Thinking about Iran

A long time ago I spent 4 months in Iran. I remember walking so much and so far every day on the cobbled sidewalks that my arches fell. I remember when they took an X-ray of my foot my brother in law said in the corner of the photo, in Farsi, was written "foreigner". I remember the gold bazaars, where stalls and booths were set up in long aisles. My American boyfriend was happily buying chunks of gold and I bought a golden Turkish wedding ring. I loved taking it apart and putting it back together again. I remember going to restaurants and ordering beer; "obi joe", and seeing the disapproval on the faces of the other customers. Hitch hiking to the Caspian Sea. Singing with my guitar on the top of a car in the desert to hundreds of people who emerged from the sands. Spending two days with a small movie company watching them film. Smoking tarioc. Losing my American boyfriend. Learning phrases in Farsi in the park with the help of Iranian students. Watching Nixon ride down the avenue with the Shaw in a fleet of cars. Seeing posters of men hanged for some political reason. Buying flat loaves of hot bread called "noon" on the street in the morning. Drinking tiny cups of tea with a sugar cube between my teeth on the sidewalk. Jumping over the jube. Watching children hammering metal plates with their fathers. Crying over women and children begging. Listening to people recite poetry for me in the park. Trying to wear a chedorah correctly. Sweating and panting at night in the terrible heat. Staring at the red and blue lights inside the giant fountains of water. Taking taxi's down Abu Rayhan and shouting "dasta chap dasta chap!!!" to the driver. Learning how to walk across the crazy traffic on Abu Rayhan. "Pretend you do not see any cars coming. Step out and look the other way as you cross. They will stop." Visiting middle class families who had layers and layers of carpets in their homes. Visiting rich Americans who worked in the oil industry who had indoor swimming pools and teams of servants. Watching my brother in law tending his tiny patch of grass in the enclosed space behind his house. Going to Gom, the extremely religious city of gold, and not seeing a single human being because they all remained hidden while we were there. Going out with Ali, an artist at the Iran Journal newspaper, who had a vague understanding of the English language and often wrote,"make love not war" on his drawings. Not understanding the enormous differences between American and Iranian cultures. Falling in love with everyone. Wanting to stay forever. Not being allowed to renew my visa. Getting on the wrong plane and ending up in Syria. Never knowing what happened to Ali. Wishing for decades that I could return. And still cooking rice, chelo, the way I learned to in Iran.

House of Stone Version 10 point 8

I am always cheered by the fact that no matter if I write about Abraham Joshua Heschel, or the Holy Rabbi of Brooklyn, or Einstein, or my mother Ruth Stone, or Korean Drama's and British actors, someone across the world in Israel checks in to see my blog. Maybe, I think, maybe it is my uncle, my fathers brother who lives there. But he only reads the Talmud and the Torah so I don't think it could be.  Anyway, one person in Israel, one person in China, one person in the US, and my little crowd in Poland. That is a cozy group, I think. An odd but cozy group. And in these High Holy Days, what more could one hope for? I am cheered by a mass mailing from a Rabbi in Chabad who wrote that he hoped we would all be sealed in the Book of Life.
    Tonight I am watching "Emperor", with Matthew Fox, who was in LOST. It starts out with a little bow to Lost by showing Matthew Fox in a forest of Bamboo, just like the beginning of Lost, only he is smiling and standing up rather than lying flat on his back having fallen out of a plane. I am only a half hour in, but I had to pause it because my son called me from Oregon and we ended up talking all night. He showed me how to Google Video Chat and how to add family to my google family circle. He showed me how to find his original music on SoundCloud. It was all very illuminating. Although I would rather have my family in a real circle around me, it is the best one can hope for in these digital times. I was thinking how these days people don't have piano's or books or even photo albums in their livingrooms. They have Itunes, or kindle or SoundCloud. The have SnapFish or Iphoto. Matter is disappearing and our world becomes more and more internal and ethereal. We have our online family circle. We have our online music and pictures and relationships. Our stores are online. Almost everything is neatly organized in an invisible area, called digital storage space. If it keep going as it is going, I think the next step is for us to move in to the computer completely. We will end up living in Cloud. And aren't we almost there anyway? Our relationships are more and more invisible. Perhaps we will drift to a dimension where slipping inside the computer will be possible. Perhaps we are already in it. Perhaps we are being led to this awareness, carefully but briskly being led down the rosy path to acceptance that it is, and has always been, all virtual.
Even so, May you have a sweet and uplifting year. May you be sealed in the Book of Life. May you return if you wish, or retire from the wheel if you choose, or float across all 10 dimensions on the very latest version of your Cloud.
     Now I am going back to watch the sad movie Emperor, about Japan after World War 2. I feel if Sugihara was so Holy as to save so many in Lithuania when no one else was helping, the Japanese must have have had a great deal of goodness in them during that wicked heartless era. Surely Sugihara and his children and whole family are sealed forever in the Book of LIFE. May we all be so honorable and brave.

