Cooking for Character Development

Kimchi! Bibimbap! Jjajangmyun! After watching several Kdramas or reading some Manhwa, my mouth inevitably starts watering. With Manga, I crave Onigiri and restaurant quality Ramen. To satisfy my cravings, I decided to use my vacation break to whip up some of these treats.

On the left, you can admire the mouth watering goodness of my fresh kimchi. I used a recipe from Maangchi, a korean cooking website which I highly recommend. It presents the steps in detail with a photograph for each or alternatively you can watch a video of the preparation. Be prepared for lots of food. The original recipe called for ten pounds of cabbage.

I also served up bibimbap to my family. It was a confirmed success. Good thing too, cause it's hard to use up a whole container of Gochujang (hot red pepper paste) at one sitting.

...But then my mom asked, "Should we be consoling you about something?"

"What?" I naturally replied.
"Well, don't heroines of Korean soap operas cook bibimbap as a comfort food?" she explained.
And that got me thinking.

Insomnia and K-Dramas: Pt. 1 - An Introduction

Due to the fact that it is crazy-hot in my room, I am unable to fall asleep. Instead of cursing the summer weather and lamenting my lack of air-conditioning like I normally would, I decided to channel my energies into a new blog post that I've been meaning to write for a while on K-DRAMAS.

Winter Sonata - Megahit from early 2000s

K-dramas, short for Korean dramas, are a staple here at Manga Meditation. You may have noticed a previous foray into K-dramas with Blackbird's review of Delightful Girl Chun-Hyang, but believe me, that is only the tippity top of the very large, extensive and all-encompassing iceberg that is the K-drama world. We shall endeavor to delve further, starting with Part 1: An Introduction.

NOTE: There's no way that I'm going to be able to fully cover everything in this post, so I'm going to just hit on the big points and fill in the gaps later. Also, K-dramas are not the only icebergs in the sea - Japanese dramas, Chinese dramas, and Taiwanese dramas are also sizable chunks of ice in their own right, though that will DEFINITELY have to wait for a separate post.

Delightful Girl Choon Hyang: Initial Impressions

Not so delightful.

Well, I've begun the Korean drama Delightful Girl Choon-Hyang, and I'm very unimpressed. I was originally going to write episode summaries, or something semi-regular, but I've decided instead to write one review of the series as a whole once I've slogged through the whole thing, with a separate analysis following.

The reason I abandoned my original idea is that I'm having trouble just watching this thing. With it being one of the most popular dramas in the past ten years, I was expecting something really, genuinely good, something well-written, well-acted, and funny. Something on par with, say, Full House, My Girl, and, while it's a huge stretch, Coffee Prince (we're big fans here at MM). I knew it was too much to hope to see something as good as the latter drama, but couldn't it have at least been like My Girl?!

The Mistakes a Pepper Makes

Look! Bloopers!

And if you're confused, please refer to this post.


--Blackbird.

Intensive Korean Study: Week 3

SO.

Late, late, late! The theme of my week. I kept thinking I would get to this weekly blog at least by Monday, Tuesday at absolutely latest, but now it's Wednesday and too late to even be vaguely considered on time. Oh well.

I made more progress on the Korean and all, but am, of course, behind schedule. I'm halfway through the book! Yeah! But I also only have a week left. No!!

I blame it on the knitting. I've been knitting like crazy this past month, to the point of pure addiction. I know I should stop... I see the textbook glaring at me from across the table, the neglected schedule on my computer slouching in rejection, and the piles of knitted garments, symbols of the hours of life spent clicking two bamboo needles together.

EXPENSIVE.

I'm not a huge fashionista or anything, but when you see a mega awesome cute overpriced Anthropologie sweater selling for $200+, and you know you could possibly, just maybe knock it off in your size for a fraction of the price...

But enough, on to the updates.

Intensive Korean Study: Week 2

Another week! I was able to focus a lot more than last week, but it was still a struggle trying to catch up. I'm starting to think I might be trying to tackle too much; the textbook has been taking a lot more time than I expected, as is the Chunhyang side project.

Anyways, on to the progress report...

Chunhyangdyun Returns!: The Analysis

I admit that my review of Chunhyangdyun might have been skewed by the Chunhyang story itself. After all, it was a little hard for me to like the folktale considering the incredibly antifeminist message of the story. Many fairytales and folktales include those elements, but I guess what disturbs me more is that Chunhyang herself is meant to represent the ideal Korean woman.

