Quarantine life has gotten even more weary as Illinois Governor, J.B Pritzker pushed the stay-at-home order until May 30th. My everyday routine has been this: sleep, eat, complete assignments, watch Netflix, nap, eat, and sleep. It is not the most energy-intense routine to say the least. My body has adapted to this slow paced lifestyle, so if I do anything physically or mentally exhausting, I feel like crashing. This is why for my sdlc 110, Jenna and I have been simply watching Netflix together. However, unlike other times we watched Netflix together, we decided to watch it on a chrome extension called “Netflix Party” which enables multiple people to watch the same series at the same time and comment on it. We decided to use this tool because I thought it would help me ask questions while watching the series. It would make it easier to remember and Jenna can also quiz me on certain Korean vocabulary words and phrases. Since we made the choice to watch it on this extension, Jenna and I agreed to take the subtitles off and if I had questions, I could then ask her directly through the chat. In addition to watching Netflix together, Jenna and I recorded our very awkward (at first), but chill podcast as well.
The Netflix show we watched was a classic Korean drama called Boys Over Flowers. It is a 2009 South Korean television series that is based on the Japanese mango series Boys Over Flowers. The series is about a working-class girl who gets tangled up in the lives of a group of wealthy young men in her high school. It earned extremely high viewership ratings in South Korea and popularity throughout Asia. Starring Ku Hye-sun, Lee Min Ho, Kim Hyunjoong, Kim Bum, Kim Joon, and Kim Soeun, it was one of the most popular romantic comedy Korean dramas when it first released. Although it aired over a decade ago, it still remains as one of the most representative dramas of Korean culture. To make it easier to understand for people who do not know Korean dramas, it can be compared to American tv shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Friends Wars, or The Office.
The first thing I noticed was how cringe it was, obviously since it was from a decade ago. Regarding the language used, the hangul used in this tv show was easier to understand than the hangul used in Kingdom. This is most likely the case because it was a drama based on teenagers. The Netflix Party chrome extension I thought helped a lot because now, I was forced to actually listen to the listeners rather than reading off of the subtitles. Additionally, we could pause the episode and I could ask Jenna about some plot or word confusion. There was a word I didn’t quite understand which was “찐따.” I asked Jenna on the chat and she asked me what I thought it meant based on the context clues of the show. I ended up guessing correctly and it meant “loser.” All in all, we used this chrome extension successfully to help me better learn hangul in a more effective way.
Comments
We have the same quarantine routine haha. And the same, I feel crushed when something causes me stressed. I have to say the extension sounds so helpful cause it's always something I want to have when I'm watching dramas and I want to discuss it with my friends. I've watched some clips of Boys Over Flowers, both Korean and Chinese versions. It's always fun for me to discuss with my friends how cringe it is.
Wow! This is an inventive way to incorporate studying Korean into a quarantine lifestyle haha. Boys Over Flowers was the first Kdrama I ever watched and I remember absolutely loving it. Since this is when I was first getting into Kpop, this was a culture shock for me. I'd only watched American tv shows before this, so the production style and character development were totally new for me. After five years or so, I decided to try and rewatch it, but I had the same cringe reaction you had lol. It was definitely made for young teenagers, so I switched to something different pretty quickly.