안녕! It's Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder 🎉 Today’s newsletter is about a healthy gim snack, lessons learned from watching the hottest reality show, and crash course on idol lecturers. Let’s start!
Sundubu Gimmari For Gim Lovers
If you’re a gim (dried seaweed) lover like me, you’ll definitely love this viral Korean food called, 순두부 김말이 or sundubu gimmari, which is silken tofu (sundubu) wrapped with gim. Koreans love wrapping anything with gim including rice (gimbap), starch noodle, and even fish. Gim adds crispy (when dried) or chewy (when cooked) taste to food. Sundubu gimmari is the latest gimmari food that is going viral in the country. It’s super simple to make: just drain water from the silken tofu, wrap it with gim, and slice it. Then, stir-fry the slices with some sauce. That’s it! It’ll make a good healthy snack at night, and can also be a great party food to feed guests because it’s bite-sized. Watch the cooking video and try for yourself! 😋
Lessons Learned From Physical: 100 (Korean POV)
Physical: 100 is the hottest reality show in Korea. The Netflix show features 100 contestants with impressive physical attributes who compete against each other in individual and team challenges of strength, agility, and strategy. After each challenge, some competitors are eliminated until only one remains to win 300 million won or 236,000 USD. The show became an instant hit as people in almost all gyms in Korea talked about it after the first episode was released. Many viewers got motivated to work out after seeing the contestants’ well-developed bodies 🫣 As the series continued, people started to share an unexpected lesson learned from watching the show. As seen in the above tweet, many viewers are saying they will stop cursing and they will use polite and graceful words. In the show, many contestants often use vulgar languages such as “ssibal” (equivalent to “fu**” in English) or “jonna (fu**ing)” or “jottetta (I’m fu**ed).” These are commonly used among young Koreans including myself 🙃 Watching people curse on TV is a rare opportunity for Koreans to reflect on their language use since all Korean TV shows must edit out cursing under strict regulations by the Korea Communication Commission. Even beep sounds are often not enough, many shows completely edit out cursing scenes. Because it’s a Netflix show that is not subject to the strict regulations, Physical: 100 did not edit out the curses. As a result, viewers are not only learning physical lessons (I’ll start to work out!), but also lessons on manners (I’ll stop cursing!) from the show.
👩🏻🏫 Mini Korean Lesson) Ssibal Alternatives
Whenever you feel like saying the s-word, say these less-or-none-vulgar words instead.
헐 /heol/ : sounds cute, say this especially when you’re freaked out or shocked
아이씨 /ah-i-ssi/ or 에이씨 /ae-i-ssi/ : still vulgar with 씨(ssi) but much less vulgar than ssibal
미친 /michin/ : literally means “crazy,” popular ssibal alternative, often used when one’s angry or super-impressed
Crash Course On Iltagangsa
The recent hit romance series 일타 스캔들 or “Crash Course in Romance” is currently on the air. The drama is about the romance between a super-positive side dish owner and an “iltagangsa” (the most popular lecturer at a private institution). “일타” (ilta) in the drama’s title comes from the word, “iltagangsa.” I talked about who they are and how they make more money than K-Pop idols in a past podcast. Almost all Korean students go to private institutions (often called “hagwon” in Korean) after school. It’s not an overstatement that in Korea, these private institutions have almost replaced schools. Students learn and make friends at hagwons, rather than at schools. This is all because the Korean education system is very competitive, so students want to learn from skilled lecturers rather than school teachers who often lack lecture skills. The talented hagwon lecturers become famous and are given the title of iltagangsa. They make a fortune from selling online lecture videos and textbooks. In the drama, the male lead character is an iltagangsa who has a nickname as “a man of 1 jo won (780 million USD).” His character is based on a real-life iltagangsa, Hyun Woo-jin, who teaches math and is known to make over 16 million USD a year. They have a big influence on students just like idols and stars. In the series, there’s a scene where students get angry about their beloved iltagangsa’s romance scandal and burn their notebooks. Although this scene was criticized for being unrealistic (because Korean students will NEVER burn their notebooks until they finish the college entrance exam), it shows how influential iltagangsas are among students.
If you want to see how iltagangsas teach, watch this scene in the drama where the actor got praised from viewers for portraying the lecturers so well. You can watch this series on Netflix.
One last thing to share is a fun video for “The Glory” fans. A YouTuber made a short makeup video parodying Yeon-jin in “The Glory,” a hit K-Drama series. She really looks and sounds like Yeon-jin! 👆
I finally finished watching “The Princess Weiyoung,” a Chinese historical drama. I mainly watched it for an evil-but-charming sub-lead character in the series. Even though he was a villain and sub-lead, he managed to live till the last episode. That was all I wanted 😌 It totally worth watching all the 54 episodes :)
Sorry for no podcast this week 🙏 I had time to record it but somehow I couldn’t. These days, it’s hard to get motivated to do anything, except for mindlessly watching dramas ㅜㅜ So I’ll take a break next week to have time for myself to fix it 🧘🏻♀️
Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, like ❤️, leave a comment, share with your friends, or support me. It’ll help me keep writing! See you the week after next. 안녕!
I enjoy your blogs so much! Everything from current events and recipes to the shows you're watching and curse words -- it's all great. Thank you so much for your efforts. I learn a lot every week!