There are a few details in the movie that initially suggest a break from the mold. When Mongryong first sees Chunhyang, his servant Pangja tells him that Chunhyang is not too easy to woo; although she is a courtesan’s daughter, she is “well read, and writes poems.” While the subtitles also note that she is “arrogant,” you could also interpret it to mean that she is headstrong compared to other women of the time.

Awesome! An educated, self-assured heroine. What’s not to love?

For the Love of Peppers

Here's a quick post before the long Chunhyangdyun movie review coming up.

We here at Manga Meditation love K and J dramas almost as much as we love manga. And true to MM form, we also (lovingly) criticize those very dramas for their sometimes-more-than-campy qualities. It's part of their charm, after all!

The following video is a great K-drama parody titled Gochu (or "pepper" in Korean) by Unit 5 Films, submitted for a contest held by the magazine KoreAm. Think of this post as Manga Meditation's introduction to future K-drama critique. Enjoy!

--Blackbird

Intensive Korean Study: Week 1

And so ends my first week of intensive Korean study! Sort of. I only started Wednesday, and the whole process is taking a lot longer than I expected. Also, I just got the textbook’s accompanying workbook in the mail Thursday or Friday, so I haven’t gotten a good look at it yet.

Before I start my review of this week's progress, though, I should probably describe my previous experience with Korean. As a kid I was taken to Korean school to learn the basics of the language. To be honest, the only information I really retained was the reading and writing aspect which, if you know anything about Korean, is not that difficult in the first place. Basically, a dedicated person can learn Han’gul in a week. The rest of Korean that I know is thanks to the Korean I heard as a kid. Even though I don’t understand a lot of it or the actual grammar, it doesn’t sound unfamiliar to me, and I already understand sentence structure.

Anyway, this is what I've been up to...

Chunhyang Filler a.k.a. Thank Goodness for Wikipedia

Hello readers!

This is just a little heads up (and filler, since we suck at regularly updating) to talk about an upcoming post series!

Ever heard of Chunhyangga? Depending on your knowledge of Korean folklore and/or pop culture, you may know that it's one of five remaining pansori performances. Pansori (판소리) is a Korean musical storytelling performance consisting of a singer and drummer. Chunhyangga in particular is interesting in that, according to some interpretations (maybe I'll post a link or two if I can find any) the main character Chunhyang supposedly represents the ideal Korean woman.

Chunhyangga is a sort of Cinderella story (sorry for the ethnocentric comparison; it makes it easier to describe); Chunhyang, daughter of a lower class kisaeng, and Mongryong, son of a high-class magistrate, fall in love and eventually marry in secret. However, after Mongryong is called to Seoul, he is replaced by an evil magistrate who forces Chunhyang to become his mistress. She refuses and remains loyal to Mongryong despite the consequences, and eventually love triumphs and the two live happily ever after.

But enough background info. The point is that Chunhyangga has been recreated many times over the years in various formats. This coming post series, then, will be my various mini-analyses of these adaptations! What I'm looking at right now are Chunhyangdyun, a movie made in 2000 that pretty much sticks to the traditional telling; Delightful Girl Choon-Hyang, a very popular k-drama that gives a modern retelling of the folktale; and finally Legend of Chun Hyang, a very, very loose manga interpretation by CLAMP.

Anywho, it'll be nice to spread our critical wings to Korean dramas and cinema. Look for it sometime beginning in December or January; get excited yo!!

Until then,


Blackbird

PS: And muchos thanks to Wikipedia since it's easily the easiest/laziest way to get information. For more information on the original Chunhyangga pansori, just look at the Wiki page I got it from! And, of course, Google.

All the Pretty Boys

The definition of a bishounen (courtesy of Wikipedia) is "a Japanese term literally meaning 'beautiful youth.'" Popular amongst Japanese pop culture subscribers, these delicately featured boys are objects of affection for all us hormonal women, bringing sunshine, butterflies, and screentone doilies into our humdrum lives. The bishounen who make my insides go all mushy include Sohma Ayame from Fruits Basket (love the hair), Suou Tamaki from Ouran Koukou High School (you can call me commoner anytime), and Sano Izumi from Hanazakari no Kimitachi (the ultimate roommate!), just to name a few. All these characters are an appealing mix of brooding, flamboyance, sensitivity, and of course, pleasing aesthetics, meant to arouse our darkest desires (or simply to entertain us).

Hey there Sano...

Either way, mangaka have definitely realized the marketable potential for these alluringly effeminate characters, as they are generously scattered throughout the manga canon. However, there remains the undeniable fact that these characters are not and will not ever be REAL. Sigh. So, rather than mooning over these unattainable paragons of male beauty, I have decided to create a list of real-life bishounen to ogle over.