์๋ ! Itโs Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder ๐ Iโm back from a break :D Todayโs 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. Itโll help me a lot keep creating my newsletter and podcast. ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค (Thank you) ๐
Now letโs start todayโs newsletter!
๐ง You can listen to me read and chat on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or others.
Japchae For Your Weekend Lunch
Todayโs food is a holiday side dish in Korea. Itโs 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 itโs 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 thereโs 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. Thatโs it! Itโll 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
Itโs 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. ์์ก๋) 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 ์์ก๋ shooting is a nightmare for K-Pop fans. However, they go to cheer and support their stars anyway. To appreciate fansโ support, idols or their agencies prepare snacks and meals for fans. It became a K-Pop culture of โ์ญ์กฐ๊ณต (yeok-jogong)โ meaning โreversed jogong.โ Iโll explain about โjogongโ 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 โ 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 โyeok-jogongโ went viral in Korea for giving the most amount of food to fans at ์์ก๋.
Like I said, โyeok-jogongโ means โreversed jogong.โ And โjogongโ 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 โjogong.โ Korean students learn about this at a history class in school. So itโs a very familiar word for young Koreans or K-Pop fans. They mustโve thought itโs similar with their tradition of gifting their idols. So they started calling their gift to stars as โjogong.โ Sooner or later, idols started gifting their fans in return especially during special events like ์์ก๋. And fans named this culture as โyeok-jogongโ since itโs a kind of reversed gifting from stars to fans. โyeokโ means โreversedโ in Korean
In short, โjogongโ is (fans ๐๐ stars) and โyeok-jogongโ is (stars ๐๐ fans.) Even though the three kingdoms had fallen in 668, their tradition has survived though in a totally different setting!
Finger Heart ๐ Gyaru Peace ๐ NEW. ๐คญ
The era of finger heart and gyaru peace has gone. Let me introduce a new & hot selfie sign called Ban Yoon-hee โ How you do is simple. Just like the pic above, cover your mouth with your hand showing inside of your hand (like youโre 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 girlsโ 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 theyโre girls or boys. If youโre bored of finger heart sign or gyaru peace, try this latest pose and feel K-Y2K vibe ๐
Wrapping up
Have you felt lonely and gloomy scrolling through Instagram feed at night? Thereโs a song for you, Instagram sung by Dean, a Korean singer โ Itโs filled with lyrics that any Instagram users will relate to. Among them,
๋ด์ผ์ด ์ฌ ๊ฑธ ์๋๋ฐ ๋ ํธ๋ํฐ์ ๋์ง ๋ชปํด. ์ ์ ์ฌ ์๊ฐ์ด ์๋, yeah. ๋ค์ ์ธ์คํ๊ทธ๋จ, ์ธ์คํ๊ทธ๋จ ํ๋ค. โI know tomorrow is coming but I canโt let go of my phone. Sleep just isnโt coming to me, yeah. So Iโm on Instagram, Instagram again.โ
Words in the lyric,
๋ด์ผ Tomorrow
ํธ๋ํฐ (Mobile) phone
์ N. Sleep
๋ค์ Again
์ธ์คํ๊ทธ๋จ ํ๋ค V. To be on Instagram
๐ Practice speaking the line with my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or others. Donโt forget to record your voice and send me your voice message ๐ 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 ๐
Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, share with your friends or leave a tip ๐ to support my work. See you next week. ์๋ !
์๋ ํ์ธ์! I wanted to share some Korean bands I listen to if youโre ever stuck for a mic drop line. As well, for anyone interested in a new recommendation:
-ADOY
-SE SO NEON
-Offing
-Woo
Thanks!