Intercultural Life
Korean movies and dramas
Okay I had my “man boob” mistake but now it’s his turn with thinking the new Hunger Games movie was called “The Monkey King”. He thought there would be a lot of monkeys in it…
I’m sorry there wasn’t a comic yesterday, I was busy finishing a painting for a commission. I posted it on the social media here.
We’ve seen this happen before right? He will be really disdainful about something I like, sometimes even making fun of me. And then at some point he realises actually it’s really good! Then he starts liking it even more than me.
He was really dismissive when I was watching ‘WIN: Who is next?’ last year. For those that don’t know, that TV show was YG Entertainment trainees put into 2 teams to compete against each other. The winning team became WINNER, the group who have just debuted. Bobby was in Team B which is the team that didn’t win. So I’ve liked him since then, but Mr Gwon has suddenly become a fan since he has been on ‘Show Me the Money’. He didn’t care about him at first because like others, he just dismissed him as an Kpop idol who can’t rap…….but he was wrong.
He listens to his songs from Show Me the Money over and over again. Like so much that I’m kinda sick of them now.
He was referencing a quote in the book and movie ‘The Fault in Our Stars’. I dragged him to see it because I’ve been waiting so long to see it (Korea got it so late) but of course he loved it!
Now onto terrible Korean pasta. We’ve been a little bit spoilt. We found an awesome pizza and pasta place in Jinju, so after going there a few times we forgot how bad most Italian food in Korea is. We didn’t have time to go across town to the good Italian place so we tried a new place. Most Italian food places in Korea have crappy Koreanized pasta – but some are not too bad. I can stomach it as long as it’s pasta. This was horrendous though! I posted a few photos on Instagram for those that want to get an idea about what I mean. I asked for some salt and pepper to try and make the plastic pasta taste better and the waitress was very confused and finally brought me a 2 plates with a pile of cooking salt and pepper on them. We both felt sick afterwards. Mr Gwon even said that he could easily make better pasta than this place and he isn’t even very good at cooking. Not only was it terrible because it was nothing like Italian food at all, but whatever type of fusion they were trying to achieve failed miserably. We laughed through our tears. I actually really hope that place shuts down so other people aren’t subjected to that. It’s likely to simply because businesses spring up quickly in Korea with not much planning or research and shut down again quickly. Nothing is very long term.
Actually I was very homesick today, which is why there wasn’t a comic earlier. That pasta just made me feel a lot worse. The Fault in Our Stars didn’t make me feel worse though! Of course it made me feel sad, but it made me feel better about things.
I love Korean dramas but this is a pet peeve of mine. They will have a character who is supposed to be Korean American arrive in Korea and this person has either not been in Korea since they were a child OR have never been to Korea! But they have a Korean Korean actor play them and there is almost no reference to the cultural and language problems they would likely have. Apparently it’s cool to have a Korean American character but lazy writers won’t give them any more character development. Or even let a Korean American play the character. Koreans that grew up in other countries need better representation in dramas. I’ve seen lots of Korean Americans, or Korean Australians etc, talk about how difficult it can be to come to Korea. People can usually recognise that they didn’t grow up in Korea just by how they look. I’ve heard them be called, “dark-haired foreigners” because so much about them can be different. But at the same time they may not be allowed the same understanding an obviously foreign looking person gets when it comes to fitting into society because they still look Korean enough.
And then there are always the terrible scenes where this actor has to speak English and is supposed to be fluent…
And why are they always from the USA? Why can’t there be Korean Australians? Or from other countries? And in dramas when someone leaves Korea, why do they always go to the USA? And what about visas???
The reality is that even Koreans that go live in another country for just a few years can have difficulties coming back to Korea. Every time we came back to Korea my husband had some difficulties. Now, because we have been here for 6 months, he has settled back into Korean life but he still has lived the majority of his life here. Even then, having lived in another country for a while, some of his core views have changed and he doesn’t always accept everything in Korean society.
Does this type of thing in dramas frustrate you as well? What sort of story-lines involving Koreans from other countries would you like to see?
So tempting! But we resisted temptation and went to bed so we haven’t seen the latest episode yet. It can be really hard to find time to watch things together.
His imagination….
He found them while searching through some stuff in the house here.
Some people will know what movie he is quoting, and some people won’t 🙂
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