I watched my first episode of the Korean variety show "Happy Together". I was aware that this show existed when I go to Korean restaurants and saunas, but I never watched it until Seong-hye introduced a different episode to me recently. The only other variety show I tried was "Running Man". This episode features foreigners Sam Hammington(Australian), Sam Otswiri (Ghanian), Fabien (France) who are fluent in Korean. I was fascinated by their fluency, and they talked about how each of them started to learn Korean and their cultural immersion experience. They had a hard time eating Korean food initially like seaweed soup or octopus but eventually came to like the foods that even most native Koreans don't eat. All of them preferred Korean food over food from their homeland. They even cited some idioms that I learned from my cultural presentation about tteok. Otswiri said that he actually hates going back to Ghana because there is no dried seaweed that he can eat there. Otswiri also memorized a long Korean subway route by heart, which was impressive to see him recite.
I was most interested in Fabien's story. He started out by mastering taekwondo in France, and he enjoyed the Korean culture so much that he saved up for a 3-month backpacking trip to Korea. He also studied English at Ehwa Women's University. He wanted to learn Korean so much that he would avoid talking English or French to foreigners for two years by pretending that he didn't speak those languages. He knew Korea's history more than the native speakers, which became prominent when he cited Korea's 5 most important holidays (Korean Independence Day (March 1st), Constitution day (July 17th), National Liberation day (August 15th), National Foundation day (October 3rd), and Hangul Proclamation day (October 9th)).
I really enjoyed this episode because it gave me hope that people who didn't know the language at all can become so fluent and passionate about the culture. I also liked that the Korean show editing style is very comedic, and it's even helpful because they spell out the words in Korean on the screen, which helps me with spelling. Their love for Korea inspires me to learn Korean more, and I will now add "Happy Together" on my Korean show watchlist.
The episode link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wzRCvUAhWs&list=LLKSkzRjPwe2uxKschBuQzcw&index=2&t=0s
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