HOUSE OF STONE Best Actor in the World Awards

Protect the Boss was cute, ended cute, overall cute rating 8. The father was a fantastic actor. He really was good. In fact, the father and the grandmother stole the show. And the poor little rich girl too. She was great. But now it is finished. I tried watching Flower Shop Boy or whatever for the 3rd time and I still HATE it, too bad, cause I loved the main guy in it when he was Death in 49 Days. 49 Days is what started this whole obsession. So I was trying for the 3rd time to wade through the Flower Shop series, but I just couldn't do it. One has the feeling that probably buried in there are some great moments, but the idea of a teacher and a student is kind of weird to begin with. And its about high school which is another turn off for an ancient alien relic such as I am.
God, can I SAY that? Why not? Most of my readership is Polish, believe it or not, and I am sure over in Poland they don't mind what I say. If it is not too personal a question though, WHY is my blog read in Poland? I don't mean to say I am a big hit there, just that more people in Poland read my blog than anywhere else in the world. Which, despite the modest numbers, means a lot. Is it because I wrote about Einstein so much? Or Rebbe's? I just am not sure. My daughter's boyfriend is half Polish. But what else? Surely there are no Koreans living in Poland. I am always hoping a Korean or Polish person will read my blog and comment. Actually I am always hoping anyone will comment. But now I sound like I am begging..... je song hamida. ("I'm sorry" in Korean)
     We were chatting about Korean Dramas. I finished Protect the Boss and was surfing for a new series to watch. I have lots of Korean movies lined up but I am too hooked on the series format to watch something that only goes on for an hour or two... Although I did like Castaway on the Moon just because the nutty girl was so wonderful.  Oh did I tell you I watched Romantic Island? I love that Lee Sun Kyun. Why, if I can drift a bit here, does he change his name so often? He is hard to locate on Netflix and on the web because he changed his name several times through out his career. Or maybe people just misspell it. I probably misspelled it here. Anyway, I gave him the "House of Stone Best Most Adorable Actor Award" for this year. It had previously gone to Bill Nighy for anything and everything he has ever done and will do in the future. Before Bill Nighy the House of Stone Award went to the actor who played Jodah Akbar (which I am also probably misspelling). That movie changed my life. Not actually, but internally. I began to buy silk chiffon fabric and hang it in doorways, I listened to Sufi music all day, especially that one song at his wedding where the Sufi's swirl and Johdah Akbar begins to swirl too and he sees God, or Allah or Hashem or whatever name you prefer, and the silk chiffon around the females tent swirls and blows in the wind. It was a most moving cinematic masterpiece. Like the Life of Pi. That was also one of the GREATS. But who knows what lies ahead? My life has paused and the television screen flickers on, and on, and on. Not only am I now a simple watcher, but my brain has acclimated to it's new function and offers little in the way of thought or comfort. It forgets words. It fails to recall books we read. It doesn't like to be awakened except when I say, "Want some Lime Tostitoes?" to which it replys, "Sure! Go get some!" or when I ask, "Are you tired? Shall we turn off episode 4 and go to bed?" and it will say, "Ok. Let us retire."
     We were talking about Korean Dramas. I tried one about a time traveling guy called,  Operation Proposal and after 1 and a half episodes I was not getting in to it just because it was about teenagers, and the main guy in it looked 14 at the most. Which is not to say it was bad or boring. It was just for a younger audience I think.
     I am now in episode 3 of Heartstrings and I really like it. I really like the leading actress, Park Shin Lee.  I also really like Strawberry Ritter Chocolate bars. Do you know Ritter Candy makes lots of different chocolate bars, most of them are available almost anywhere, except the one I like. The strawberry chocolate bar is available at a few grocery stores in Brooklyn and was for sale last December in Target of all places, but is otherwise unavailable on the planet. It's the best chocolate bar I've ever had. It's better than Godiva, better than Lake Champlain chocolates, better than the weird modern chocolate made with things like pepper and chili and shoe leather. God the things chocolateers come up with! Now that is a word I think is perhaps not correct. Chocolateers? People who make chocolate are called.....not volunteers. Not rotisseries. Not confectioners. Well, anyway, my brain took the bag of lime Tostitoes and disappeared upstairs. I think it may have gone to bed without me. It likes to fall asleep watching Richard Dreyfus movies on the old VCR. Sometimes it talks in it's sleep. It says, "that was a second encounter!" It says, "I can't be a World Citizen! I'm not FROM this solar system." It mumbles. Last night though, when I had set the alarm and was turning off the light, I said, "Are you still awake?" and my brain whispered, "dayyy" which means "yes" in Korean. Which means it may actually be learning something from all this passivity.

