Dramas and me

[oyceter]

I may be a little obsessed right now, as I am sure you have all picked up on.

Currently on my to-watch list: Fantasy Couple (watched first few eps), Hwang Jin Yi, Jumong, The Snow Queen, Dae Jang Geum, Legend, Sandglass, Que Sera Sera, Dal Ja's Spring, Flowers for My Life.

I feel a little like I did when I dipped my toe back into the world of anime and manga a few years ago, nostalgic and overwhelmed with newness all at once. On the other hand, it's less with the nostalgic and more with the overwhelmed with newness when compared to anime and manga, just because I used to be a huge anime and manga fan (and am again!), whereas I never thought of myself as a drama fan.

Nostalgia

When I think about dramas, I always think about how popular jdramas were back in high school -- several people in my class watched all of Long Vacation on the bus during our graduation trip. I generally avoided jdramas, and eventually, during college and afterward, the increasingly-popular kdramas. I'm not sure why. I think some of it was because I was already getting obsessed with anime and manga, and I suspect my brain could only take so many Chinese-subtitled obsessions. I think I was also turned off by the romances, which I now find funny, given how much shoujo and romances I read.

But of course, I forgot I did watch dramas before. Around late elementary and junior high, my entire family would gather around the TV for our ritual drama watching. I suspect my mom and dad always watched them, and my sister began a little before me. Her old favorite was this fantasy one with a weird glowy Henson-esque creature, and I do not remember anything beyond the heroine and the glowy creature in a dark cave. As with all other aspects of life in Taiwan, I resisted getting into Taiwan pop culture. I don't even remember why I started watching; I suspect I was doing my homework in the living room day in and day out and eventually just started getting hooked.

I watched this drama about three people with a plum blossom brand set in three different time periods, one on a consort (?) or a girl who rose to be a noblewoman in the Qing Dynasty, one was this giant sob story about a little orphan girl with braids. She may have gotten cancer or something. And of course there was Yi Tien Tu Long Ji, the wuxia drama I watched religiously and babbled about at school with friends.

I suspect I may have watched other historical ones, but I can't remember them. I do remember that after a while, it seemed like no good historical ones were coming out any more, and I eventually just stopped watching. My parents have gotten into it again in the past few years; their friends have sicced several historical produced-in-China dramas on them, namely, the giant saga of Kangxi, the first of the three great Qing emperors. Both my mom and dad say all the good stuff's being produced in China right now; having seen a few episodes of another version of Yi Tien Tu Long Ji, I am somewhat inclined to agree.

I remember loving the court drama, the intrigue, the heavily embroidered outfits and elaborate headdresses of the Qing Dynasty one. And there was one kickass maybe-good maybe-bad woman in the wuxia one whom I adored to no end. I am sure I also loved the wuxia bits of the wuxia one. I'm so not surprised that most of the kdramas I'm drawn to are historical ones.

Newness

When Korean culture was the big new thing in Taiwan, I was already in college. I had caught the beginning of the craze for all things Japanese, including but not limited to the sudden appearance of ramen places everywhere, jdramas on TV all the time, and jpop and jrock in CD stores. A few years later, I went back and was shopping for cute hair clips in one of the street markets. I asked the lady how much something was, and she named a price, citing that it came from Korea and was hard to get! And special!

"Korea?" I thought. It had just been Japan a few months -- ok, maybe years -- ago.

I was relatively familiar with Japan, Japanese, and Japanese culture by then -- I had chosen to major in East Asian Studies and taken several years of Japanese, and I'd been to Japan a couple of times and done homestay there.

Sadly, I wasn't in Taiwan long enough for any of the kdramas or kpop or krock to stick, and I managed to get a degree in East Asian Studies while neglecting a third of East Asia.

And so, getting into kdramas has been incredibly interesting just from a cultural standpoint. I'm hesitating a little as I write this; I do not want to exoticize Korea, imply it's a monoculture, or go about culturally appropriating willy-nilly. But I also don't want to overly familiarize it, because I know I in particular run the risk of effectively bulldozing it with Chinese culture or to have any similarities between Korean and Japanese cultures overshadow the history of Japanese oppression. Um, yeah.

