안녕, it’s Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder. 🎉 I took an unexpected break last week due to a lack of writing ideas. 🙏 Thankfully, I’m back with some fun stories to share!
Today’s newsletter is about a perfect late-night snack, dramas’ answers to a women’s old question, and a k-pop idol’s anti-American? message. Let’s start!
Soy Sauce Stir-Fried Tteok with Egg and Vegetables
This weekend is the Lunar New Year holiday in my country. Koreans have tteokguk to welcome the new year with their family. Tteok is rice cake, a common ingredient used in many Korean foods, including tteokbokki. If you like tteok but the only tteok dish you know is tteokbokki, and you attempt to cook it at night only to realize it takes too long to prepare and is too heavy to eat, I've got you covered. Let me introduce soy sauce stir-fried tteok with egg and vegetables. It's not only much easier to make but also healthier than tteokbokki. It makes a perfect late-night snack during your exams or Netflix binge-watching nights. Watch the cooking video and try it for yourself! The video is in Korean, but you can easily follow the recipe. Just note that the sauces to marinate the tteok are soy sauce 1 T, oyster sauce 1 T, sesame oil 1 T, and oligodang syrup 1/2 T. Bon appétit! 😋
Pair this dish with the potentially binge-worthy Netflix series ‘A Killer Paradox.’ If you enjoyed Dexter, a critic says you might find this new series intriguing. It’s releasing today!
Where Have All the Good Men Gone?
People say all the good men are either taken, gay, or fictional characters. Now we have one more: aliens. A new Japanese romance drama, "Eye Love You," 👆 has topped the most-watched TV series chart on Netflix Japan. In the series, a 30-year-old Japanese woman who can read people's minds by looking into their eyes meets a 26-year-old Korean man studying in Japan. Her superpower is useless with him because she can't understand his internal Korean voice. And just like every other romance drama, they start to fall in love with each other.
Chae Jong-hyeop, a K-drama star who starred in "Castaway Diva" and "Hot Stove League," played the Korean student in the series. This is the first time a Korean actor plays a lead character in a Japanese series that is aired in prime time. His character got popular online, reportedly for being everything Japanese men are not. For example, he is tall and big (Chae’s height is 186cm or 6 ft 1), 👇 he is very outgoing and expressive (in the first episode, he loudly asked, "do you like me?" to the heroine character, which is almost profane in Japan).
Many Korean women sympathized with the Japanese women's reaction. It reminded them of the big-hit K-drama series, "Crash Landing on You (2019-2020)." The series was about romance between a South Korean heiress and a North Korean soldier. It’s said that South Korean women fell in love with the male lead character because he was a North Korean, which is alien to them, and as a result, they can easily fantasize with.
Some analyze this trend as women who are frustrated with real-life men in their country turning to foreign men. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a ‘man.’ Mega-hit Korean romance dramas, “My Love from The Star” (2013-2014) and “Guardian: The Lonely and Great God” (2016-2017), each featured an extraterrestrial being who fell to earth and a 939-year-old goblin as male lead characters. “My Demon,” which ended last month, featured a demon male lead who can live eternally. I guess the quest for good men has no borders. 😈👽🇰🇵
If you think this article is not suitable for Valentine’s Day, please note that I just gave you some good romance drama recommendations. Happy Valentine’s Day! 😘
Mini Korean Lesson: Anti-Americanism
Recently, some K-pop idols' Bubble messages went viral for their awkward English translations. Bubble is a mobile app that offers online chat service between K-pop idols and their fans. While it provides a translation feature, it's not always accurate. I selected one message as an example:
난 요즘 반미에 꽂혀서 하루에 하나씩 먹고 있어.
The app translated the message very well, 👆 except for one word, which is "반미." It chose the wrong meaning between the two meanings of the word: anti-American and bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwich). Please note that it's a total coincidence that, in Korean, Vietnamese sandwich means anti-American. It's just because bánh mì is pronounced as “반미,” which happens to mean “anti-American.” 🫠 Another word to look at in this message is,
~에 꽂히다
: To be into, to be obsessed with ~
It’s a very common slang many Koreans use in their daily conversations. You can use this expression when talking about your current favorite food, idol, song, or anything else that you're recently obsessed with. For example,
요즘 한국 드라마에 꽂혀서 매일 보고 있어. (I’m into Korean dramas these days, so I'm watching them every day.)
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Hi, I’m a new lover of Korean food having dinner at many SAMGYUPSAL in my country Philippines. There are many new Korean Restaurants opening after the COVID Pandemic. My family and friends are fanatics of Kimchi but I tried many times and I couldn’t take the hot & spicy taste. What I loved are the pork grilled and beef slices served with lettuce leaves. I just wish you could convince me to love Kimchi which I learned from many Restaurants here is the number one ingredients for various Korean food.. I wanted to love it but my taste buds don’t like.😀 Another food I wanted to learn is the way eggs are cooked. . I loved it and my favorite when we dine at Korean Restaurants. Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts about Korean cuisine.
😀good men all taken nowadays.