Camsahamida Netflix for bringing Korean drama to the USA!

 I have been watching Protect the Boss, which I loved for the first 8 or 9 episodes. I regret to say it has become more than a little redundant and reminds me more of old American soaps than any of the other Korean Dramas so far. I am going to see it through to the end, but here's what I am thinking....There are two or three evil older women in it who are constantly meeting in secret to think up something evil to do. That's kind of depressing. And the characters in the show are less enchanting. The main young man who carried the drama for the first half was adorable and innocent and had phobia's which were very endearing, but there is too much physical abuse for my taste. The girl he likes is constantly twisting his arm or slapping or punching him for liking her. It is obvious his father hit him through out his childhood because he cringes every time his father is near him. The father's mother also hits the father and threatens to break his legs, though she is the kindly one of the whole family. All in all, it is tedious and lacks interesting characters and dialogue to carry through however many episodes it is... I am still watching it. Yes, there are times when it is funny. The father is the best actor without a doubt. The son is good too, though his character is not given enough good lines as the show progresses. It falls back on fight scenes more and more. I do like the main girl and the dumped beauty, just because they are in opposite roles. The main girl is not beautiful, though she has a beautiful figure, and she slouches and her aggressive behavior is weird. I like the unusualness of that set up, but I am sorry she is so unkind to the main son while helping him. The other main young man could have been much much more interesting but they give him so little to work with. He has to do all his acting with his facial expressions because he rarely says anything of interest. The crying rich girl does her part well and is increasingly special. Unfortunately the "wrestler" girl is given a typical role to play. She has to be thuggish and mostly interested in overeating. But you get the feeling this girl could probably be a wondrous character if she was given a great role.  I wish TV would have a positive big female once in a while. Not mean or tough or indifferent, but actually a wonderful human who isn't skinny. But maybe I want too much from the world.

     Every single Americanized movie or show has three constants. The first is violence. Usually someone is about to get murdered, or has a gun, or is planning something dangerous. There is usually a shoot out, the bad guys shooting badly and the good guys killing left and right in order to save someone or do some good in the world. A total oxymoronic constant. The second "must be included in every movie" is a sex scene, usually five minutes after the two people meet, and it is always the same and it is always stupid and steamy and utterly unrealistic. In my opinion (and really I am NOT a prude.) I think watching a bedroom scene in a movie is SO dull and kind of repellant. Do people REALLY like to watch other people naked in bed together? I just don't see how it is so important to include the same thing in every major motion picture. I don't think it's WRONG or DIRTY or wicked, I just think it's boring. And they always make the same boring noises, and you see the same naked shoulders and hips and blah blah, get over it. In the last few years they have added a lot of sticky audio to kissing too which really turns me off. Why do people like to watch other people being intimate? It's such a cop out to character development.
The third constant is of course, the car. The car is being pursued. The car is pursuing. The car can do almost anything, even fly if you are watching anything with Nicholas Cage in it. The car spins, rolls over, falls off a cliff and bursts in to flames. The guy and girl crawl out, unscathed, and are able to shoot their pursuer just before they begin fondling each other and have sex.
     There are over one and a half million people in the United States who are producers, directors, and actors. You would think, with all those people making movies, that they would come up with story lines that did not revolve around car chasing, shootouts, and sex scenes. ( ok, notwithstanding independent films about the Aboriginal tribal whatever....) In Korea, at least in Korean Drama, they have managed to do just that. There have been car scenes, but they are not heroics set up to make the main guy appealing. There have been a few guns in some of the dramas, but they are not shoot out scenes set up to turn the leading man into the hero. In Korean Drama, they let the leading man turn himself in to a hero, with his acting skill and his character, and his flaws. It is the differences, the individuality of the people that take their filmmaking to the top of my list. In the current American TV drama Person of Interest, the character "Harold" is enthralling in a similar way. His peculiarities are what make him so appealing; his limp, his inability to fist fight, his dislike of guns, etc. I remember going to a screen writing workshop in NYC some years ago and hearing how the writer should make a list for each character of things he says and does and wears and carries that make him that character. I didn't think much of it at the time because the speaker used, as an example, the movie Jerry Mcguire, explaining to the full auditorium that this was one of the best movies ever made. I could hardly wait to get out of there. I thought Jerry Mcguire was a perfect example of real garbage. I didn't think a single line in it was original or fresh or worthy and the story was unmemorable but I remember I hated it. Anyway, that speaker was spot on about developing characters. A list of what they are like. What they say. Like Hugo in LOST, said "dude", loved food, wore enormous teeshirts, listened to awesome music on his headphones, and was humorous even when he was suicidal.
           Sometimes I give Korean Drama a break and watch something else on Netflix. I watched an episode of the British TV series House of Cards, I watched a Netflix mini series called the Prisoner (with the guy from PERSON OF INTEREST in it), I watched an episode of the American version of House of Cards (yikes! Sorry Netfix!). But nothing lately holds my interest other than these strange, wonderful, hilarious, tragic, emotional Korean Dramas. It's a phenomena, right?