It's very odd trying to get used to an entire set of new genre tropes when you're also trying to get used to a new set of cultural expectations. It's particularly weird for me because it feels both new and old at once -- in some ways, the cultural expectations of a society with a history in Confucianism feels more familiar than stuff I see on TV in the US, but in others, I know I have zero idea of symbolism, important holidays, what different food means (not in a highly symbolic way, just really basic things, like how jajangmyeon is delivery). And it is absolutely baffling to listen to a language I have no knowledge of.

Language

The language is a huge part of it for me -- I hadn't realized I was used to understanding quite a few snippets of dialogue whenever I watch anime until I watched Kim Sam-Soon and realized I had not a clue as to what the Korean pronouns were, or what all the suffixes were. Like, if the emperor of a Chinese movie talks, I know how he's going to refer to himself, I know how his court will refer to themselves. I know -san and -sama and whatnot in Japanese. And now I feel like I'm lost again.

The last time I did this was when I first got into anime. I remember memorizing the lyrics to Gundam Wing songs by printing out the romaji and just having to figure stuff out. I remember puzzling out a few katakana characters by getting all the characters' names in katakana and piecing together that certain sounds went with certain kana. I remember teaching myself katakana and hiragana and practicing writing the kana in Chinese textbooks while ignoring the teacher. And I am not even at that point with Korean! Well, except the piecing together certain bits of the alphabet from menus in Korean restaurants when I was bored, but I have already forgotten what I learned.

I suspect it's even more difficult right now because I'm watching with English subtitles instead of Chinese. I think Korean has a number of words with Chinese-influenced pronunciations, much as Japanese does; "jajangmyeon" in Chinese is "zha jiang mien." I remember watching anime and being able to figure out that "ryoukai" was "liao jie" because the characters would say it as the Chinese appeared on the screen. Right now, there's the extra step in which I have to translate the English subtitle into Chinese and then compare that to the spoken Korean, and usually by then, I've completely missed whatever it is.

I've mentioned to yhlee before that I used to get very confused when I heard Korean, because the words would sound close to Chinese, but the rhythms of the language would sound Japanese (um, am not saying Korean = Chinese + Japanese!). Yoon's said that Korean and Japanese grammar are very similar (both SOV structure, probably other stuff that I do not know the linguistic terms for). And I keep hearing the particles and the suffixes attached to names and the ending particles for sentences (like "~no yo" in Japanese), and it is so frustrating, because I feel like I should know it, except I don't.

After marathoning some more, I think I am getting more used to all the appellations and learning a few teeny phrases; it's not much, but the language rhythms are starting to sound more familiar. It didn't help that the first kdrama I watched was a gender-bending one, which makes things extremely confusing when appellations depend on the gender of the caller and the callee! (Ex. Eun Chan calls guys "hyung," so "hyung" must be "woman's older brother." Oh wait, she's a guy right now...) Also, I think I can pick out "I love you"! Very important vocabulary for dramas. Now all I need to do is take classes...

Tropes, Gender, Race, and Class

And now, my favorite part of getting into new genres! Genre tropes!

So far, I have watched one entire trendy drama series (Kim Sam Soon) and parts of two (2 eps. of Fantasy Couple and 12 of Coffee Prince), along with half of a historical, so my information and impressions are highly flawed and limited. I'm just posting these because I remember being fascinated reading people's first impressions of anime and manga.

I adore the trendy dramas so far (are they the equivalent to romantic comedies?); I didn't think I would, but the cute factor! I suspect much of this is influenced by my Coffee Prince love, as a lot of the tropes that I've been hearing about tend to be things that don't appeal to me. What I do like so far is an increased focus on family, not just romance. I'm not sure if this is a general thing or just Kim Sam Soon and Coffee Prince though. I am particularly fond of the all-female families in Kim Sam Soon and Coffee Prince, though I also love the bossy, crotchety grandmothers as well. In both those dramas, there's also a marked tendency to try to talk through problems, and often, the turning point is when one person understands or sees the other's point of view.

