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oyceterFurther charting of my headlong fall into obsession! I wrote this only three weeks ago, and I had drafted most of it about two months ago, so it encompasses about 34 hours of kdrama watching and was probably drafted when I had seen about 18 hours worth. This post is being written on about 72 hours of watching (i will not figure out how many hours i watch a day because it is just too embarrassing).
On the nostalgia side of things, I told my mom I was mainlining kdramas, and she seems to heartily approve of my consumption of anything Asian. Well, she's not that excited about my manga and anime addiction (although she does approve of my reading manga translated to Chinese), given the Japan thing and the comic/cartoon thing, but there is still approval. Possibly it also stems from the fact that I asked for cdramas too, and from the fact that a lot of her friends watch dramas as well, as does my sister. I suspect dramas just feel more mainstream to her. Not that I'm arguing, since she sent me a giant pack of old cdramas based on the novels of Taiwanese writer Qiong Yao! And I told her to watch Damo if she can find it, and I told her to ask her friends for more recommendations!
I actually had no idea who Qiong Yao was until I wiki-ed, only to discover that Qiong Yao was behind almost all the cdramas I used to watch in middle school, including Huan Zhu Ge Ge/Princess Pearl, which is the main reason why I am obsessed with Qing Dynasty court clothing! And why I know how ladies of the court would bow with a little handkerchief sweep that possibly me and my sister used to imitate! I'm sure it's not entirely historically accurate, but whatever. I grow interested in things via pop culture exposure; having stories in my head gives me a context for historical events and politics.
Oh! And! The drama pack includes all of Qing Qing He Bian Cao (Green, Green Grass by the River), which OMG! I used to watch! It has two orphans, one of whom is an entirely-too-adorable moppet! The moppet gets a wasting illness! The older orphan falls in love with the master of an upper-class house and there is much angst! She sucks snake-bite poison out of his leg in one very memorable scene!
And! It has the drama with a husband in a Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque mask called "Ghost Husband," and the one in which a lost child is found again because she has a plum blossom brand on her shoulder!
I cannot adequately express my glee! I thought I would never, ever see these again. Maybe my mom will next unearth the old 90s version of Yi Tien Tu Long Ji, which I used to watch and then talk about at school with friends and is probably responsible for my affinity for wuxia.
I cut-tagged all the blathering about language and cultural references and genre tropes for people already sick of my kdrama obsession; I'm mostly writing it down because I think I will have fun rereading later and laughing at myself.
Language
Or: watch me come up with wrong-headed observations based on TV!
I am no longer feeling very lost with the language. I mean, I am by no means familiar with it, but it sounds like Korean now, not like a combination of other languages I'm familiar with. I figured I was getting much more used to it when I tried to write Coffee Prince fic and kept hearing Han Sung saying, "Ya! Ya!" ("Hey! Hey!") in my head, or Eun Chan saying, "Mianada.." (sp., "Sorry"). And of course all her "Aooo, aoooo" and Jang Chul Soo's "Kure so." I am still trying to figure out the context for "aigoo;" a lot of times when I hear it, it's older women speaking, but I'm pretty sure Eun Chan uses it as well. It sounds very casual. And I am pretty sure "-sumida/ka" is the extremely polite verb ending/particle and that da/ka work as statement/question markers.
And interestingly enough, I think I've figured out most of the appellations, and the male/female divide of the speaker doesn't confuse me that much anymore. I think I get more confused when it's "mom" or "dad," just because there are fewer parents around so I don't hear it as much as "oppa" or "hyung" or "unni" or "noonim."
Most of all, though, it's the rhythm of the language. I'm pretty sure I'm getting a dramatized version of it (duh), but it's still neat listening to the rhythms of men and women speaking politely vs. yelling at people and listening to the differences in generations.
