A Rose by the Same Name

One of the things I learned early on in my obsession with Korean drama is that I can’t take anything for granted. Everything about the shows I watch—from their language to their characters to the pop-cultural seas that spawned them—is almost totally different from what I’m used.

Take The Secret Garden. I watched this 2011 Korean drama early on in my relationship with Kdrama, assuming it was related to the beloved children’s book written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This belief was one of the reasons I hated the series—the book The Secret Garden was my constant childhood companion, and I’ve probably seen its lovely 1993 movie adaptation at least a hundred times. (Watching it is like taking a long, leisurely vacation without having to leave the couch.)

But the only thing the Korean series and its Western counterparts share is the occasional appearance of a plant or two. Maybe the book’s title was something the drama’s writers were aware of, but maybe not. There’s also a Korean precedent for the name: a garden in Changdeok Palace has been called Biwon—generally translated as Secret Garden—since the late nineteenth century. My Secret Garden actually came later: it wasn’t even published until 1911. So if I automatically believe that the drama took its name from the book, should I also believe that the book took its name from the Korean place?

There’s also the issue of translating titles, which is a notoriously difficult task and more of an art than a science. Words and ideas don’t always have exact correspondences from language to language, so there will always be a degree of interpretation involved in any translation. (This is why there are so many fabulous internet lists of word English is sadly lacking. Here’s one from the magazine Mental Floss.) As I know fewer Korean words than some elephants, I’m in no position to assess the true meaning of a drama’s title.

On the other hand, it can be pretty obvious that some Korean shows really do take their names from Western predecessors. Last summer’s boy/man body-swap drama Big is a perfect example: it borrowed the title and general theme of a 1988 Tom Hanks movie. (In contrast, titles rarely travel from Korea to the West. The only one I can think of is the Attack the Block, a movie released in the UK in 2011 that’s purportedly a homage to Korea’s 1999 Attack the Gas Station. I haven’t seen the later, but the former is a wonderful blend of black comedy, horror, and social commentary.)

As I can’t get enough of writing about things I don’t understand, here’s a quick rundown of some Korean shows that share similar titles with a Western doppelgänger.

Drama Drop: Summer’s Desire (2010)

Dropped

I called this show quits after episode 8 (but then skipped forward to watch the finale while writing this. I think I made the right decision—unlike the heroine).

Category

Taiwanese romance

What it’s about
An obsessive love triangle starring three orphans who meet as children and all grow up to be what the show calls “celebrities.” (As far as I can tell, all this requires is occasionally making time in their busy love-triangle schedule for dance practice.)

Thanks, but no thanks

(Note that handsome chaebol heirs, like this one from Protect the Boss, will always be a “yes, please.”)

Last week I wrote about how much we Americans have to learn from the world around us, if only we pay attention to it. I’ve also been thinking about the flip side—that some beliefs and ideals are so specific to a time or place that they just don’t relate to the experience of living elsewhere.

Here are some drama standbys that don’t exist in the West, possibly for good reason.

Curing indigestion with a needle. Whenever someone in dramaland has an upset stomach, they ask a friend to prick their thumb with a needle. Maybe it really works—there’s always the placebo effect, or maybe an open wound on your thumb would distract you from the pain in your stomach. Heck, maybe the invisible energy of chi is somehow involved. I have no idea, but I do know that Alka Seltzer works like a charm and has been sufficient for Americans for quite some time now.

A short public service announcement

As has been widely noted, Drama Crazy is no more. In honor of this tragic occasion, I’ve updated the section of streaming sites in my list of drama-related links.

It’s also worth mentioning that this shutdown doesn’t seem to be the result of legal problems, unlike the shuttering of other streaming sites. (I’ve posted about several of these here: Copyright and Other Dilemmas and When Drama Fever Strikes. Also worth reading is Beavergate, Mr. X’s insightful article on the topic.) Based on their goodbye message, it seems that the folks at Drama Crazy just got sick of running the site. It must have been a huge job, and updates there had been becoming increasingly rare over the past few months.

Thank you for all the good times, Drama Crazy. You’ll be missed.

Drama Review: Nine (2013)

Grade: A

Category

Mind-bending time travel

What it’s about

After the death of his troubled brother, Sun Woo decides to make the person who destroyed his family pay. But his quest for vengeance is complicated by the nine magical incense sticks his brother died trying to find—each one offers a chance to travel twenty years back in time. Sun Woo eventually gives in to the temptation to use them in an attempt to avert his family’s tragedy in the first place. As anyone who’s ever seen a drama or movie about time traveling can predict, all hell immediately breaks loose.

First impression

I can just hear the pitch for this show now: the nostalgic charm of Answer Me, 1997 meets the mind-bending time travel of...well...every other show on Korean television in 2012. Nine has excellent an pedigree, at least—it was made by the creative team behind last year’s wonderful Queen In-hyun’s Man. Like QIHM, Nine’s first few episodes suffer from overwrought editing that feels desperate to make an impression. But as of episode 2, the series has evolved into an intriguing, fast-paced mystery.

The world out there

“You didn’t sort your trash, you slattern!”

One of the weird side effects of my obsession with Korean drama is that I know a lot more about the world than I used to. This gives me a different perspective from a lot of Americans—I realize that our way of doing things isn’t the only possible way.

Take the big news from New York City: America’s most densely populated urban area is now encouraging the composting of food waste. This will save the city money in the short term by reducing the amount of trash that goes into landfills, and in the long term will create environmentally friendly fertilizer that might even be a source of income someday. Predictably, people aren’t crazy about the idea: compost is stinky, New York is already teeming with rats, and recycling actually requires some small degree of effort.

But if you’ve seen the 2004 drama Sweet Eighteen, you know that New York City isn’t the first place to recycle metropolitan food waste. Korea has been experimenting with it since the early 1990s, and Sweet Eighteen gives a funny glimpse into a reality of everyday life in cities around the world—the great rubbish battle. The drama’s flighty young heroine spends a lot of time avoiding her apartment block’s ajumma trash police, who constantly try to make her follow food disposal rules. Failing at that, they end up re-sorting her garbage themselves—the only alternative to paying government fines for improperly prepared trash.

In Korea, food waste becomes fertilizer, biogas, or even pig feed. People buy special trash bags and sort their waste themselves, or suffer any number of unpleasant consequences. (The thought of the neighborhood gossips going through my trash would be more than enough motivation to get me to recycle food waste, that’s for sure.)  

In press coverage of New York’s new program, other American cities that already recycle food waste are mentioned. But nobody ever notes what we drama watchers realize: it’s a worldwide phenomenon with a long history.

And this isn’t the only instance of Kdramas exposing me to ways of thinking and living that are unfamiliar to most Americans. Here a few things that are just different in Korea.

Drama Review: Capital Scandal (2007)

Grade: B

Category

Action romance

What it’s about

During Japan’s occupation of Korea, a naïve, uncompromisingly idealistic bookseller joins the underground resistance movement. She befriends a colorful cast of characters there, including a tough gisaeng and a ladies’ man who bets his friends he can turn her into a modern woman—in spite of her conservative values and the traditional hanbok she always wears.

First impression

I can’t say that I love this show’s opening. The action is cartoony and the costumes look like they belong on stage at my local high school’s talent night. I’m optimistic that it will get better as it goes along, though—I’m a big fan of its playboy-redeemed-by-the-love-of-an-upright-girl theme. And how can you go wrong with something that’s based on a novel by the author of Coffee Prince’s source material?