This turning point is also something I've noticed in anime and manga. I don't know if it's cultural or not -- I wish I could say if I've noticed it in the old Chinese dramas I used to watch, but I don't remember. There's also a marked lack of demonizing the third (or fourth, or fifth) party that feels similar to anime and manga as well.

On a completely shallow note, I very much enjoy that the trendy dramas I've seen have a lot of fan service in terms of the female gaze on the male body. I haven't watched any jdramas outside of Nobuta, so I don't know if this is in jdramas or cdramas as well? I want to say something about the assumptions of who the audience is and the affect that has on gaze and compare it to talk of homoeroticism in Casino Royale and 300 and the assumption that it's always the male gaze, only that is as far as my thoughts go.

I'm waiting to see if trendy dramas focus as much on male pain and angst as shoujo manga does; Kim Sam Soon and Coffee Prince both feel very much like the heroines' stories. They do have tons of male angst, and both Jin Hun and Han Kyul's Sekrit Pain feel very shoujo manga-esque, but I never quite feel that it overtakes Sam Soon and Eun Chan's stories. This may be because there have been more woman-to-woman relationships in both those dramas, and I can't tell if this is an exception or not.

In terms of drama dramas, the first episode of Snow Queen was so weird because it was all about the guy. I will report more when I've seen more, though from summaries it sounds more like drama dramas are about manpain? In terms of historical dramas, while Damo has a kickass heroine, I do bemoan the lack of more woman-to-woman relationships. I'm interested to see if Hwang Jin Yi will do this as well.

Just from reading summaries, I get the impression that most historical dramas focus on the men (as they usually like to tell stories of people in power); Hwang Jin Yi and Damo and Dae Jang Geum sound like exceptions (?). I will die of squee to have a historical drama All About the Women, and not just women making it in a man's world (though I am not protesting those either).

In terms of race, I've found Sun Ki in Coffee Prince very interesting. There also seems to be a tendency for characters to go to America. It reminds me a lot of the blonde, half-Japanese half-European character so often found in shoujo manga. There's definitely the undercurrent that English and America and Europe are cool and sexy and foreign. I am not sure if there's an attitude like that toward Japan in kdramas; the only data point I've got is Sun Ki. I was a little disturbed by Shuuji's mom in Nigeria in Nobuta. I am sure some people will argue cultural appropriation or exoticization with the attitude toward America and white Europe, but quite frankly, my impression is that it's seen as cool and foreign and sexy because of the implicit power those cultures have. There are also a good deal of references to Western culture in the trendy dramas I've watched, from movie stars to movies to songs and etc.

Clearly this is not going to be in historical dramas, but I'm interested to see if drama dramas have it as well (I am suspecting they do).

In terms of class, I find it very interesting that almost everything I've watched except Nobuta has the class divide. It's usually lower-middle vs. upper, and doesn't really look at the lower classes. Also, you can tell who the "good guys" are by what class they are -- if they're lower-middle venturing into the upper-class world, they are definitely the good guys. But there's also a tendency to play the lower class characters as buffoons (I found this most notable in Damo). Fantasy Couple is interesting because it's the woman who's rich. The heroine in Snow Queen is as well, though I suspect that's just because it focuses on the guy. I can't tell if the houses and clothes in the shows are like Friends in NY and completely unrealistic; Sam Soon and Eun Chan and the guy in Fantasy Couple and Shuuji's houses and clothes all feel fairly true-to-life, but I also wonder if Sam Soon and Eun Chan's houses are larger than expected? I don't know that much about real estate in Korea.

It's not saying much, but I like that Eun Chan and Sam Soon and Shuuji and the guy in Fantasy Couple don't have designer wardrobes like Buffy and the people in Friends. I like that they wander around at home in flip flops and t-shirts and shorts. That said, I don't think I've seen anything that really questions class; there's an awareness of the difference between middle and upper, but most movement is upwards. People will also talk about the difficulties in moving in a different class circle, and there's the usual "poor working person good, rich lazy person bad" thing, but the heroine still tends to marry up, I think. It's very much like the class differences in romance novels.

I am sure I will come back and read this after watching more and laugh at myself and all the things I misread.

