110 Biweekly Journal #6

[Seokjoon Han]

During these two weeks, I have been binging on Korean Dramas shamelessly haha. I guess it is pretty embarrassing to say that I finished watching Hospital Playlist in less than a week. Each episode was about an hour and forty minutes and the show had around fifteen episodes! I feel like I was so captivated by the show because it exposed a lot of Korean culture in terms of food and music. Because the show is centered around a group of five friends, the show has lots of scenes where they hang around just eating Korean food like Korean BBQ. The people in the friend group are around 40 years old and also happens to be in a band that allows the audience to be exposed to older Korean rock music. After watching Hospital Playlist, I started watching a Korean show on Netflix that many people had been recommending me, Reply 1988. Watching Reply 1988 reminded me of the dramas I used to watch as a child back in Korea. The Show, like the title says, is set during the late and early nineties in Korea. The show setting happens to be historically accurate as they mention the Olympics in Seoul in 1988 and popular actresses and celebrities during that time. I actually never knew that Korea ever hosted the Olympics until I watched this show. Moreover, the neighborhood the main characters live in reminds me of the neighborhood I lived as a child in Korea. During one of my meetings with Somyung and Tommy, we watched a celebrity reality tv show. That particular episode was about the celebrities trying to eat extremely spicy ramen called BulDak. A lot of people in the west have actually heard of it due to its insane level of spice. After watching the tv reality show, we practiced conversating in Korean. During our second meeting, we watched a video that was more historically informative rather than entertaining. The video was about Korea’s most famous general, Yi shun sin, a.k.a, the god of war. The video addressed the historical context during General Yi’s life such as the unification of Japan’s samurais under Hideyoshi. The video also highlighted the virtuous characteristics of General Yi like his commitment toward his nation when facing adversities and the integrity of his character despite the harsh politics that sought to put an end to General Yi’s military career. Additionally, the video talks about Japan’s plan to invade Busan and push all the way to Korea’s capital, Seoul. I practiced Korean outside of my language learning group by talking to my mother in Korean over the phone. When I called her, I told her how much I was craving Chapagetti, an instant noodle that is close to a Chinese black bean noodle dish. I asked her to get some from the store before I come back home. I also told her about my recent post-hernia repair surgery pain and informed her that it seems that the pain was getting worse instead of healing.

[Tommy Na]

Hey Joon, Hospital playlist and Reply and both were fun dramas to watch! I really enjoyed the dynamics and was able to pick up a few new words throughout as I learned new words regarding medicine and some different slangs from the time period portrayed! I also think that talking with parents in Korean is a good practice since it further enforces Korean language skills.

[Victor Chen]

I have heard good things about Hospital Playlist and Reply. Looking forward to watching them and learning more Korean.