Adventures in Asia

My glorious return to romantic comedy kdrama was rather anticlimactic with the oh-so-predictable “ Flower Boy Ramyun Shop ,” so for my next drama I watched cop show / romance “Who Are You” (2013). Plus, one of the leads is 2PM’s Taecyeon, whom I hadn’t seen since his singing and dancing days in “Dream High.” Good to see you again, T! “Who are you?” Police officer Yang Si Ohn wakes up after a six-year coma with no memories of the day she fell unconscious. Assigned to the Lost and Found Unit, she starts working with T, er, Cha Gun Woo. Since waking up, she as the ability to see ghosts, conveniently of people who’ve been murdered, which results in her solving closed cases. But the ultimate mystery still looms: What happened that day six years ago? Who is the handsome spirit with sad eyes who occasionally appears? This drama is a brilliant combination of mystery, suspense, action and romance, with a side of ghostly heebie-jeebies. The plot was downright delightful (especially ...

Even though my particular teaching placement right now isn’t ideal (Ha! That’s an understatement), I’ve come to realize I love this thing called teaching a foreign language in a foreign country. Here are some of the reasons why. Teaching is so satisfying. There are many helping professions where you don’t get to see the results of your efforts, where you put in countless hours on faith and hope that it’s worth it and someone, somewhere, has a better life because of your sweat and tears. Though we probably don’t truly realize the full repercussions of our good deeds in general, at least as a teacher I get to see some of the results of my investment. At the end of a unit / term / year, I watch my students use more language than before. On top of learning stuff, students write me notes, draw me pictures, give me gifts, and smile when I walk in the room. Teaching is fulfilling.   The best part of this job: the students. As a teacher, I get to plan, organize and be creati...

When in doubt, pick a drama from 2011. “Flower Boy Ramyun Shop” is my, what, sixth – seventh – Korean show from that brilliant year of foreign TV magic. How did kdrama viewers maintain their social lives in 2011? Maybe they just all sat around watching TV together. (And yes, I know how to spell ramen. Ramyun is the Korean spelling. This poster is Drama Fever failing to spell it accurately.) “Flower Boy Ramyun Shop” (which I’m going to shorten to FBRS from here on out) is a romantic comedy about a college girl studying to be a teacher, a flirtatious heir to a conglomerate, a tall and kind ramen chef, the leader of a high school gang, and… another high school kid… I’m not really sure why he’s there. Oh, wait! He’s there because you can’t run a ramen restaurant with only four people! Especially when the Male Lead is a priss, which would make it three actual workers. So this random group of characters ends up working together at, you guessed it, a ramen shop. Commence love tri...

I did it. I finally watched a TV show from the country I actually live in, instead of one from South Korea. On viki.com, I stumbled upon “One and a Half Summer,” which proved to be light, fluffy, and rather boring. But, I did learn about Chinese language and culture! So it wasn’t a waste. “One and a Half Summer” is a Chinese show, but it has ties to Korea via kpop. One of the lead actors is Nichkhun, a member of kpop boy group 2PM, and a side character is played by Jia of Miss A. At first I was like “Wow! So many Koreans in this show!” until I realized that neither Nichkhun nor Jia are ethnically Korean. Jia is Chinese, and Nicky is… uh… Thai? Chinese? American? According to Wikipedia , he’s lived all over the world, but didn’t make it to Korea until the kpop machine found him and shipped him over. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even speak Mandarin when filming this drama, but more on that later. As for the plot, not a lot happened. Mostly the drama centers on a group of friend...