Also, because I am a giant dork, I have managed to memorize all the consonants in the Korean alphabet and all the simple vowels, though the complex vowels still confuse me. This means I pause any time there is writing in the frame so I can painstakingly sound out the word with my horrible pronunciation. Alas, I suck at distinguishing the 3 versions of consonants (ex. k, kk, and k with the little horizontal line), and I REALLY suck at distinguishing vowels beyond the a, i, u, and o (and the y- equivalents). Much like when I taught myself hiragana and katakana, I am endlessly amusing myself by trying to spell out the very few Korean words I know and the names of all the characters I can remember. I'm pretty sure my spelling is awful.
Random alphabet notes: I like writing "h" and "ng," and I get confused between "j" and "s," because hangul "j" looks like katakana "su." I am also just dorkily fond of writing hangul in general and making all those nice, neat little syllables.
I haven't managed to pick up any pronouns aside from casual "I," though![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yhlee lent me an intro Korean textbook years ago (Yoon! I'm pretty sure it is yours, since a photocopy of your "Clockwork Shadows" illustration fell out of it) and hopefully it will concrete-ize a lot of this. It also seems as though Korean has less Pronouns of Significance than Japanese; a lot of the formal/casual bits feel like they're in the appellations instead, but I am totally making that up.
Cultural familiarization
Most of the cultural bits that puzzle me are from Damo; I suspect I will run into this more with sageuk (historical dramas), given my complete ignorance of Korean history. This is not to say that modern Korean culture as portrayed in a handful of trendy dramas is identical to what I know of modern Taiwanese and Japanese culture, but just that the things I see don't feel foreign. They're definitely more similar to the things I know about Taiwan and Japan and further from what I know about America and Europe, but again, cultures != monoliths.
In other cultural notes, like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
rilina said before, it's just nice being able to see hot Asian guys (who are celebrated as hot! And most definitely sexualized!) and Asian women of all ages who are most definitely not dragon ladies, geisha, submissive wives, or giggling Japanese schoolgirls. I mean, the grandmother hitting people over the head with her handbag is another stereotype, but it's one from kdramas, not from the Western perception of Asian women. And despite the constant privileging of American and European culture and people in kdramas, it's still really nice watching something in which the entire cultural context isn't American or European, particularly since I lack a ton of American and European cultural context.
More genre tropes
Sageuk is what got me excited about kdramas, but I now seem to be completely addicted to trendy dramas. I blame my sister. And Coffee Prince.
I am not too surprised by this, given that I read tons of shoujo, romance novels, and YA chicklit, but I am a little baffled by how willingly I go for set-ups that sound incredibly bad.
Come to think of it, I do this a lot with shoujo manga as well. The meet cutes work much less for me in romances and YA chicklit -- I can do the mutual-enemies thing, but contemporary people who hire pretend boyfriends or dress like guys to work in cafes? Not so much! Unless, of course, it is a manga or kdrama.
I don't think it works for me because they are Asian genres; I suspect it has to do with the length of the work. There's a lot more time in manga and kdramas for everything to play out; I am generally unsatisfied with the conclusions of single books or movies that start from very contrived places just because two hours or 300+ pages is just not enough to get from contrived to solid relationship. I think it also helps to have the impressionistic shoujo art and charming kdrama actors, but by that measure, I would also be taken in by romantic comedy movies.
Wait... no, actually, I take that back. Sometimes the contrivances do work for me in movies, but all the movies I can think of are 1930s movies starring Katharine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell.
I think it may be the tone, then. There's an over-the-top giddiness to some of the contrivances in kdramas that just works for me, from Eun Chan and Han Kyul running in the street with waffles flying behind them to the exaggerated expressions in Fantasy Couple to Dal Ja's imagination. I wonder why I hated Ally McBeal (aside from the fact that the actress' delivery and voice drive me crazy)? It will be interesting to see how tolerant I get of contrivances after more kdrama watching, given that I've mostly gotten sick of them in shoujo manga and romance novels.