Korean Character in Dramas

You Are Beautiful... Another addicting Korean Drama. But how could she continue loving that turkey of a guy episode after episode? Ok he was very cute, but so wrapped up in himself, and with such a wicked mother. But then how could she leave him after he stood on stage talking to her and found her in the crowd of 15 thousand screaming fans? That was a great scene. That was the scene the audience waited for, waded for through 16 episodes. What an awesome scene. So erotic. But then what? After something so terrific as that, what else is there? The mundane day to day life that inevitably follows is too disappointing to think about. So in a way she has to leave, this nun turned boy turned pig-rabbit turned woman. She has to leave otherwise we are left only with an ordinary couple.
     What I want to know is why do they use so much english? And why is there so much catholicism?
    Well, the long week-end is over. You are Beautiful is over. The morning pushes on, and it's time to go back to work. Forget the glittering world of television. Let go of the lives of all those others who exist only in the dreamworld. Work. Work to forget. Work to make money. Work to pass time. Work to remember you are human, regardless of where you were born, you are human... and existence is enough of a drama, subtitles or not.
     PASTA, the Korean Drama about a girl who wants to be a chef and a Chef that hates girls in his kitchen, REAL acting suddenly appears on the screen in episode 10 and knocks you off your feet. Yoo Kyung is one of the most convincing actresses I have ever watched. Her character is awkward, childlike (almost overly so, but not quite), and somewhat plain. She is told over and over by Chef that she is not attractive. Ugly, he says. Her face is full of expression, her body movements are exactly right, and her joy is contagious. Sorry, that is a oh so corny remark but it is true! It is true, you must watch this soap. In episode 10 Hyun Wook, (real name Lee Sun-kyun, the worlds most adorable sensual powerhouse of an actor) tells Yoo Kyung (the worlds most adorable, childlike, strong female lead..her real name is Gong Hyo-Jin)  that he likes her. And in these few minutes where she sits on his cutting table and he bends over her, the emotions and facial expressions and acting is absolutely REALITY TV. It could not be more real. In fact, I keep wondering if they are really who they are portraying. These two carry the show, along with the restaurant owner who also acts well, though his role is more quiet and his love unrequited, and Yoo Kyung's father who plays a small but beautifully done part.

Can I gush anymore? Are these people famous? I know they are famous in Korea, but what about in the U.S.? 

 These shows all use odd real type people. You don't need to hear an actor repeating the same word, or wearing the same shirt to know their character. They stand out and are memorable because they are not perfect to begin with. The leading girl doesn't wear lip gloss in PASTA. The female cook who gets fired kind of has a Roseanne aura, chunky and angry. (She turns up again in Protect the Boss, another FANTASTIC drama I'm in the middle of now.) Sometimes people look disheveled, really look it. In US movies a person might say, "wow you look terrible! what's the matter?" but in truth, the other person doesn't look terrible at all... they look spiffy and perfect but maybe they're frowning. Korean Drama lets you see as well as hear. The story is not in perfection. It is not about perfection. The scenery is refreshingly dumpy at times. The cars aren't all perfect. The imperfections make it. and the fact that you can watch 20 or more hours of one drama without having to see people copulating in order to know they are in love is...well... it's just way sexier. I love how you grow to love each character because you get to see such interesting scenes that may not be directly related to the plot but they add tremendously to the story. It's like listening to a folk tale. It's rich stuff. And grown up people are important. They aren't people to avoid like in this country, they are the center of the family. The grown kids listen to them. They have this respect shown to them. Honorifics. "Yo" at the end of a sentence. Bowing. And a meaningful place in the group. A person watching this yearns for that kind of acceptance and inclusion in the familial group. A person watching these Korean Dramas may feel we have sacrificed too much in our loss of formality and tradition, trading it for independence which teeters on isolation. 