ETA: rilina's post on why she's watching kdramas.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*hem*

anytime I see Jumong(which I have not seen but very, very much plan to) on someone's list, I am compelled to tell them that they should watch Emperor of the Sea first. It's what made the Jumong lead, Song Il Gook, a star, and they share a lot of the supporting cast, and I'm told there are often very small nods to that in Jumong...of the "treat if you watched EotS" variety, not the "Wink-wink-nudge-nudge you're missing if you didn't watch the other" variety.

Jin Yi is almost as excellent as Chae-Ohk, but not quite as much, and she's more clever and witty, but not a fighter. Both series, however, boil down to being a passionate woman's struggle against a world that constrains her and won't let her follow her dreams or love.

And I am exceptionally fond of Chul Soo's wardrobe(and occassional lack of one) in Fantasy Couple. Have I mentioned that it is, by far, my favorite modern kdrama?

[oyceter]

Have I mentioned that it is, by far, my favorite modern kdrama?

You have indeed! Sadly, I wasn't that caught up in the first two episodes -- I like what they're doing with the tropes with Anna, but even so, I still wanted to whap her and both of the guys at times. Does it get more into character and less into slapstick later on?

Oooo. Also, is EotS shorter? Jumong intimidates me.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Fantasy Couple remains slapstick, but becomes more and more character and character growth later, and it's the combination that makes it my favorite...the OTP is all about how much they need to grow up, for once, the other guy is actually in a better place WITHOUT the heroine, instead of alone and with his heart stomped on, and the Other Woman is made evil(actually, I kinda admire her in a weird way) to show the difference between appearances and what a person is really like. Outwardly, Anna is a mean, self-centered bitch. And, while those are personality traits she has, a lot of it is just frankness, and she's someone who will always rise to the occassion to do what she needs to do, and can put her pride aside from others and learn. Outwardly, the other girl is kind and sweet and generous, but actually, she's incredibly self-centered and manipulative and will give up everything and use anyone to maintain appearances. By appearances, Anna is the typical kdrama Other Woman, and the other girl the heroine, but in terms of what really matters, it's the opposite. It does take a bit to get going, but is excellent. And you're supposed to want to whap her and both guys at first...that way you can appreciate how much they grow(it's rather like 12 kingdoms that way, if you're familiar with that series)

EotS is...uhm...51 or 53 eps...still scary long, but worth it and far shorter than Jumong.

[calixa.livejournal.com]

I'm going to jump in to agree with Megan -- the bulk of the character growth in Fantasy Couple is Anna's, and it's really quite excellent, because it's so gradual and subtle. The humour is a plus for me, but even if it isn't, you have to appreciate the fact that it allows the writers to develop Anna in a way that is unobtrusive and natural. There isn't a campy "OH! LIFE IS ABOUT MORE THAN MONEY AND LOOKS!" moment, but rather a series of hilarious realizations.

The two male leads also get developed, though not as much as Anna. In that aspect alone, I really liked FC.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

Jumong intimidates everyone. But since I've already committed myself to 50 or so episodes of Atsuhime in my head, I'm going to give it a go. I may go for EotS first now, but I won't think about it too hard in case my head explodes.

[estara.livejournal.com]

I'm missing some favourites on your list ^^ and two of them are Taiwanese, too. http://www.bookish.net/2004/09/01/18/

If you pick one, pick The Rose for Joe Cheng and Ella.

[oyceter]

Taiwan dramas OMG! I remember seeing the ads for the Mars drama on the streets one year, but I never got around to watching. Thanks for the recs.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Not surprisingly, I've had the reverse experience from you with regards to language. I remember reading Vonnie's great post on Korean appellations (http://vonnie-k.livejournal.com/385147.html) and thinking, "Hey, my Korean may suck, but I know all this." And there's all those tiny snippets of everyday conversation that I don't have to read the subtitles to get.

And I love the families. It's one of the things that often throws me out of the story in Western fiction: the way authors promote fictive families by bashing on biological ones. I love fictive families as much as the next person, and it's all to true that biological families can really be awful things. But sometimes they aren't, and it's refreshing to see stories that don't just describe biological families as awful, restrictive institutions that needs to be brought down as part of the heroine's growth into a mature and independent person. It's just more complicated than that.

