Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung

Wow... I have not posted on this blog since 2016, and my last pop-culture entertainment post was actually in 2015! FOUR years! Well, I guess I finally have some time, both in the chronological sense and also mentally, after finishing internal medicine residency and geriatric medicine fellowship to sit down and blog about recent dramas I've been watching. Of note, I've never completely stopped watching Asian dramas or Asian shows in general, but just never had time or energy to blog about it. I've always found Asian shows to be therapeutic, and now I'm excited to also dive deeper into my thoughts with blogging.

I was initially drawn to this new Korean drama, currently airing in Korea and on Netflix (oh how times have changed just since 2015 when Asian dramas airing live on Netflix wasn't a thing yet!), admittedly because of Cha Eun-woo (My ID is Gangnam Beauty, which, by the way, is an amazing drama deeply reflective about today's beauty standards and how they destroy our society - highly recommended) from K-pop idol group ASTRO. I loved My ID is Gangnam Beauty so much that I just have positive feelings towards any actor from that production and would likely support and try out any of their subsequent projects.

Anyway, we are 4 weeks into the show and episode 7 just aired with episode 8 airing in a few hours in Korea. I am here writing about this show mostly because I'm confused and feeling torn about this show. I was initially going to tweet about it (follow me! @karebearnoona) but quickly realized I had way more screencaps and thoughts than would be acceptable on stan Twitter.

Okay, so re: my confusion. What is this show really about? I can't decide, and it seems Show also cannot decide. Is it supposed to be a Historical Romance with all the love triangles and squares? Or Historical Drama documenting the difficulties of being the first women government officials? Or Historical Political with all the usual court cronies scheming behind everyone's backs? There are too many plotlines going on at once, and that's okay, but they are not tightly woven, only loosely related to each other, and the pacing is super slow. I'm okay with it right now, but I just wish Show would hurry up and choose its identity. I feel like only then can it come into its own and really make some impactiful statements.

2014 Year End Review of Dramas

Better late than never (at least relatively in time for Lunar New Year??) - here's a mess of thoughts on a smattering of dramas that I enjoyed and kept me company through some of my hardest times in 2014.  (Just to clarify, I'm only talking about dramas that I haven't covered in other posts. So, other dramas that would've made the cut are Healer, Misaeng, and I'm So Smart.)

New "favorites" series: What's Making Me Happy #1 (myspiffyrosegirl)

Okay, my belly is full now, meaning I can happily finish this post. This will hopefully be the first of a series called "What's Making Me Happy," which was inspired by a segment of the same name on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. It's basically a space for us to talk about favorites and recommendations. So, I'll just go right into some recent and some longstanding things that's been making me happy--

READS

What can be more perfect than to start off a "What's Making Me Happy" series with this book called Feeling Good by David D. Burns, MD? It's essentially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in book-form for depression and anxiety. To put it simply, this book has been revolutionary for me. It's made me realize how much my depression/anxiety has affected me and how pervasive they are in my everyday life. But more importantly, the book and CBT itself depart from the Freudian philosophy and all the psychotherapy that was founded on it. What does that mean? In a nutshell, it means 3 basic things - (1) depression is not a mirror to human nature's true form, so it's not something that people have to suffer with, (2) a lot of your feelings including your strongest ones are based your thoughts - hence cognitive based therapy, and (3) so the way to fight your way out of your depression/anxiety is to first change your thoughts in order to change how you feel. Simple, but amazing.

Misaeng Episodes 3-4: Striving towards a complete life

I knew it. I couldn't stay away. Misaeng returns with more uplifting episodes in its second week while staying true to its realistic portrayal of everyday struggles in the workplace, this time with more tangible lovely parallels from baduk. I love that the story doesn't stagnate or linger on Geu-rae's sad, unlucky lot in life, but moves on to unfold more of his story...

K-variety of our lives

Hello everyone! myspiffyrosegirl and mongolkhana are coming together for our first joint posting. And what better topic than Korean variety?!

This will be more of a brief recap of the shows we are currently watching, and our thoughts of the current seasons. One of us will briefly summarize the show, and the other will chime in with additional thoughts or comments. In this first round, we'll tackle Running Man, Roommate, and Superman is Back.


1. Running Man (SBS)

myspiffyrosegirl: Running Man (2010) is one of the "older" K-variety shows that is still going strong in its 4th year running (harhar) that has a competition-game set up. Each episode features a series of short games that are related to a central theme/mission where players compete to win points, hints, or some kind of favor that will help them in the final game at the closing of the episode. There is only one winner - either individually or as a team for the final game and they are essentially the ultimate winner for the episode, which can be bitter for some and redeeming for others. Sometimes, there a specials that last for multiple episodes, like the Asia Race Special that took them across Macau, China and Vietnam - this remains as one of my all-time favorites. This show is one that has kept its regular cast pretty consistent especially in the later years - Yoo Jae-suk (MC), Ji Suk-jin, Kim Jong-kook, Haha, Lee Kwang-soo, Gary, and Song Ji-hyo. More often than not, guests are invited ranging from actors to idols to athletes, from the well known to the up and coming, sometimes as a single guest, sometimes as a huge group like in their Idol Olympic specials. The show isn't split up by seasons because they don't change their regular cast; they've been airing every weekend since its inception with 219+ episodes now.

A first look at Misaeng (Incomplete Life): A story that everyone can relate to

Misaeng (Incomplete Life) premiered this past weekend on tvN in their Friday-Saturday slot. And I'm obsessed. I'm excited. I'm in love. I wasn't even going to blog about this until the end, but here I am. This contemplative but compelling look at office life and just the realities of modern day struggles is hitting all the right notes with me, from the writing and directing to the music, cinematography, and of course acting.

Tang Wei, Sunmi, and Yoona: Three favorite magazine photo shoots, Sep-Oct 2014

There were some stunning magazine photo spreads from September and October, and I wanted to share three of my favorites featuring Tang Wei in Elle Korea's September 2014 issue, Sunmi for bnt in October, and Yoona in W Korea also for their September 2014 issue. It was a tough decision just picking out my top three.

Plus Nine Boys: Series review

This is my first time doing this. So bear with me.

Plus Nine Boys is a 2014 Korean drama series that just finished airing on the cable network TvN finishing at 14 episodes after getting its length axed possibly due to a mixture of low ratings and plagiarism accusations. I wanted to review it because not only did I like it a lot but because I feel it could have been so much better if it had more episodes to grow into.

Spoilers ahead! I warned you!

Miss A's Suzy in Grazia September 2014 & Idols who can model

Just as not every Korean idol can act, not every idol can model well. While that's okay, because that's not their career, it just makes it all the more impressive when an idol does model well. Of course, judgment is not passed with a single magazine or ad campaign photoshoot, because many factors go into it including the clothes themselves, the styling, the setting, the skill of the photographer, and the rapport between the photographer and the model. Yet, over time, one gets a sense for an idol's panache in front of a photo lens. Some idols that have thrived in their modeling work who readily come to my mind are Suzy Bae of Miss A, Sohee formerly of Wonder Girls, and possibly Yoona of SNSD. I'm sure there are many more, and I'll be sure to add more to my list as time goes on.

Suzy appears in GRAZIA's September 2014 issue with another great photo spread mostly styled in Rebecca Minkoff items.