Bing-Bong, Shin, Jung, and I can't find my Shues, Darn It

             Great Korean Drama Lines, and other sound bites
"Can't you see I am blushing?? Can't you hear my heart beating wildly?" Shin Mi demands, pulling away from the arms of Suk Bong.
"No," says Bong, confused. "But I can certainly hear your shrill voice..." (Becoming a Billionaire)

Peculiar hang ups in Korean shows
#1:    Americans don't have an aversion to bathroom humor per se, sometimes it turns up in movies but not often and it is never overt. Not so in Korean TV. They not only have person-on-toilet shots, complete with rolls of toilet paper and narrow stall, but they talk about it in almost graphic detail. There is even audio. Which makes me wonder, are we watching because we ENJOY what we see or are we watching because the creator of the show enjoys filming what we have to see? Is this a supply out of demand sort of thing? Or is this how-far-can-I-take-realism sort of filmmaker thing?
#2:    Let's revisit the repulsive food shoveling shots... watching Bu Tau_ (can't remember her full name) eat whipped cream cake is not so very terrible. I sat thinking, is she really having to eat this or are they making it look like she is swallowing but she is really spitting it out off camera? And I was thinking, is it low calorie Cool Whip ? Surely she couldn't really be eating half a whipped cream cake every show or she wouldn't be able to squeeze into those darling little glittery tee shirts she wears as dresses. Anyway, her cake eating is a necessary part of the storyline. She was a fat child because her father didn't give her enough love or time. He gives her money instead of love. So when she is upset, she eats. We all know eating sweet stuff is a temporary replacement for love. BUT, when the gross man (who mysteriously knows everything about everyone) eats with his mouth hanging open in every episode, the audience might not feel it is carrying the story along. The audience might actually think it is discouraging viewers from watching. I certainly find myself turning away.
      Koreans kind of have an honesty in their shows that is lacking in the western world. I guess gross behavior is part of that, but I wish we were not subjected quite as often to it, especially since I have a 36 inch screen and a mouthful of seaweed dripping down a smeared greasy face is rather startling in HD. It could be that I would not be so offended if I took my TV's picture control off High Definition and Wide screen.

     #3: Having never heard a discussion about menstruation in any movie or show before, I don't know how to judge and maybe I ought to leave the topic for another time. Suffice to say no bodily function subject is taboo in K-Drama's except maybe sex, which is fine with me. I've already expressed how I feel about voyeurism. There's nothing less appealing to me that watching copulation or anything close to it if it is not me. If it's you and another somebody, great. Just not in front of me.  

     One GREAT thing about KD is that no "bad Guy" is ever just a bad guy. The reason they are bad comes out in the story and you begin to feel great compassion if not warmth toward the bad guys. No one is ever all good either. They have their yucky sides. They say mean things sometimes. They are rounded out full characters and the audience is not forced to like one and hate the other... you are sort of sitting in mild judgement through out 18 or 19 episodes... You can't decide if you want Bong to love the chilly heiress or the fit-throwing heiress. And as for the fathers! Which father would be least gruesome for Bing Bong to discover is his real dad? The one who steals? The one who hires thugs to wreck lives? The one who is so stingy he doesn't mind when others suffer? Or the one lying comatose in the hospital who has lost most of his brain? It's a dilemma. So you watch, and you watch, and you watch, until you begin to dream in Korean at night. And you can't understand what is being said in your dreams....until someone kindly turns on the Subtitles located just under your pillow. And your dream even has a name. "Bing-Bong, I Can't Find My Shoes Darn It" only the word SHOES is misspelled Shues. It makes no sense, but dreams are like that...

