Fantasy Couple, ep. 01-04

[oyceter]

Anna is a filthy rich woman who has spent several years (or most of her life? I can't tell) in the US. She's recently moved back to Korea, much to the dismay of her browbeaten, bullied husband, who married her for her money but who also seems to have loved her once. Jang Chul Soo is a handyman trying to pinch pennies, since he's raising his dead brother's three sons. They anti-meet-cute when he helps her with her car, and she mistakes him for a murderer and beats his head in with a shovel.

Eventually, she gets amnesia (my first amnesia drama! a milestone!), and he ends up convincing her she's his girlfriend to save on housekeeping bills and to get back the money she owes him.

Normally, this premise would have me hating the hero from the get-go. While I wasn't very fond of Jang Chul Soo in the beginning, I at least don't want to whap him multiple times because of his scheme, largely due to the slapstick tone of the drama. In the beginning, the humor is extremely broad -- Anna's snobbiness and meanness is hugely exaggerated, to the point where even I didn't like her, and I usually like "bitchy" women (scarequotes for problematics surrounding use of "bitchy" as descriptor, not to imply the women aren't actually mean). I have some problems with this, namely that the heroes of kdramas seem to be allowed to be alpha male and aggressive and often plain mean in a way heroines aren't; if heroines are, it has to be shown as being wrong. I was also completely unconvinced of the viability of Anna and Chul Soo as a couple, and I was (and am) bored by her husband's storyline.

That said, the third and fourth episode either improve tremendously, or I got used to the broad humor and started to like it. The entire thing with Anna knowing so little about housework that she makes things worse and not better is totally expected, but I still thought it was funny, largely because of Chul Soo's expressions. That, and the very cute laundry-in-a-tub scene.

Chul Soo's softening much faster than Anna is, despite Anna's (very few) moments of weakness, and that while the joke seems to be on Anna most of the time, it always ends up being on Chul Soo. Well, that, and they're hilariously cute when they bond over finding money. I am even growing fond of the snooty way she tosses her hair.

Am having the same class issues with this one that I have had with most of the other series I've seen (moral uprightness of being poor coupled with fetishization of the filthy rich lifestyle), ditto with race issues (socializing with white people as sign of breeding and wealth, knowledge of English as shortcut to coolness). But it's making me laugh, so I will probably keep watching.

Also, this show makes me crave jajangmyeon like crazy, even though I have only had it once in my life. Must find restaurant around here with it, so I can have some, though may settle for zhajiangmien if I can't find jajangmyeon.

Comments

[oyceter]

Huh, the way the article is phrasing it makes it look like a technical error that's commonly used, so maybe it's something like how people say "could of" instead of "could have"?

Oh man. I wish I could go with you and Rachel to LA's Ktown or something, in lieu of a trip to Korea.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

That sounds completely plausible to me. Fascinating! I just spell it based on how it's pronounced, but my spelling is atrocious. I once wrote my mom a letter in extremely labored Korean and got back a photocopy with corrections marked in marked. (Oh, Mom. *g*)

Are there good Korean places up by where you are? I am probably going to end up visiting my sister at some point or another, and maybe we could all go out for Korean.

(It makes me happy to use my Korea icon!)

[oyceter]

Oh, your mom is so funny! OMG I am trying right now to work out the spellings of the five Korean words I know, only it is so hard! Especially since the subtitles don't seem to use the current romanization system ("oppa" and "hyung" and "unni" and "noona")...?

OMG WOULD LOVE TO GO OUT FOR KOREAN. Um... I know a few places, though you may want to ask your sister first, as I don't know what it should actually taste like. Sadly, all my Korean food experiences are Korean in Taiwan and Korean in America. I suspect nothing here will be as good as Seoul though. I know one fancy-ish BBQ place, a scattering of more casual places with bibimbap and more rice dishes, one place that does soft tofu (omg so good), and one or two noodle places, though I'm trying to find more of the latter.

My mom loves bibimbap like crazy, so all the places I know tend to be skewed in that direction ;).

