I completely forgot to post here that I wrote all about my trip to Korea (which happened in May) over at the Lee & Low blog a few weeks ago. I keep meaning to post pictures from it—which will end up going on my Tumblr, I think—but if you missed the link a few weeks back on other social media, check out the post here. Basically, I went to visit a friend in Seoul and then traveled around the country from there. It was a blast. If you want to see more pictures as i post them from time to time on Tumblr, follow my blog over there (which I post at more often, because it’s easier to quickly share interesting things as I find them online and throw them into a queue).
On a whim tonight, I looked at what movies were playing, and I was really not impressed with the selection. It seemed like a lot of badly done action movies next to sequels to movies I never saw (and though I’ve heard that the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was fun, the second isn’t faring as well in the comments I’ve seen from friends).
I very nearly ended up going home instead of going to a movie. I hate feeling like going to a movie in the theater but not having anything to go see. But hey, there is a new episode of The Master’s Sun to watch on Hulu/DramaFever, after all, and I have plenty of reading to do anyway. Before I resigned myself to a movie-less night, I checked the theater I pass by on my way to the subway just to see if there was anything interesting. Sometimes they play indie movies I might not have heard of.
Serendipitously, a movie I’d seen a preview for months ago via K-drama friends (or maybe DramaFever?) about a Korean American guy who meets a girl in Korea and tries to have a long-distance relationship with her was actually opening tonight. Like Austenland(which you should see if you haven’t yet!), it’s an indie movie whose wider release will depend on how well it does opening weekend. It got reviewed in the New York Times yesterday, but I didn’t read the review before attending because I didn’t want to be accidentally spoiled. Turns out it was a good review without any spoilers, so you’re safe to read that one. Check out the trailer:
Margaret Cho in a cameo as the shaman.
Wedding Palace begins with a wedding. Jason gets left at the altar when his bride, Jinny, runs off with the cake decorator. On her way out the door, she runs him over and he ends up in the hospital with multiple broken bones (and some massive old-school casts). Jason’s family thinks, “This is a sign! The family curse!”
That’s right, there’s a family curse, which puts a fun spin on the rom-com thing–the men in the family must wed before they turn 30 or they die, because one ancestor* canceled out on his bride sometime wayyy back. (The big-foreheaded cartoon style in the telling of the family curse was kind of jarring because I’m so used to Korean-style chibi (or whatever chibi is called in Korean), but it grew on you.)
And that’s where it all really gets going. Jason’s just a few months off from his 30th birthday and his parents are starting to get nervous. They start setting him up with any appropriate girl, but of course, the question is, what’s appropriate? The parents are portrayed as super traditional—they’re looking for high achievement, lots of money, traditional girl who cooks, that kind of thing. There’s this really awkward scene in which Jason’s best friend lauds how great the married life is to such a girl, because, among other things, she makes her own kimchi** and serves his every need (and talks to him in baby talk?)!
Jason decides to give up, and his parents get even more worried because family curse! But he can’t think about it now, Mom and Dad, because he has to work hard on a project he’s going to be presenting in Seoul the next day.
Seoul, you say?
Mom and Dad’s ears perk up then. He gets set up on blind dates in Seoul, too, including one with a girl who thinks “Dahmer was pretty cool.” Crash and burn. But as he’s sending off that drunk date in a taxi, he runs into a woman he met earlier that day during his presentation at work, Na Young. And the cute romance begins, contrasting first generation Korean American parents and grandparents who came over in the 70s against modern-day Koreans from Korea, suggesting that the former are actually more traditional than the latter.***
All in all, a cute rom com with a twist that you won’t see coming— after watching the trailer again, I realized that what I thought was a twist was actually in the trailer, so I won’t worry that’s a spoiler—but that you’ll realize was set up perfectly in hindsight. It has some flaws in the storytelling—moments that went on too long, that kind of thing. But it was funny and cute and well worth my time, and it was great to see a different perspective of Korean culture in the media than that of a Korean drama. I love dramas, but they have their own tropes and stereotypes, and most of them seem to have a particular point of view that is very different from the POV of Wedding Palace.
I must say, though, my favorite character had to be Halmoni (Grandma). First she has a heart attack when she learns Na Young’s secret, then she escapes from the hospital and convinces a couple of Latino guys in a car outside the hospital—in excellent Spanish—that she needs a ride to stop a wedding. SO CUTE. Watch the movie for Halmoni alone, even if a rom com isn’t your thing. And I love Margaret Cho in anything.
After the movie was over, the director Christine Yoo—this is her feature film debut—came out and did a Q&A, so I was pretty lucky to have run into this screening tonight! She talked about the challenges of making an indie movie, of finding the funding they needed and of finding distribution, of trying to get it into film festivals and not making it, and how this weekend was all-important to whether the movie would get a wider release.
