Sofie to Korea

I’m currently enjoying a lovely three-day weekend as the class I usually teach on Fridays got moved to Thursday. That means plenty of time for studying Korean, and just generally immersing myself in Korean culture.

I started my weekend yesterday by meeting with my language partner. We started as usual by reading an Iyagi lesson, and then she corrected an essay that I had written. There were definitely some a lot of mistakes, but she really liked many of the grammar patterns I had used, so I’m quite happy about that. Then we progressed to discussing the article that I wrote a blog post about earlier this week – Northern Europe from a Korean perspective. That naturally led us to also discussing Korean culture and values as well, which took us around the Korean military, the strong Korean sense of nationality,  and differences in celebrity influence between Korea and Europe. I found the latter particularly interesting as I had recently read that 윤아 from Girls’ Generation was appointed national tax ambassador together with 송승헌. Reportedly both were selected for being model tax payers and assigned a two-year ambassador duty where they are to participate in various activities to promote Korean citizens’ duty to pay their taxes. I find this govermental use of celebrities slightly peculiar, mostly because it would be very strange if something like this were to happen in Denmark. I guess this is an element of 한류 that I have yet to completely understand, while I certainly do approve of the choice of ambassadors! ^^

After my LP meeting it was time for me to pick a new drama as I had finished watching 남자가 사랑할 때. This being my husband’s second Korean drama I think the genre is slowly growing on him (Yay!) and he didn’t object too much when I suggested the romantic comedy 내게 거짓말을 해봐 (Lie to me). However, 30 minutes into the first episode, we were both agreeing that the female lead was simply too annoying for us to continue watching. I’ve never seen such an exaggerated use of 애교 (Korean cuteness), which when used in moderation can certainly be cute, but when overused appears silly, desperate, and extremely irritating. So we decided to end it right there. Back to square one. Turning to Netflix I found another rom-com 앙큼한 돌싱녀 (Cunning single lady). It took me two episodes to get hooked, but this drama is really refreshing. I like both the male and female lead, and I have a huge weakness for watching dramas with a strong 재벌 male lead, preferably dressed in a stunning three-piece suit. This drama truly delivers with 주상욱 beautifully portraying a successful and well-dressed businessman who singlehandedly invented what is the fictional equivalent to KakaoTalk. Nice!

On top of that, the female lead is really pretty and intelligent. The only drawback is the subplots which unfortunately are completely uninteresting compared to the main story. But then, I can always use that time for reviewing the words in my K-drama notebook. ^^ The soundtrack is quite catchy too. Here’s a piece of eye/ear candy:

To make this whole weekend as Korean as possible I even cooked Korean bean sprout soup with rice and Kimchi yesterday. I’ve been lucky to find so many great Korean products in my local Asian market. They have all kinds of Korean ramyun, soy sauce, soju, makgeolli, gochujang, doenjang, red bean paste, kimchi, tofu… you name it. I love it.

Happy weekend!^^