[oyceter]

I am irrationally jealous of your language prowess. Whyyyy can't I download languages into my brain like in the Matrix? I think I am going to get a new library card from another local library that's got Rosetta Stone online to try to at least get some basic pronunciation and whatnot; I mangle names so badly.

Yes! Oh, I'm glad, is the greater emphasis on family in most dramas? I couldn't tell if it was just Kim Sam Soon and Coffee Prince or not, since Fantasy Couple doesn't seem to have it (though the guy is supporting his nephews, so there's that). I particularly like the all-female families and how the increased focus on families allow for more roles for older women. I mean, I do wish older women got to be the leads as well, but at least they're on TV and speaking.

I also really like how KSS and CP focus on how romances affect the families as well; it makes the romances feel less limited and cloistered than they usually do in the romance novels and shoujo manga I read.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

You might like 1% of Anything, then. It *cough* technically isn't amazingly good and the *cough* acting isn't great, but it's very charming despite that, largely because it does have a lot of focus on the families, and the families dealing with their kid being involved with someone of a different social class. Honestly, I will be eternally greatful that it was my first modern kdrama, because my second was Goong, which gave me hives and essentially preached the gospel of irresponsibility and stealing the classy girl's boyfriend...of the 4 main characters, I actively dislike both guys, can barely tolerate the heroine(who is played by the CP actress, and her natural likability is the only thing that made me tolerate the character) and the only characters I like are the ones I'm supposed to hate(that said, most people will rec it because they're all about the cheerful bubbly girl winning the prince and thawing his cold heart, and ignore all else for it)

[rilina.livejournal.com]

My sample size is not really much bigger than yours, so I can't speak broadly about the genre. But even the really crappy daily drama that I got hooked on two summers ago had a focus on family, so I'm guessing yes.

Re: Rosetta Stone - They recently discontinued their library product, so it will only be available in libraries until current subscriptions run out. I wouldn't bet on any access you have to it lasting long.

[oyceter]

Oh darn, re: Rosetta Stone. Sigh. I will have to see if there is time for language classes in grad school, though I doubt there is.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I remember feeling really good about myself because I learned all that appellation stuff from Coffee Prince.

I've now watched quite a few more KDramas and have learned NOTHING ELSE. I think part of it is confusion caused by Korean accents. I wish people would enunciate more in languages I can't understand (ie. all of them but English and Somali).

I think I need to do a big post of drama obsession. Most of it will be about how Asian dramas make me feel appropriative like nothing else mostly because I feel so much more familiar with Euro/American, Arabic and S. Asian culture.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I'm finding it incredibly entertaining (okay, and a bit frustrating) that when I hear repeated phrases on kdramas--e.g., the +/- three common ways people apologize--I get rote syllables instead of the real ones. When I ask my mother to say a phrase once, I know instantly how to write down a phonetic version. My ear is tuned to her regionalisms, whereas most actors deliver lines in Seoul-standard.

Before CP, I had maybe 25 words of Korean, mostly food. After it and four or five others, I have upwards of fifty words and a slowly growing grasp of grammar/syntax. I'm about where sitting down with a textbook would do me good; my language exposure is mostly dead languages, so textbook + me = comfy. But I really wish my ear would receive words accurately from strangers--it's not like I'm still five years old. :P

[oyceter]

Oh interesting! I feel the same way about Chinese -- I have to concentrate much harder to figure out Mainland Chinese accents, though Beijing is getting easier now. But when I was watching Crouching Tiger, I was so relieved when the scruffy guy showed up because of his Taiwan-style Chinese!

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I think I'd fail out of university if I let myself spend more time on KDramas. I'd really like to learn Korean, because I get this way about any language I'm exposed to. I think Arabic is top of my list at the moment - probably the Egyptian dialect.

Wow. That's about as far from the topic of Korean Dramas as I could hope to get.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

For my part I'm leaning on kdramas as a way of teaching myself some of the Korean I should've tried learning from my mother, years ago. ;) She tried, but my father pushed harder for me to learn his native language, and kid!me thought stupidly that one was enough. Languages are fun and intriguing, now. It's funny--kdrama as gateway, language as (different sort of) gateway....