I raised my hand and asked if she’d seen interest in the movie from K-drama fans, and she turned it around on me and asked how I’d found out about it, because she hoped that was the case! I hope that DramaFever fans are talking it up to each other–I’m going to go check after posting this.
And that’s where we get into the diversity in the media part of the post. Ms. Yoo is third generation Korean American, and a woman. She said that something like six percent of the academy of directors (or whatever it’s called—I missed the name) are women, and we’ve talked here and elsewhere about how bad representation is across the board for minorities in the movies and TV. She spoke of the opposition she faced at getting the film out there, that higher-ups questioned what kind of universal appeal a movie about Korean Americans and Koreans with an all-Korean cast could have in the US, and even tried to get her to cast the best friend as a white guy for that “appeal.”
It’s a problem across the board—not just in movies and TV, but in the Tony Awards, and—as we know—in children’s books. It’s why I started Tu Books, and it’s why Lee & Low is in business in the first place. And she spoke to exactly the thing we’ve been discussing across the L&L social media: If we want diverse media to happen, we need to be sure to support it. Word of mouth is supremely important, as is supporting a new movie like this in its first weekend so it lives to see another weekend. I’d also say the same for TV, books, etc.—which is why I’m giving Sleepy Hollow a few more weeks before I make a final judgement on it, because it really is doing great at the diversity, and it’s a very beautifully made show, even if it’s weaker in other parts. The more we support diversity by putting our money where our mouth is, the more of it we’ll see getting a chance to continue to be made—and the cream will rise to the top. Too often, Hollywood seems to have the idea that movies flop because “women don’t sell” or “minorities don’t sell” when they only give one movie a chance, but no matter how many flops starring white men, they never say “white men don’t sell.” So it’s an uphill battle and we can make a difference as consumers just by supporting the good ones—and even the medium-quality ones—with support, with word of mouth, and so forth. So this is me, doing what I can, and I hope that you’ll take a chance on this one. If not this one, then on The Butler (which I haven’t had a chance to go see yet) or Austenlandor any other movie or TV show which might not make it without our support.
As I said above, Wedding Palace is only in limited release, so it’s only in New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and a couple of locations in Hawaii this weekend. If you’re in any of those areas, be sure to go see it. If you’re not in any of those areas, encourage your friends who live nearby to see it so you’ll be able to see it in your location, and keep an eye on the website for announcements of where it might be next.
*well, not direct line, obviously, because he died before he had the chance
**I’m not sure the making-her-own-kimchi thing is all that different from most Korean women I’ve known from Korea who have been my roommates and friends, but maybe I’m just friends with more traditional people? After all, most of my Korean friends are Mormon, and Mormons tend to be pretty traditional about their cultures in many ways.
***Again, not sure how true that is more widely, but among the Koreans I know, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and Korean dramas (which are such a reflection of reality, I’m sure!) imply that there’s certainly at least a strong contingent of more traditional Koreans as well, though perhaps not stuck in the 70s, as the main character thinks of Korean Americans.
I’ve been meaning to post Korean TV (K-drama) recommendations for a while, but I haven’t quite gotten around to it. Recently, my new-ish Korean friends here in New York moved upstate and made some new friends who were looking for k-drama recommendations. My friends don’t watch much TV themselves, so I had the chance to finally make a list of some of my favorites, which of course makes a great seed for a blog post!
But I’m going to do something different. Instead of making yet another list with links, I’m going to make a Pinterest board, so I can keep adding to it when I find a new show to recommend. I’ve also started collecting some of my booklists tag into Pinterest lists, in case it’s easier for you to follow those there. Here’s my main Pinterest profile, and from there you can follow what interests you.
I watch K-dramas at both hulu.com and dramafever.com. I prefer to give you links to DramaFever, because it’s free there (some can only be seen on Hulu if you pay for Hulu Plus; I do because then I can watch them on my phone and Xbox). But Hulu is easier to pin—there is no easy image to grab on the show’s main page on DramaFever, for some reason. So, the dilemma is: pin DramaFever without an easy-t0-grab image, pin Hulu with the image but a link that not everyone can watch at, or both? I think both, for now.
The premium membership at DramaFever can be a good deal, by the way, because they are commercial-free—which Hulu isn’t, which makes no sense; if you’re paying for it, you ought to be able to watch commercial-free. Though DramaFever did just raise their rates, which means that it’s not quite such a good deal. (Last year it was only something like $49 a year, which breaks down to less than $5 per month. I think it doubled this year, but still, if you watch a lot of K-dramas, it’s worth it to be able to watch commercial free.)
At any rate, follow the links over on Pinterest for more K-dramas! And if Pinterest is not your thing, don’t worry–you don’t have to be a member to use the lists as a resource.
