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.
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.
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