[oyceter]

Hee! Well, to be honest, one of the main ways I have of brushing up with my Chinese is watching cdramas, Chinese movies, and reading translated manga.

Plus, it means I can make my mom buy me those things in Taiwan and ship them to me, as she is happy to do whatever makes me read/watch more Chinese.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I have a hard time picking things up because I don't know what the sounds should be, if that makes sense.

Oooo, I'd love to read your post on drama obsession. I'm feeling nidgier about kdramas than I did about jdramas largely because I feel so stupid about not knowing anything about Korea when I majored in East Asian Studies! I mean, really.

[poilass.livejournal.com]

I have just started watching some of the many dramas I downloaded months ago; I watched the first ep of Kimi wa Petto a while back (love! but I love the manga) and Kurosagi (four eps), because it has Horikita Maki and Yamashita Tomohisa in it. Am not in love so far, but it is awfully pretty and dramatic (one thing I like about the dramas I have watched so far is that when people get emotional or bare their hearts and so on nobody 'lightens the mood' with mockery. I have not seen enough to know if this is common, but it's rather wonderful to me).

And two episodes of Galileo, which. I don't know. The adorable female lead is my new pretend girlfriend, but her character doesn't get to *do* anything. Shibasaki Kou is a rookie police detective, Fukuyama Masaharu is the genius scientist who solves her cases for her with SCIENCE (except he's not that smart, because I solved the first case in thirty seconds). I am torn whether to bother watching any more; I find it quite funny and could stare at Shibasaki Kou all day long, but if she never gets to be *right* about anything or contribute more than arresting the bad guy at the end it is going to drive me *insane*. But whatever else she has been in is going on my list.

I have My Name is Kim Sam Soon and Coffee Prince on the list too, so I am pleased to hear more good things about them.

[oyceter]

one thing I like about the dramas I have watched so far is that when people get emotional or bare their hearts and so on nobody 'lightens the mood' with mockery. I have not seen enough to know if this is common, but it's rather wonderful to me

YES! That is one of my very favorite things about anime and manga. There's this lack of irony and sarcasm that I really enjoy, and though it leads to a ton of wish fulfillment and writing from the id, I love the writing from the id, because that's often what hits some of my biggest buttons.

Eeeee! KSS and CP! My favs ^_^. I stalled out a little on Kimi wa Petto, but that's just because the actor who plays Momo looks and sounds so different from what I imagined from the manga.

[parallactic.livejournal.com]

It didn't help that the first kdrama I watched was a gender-bending one, which makes things extremely confusing when appellations depend on the gender of the caller and the callee! (Ex. Eun Chan calls guys "hyung," so "hyung" must be "woman's older brother." Oh wait, she's a guy right now...)

Watching CP helped me figure out that in Korean the appellations were dependent on gender. I've read some girls' manhwa, so was familiar with "oppa" for older brother, but didn't know that only girls used that.

CP had sorta familiar tropes from manhwa, in that the more two people bickered and got into humorous fights, the more likely the were going to hook up in the end. But I think my remembrances of manhwa is bleeding into the shoujo manga I've read.

In terms of race, I've found Sun Ki in Coffee Prince very interesting.

Sun Ki was illuminating and disquieting for me because it struck me that in USA media, because all (East) Asian countries and cultures are supposed to be all alike, and there's no need to differentiate between being racially Korean, raised in Japan, and moving to Korea as an adult and having to be bicultural (ok, it was mostly about bilingualism, but I'm inferring biculturalness.)

[oyceter]

Sun Ki was illuminating and disquieting for me because it struck me that in USA media, because all (East) Asian countries and cultures are supposed to be all alike, and there's no need to differentiate between being racially Korean, raised in Japan, and moving to Korea as an adult and having to be bicultural (ok, it was mostly about bilingualism, but I'm inferring biculturalness.)

Ohhh yes. Though it makes me really, really want to see something about Zainichi Koreans in jdramas, because of the power differential.

