white face" (which belongs to someone who never knows the tough and hard works) in the context you wrote.
Sometimes it could mean a face having a "thick make-up".

And 예의 바르다 means "very polite".

> 예의(禮儀,courtesy,manners)가 바르다(straight,right)

[tony0682]

To elaborate on manyakumi's first explanation... In the past (some asian cultures), having pale white skin meant that you were royalty or were a high ranking official. Having dark/tanned skin meant you were a laborer/peasant.

I guess it's a literary expression.
It means we don't use it in daily conversations.
It could mean "very white face" (which belongs to someone who never knows the tough and hard works) in the context you wrote.
Sometimes it could mean a face having a "thick make-up".

And 예의 바르다 means "very polite".

> 예의(禮儀,courtesy,manners)가 바르다(straight,right)

[carsont]

To elaborate on manyakumi's first explanation... In the past (some asian cultures), having pale white skin meant that you were royalty or were a high ranking official. Having dark/tanned skin meant you were a laborer/peasant.

Thanks!
Would it be fair to say that it can be used either positively or negatively, depending on the context? Or does it have strong connotations one way or the other?

[tony0682]

Depends on the context mostly.

Using your example from the movie, it seems a bit negative. i think the factory worker is inferring that the high ranking manager gets to relax in the office, layoff/fire people and is protected by his rank but doesn't do any of the "real" labor like the factory workers.