But right now, I love having sixteen hours devoted to relationships (usually romances, but often family ties and friendships as well) because it privileges the emo porn I so love, and because there's an end in sight and no stupid replaying of the plot from last season.
On the nostalgia side of things, I told my mom I was mainlining kdramas, and she seems to heartily approve of my consumption of anything Asian. Well, she's not that excited about my manga and anime addiction (although she does approve of my reading manga translated to Chinese), given the Japan thing and the comic/cartoon thing, but there is still approval. Possibly it also stems from the fact that I asked for cdramas too, and from the fact that a lot of her friends watch dramas as well, as does my sister. I suspect dramas just feel more mainstream to her. Not that I'm arguing, since she sent me a giant pack of old cdramas based on the novels of Taiwanese writer Qiong Yao! And I told her to watch Damo if she can find it, and I told her to ask her friends for more recommendations!
I actually had no idea who Qiong Yao was until I wiki-ed, only to discover that Qiong Yao was behind almost all the cdramas I used to watch in middle school, including Huan Zhu Ge Ge/Princess Pearl, which is the main reason why I am obsessed with Qing Dynasty court clothing! And why I know how ladies of the court would bow with a little handkerchief sweep that possibly me and my sister used to imitate! I'm sure it's not entirely historically accurate, but whatever. I grow interested in things via pop culture exposure; having stories in my head gives me a context for historical events and politics.
Oh! And! The drama pack includes all of Qing Qing He Bian Cao (Green, Green Grass by the River), which OMG! I used to watch! It has two orphans, one of whom is an entirely-too-adorable moppet! The moppet gets a wasting illness! The older orphan falls in love with the master of an upper-class house and there is much angst! She sucks snake-bite poison out of his leg in one very memorable scene!
And! It has the drama with a husband in a Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque mask called "Ghost Husband," and the one in which a lost child is found again because she has a plum blossom brand on her shoulder!
I cannot adequately express my glee! I thought I would never, ever see these again. Maybe my mom will next unearth the old 90s version of Yi Tien Tu Long Ji, which I used to watch and then talk about at school with friends and is probably responsible for my affinity for wuxia.
I cut-tagged all the blathering about language and cultural references and genre tropes for people already sick of my kdrama obsession; I'm mostly writing it down because I think I will have fun rereading later and laughing at myself.
Language
Or: watch me come up with wrong-headed observations based on TV!
I am no longer feeling very lost with the language. I mean, I am by no means familiar with it, but it sounds like Korean now, not like a combination of other languages I'm familiar with. I figured I was getting much more used to it when I tried to write Coffee Prince fic and kept hearing Han Sung saying, "Ya! Ya!" ("Hey! Hey!") in my head, or Eun Chan saying, "Mianada.." (sp., "Sorry"). And of course all her "Aooo, aoooo" and Jang Chul Soo's "Kure so." I am still trying to figure out the context for "aigoo;" a lot of times when I hear it, it's older women speaking, but I'm pretty sure Eun Chan uses it as well. It sounds very casual. And I am pretty sure "-sumida/ka" is the extremely polite verb ending/particle and that da/ka work as statement/question markers.
And interestingly enough, I think I've figured out most of the appellations, and the male/female divide of the speaker doesn't confuse me that much anymore. I think I get more confused when it's "mom" or "dad," just because there are fewer parents around so I don't hear it as much as "oppa" or "hyung" or "unni" or "noonim."
Most of all, though, it's the rhythm of the language. I'm pretty sure I'm getting a dramatized version of it (duh), but it's still neat listening to the rhythms of men and women speaking politely vs. yelling at people and listening to the differences in generations.
Also, because I am a giant dork, I have managed to memorize all the consonants in the Korean alphabet and all the simple vowels, though the complex vowels still confuse me. This means I pause any time there is writing in the frame so I can painstakingly sound out the word with my horrible pronunciation. Alas, I suck at distinguishing the 3 versions of consonants (ex. k, kk, and k with the little horizontal line), and I REALLY suck at distinguishing vowels beyond the a, i, u, and o (and the y- equivalents). Much like when I taught myself hiragana and katakana, I am endlessly amusing myself by trying to spell out the very few Korean words I know and the names of all the characters I can remember. I'm pretty sure my spelling is awful.