The Unsavory Side of Korean Drama

This week end I am watching Becoming A Billionaire, another Korean Drama. The subtitles are not quite as good as the other dramas I've watched, and I notice it is not DramaFever made. I don't mind so much that the typist often forgets a letter here and there, but it is almost impossible to see some of the dialogue at times because the yellow print is too light for the scene and mostly because there is Asian writing beneath it. I guess it is also in Chinese or Japanese. They need to fix this issue and make the text visible to the audience who can't understand Korean. But I am grateful there is a translation, even imperfect.
I am picking up a few words here and there though, despite the fact that the most mundane words are almost never said the same way twice. Maybe the translator is just simplifying everything too much. You hear 60 seconds of a character speaking Korean, and on the screen it says, "OK. sure." and you KNOW that's not what they said, but what can you do? You can't call someone and complain. You just live with the dumbed down version.
    Having watched 49 Days, My Fair Lady, Secret Garden, Padam Padam, and a few others, I know Korea is a macho culture and I have no complaint with that. In truth I sort of like it. But in this current drama I am getting an uncomfortable feeling. The two main characters keep playing a childs game where the loser gets hit in the forehead. And the girl keeps losing to the guy who almost kisses her, but then hits her as part of the game instead, and she walks around with a big dark bruise on her forehead. I was shocked by this, because beneath the game is of course sexual tension, and the result is a woman who has been flirted with...but who has actually been struck in the face. And that is not sexy. That is not cool. That is not entertaining or charming or cute. It is the opposite of all that. It is more repellant than the close up shots of people chewing too much food. The Korean culture must have a thing for mouths jammed with food.  They show a lot of sloppy chewing and smeared food on the face. There is actually audio of stomachs rumbling in hunger. Sometimes the cultural differences are interesting and strange, and sometimes they are upsetting and infuriating. Food dripping out of the mouth is tolerable. Bruised girl is NOT.

The Deep Significance of Korean Drama, sorta

I write this blog as sort of a conversation. In an isolated existence, one has to have someone to confide in, and since I don't even have my cat anymore (Russell got removed rather roguishly by Rosa Mimosa), I speak to the blog. "Blog," I say, "Remember when we only watched comedies?" Blog listens. "Years of Richard Dreyfus and Dan Akroyd and Dudley Moore. And then we transitioned to thrillers, spy movies, Russell Crowe and Michael Caine..." Blog is attentive. "Alias was great...then the supernatural took over. I guess it went from Alias to Lost, and from Lost I went koo koo over anything supernatural. I still think LOST is the best television show in history to date. Every actor was sublime. Every phrase, every spoken word was memorable. Every character was to die for... Not just Jack and Charlie and Sawyer but Hugo and Jin and the adorable grumpy Korean guy who I can't remember his name, he might have been the best of all. And his father! And all the women. Lost is unbeatable. But after several years of constant supernatural, I drifted. It wasn't intentional..." Blog remains silent when I say this... "You don't believe me? I tell you, it was a natural occurrence. Oh wait, I forgot Jewish historical movies and documentaries. Yes yes! That's when it happened! It was the Korean guy in Lost, then watching every documentary on world war two Jews (like Resistance, the Bielsky Brothers...)that I could find until I came upon "Sugihara", the Avatar Hero who saved 3 thousand Jews from the death camps by giving them visas to Japan. OK, so Japanese is not Korean. But it's close. When I lived in Europe everyone called me Canadian. I didn't mind. I don't speak French and I am not Canadian but it was close enough, right? And I was already following Miles, aah yes, Miles was his name in Lost. I was already following his acting, and drinking up PERSON OF INTEREST because he was in it with the ASTOUNDING actor Michael somebody who played Ben Linus on LOST. Drift drift.... I just have to say this Michael guy speaks with the grace and depth of old fashioned royalty. Despite playing beside the whispering dark superman guy, Michael is the one my daughter and I swoon over. His presence is electric. I'm way too old to swoon but my 28 year old daughter is a testament to his adorableness. I even loved him as Ben. Michael Emerson is his name.  