Order a Coffee & Tteokbokki in Korean
At my virtual café & restaurant
안녕하세요, it’s Ari, your friendly Korean source and your weekend reminder🎉 Today’s newsletter is about an invitation to a brand-new café & restaurant, a hot trend between young Koreans, and a sweet & crispy winter snack recipe. Let’s start!
🎧 You can listen to this newsletter on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or other your favorite podcast platforms.
📢 My virtual Korean cafe & restaurant are coming!
I have an update for my virtual Korean café & restaurant project 🎉 It’ll open on February 21st, Monday KST. If you live in U.S. or Europe, it’ll be February 20th, Sunday. It’ll be a role-playing on Zoom & YouTube. On Zoom, I'll be your cashier/waitress and you’ll make an order in Korean, and if you’re adventurous, have a small talk with me, too. The virtual café & restaurant will be livestreamed on my YouTube channel during opening hours. Each will open for 45 mins a day, two days a week, Monday (café) & Thursday (tteokbokki restaurant). There will be a quiz and mini Korean lesson as well.
You can enjoy my café & restaurant in two ways.
Make an order & have a small talk with me in Korean, on Zoom. Save your seat in advance on thelegitkorean.com. It’ll cost a coffee price, 3.95 USD.
Watch a livestream of the café & restaurant on my YouTube channel. You can watch a mini Korean lesson and participate in a quiz in live chats.
Either way is fine :D There will be rehearsal days that you can visit for free before official opening. Check out more details on thelegitkorean.com. If you have any questions, let me know in comments. See you soon! ☕🥪🍝
🛍 Why young Koreans run to shop designer bags
A YouTuber's fake designer clothing scandal recently rocked Korean Internet. Song Ji-ah, a 20-something YouTuber ☝ known for her luxury goods shopping haul videos admitted that she used fake designer clothing when filming her videos. One of her videos titled, “A hot girl who shop groceries in a Louis Vuitton dress and Moncler puffer jacket” is now deleted along with her other videos. She recently starred in Single’s Inferno, Netflix’s reality dating show in which she admittedly wore fake designer clothing as well.
She turned out to be one of many young Koreans who wear fake or/and authentic designer clothing and bags. There’s a new trend called, 오픈런(open run) meaning “running to shop as soon as a designer brand shop opens.” On any day, you can easily see dozens of young people lining up in front of a department store to run to shop a limited Channel bag or Rolex watch. (I saw them too! 🙃) Some of them start lining up a day before to be the first to shop, some set up a tent to stay warm during cold days, and some make money for lining up for hours for someone else. As soon as the store opens, they literally run. Even short-cuts to a shop are shared online.
European designer brands like Channel and Gucci have long been loved by Koreans. There’s a (weird 🙃) tradition that a bride-to-be receives a designer bag, mostly Channel, from a groom-to-be before wedding. It’s kind of hard to see 20 or 30 something Koreans who don’t have at least one designer goods (at least between my friends). However, since authentic ones are often unaffordable and now they’re sold out because of ‘open run,’ many people buy cheap fake ones as well.
South Korea is a highly-materialistic society. I often feel that too many people ‘worship’ the rich. Song Ji-ah became popular in Korea mainly because she was believed to be from a rich family. Her fans admired her for spending 15 million KRW (12,400 USD) on a few pieces of clothing. Many popular YouTubers and influencers are showing off their designer goods and Korean celebrities are promoting designer bags on Instagram, which is adding the number of young Koreans who ‘open run.’
The recent fake designer clothing scandal reminded me of the fake rich couple scandal that rocked Korean Internet about two years ago. A popular YouTuber couple pretended to be the super-rich, one of Tesla's angel investors, which later turned out to be a lie. They showed off their super car collections which later turned out to be not theirs. They deleted their channel, in the end. Some people say that the two scandals are the same because they both pretended to be rich when they really aren't. But for me, the scandals are the same because they both show how much people worship the rich.
🍳 Korean-style fried sweet potato
Koreans had Lunar New Year holiday this week. There are many food we eat during the holiday including tteokguk. It’s the time of year Koreans gain weight from eating too much of high-calorie holiday food. One of the biggest weight contributor is fried sweet potato or 고구마튀김. It’s very easy to make. Prepare one or two sweet potatoes. Thick-slice it and coat the slices with Korean frying mix and then fry them. That’s it! It’s soft and sweet inside and crispy outside, if you cook it right. It’ll make a great winter snack :D If you dip it in soy sauce, it’ll add contrasting-but-great salty taste and some moisture? to the sweet food. Watch the video above and cook for yourself 😋
Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, ❤ or share it to make my day :D or support me by buying my Korean vocabulary exercise book. It’s available on my shop (e-book) and Amazon (paperback). Use discount code ‘happyvalentine’ to get 15% off when you buy an e-book.
Don't forget to visit my virtual Korean café/restaurant where you can freely make mistakes while ordering your coffee, sandwich or tteokbokki in Korean! Click the below button to book your visit :D
Leave a question, what you want to know about my country or ☕ to let me know you’re coming to my café/restaurant in comments. Enjoy 2022 Winter Olympics! See you the week after next or sooner! 안녕👋
아리씨!! 안녕하세요!! I’m so excited to see your virtual café and to practice Korean with you, although I’m so nervous ㅎㅎ. 좋은 하루 되세요💛