Random alphabet notes: I like writing "h" and "ng," and I get confused between "j" and "s," because hangul "j" looks like katakana "su." I am also just dorkily fond of writing hangul in general and making all those nice, neat little syllables.
I haven't managed to pick up any pronouns aside from casual "I," though
yhlee lent me an intro Korean textbook years ago (Yoon! I'm pretty sure it is yours, since a photocopy of your "Clockwork Shadows" illustration fell out of it) and hopefully it will concrete-ize a lot of this. It also seems as though Korean has less Pronouns of Significance than Japanese; a lot of the formal/casual bits feel like they're in the appellations instead, but I am totally making that up.Cultural familiarization
Most of the cultural bits that puzzle me are from Damo; I suspect I will run into this more with sageuk (historical dramas), given my complete ignorance of Korean history. This is not to say that modern Korean culture as portrayed in a handful of trendy dramas is identical to what I know of modern Taiwanese and Japanese culture, but just that the things I see don't feel foreign. They're definitely more similar to the things I know about Taiwan and Japan and further from what I know about America and Europe, but again, cultures != monoliths.
In other cultural notes, like
rilina said before, it's just nice being able to see hot Asian guys (who are celebrated as hot! And most definitely sexualized!) and Asian women of all ages who are most definitely not dragon ladies, geisha, submissive wives, or giggling Japanese schoolgirls. I mean, the grandmother hitting people over the head with her handbag is another stereotype, but it's one from kdramas, not from the Western perception of Asian women. And despite the constant privileging of American and European culture and people in kdramas, it's still really nice watching something in which the entire cultural context isn't American or European, particularly since I lack a ton of American and European cultural context.More genre tropes
Sageuk is what got me excited about kdramas, but I now seem to be completely addicted to trendy dramas. I blame my sister. And Coffee Prince.
I am not too surprised by this, given that I read tons of shoujo, romance novels, and YA chicklit, but I am a little baffled by how willingly I go for set-ups that sound incredibly bad.
Come to think of it, I do this a lot with shoujo manga as well. The meet cutes work much less for me in romances and YA chicklit -- I can do the mutual-enemies thing, but contemporary people who hire pretend boyfriends or dress like guys to work in cafes? Not so much! Unless, of course, it is a manga or kdrama.
I don't think it works for me because they are Asian genres; I suspect it has to do with the length of the work. There's a lot more time in manga and kdramas for everything to play out; I am generally unsatisfied with the conclusions of single books or movies that start from very contrived places just because two hours or 300+ pages is just not enough to get from contrived to solid relationship. I think it also helps to have the impressionistic shoujo art and charming kdrama actors, but by that measure, I would also be taken in by romantic comedy movies.
Wait... no, actually, I take that back. Sometimes the contrivances do work for me in movies, but all the movies I can think of are 1930s movies starring Katharine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell.
I think it may be the tone, then. There's an over-the-top giddiness to some of the contrivances in kdramas that just works for me, from Eun Chan and Han Kyul running in the street with waffles flying behind them to the exaggerated expressions in Fantasy Couple to Dal Ja's imagination. I wonder why I hated Ally McBeal (aside from the fact that the actress' delivery and voice drive me crazy)? It will be interesting to see how tolerant I get of contrivances after more kdrama watching, given that I've mostly gotten sick of them in shoujo manga and romance novels.
But right now, I love having sixteen hours devoted to relationships (usually romances, but often family ties and friendships as well) because it privileges the emo porn I so love, and because there's an end in sight and no stupid replaying of the plot from last season.
(no subject)
Thu, Jan. 24th, 2008 08:23 pm (UTC)