So anyway, I am hooked on Korean drama." I stop typing for a moment to let all this information sink in. Then I say, "Where was I? Oh, yes, Padam Padam, the onomatopoeia title that means "the beating of two hearts as one", a 20 episode K Drama with DramaFever subtitles, about a rough guy who is dying of cancer and a girl out of his class. I don't see the class difference, frankly. The upper class girl has a total thug for a father who beats young boys at the drop of a hat and spits on everyone he doesn't like... he's a really gross character and if he is supposed to be the upper crust then gee whiz... The main girl is chilly, almost without character, but the dying guys mother is INCREDIBLE. She dresses and looks poor. Korean drama is SO realistic in some ways. The characters really do look like what they should look like... the rough guy dresses in rough lower class clothes, the mother is chubby and without grace... It makes for a much more compelling show when the people look the part. May I just say in the USA movies the poor people are never really poor looking, they never behave without hope, they just don't seem poor. In Padam Padam the mother sells fish on the sidewalk with her competitive neighbor. At night, she talks with her dying son about how impossible their lives are. OK so the mother shouts everything, you might want to turn the sound down, she shouts so much, but the poignant moments between mother and son, when they cry and cry and cry over his terminal illness and his unfair prison term and their inability to fix any of the wrongs in their lives, those moments are academy award winning raw honest insights into the lives of most of the world living on the edge of despair. Wait, is the Academy for movies and Oscar for TV? or is Oscar for Broadway? anyway, I am not saying that every moment of this new genre I have discovered is brilliant... it is soap opera, and often tediously repetitive in the storyline. There are inconsistencies... the mother says to the doctor that she can't read. But later she is texting GookSu. But the REALNESS that comes through with average looking people, not instantly-beautiful main stars (they become beautiful as you grow to love them...)  hilarious remarks making fun of themselves/the show, (The guy who is part Angel in Padam Padam says in dismay when the feathers fall off his wings, "What will my father say? I've become a mutant featherless chicken.") these are what draw me again and again. (BTW, the most endearing sweet, sad little baby is a bright star on this show.)
Yes, I wept when the dying young man and the veterinarian girl he's in love with have a brief argument which fills the dying young man with anguish and regret, and she soothes him by saying "You're attractive when you're being mean to me.." it is both hilarious and heartbreaking at once, and she pats him while he shakes from the pain of cancer, and her patting is the same as when he lay in his mothers bed and his mother patted his back while he sobbed all night, not wanting to die. Despite their over-the-top storylines, Korean dramas strike at the deepest issues of the day; The anguish of living and dying, the unfairness of life and the inability of one human being to fully know the pain of another. It contains the ugly and the everyday. It is a venue for the modern times when we are all on electronic equipment skyping with those we love rather than sitting together singing and playing guitar under the night sky. This is a new kind of entertainment...different from the old soaps where murder and affairs and secrets strung us along, the glue being more about deceit and falsehood than anything else. These Korean shows are dramas for a world wide generation that does not get close enough to others to begin to express their loneliness and confusion. In a world where we long to be appreciated and loved, money is not the medicine. What these dramas convey is the anguish and hurt of a generation lost in the very big crowd, a generation who needs to feel and to express their darker feelings, but living in the flat screen of FaceBooks superficial friendships they do not dare do more than yearn for more "likes" and "comments" to assuage their starvation for a humankind existence. We live in and through machines. For the young, this is all they have ever known, and for that we should all weep."
   Blog doesn't answer. Blog fell asleep.