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, those spellings aren't using the official romanization. Let me help you out a little--

oppa -> o bba
hyung -> hyeong (the vowel is the one that has the vertical line with the protrusion sticking out to the left; eo is the way you write out o with a breve [little concave mark] above it, there are a lot of digraphs in transliteration because Korean has so many vowels)
unni -> eon ni (same vowel as above; the n in the first syllable is a bachim, but the total effect is a geminate or "doubled" consonant as per Japanese)
noona -> nu na

(vonnie_k may correct me on some of these, but I'm fairly sure these are right)

Does that help?

I adore bibimbap. Barbecue = yum too, but way expensive.

[oyceter]

Ooo yes! Oh, so does the vowel in hyeong have two little protrusions because of the y? Or do you just hear the y because it's after the h? And is the bachim written like the normal n? Woes. I need to get a textbook and CDs from the library. And learn the brushstroke order, as I suspect I am mangling things (and now I know how people feel when I yelp at them about their kanji brushstrokes!).

Yeah... I like BBQ but don't get it very often. Also, it's a lot of meat for me to eat! Most of my comfort foods involve starch, starch, and more starch ;).

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

No, that's correct! When there are two protrusions instead of one, that means you have a y sound before the vowel. It's extremely regular that way.

The bachim n (niun) is written like a normal n, just underneath the body of the thing. Um, this would be easier to explain in person.

I suspect the brushstroke order would come very easily to you--it's basically top-down, left-right, although some bits you just have to memorize.

[oyceter]

Yaaaay my little online tutorial is not leading me wrong!

Most of the brushstrokes are ok with me, though I am confused by the order for the m and b/p -- I do the left | then the top - then down the right _ and left-to-right -. Except the b/p, which just confused me. And I am not sure if I should write the protrusions before the vertical line or after. And I am not sure which was the circle should go.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Order for the m (basically a box):
1. do the vertical stroke on the left
2. do the horizontal stroke on the top and the vertical stroke on the right in one motion:

---->
       |
       |

3. finish up by doing the horizontal stroke on the bottom

Order for b (the box with two bunny ears protruding out to the top):
1. vertical stroke on the left
2. vertical stroke on the right
3. upper horizontal stroke
4. lower horizontal stroke

Order for p (long horizontal strokes extending to both left and right):
1. upper horizontal stroke
2. left vertical stroke descending from #1
3. right vertical stroke descending from #1
4. bottom horizontal stroke closing off #2 and #3

I can't remember whether the circle is counterclockwise or clockwise. Um, if I can locate any of the Learn Korean books my mom sent the lizard, I'll look it up and let you know.

Does this help?

[oyceter]

Yes, thank you! Also, good, I was doing it right then. I am guessing right now that the circle is counterclockwise, but that is because one image I saw had a little bit extending out of the circle so it looked a little like `o (only joined).

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, duh--it is counterclockwise. I just wrote out my freakin' name (which has three circles in it!) and sure enough, muscle memory was counterclockwise on all three circles. (And the rest of my Korean may be atrocious, but I can spell my name! And when people ask me to sign stories/books, which admittedly isn't very often, I always include my name in Korean as well. It's a thing.)

50% of wordcount for today...*weeps* Why is this so incredibly painful?

[oyceter]

Haha, I just tried your name and probably messed it up horribly, as I am missing a circle somewhere.

*cheers on your wordcount*

And, um, I can stop bugging you and just do this over chat some other time if that works?

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Sure! Want to set a time? We can talk about Korean and I can milk your brains for more information on Chinese elements and stuff!

[oyceter]

Eeee ok! I am free pretty much all through tonight and tomorrow and the weekend, so whenever is good for you.

P.S.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I really need to be in the same room with you so I can just write the spellings out for you. :-D

Re: P.S.

[oyceter]

Yes! You do!

Oh hey... you have a new Mac! Does it have the built-in webcam too?

Re: P.S.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

It does! We could do video-chat sometime! If you wanted. (Realize that you are one of the VERY FEW PEOPLE ON EARTH I would make this offer to!) It totally freaked me out the first time I loaded up iChat.

Re: P.S.

[oyceter]

We should totally do that! I am largely terrified of video chat, but the temptation of figuring out vocab and brushstroke order and spelling is overcoming that.