[issen4.livejournal.com]

Quite a number of the slightly older (ie, non pop-idol) k-dramas focus on women, especially the mother-in-law vs. daughter--in-law type. Not sure if that's what you had in mind?

Watching k-dramas, especially the historical ones, sometimes comes as a bit of shock at how classist and Confucianist the society is--quite unlike Taiwanese or J-dramas! And the sumptuory laws. I can't get over the weird thing about being prejudiced against orphans, either. But it's definitely refreshing to watch family-based dramas. I like the way they handle romances too--it's very sweet, though the 'obstacles to true love' sometimes stretch the imagination.

[oyceter]

Well... I like the focus on women, but I'm sort of leery about ones that pit women against each other, particularly when it's over a man (love triangles and the in-law thing).

Watching k-dramas, especially the historical ones, sometimes comes as a bit of shock at how classist and Confucianist the society is--quite unlike Taiwanese or J-dramas!

How so? I mean, I got that from the historical ones, but the historical cdramas I've watched have been very much like that as well, and I haven't seen enough contemporary jdramas or cdramas to compare to contemporary kdramas.

I asked rilina about the orphan thing, and she mentioned that a lot of it is because family relationships are very important, and if you're an orphan, that's something you can't bring to the table in a relationship, which is different, but also makes sense.

[issen4.livejournal.com]

The daughter-in-law vs mother-in-law have more to do with who is being a 'good' housewife and what a 'proper' daughter-in-law is like--can be tiresome to watch, yeah. But I dislike the love triangles even more.

Re: the classist thing

I think J-drama and Taiwanese drama have that too, though much less pronounced--and in the idol dramas, it's accepted that these people are all living in a fantasy world anyway, especially the manga-inspired ones. But Korean dramas do go for a bit more realism. I mean, you go, "oh, yeah, scholars more important than merchants, I learnt that from Confucianist teachings"--but it's a bit scary to see it in action. Even modern dramas show it (though that might just be plain old snobbery), ie, white-collar workers superior to blue-collars, menial workers are beneath notice, etc. Though that makes for really good romantic angst in those Cinderella-type storylines.

I sort of get the prejudice about orphans, about not having a family. Though it's still weird to see that on TV. After all, a big western archetype is of the (successful/beautiful) orphan being accepted by everybody.

[oyceter]

*nods* Gotcha, re: sageuk. I tend to think of the modern drama class issues as somewhat less Confucian and more class-based, particularly because the few modern kdramas I've seen tend to do the rich = snobby and mean and lower-middle-class = hard-working, and the way rich lifestyles are still glamorized. I need to watch more to know for sure though.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Listening to Korean is always so weird for me as I keep feeling like if I just strained my ears more I'd understand!

I used to be big into jdramas about ten or more years ago, to the point where I was watching 2, 3, or even more per season. This was of course long before you could download such things, but the Japanese rental shops here rent shows taped off TV, usually for really cheap (back then it was 4 for $2, with each tape having two hour-long episodes or four half-hour episodes).

Then I just stopped having time to watch stuff and dropped them (and all TV, actually). Had a brief revival with a few shows a few years back, but that didn't last. Now I've downloaded Nobuta wo Produce, so who knows, maybe I'll get back into it.

I loved Long Vacation, though. It's still one of my all-time favorite dramas. Strawberry on the Shortcake, Hakusen Nagashi, Miseinen, Wakaba no Koro, Yasha, the first Kindaichi Shounen with Tsuyoshi from Kinki Kids...God, there were so many more I liked and now I can't remember anything. ^_^;; I have no idea how many have been released with English or Chinese subs or are even available these days.

Oh, and not a drama, but something you might be interested in is the film Go, starring Kubozuka Yousuke, which is about Zainichi Koreans. (Also the drama Doku, with Katori Shingo, was about a Vietnamese guy living in Japan and the prejudice he faced.)

[oyceter]

Oh, and not a drama, but something you might be interested in is the film Go, starring Kubozuka Yousuke, which is about Zainichi Koreans. (Also the drama Doku, with Katori Shingo, was about a Vietnamese guy living in Japan and the prejudice he faced.)

