Pls vote for my vid at http://www.youtube.com/group/koreasparklingen#p/a/21/lxXAVZussj0 Login yr YT a/c, look for "Sights, Sounds, Shopping in Seoul & Korea" fr list of vid on right. Click "I Love It"
This expression is rarely used. (I never used it.) It is probably an old style proverb.
This saying means that someone (stupid) is wishing for something that is not going to happen.
속담 : 그림의 떡. picture's rice cake / a picture of rice cake 풀이 : 그림의 떡은 먹을 수 없기 때문에, 실제로는 아무 소용 없는 것을 두고 하는 말. Because a picture of rice cake cannot be eaten, in reality a thing of no use ...
So is this proverb used to refer to something useless ?
Sometimes it means useless.
In most cases, it means someting desirable but unattainable.
For example,
내 월급으로 BMW는 그림의 떡이다. = With my salary, a BMW is a pie in the sky.
Wisdom gleaned from yoga class, in the context of why my yoga school believes in teaching yoga to women; when you teach a man, you teach him alone but when you teach a woman, you teach the whole family.