I spent three weeks in Korea this December. While it was cold and we got snow (a white Christmas!), I was glad to see the country at this time of year. Winter light festivals brightened the frigid nights. There were an incredible number of concerts to attend. And I went to see some theater (which I wrote about here). Some places I went had few tourists (which I love) and I got to drink my favorite Korean warm beverage, Omija tea.
I went to Gwangju for a few days to see some of the historic sites of the democracy movement. Not all travel is about bright and pretty things. I spend a lot of time thinking about culture and what that means in the larger sense.
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| Happy 20th Anniversary to Epik High |
I was also left thinking about how shame operates in a culture when Lee Sun-Kyun died by suicide after being hounded by the media and netizens.
I got thrown off of my drama watching but here is my monthly wrap-up.
Moments of Eighteen
This was a wonderful, tender series about a poor, bullied boy Choi Jun-u (Ong Seong-wu) who is forced to transfer schools. Rather than just be pushed out of his new school by forces beyond his control, he decides to stay (with the help of a supportive teacher). In committing to starting over, he makes friends, falls in love, learns to listen to his own talents, and even forgives. It is not without a great deal of pain and loss but by believing in himself a bit more than the rigged systems around him he finds he can be happy.
While dramas are often/always rooted in fantasy, I enjoy when they seemed grounded in realistic circumstances. Yes, there will always be driven parents forcing their kids to be perfect and get into good colleges. But in this story, we see how that pressure manifests in different students. Some lash out at others. Some have come to understand how money and power works so they play the system their parents have taught them. Some buckle with these unrealistic expectations.
This drama respects these teens and honors how hard this process is on them. Despite all this pressure, these teens keep moving forward, holding it together, and holding each other up.
There were different kinds of romances here too. Jun-u falls for Yoo Soo-bin (Kim Hyang-gi) who is not supposed to focus on anything else in her life except getting into SNU like her mother did. But everyone expects Soo-bin to date her childhood friend Ma Hwi-young (Shin Seung-ho) who comes from a rich family is the number one student in their grade. Hwi-young takes out his ire on Jun-u when Soo-bin starts spending time with Jun-u. Soo-bin's friend Dae-in sort of declares that she and Jung Oh-je (the late Moonbin) are dating and he does not totally resist this dating by force. He dotes on her but there's something missing in their dynamic.
In a rare moment, characters here actually face consequences for their actions.
It's a quiet, little, heart-breaking drama and I am glad I stumbled upon it.
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Doona!
In my ongoing gripes at Netflix for misunderstanding what makes K-dramas work, this is a 9-episode show that just falls apart.
Bae Suzy is Doona a K-pop idol who crashes and burns and suddenly walks away from her group, Sweet Dream. She is hiding out in an apartment building, avoiding her manager and her mother, smoking more cigarettes than there are on earth. She encounters a college student, Lee Won-jun (Yang Se-jong), who has just moved to the big city and has no idea who she is.
The show walks a fiiiiiiiine line around a manic pixie dream girl. The show is less clear on what exactly her relationship is/was with her manager who trained her since she was a child which leaves some questionable ick on the table.
The entire production has a hazy, dreamy quality to it (or it could be the cigarette smoke). It is definitely a unique look and style but, as per usual, if the story cannot flesh out the style it comes out a bit empty in the end.
It was frustrating because I think it's a great set-up. It's nice to see Yang Se-jong back after his military service (although why is a 31-year-old playing a college student). And the visuals could have provided a dynamic back-drop to the storytelling if only it had not run out of story.
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Our Blues
I stopped watching this show when it decided that it was pro-teen pregnancy and anti-abortion. Talk about a show that did not respect it's teen characters (in contrast to Moment of Eighteen). Don't establish a character as a brilliant student and then pretend she does not know how pregnancy works in the year of our lord 2022 or whenever this show was made. I could not take it and turned it off.
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