Oh, that sounds great, thank you!

Hee! My sister mentioned Strawberry on the Shortcake over Christmas as well because she liked the guy in it. I should probably watch Long Vacation some time, just seeing as how it's what got half of my class hooked on jdramas!

[greensilver.livejournal.com]

You got into Coffee Prince and I missed it! Vonnie is so fired. *g*

Based on your comments on the dramas you've watched thus far, I'm trying to figure out how to rec Thank You without giving away elements of the plot. Let's see how this strikes you: the heroine is a young single mother, and like Eun Chan, she's plucky and stubborn and dressed more realistically than your average WB star. The standard love quadrangle is more of a love triangle, really, and the other two points are the male leads; one is a cranky House-esque doctor (the pilot even has effects ripped straight from the House playbook, which cracked me up a bit), and the other is the heroine's childhood sweetheart (of sorts). The action revolves around the heroine's family, and the ways that the male leads and the other people on the island interact with her family.

It's a total angstfest, but if you're good with angst, it's worth watching.

There! Now I'm done hijacking your Kdrama post with random pimping. *g*

[oyceter]

Coffee Prince OMG I have been squeeing insanely to my sister because I need an outlet and I think people on LJ are starting to think I am crazy!

Ohhh! I think tatterpunk posted some hilarious screencaps of Thank You that tempted me to see it, despite the mock surgery and the House guy. I may watch Snow Queen to see how I am with angst, but I encourage more random pimping! I feel like I am wandering into this giant new place with so much stuff and I am just trying to grab everything at once because I am so excited.

[greensilver.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure my flist thought I'd gone a little nuts when I started flipping over Coffee Prince. *g*

The "surgery" in Thank You was every bit as bad as tatterpunk says, but the House guy is seriously hot as fire (if you're into misanthropes). The medicine is a bit WTF, and the show is a little silly at points (what would a Kdrama be without someone dying tragically?), but for the most part it's just good. The heroine is pretty kick-ass, her family is adorable, and did I mention the House guy is hot like fire?

Snow Queen is next on my list to watch, along with White Tower, which I've heard good things about. (Also in WT's favor is that Lee Seon Gyun - aka Han Sung - is in it; I've been tracing CP actors back to other dramas. Word to the wise: avoid One Fine Day. I watched all 16 eps to get a Gong Yoo fix, and I still cringe a little when I think of that show.)

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Oh, good--I wondered whether my dislike of One Fine Day were due somehow to an inability to appreciate what it was doing. After watching CP I also started tracing actors to other shows, though I started with Dal Ja's Spring (which I recommend) and The Vineyard Man (which I found entertaining after the first couple eps, as long as I pretend the brief epilogue scenes Do Not Exist).

[greensilver.livejournal.com]

OFD is truly terrible. I liked the heroine a lot, and I absolutely adored the female aquarium manager, but those things don't rescue the show as a whole from being absolutely wretched. (There's quite a bit of ranting about it on my OFD tag (http://greensilver.livejournal.com/tag/tv_onefineday), if you really want to feel not alone. *g*)

Oh, epilogues. So many of them are terrible that I tend to watch them through my fingers.

[oyceter]

Bwahaha, you read my mind! I was going to go through all of Gong Yoo's old dramas, even though one of them looks like a teacher-student romance, which I haaate. Truly Coffee Prince has gotten to me!

Oh! Lee Seon Gyun in WT?! Ooooooo.

OMG I cannot believe I am doing this. I never follow actors around! Never! And yet...

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

I'm also enjoying discovering the tropes & differences of the dramas. It's an interesting discovery. I also like the way the shows for women watch the men the way the shows for men watch the women.

[oyceter]

I also like the way the shows for women watch the men the way the shows for men watch the women.

Yeees! Also, more eye candy for me!

nobuta

[(Anonymous)]

hi. why were you disturbed by the NIGERIA scene in nobuta?

Re: nobuta

[oyceter]

It's been a while since I watched, but mostly I was disturbed by sending Shuuji's mom to somewhere "foreign" and "exotic" without going into it more, particularly when so much manga has anti-black portrayals.