Not Part Two
This isn’t what I was going to write about earlier; I just remembered it and thought I’d write it down.
I’ve been a little obsessed with KBS World lately; it’s not that I’ve found a K-drama to fall in love with, because I never seem to catch them at the beginning, and dramas are hard to follow from the halfway point. It’s really just that I love, love, love that they subtitle almost everything in English; the next channel down on our satellite is TV Japan, and I can tell you they subtitle freaking nothing except the annual Taiga drama (and even then, it’s several weeks behind the Japanese-only one, which is kind of annoying if, like me, you like your Taiga dramas to begin and end with the new year).
So, when M.’s not in the room, I like to switch over and watch for awhile. M. himself has a strong aversion (intense dislike, allergic reaction) to Korean TV, because in his house his bedroom is on the first floor, the walls are a variation on paper-mache, the main television is directly on the other side of the wall, and his mother really, really, really likes watching the K-shows until late at night. Which means that the sounds of K-TV reverberate into his bedroom.
But, for some reason (he said it was because the show wasn’t “one of those historical ones with the black hats”), the other night he sat and watched with me for awhile, adding colorful commentary as the show progressed. Which, in his case, ran the spectrum from “they look too happy to be Korean,” to “there, she’s about to tell him how disappointed she is in him, and how he’s always been a waste of a son/husband, and how she’d be better off dead.” Which, to be completely fair, is often how the show actually went - one woman in particular absolutely could not be pleased, although I did point out to M. that the son seemed to take it all in stride, and she turned out to be secretly pleased when his back was turned.
But what do I know?
What I need to figure out is when new K-dramas are about to start. They look interesting enough, and God knows I never like the Japanese dramas that are on TV Japan (they tend to be ’sasupensu’, which I hate).
July 16th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
We get the AZN channel with our cable package - they tend to show Korean miniseries dramas from 10:30 PM to midnight during the week. Terrible timing but we keep getting sucked in! We loved Hotelier and My Lovely Sam Soon… but now we’ve made a pact not to switch to 191 anymore - we need more sleep!
While Blair used to always scoff at the shows, he totally gets drawn in now. Afterwards, he always mutters that he can’t believe how Korean he really is. LOL
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July 16th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
The building that houses Kam Sam Grocery in Annandale also has a video/DVD rental place, and I saw the other day that they have a subtitled version of Hotelier - I’m really curious about that one!
Michael is so bad about the K-dramas (won’t watch them at all), but, then, he was never much into the Japanese ones, either.
I really, really wanted AZN, but Dish doesn’t carry it, and we don’t want to lose our TV Japan (almost went over to Fios for TV, but apparently it’s still pretty clunky - they carry AZN TV, though).
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July 18th, 2007 at 8:23 am
I was trolling the video shops in Boston’s Chinatown, and found a ton of boxed Korean TV shows on disc…but except for English titles (?!) I couldn’t sort out for the life of me whether or not they were subtitled…..
Now what I’m waiting for is the sat tv system that will bring us Lithuanian shows….actually, there are pretty good sites for streaming, although L has made much better use of it than me.
WE WANT M-CAM!
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July 18th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I watched Korean dramas faithfully for a while, but I haven’t found one I liked recently. But watch out, because they’re totally addictive!
We do silly commentary too.
P.S. I’m glad to see you are blogging again.
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July 18th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
When I was growing up my mom and I watched Abarembo Shogun, and Sasurai (??) Keiji shows all the time. Then we got hooked on some show about a lady with no arms, watched it the whole way through, and then MISSED THE LAST EPISODE!!! AGH!!
K-dramas are HUGE in Hawaii these days, and my mom even went on a tour of Korea centered around the shows. She’s not that interested in them, but went on the tour anyway, just to see Korea.
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July 19th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Rachel - Hi! Does your husband love/hate them?? They seem to bring back less-than-fond childhood memories for M….it’s a shame.
mDg - Your mom’s tour actually touches on a chapter of my dissertation - how did she like it?? I’m doing a section on media (movie/TV)-based travel - that’s very cool that she went!
When I was a kid in Hong Kong, they used to have 2 hours of Japanese programs on Sunday mornings on the English TV channel, and my whole family used to sit around and try to figure out what the hell was happening. Good times, good times…
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July 19th, 2007 at 11:51 am
You can e-mail me and we can discuss if you want.
nonibites@hotmail.com
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