My cousin is in town this weekend, and we have a tradition of walking around wherever we are with our fancy cameras and seeing who can get a great shot. Not so much a competition as just a way of sharing our interest in photography (me: semi-pro hobbyist who used to think about photography as a career, him: indie filmmaker and professional at the Armed Forces Network). Today, neither of us brought our good cameras, so we had to rely on our cell phone cameras (me: a Droid X which is EXTREMELY slow in reaction time, him: iPhone).
It just so happens that there was a parade and festival in Koreatown today. I found out because I saw a poster on the wall outside the restaurant on 32nd Street last night where I stopped for dinner on my way home from work.
So we saw a bit of the parade—there were some really gorgeous hanboks
예뻐다!!
and other traditional clothing in several groups–
and then wandered down the street sampling ddukboki and kimbap and stuff like that. One of the drumming groups (below) was practicing for a performance on the stage. Not sure if they got the chance to perform—we left when it started to rain and when I came back to walk to the train on my way home, they were gone. The stage had a roof on it so hopefully they were able to perform. (Again, crappy cell phone pictures. I kind of like the blur, but I hated how I had no control over it.)
Below, here they’re making injeolmi (which I believe is the sticky rice paste needed to make things like ddukbokki—someone correct me if I’m wrong). I had a hard time getting the right information from my fellow bystanders because the two women I was standing next two disagreed on who was right. I think the one to my left was Thai, and she said it started out the same kind of sticky rice as Thai glutinous sticky rice, but the other lady said no, no, it’s injeolmi, which I have no idea how it relates to other kinds of sticky rice. I’ll have to look it up. I loved seeing the way they pounded it—I imagine this is much more of a traditional form of pounding it than something that’s currently practiced widely. But I could be wrong.
As we stood eating ddukbokki and kimbap, a cameraman came up and asked me if I knew what I was eating. “Of course, it’s ddukbokki,” I said. He filmed me and asked me a few more questions (do you know why there’s a parade today, what do you know about Korea, why are you interested in Korea) and I answered him in a combination of English and my broken Korean (because he had just been talking with a group of ajummas next to us in Korean, so I knew he spoke it, and later he confirmed he’s with Korean TV station KBS).
So… if you’re in Korea, if you see coverage on KBS of the New York City Koreafest, maybe you might see me on TV! He seemed to expect that I wouldn’t know what I was eating, so he might not use it at all if he found someone who had no clue. Who knows?
Here’s my cousin and his friend trying on some mascot heads for a resort planned I believe on Jeju Island, which if you don’t know, a lot of Koreans describe as their version of Hawaii. Jeju is known for its tangerines and, I just learned from watching Tamra Island, had some pretty matriarchal traditions even in the years in which the rest of Korea was strictly patriarchal, due to the importance to their economy of the women who dove for abalone. I have a feeling that the show, of course, exaggerated a lot more than the comic-book nature of the plot, so I’m not sure how much of what they portrayed about the women wearing the “pants” of the family is historical fact, but it’s pretty cool and something I want to know more about. By the way, that show is called “Tamra” here in the U.S. but I’m unclear on why. If you listen to the actors when they refer to the old name for Jeju Island, they’re clearly saying “Tamna,” which is also what the Hangul says (탐나는 도다, Tamnaneun Doda).
And yes, I just about exhausted my knowledge of Korean right there, same as when I told the cameraman that “ddukbokki joayo” (ddukbokki is good) and being there made me “hangbokae” (happy). I’m sure I slaughtered the conjugation of the verb that means “is good,” but hey, I’m still a beginner. Also, if you end up watching Tamra the Island, don’t worry about Caucasian mullet-boy who’s supposed to be English but who speaks better Korean than he does English. It’s quite cheesy and the English is downright laughable at first in the first episode or so (the Korean actor is better at English than the “English” one who is actually a French model) but it’s a cute, comic-book-esque story that is worth sticking around for.
And I had a number of other interesting conversations with people who were surprised when I told them I watched Korean dramas. I thought the Hallyu was becoming a big thing now, but apparently it’s still surprising enough when a Caucasian is interested?
By the way, if you’re interested in learning Korean, I’ve found Talk to Me in Korean very fun and friendly to learn from. Their podcasts and videos are short (usually around 15 minutes) and very conversational, starting with very basic phrases like annyeonghaseyo (hello) and building from there in a nice logical way, and explaining things in a way that makes things make so much more sense culturally and linguistically, which is more than I can say for the book I’d been using before that. Living Language has been great in many ways, but they made what I’d already learned from my Living Language set make actual sense, and it felt like I was talking to one of my Korean friends rather than studying out of a book and listening to static phrases. I’m still going to use the Living Language book to study from, but I’m going to rely on TTMIK to tell me what it all means.
On a whim tonight, I looked at what movies were playing, and I was really not impressed with the selection. It seemed like a lot of badly done action movies next to sequels to movies I never saw (and though I’ve heard that the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was fun, the second isn’t faring as well in the comments I’ve seen from friends).
All in all, a cute rom com with a twist 
