안녕! It’s Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder 🎉 Today’s newsletter is about a sweet winter snack, an unique K-Pop fan culture, and how to ask your dates about their nationality in Korean. Let’s start!
You Should Try This Sweet Winter Snack
There’s a popular street snack Koreans enjoy during the winter. It’s a flat and round bread filled with melted brown sugar and crushed nuts. It’s called 호떡 or hotteok. It’s very easy to make. Though it’s a bread, you don’t even need an oven to make this since it’s fried on a pan. This sweet winter snack goes very well with a coffee, milk, or tea. It’ll make a good buddy for your tea or coffee or Netflix time on your peaceful weekend. Watch a cooking video and try for yourself!
A small warning from a Korean who has grown up with this snack: The melted sugar filling could be very hot so be careful not to burn your tongue when biting the bread.
Why Following BTS Jin's Meal Tray Account Might Help You
Jin of BTS, the biggest K-Pop group, started his mandatory military duty on Tuesday 😢 Though we may not see him for a while, we can see what he eats in the military. About two months before his enlistment, a new Twitter account was created. It’s 석지니의 식판 meaning “Jin’s meal trays.” The account 👆 follows meals and desserts Jin has during his duty. It’s one of K-Pop fan cultures that can only exists in Korea where all healthy men have mandatory military duty. Since soldiers’ meal plan information is public, fans check the information and photoshop meal trays based on the plans to upload and share online. It’s the way they feel connected with idols even when they can’t see their stars.
I don’t know when this culture started but the first time I learned was around 2018 when EXO Xiumin started his military duty. One Eri which is EXO’s fandom name started a Twitter account called 시우민의 식판 meaning “Xiumin’s meal trays”👆 and it went viral. After that, many meal tray accounts were born and following military-serving-idols’ meal plans became a fan culture. When Xiumin discharged in 2020, the account admin left a closing letter to its followers. Let me translate a part of it for you.
When the missed one is in the military which is no ordinary settings, his meal plans were the only new information I get to have consistently. Thanks to that, I was able to say, “Did you eat something? What do you eat today? Have a good meal,” three times a day thinking of a face of the missed one. And it filled up my empty heart.
If you’re an ARMY and you miss Jin already, why don’t you follow his meal tray account? It could fill up your heart and stomach, too since it could help your meal planning with 3-times-a-day new Korean food inspiration.
Ask Your Dates About Their Nationality
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Today’s Korean mission is to ask your dates about their nationality and say your nationality. It’s super easy!
Q. 어느 나라에서 왔어요? What country are you from?
A. 저는 your country에서 왔어요. I’m from (your country).
Some Korean country names end in 국 including 한국 (South Korea), 미국 (the US), 영국 (the UK), and 중국 (China). 국 means “country” in Chinese Korean.
Practice with my video 😎 above to meet your celebrity dates who are from different countries. If you have any questions or feedbacks, leave a comment on my TikTok or here in my newsletter.
One last thing for today is a song made and sung by Choi Yu-jin (aki), one of Itewon tragedy victims. She was a 21-year-old student. She studied music at NYU in New York, the US. She was a singer-songwriter and released a song titled Love Me Right this year. It’s December 16th, Friday. It’s been 49 days since the tragedy. In Korea, we commemorate the missed one on the 49th day after dead. So I wanted to share her song with you to remember her and other victims. Listen to the song 👇 It’s great!
Today’s newsletter is the last one for this year. I take a break for the next two weeks. Thank you for being my subscriber for the year. Thank you for being a dear friend of this talkative Korean girl. I hope I helped your weekend meal planning or helped you improve your Korean skills, even the slightest bit. And I hope I can be your friend next year, too 😘
Have a great Christmas and end-of-year holidays! If you liked my newsletter, like, share, or leave a tip 👇 to support my work. It’ll help me a lot to keep creating. I’ll be back in new year! 안녕!
It's nice to see the meals Jin is eating pictured in that way. I admit I found them intriguing and oddly comforting! The food looks quite delicious and nourishing, and I hope he is staying healthy and safe!