Crying in Korean

I am not sure which began first, my job taking care of an ailing personality during the days, or my obsession with watching Korean soap operas. I think the job came first, and with my first paycheck I bought Internet service, connected to Netflix, and began to watch a show called 49 Days. I fell in love with Jung Il Woo, who is 4 years younger than my youngest daughter, but never mind, he was beautiful, elegant, humorous, and his face full of expression without much movement.... I mean, he did not have to frown to look angry, or open his mouth to look surprised. He played the part of Death and you never saw such crying in your life as there was in 49 Days. The adorable main girl (who was partially a ghost) cried constantly over her father, her fiance, her life, and the fact that she was in a coma.
 After he stole the show as Death, I was surprised he lost the girl to Yoon Sang Hyun in the next drama I watched called My Fair Lady, which I found when I did a search for more Jung ll Woo shows. In this one Woo is a rich young man who has shed his parents money and position and become a lawyer helping the poor. Although his darling smile is enough to knock any woman over, it was his incredible clothing and the way he wore it that was riveting. His suits! His shirts! They were beyond clean. his shirts were pressed so perfectly as if they were ironed onto him. How can one describe perfection in a mans shirt?  it was like watching a double rainbow in the sky...when you see it and you gasp in disbelief, and you want to remember it exactly, paint it, photograph it, it is that mind blowing. That is the way Jung ll Woo and his My Fair Lady wardrobe struck me.  There are often long, lingering camera shots of his boots, only the cuff of his trousers and the boots visible on the screen. And he was a wonderful enough actor to go from being a total show stealer to being second fiddle in My Fair Lady. Yoon Sang Hyun was who you root for in this one. What is delicious about Korean TV is that it is so deeply different than American... The characters are often weird, weird to the point of being momentarily unattractive...oddballs. A regular line from Korean TV is "I'm going crazy" said by the main stars often. Yoon Sang Hyun starts out as an almost lowlife sort of fellow who gets rich women to give him money, and ends up the most endearing character on the show. He laughs too loudly, he shouts a lot (but everyone shouts on Korean soaps), he is often not your typical movie star face, but his personality and humor quickly change all the rules and he remains with you long after the 20 episodes, watched non stop over 3 days, are over.
     Yes, there are similarities in all TV dramas.... usually the beautiful woman is incredibly rich. Or the handsome young man is incredibly rich. Usually it runs like a bodice ripper paperback, she rejects him; he wants  her more. She rejects him. He's desperate for her. She finally sees the light; he misunderstands and leaves. etc etc, until they finally get together in the end. The differences are what make Korean soaps worth watching. They still see men as macho and women as fragile small and beautiful. Women fall apart. Men carry them. It's true the men are always grabbing the girls roughly by the wrist and forcing them to go out for dinner, or accept a ride home in their sports car. It's true that the girl is under the protection (thumb) of her father, or uncle and later gets to be under that same umbrella with her new man. The women are often terrible to one another, saying awful things about the others looks. Or their hair, or their clothing. And when they are feeling happy they admit to being more beautiful than Miss Korea. 
But mostly they are NOT happy. Mostly they weep and frown and run. Or they take long walks in snowy weather, or wander through shade trees along a leaf strew path. 
Why, if all this is true, am I obsessed with Korean TV?  Watching it means sitting and keeping your eyes glued to the screen every second because the subtitles swing by so quickly you might miss some tragic admission or a hilarious remark. Like my new favorite, Hyun Bin, in Secret Garden, when he says to the adorable stunt director, "I didn't realize Arabic people were so agile.." which isn't exactly what he said but I can't remember the exact remark. His character was endlessly awkward, Often hilarious. Secret Garden is one of the funniest shows I have ever cried through.  Yoon Sang-hyun is in it as well, as a pop star, and Lee Philip plays the adorable stuntman director, all vying for the same darling girl. And each one of them is too wonderful. How can the leading girl choose? But it is the oddball Hyun Bin's personality and almost unintentional humor that wins the audience (me) over. He may be one of the GREAT actors of the time. His timing is perfect. His awful clothes are perfect. ("Do you know how much this cost?" he demands when the leading girl makes fun of his sparkly running suit.)  You would never see anything so daring on western television as the leading guy dressing consistently like an idiot. But on Korean drama, he has the room to become cherished for an entire self, not just the outer shell we get over here. And yet I am describing the outer shell of these characters when I rave on about their clothing. It is a paradox, is it not?
In the saddest episode (number 19 out of 20), Hyun Bin and his darling girl go to her fathers grave which is a wall of little boxes with peoples remains in them. Sad music is playing in the background as it always is. The audience has been crying for 15 minutes over the cute girls father dying in an elevator and the oddball hero getting his memory back. The audience is still weeping when Hyun Bin lays the flower bouquet down on the father's box, and the camera lingers on the delicate flowers and greenery and bubble wrap..... that is when you are jolted back to realizing how strange it is to be watching Korean TV. Bubble wrap in a sorrowful funeral scene?
     And then there are the date questions that are asked over dinner... what is your astrological sign? What is the year or animal of your birth? and what is your blood type?  The first time I heard that, I swooned in admiration. What a great idea, to ask such an obscure question. And how odd that they all know the answer. I don't know my blood type. And in Lost, I remember, when Jack is dying from appendicitis and they have to give him a transfusion with a bamboo shoot, no one can help because they don't know their own blood types. Ok, maybe it was Shannon's brother who was dying from falling off a cliff and Jack was trying to save him with a transfusion but the point is, who knows their blood type? Actually Lost is where I first started getting interested in Korean Culture. They had a Korean couple on Lost who were always saying "Ani!" or "Ani Jay!" which means no or yes, I think, depending on how you say it. 
     The best thing about these shows is that they are about love and falling in love and yet there is no graphic sex scenes or even any partial nudity and only a VERY occasional kiss. The warmth and intimacy coming from a single hug is sufficient. Western movies and shows could learn a lot from that. In fact, American TV could learn a lot from these wonderfully written though maudlin dramas in general. There is a politeness in these series. The younger people defer to the older. The older you are the more respect you seem to get. That is kind of the opposite in the United States. In every Korean drama there is one cherished older man called "Oppa" which sounds like "Papa". It is a cozy familial address, though I am not sure exactly what it means. Older Brother, maybe. Once, a charming girl was horrified that her boyfriend had dropped the polite words with her. Or maybe he was upset at her, I don't recall which, it's funny how the details of these shows sort of instantly blur, anyway one of them said, "What!? Why did you drop the Honorifics with me??" What an awesome, heady word. What a great unusual line. What an amazing world is out there, beyond my world. And what a peculiar obsession I have...reading subtitles and crying watching Korean TV.