A 2,000-Year-Old K-Pop Culture

🎁💖🍔🎵

안녕! It’s Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder 🎉 I’m back from a break :D Today’s newsletter is about a noodle salad for your weekend, a 2000-year-old K-Pop culture, the latest hot selfie sign, and more!

Before starting I want to thank you for your support! I opened a tip jar two weeks ago and I got tips more than I expected. It’ll help me a lot keep creating my newsletter and podcast. 감사합니다 (Thank you) 💖

Now let’s start today’s newsletter!

🎧 You can listen to me read and chat on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or others.

---

Japchae For Your Weekend Lunch

img credit: lookandwalk

Today’s food is a holiday side dish in Korea. It’s japchae or potato starch noodles stir fried with vegetables. Koreans often enjoy this during holidays such as Chuseok (in fall) or Lunar New Year. But since it’s so popular, you can get served this side dish in many Korean food restaurants anytime during the year. Usually it takes a lot of time to make this food but there’s a way to make it super simple and fast! Just chop some vegetables like onion, carrot, and bell pepper. And stir-fry them with sauce and starch noodles in a pan. That’s it! It’ll make a great warm noodle salad you can enjoy for lunch in the weekend.

Watch an easy cooking video and try for yourself!

A 2,000-year-old K-Pop Culture

네사 @kwoneunbi_S2

권은비 아육대 역조공 .. 롯데리아 쿠폰 + 점심 도시락 + 간식 + 스벅 자허블 + "저녁 1인1닭" ㄷ ㄷ

It’s that time of the year when K-Pop idols play physical games to win in a TV show called Idol Star Athletics Championships (a.k.a. 아육대) which will be on air during Chuseok holiday in September. Hundreds of idols and thousands of fans gathered in a stadium near Seoul the weekend before last to play games and film the show. Since it takes a whole day to shoot, from dawn till night, attending 아육대 shooting is a nightmare for K-Pop fans. However, they go to cheer and support their stars anyway. To appreciate fans’ support, idols or their agencies prepare snacks and meals for fans. It became a K-Pop culture of “역조공 (yeok-jogong)” meaning “reversed jogong.” I’ll explain about “jogong” later. Every year, fans share pics of what they got from their stars including a lunch box, a hamburger, and many others. This year was no exception. Among them, one tweet went viral between K-Pop fans ☝ According to the tweet, Kwon Eun-bi, a solo K-Pop girl idol, gave her fans a free meal coupon to a fast food chain, a lunchbox, a snack box, a Starbucks drink, and a chicken box for dinner. Her “yeok-jogong” went viral in Korea for giving the most amount of food to fans at 아육대.

Like I said, “yeok-jogong” means “reversed jogong.” And “jogong” is a tradition that goes back to over 2,000 years. Before Jesus was born, when Korea was consisted of three kingdoms, China was like the big brother country in East Asia. Many younger brother countries like three kingdoms of Korea gave China valuable goods and food to pay a tribute. This tradition is called “jogong.” Korean students learn about this at a history class in school. So it’s a very familiar word for young Koreans or K-Pop fans. They must’ve thought it’s similar with their tradition of gifting their idols. So they started calling their gift to stars as “jogong.” Sooner or later, idols started gifting their fans in return especially during special events like 아육대. And fans named this culture as “yeok-jogong” since it’s a kind of reversed gifting from stars to fans. “yeok” means “reversed” in Korean

In short, “jogong” is (fans 🎁👉 stars) and “yeok-jogong” is (stars 🎁👉 fans.) Even though the three kingdoms had fallen in 668, their tradition has survived though in a totally different setting!

Finger Heart 👉 Gyaru Peace 👉 NEW. 🤭

An Yu-jin from IVE, a K-Pop girl group

The era of finger heart and gyaru peace has gone. Let me introduce a new & hot selfie sign called Ban Yoon-hee ☝ How you do is simple. Just like the pic above, cover your mouth with your hand showing inside of your hand (like you’re kissing outside of your fingers). Pro tip. If you slouch your body forward a little and take a full body shot from above, it would be perfect! This sign or pose is named after Ban Yoon-hee, a Korean teenage girls’ fashion icon during early 2000s. The sign was her signature selfie pose. With Y2K fashion is trending in Korea, this selfie sign from Y2K is trending between young Koreans as well. A lot of K-Pop idols are already doing this pose, whether they’re girls or boys. If you’re bored of finger heart sign or gyaru peace, try this latest pose and feel K-Y2K vibe 😎

---

Wrapping up

Have you felt lonely and gloomy scrolling through Instagram feed at night? There’s a song for you, Instagram sung by Dean, a Korean singer ☝ It’s filled with lyrics that any Instagram users will relate to. Among them,

내일이 올 걸 아는데 난 핸드폰을 놓지 못해. 잠은 올 생각이 없대, yeah. 다시 인스타그램, 인스타그램 하네. “I know tomorrow is coming but I can’t let go of my phone. Sleep just isn’t coming to me, yeah. So I’m on Instagram, Instagram again.”

Words in the lyric,

1. 내일 Tomorrow

2. 핸드폰 (Mobile) phone

3. 잠 N. Sleep

4. 다시 Again

5. 인스타그램 하다 V. To be on Instagram

👄 Practice speaking the line with my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or others. Don’t forget to record your voice and send me your voice message 👇 If you send it by 4 pm Wednesday, August 17th ET, your voice will be on the next podcast episode!

As some of you might already know, large scale floods hit Seoul this week and at least eleven people died including a family who lived in a semi-underground house. I was shocked and devastated to hear the news. While Seoul is suffering from heavy rainfall, the southern part of South Korea which is where I live is suffering from severe draught. I guess global warming is taking a toll around the world. So please take care and stay safe 🙏

멜유 ｡o♡o｡+🎀 @i_melody_you

비가 너무 많이와서 지하철 출구가.... 막혔음...... 이게 말이 돼...? 거의 홍수야

Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, share with your friends or leave a tip 💖 to support my work. See you next week. 안녕!