(Seoul Metro) There’s only one good reason to watch this drama, and it’s their preppy outfits. Well, okay, there are two, and the second one is not in the ad.
My grandmother took care of me for most of my childhood. She wasn’t aware of any Mozart Effect and let me watch hours and hours of daytime television with her, which back in the early 90s was mostly trashy soap operas on the state-operated Chinese-language channel. (Oddly, my Mandarin never improved very much) Due to the heavy regulations and high economies of scale in the industry, the state channels never faced any competition (outside of TVB imports), and as such they made some truly horrific pablum (they still do). In retrospect, this may have been why trashy soap operas are permanently seared into my psyche now.
I stopped watching television from the O-level examination preparation period onward (14/15ish) and only started again during military service, that is, after the exam that defined my teen life had been done with (A-levels). The first k-drama I came across was ‘Love Story in Harvard’ (러브스토리 인 하버드). Back in those college application days I was obsessed with all things Harvard, and I think it came up during a search for ideas for the application essays. I watched a few episodes before realizing how horrible it was.
It turned me off k-dramas, until the second year of military service, when Geoffrey and I went to the APEC youth exchange in Seoul, and when I got invited back for the main conference in Busan. The friends I made there encouraged me to watch something called ‘My name is Kim Sam-soon’ (내 이름은 김삼순), and they kept sending me more afterwards. I got a stack of CD-Rs with ‘What happened in Bali’ (발리에서 생긴 일) on them when they came to visit Singapore.
In those lazy army days, I had all the time in the world to watch whatever dramas I wanted, and I did. It also helped that my immediate superior was a middle-aged lady officer. She, like many middle-aged ladies in Singapore, was obsessed with all things k-drama, especially that Winter Sonata dude. Having common interests made my army life so much easier, and I think that was part of the reason why she let me take so much time off to go to Korea. Twice.
J-dramas were simply the natural next step up from anime. Mandarin ones were for language reinforcement.
As you can probably guess, dramas are the biggest time-sink in my life. (Apart from school-related things like attending seminars and writing essays, that is) It seems like I must be the only guy who watches these to the degree I do – I guess there’s just not enough real drama in my daily life. A friend recently asked me to send her a list of dramas to watch, so this is my accumulated wisdom of five years of watching dramas. In no particular order, the ones I really liked are:
J-dramas:
Maou 魔王
Meteor Bond 流星の絆
Change
Ally of Justice 正義の味方
Honey and clover ハチミツとクローバー
Daddy and daughter’s seven days パパとムスメの７日間
Operation proposal プロポーズ大作戦
Team Medical Dragon 医龍
Liar Game ライアーゲーム
Black swindler クロサギ
Nobuta wo produce 野ブタ。をプロデュース
Queen’s classroom 女王の教室
Densha otoko 電車男
Stand up
K-dramas:
Cain and Abel 카인과 아벨
Lobbyist 로비스트
War of money 쩐의전쟁
Coffee prince 1st shop 커피프린스 1호점
Soulmate 소울메이트
My name is Kim Sam-soon 내 이름은 김삼순
Sorry I love you 미안하다, 사랑한다
What happened in Bali 발리에서 생긴 일
PRC/TW-dramas:
New Shanghai Bund 新上海滩
Fated to love you 命中注定我愛你
A friend recently told me about a k-drama script writing competition, and I’m putting serious thought into writing one. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could make a living using my talent for something I love?
Oddly enough, while I don’t actively watch J/K and the Taiwanese dramas (I watch more American and BBC content), I find that I know the plots and who stars in them when my friends (most of whom obsess over a few of the shows) talk about them, haha. I say you go for the k-drama script writing competition! XD
Yes!
i’m sure there’s plenty of drama in your life already that you don’t need to add more