Blogs

          My cultural artifact for this week was a Korean Netflix drama called Record of Youth starring Park Bogum, Park Sodam, and Byeon Wooseok. Somyung recommended this drama to me because she thought it was something I would find interest in since I was a huge fan of Park Bogum from a lot of other K-dramas. Park Bogum was previously in Love in the Moonlight, Reply 1988, and The Encounter. This is why I was really excited to give this Korean Drama a try. Record of Youth tells the story of young individuals who are working very hard to achieve their dreams and passions. It shows a lot of scenes regarding the uncertainty and pressure the youth feel when they are struggling to navigate their journey towards their future. For instance, Park Bogum is a model who is not as popular and successful in the beginning. His parents greatly disapprove of his occupation, especially his father who thinks he is wasting his time and money, and believe Bogum will not succeed since he has failed many auditions in the past. There is a scene where his father actually slaps him on his face which shocked me a lot. Compared to the U.S. culture, I think Korea has a much stricter level on how much parents control their children’s lives - occupation, social life, academics, e.t.c  

          The drama then goes on to explain the story of Sodam who is a makeup artist also struggling to make ends meet. Despite all her struggles, she is a positive individual who is very optimistic about life and is overall a very good person. While working for a high-status client, she ends up making it into a prestigious makeup shop as the youngest member on the team, but runs into a lot of jealousy and hate from the older makeup artists. Coincidentally, Sodam and Bogum end up crossing paths at an event with Sodam being assigned as Bogum’s makeup artist for a fashion show. Before even meeting Bogum, Sodam has been a huge fan of him, but she hid her excitement when she met him in person and worked professionally to get her job done. She did not want to reveal to him that she was a fan because she didn’t want to ruin her fantasy of him as her idol she looked up to. After, the two end up getting to know each other and get into a relationship. The drama goes on to follow them on their journey to both find their passion and career. I thought this drama was very interesting and I related a lot with the topics they were struggling with - job search, self-identity, self-worth, the uncertainty of where of what I want to do and who I want to be, and e.t.c. Additionally, the drama was very easy to watch, listen to, and understand since the language they used was very simple and conversational. I understood 99% of what they were saying and the vocabulary used in this show was extremely easy to decipher. 

DISCLAIMER: SQUID GAME PLOT SPOILER 

I was quite skeptical about this new Netflix show since I felt that it was going to be just another over-hyped production, however after I watched the first episode, I knew this was going to be a worldwide hit. This new Netflix show I am mentioning is the one and only Korean TV show called “Squid Game.” 

The tv show starts off by following a lazy man called “성기훈" or Seong Gi-Hun. He lives under his old-aged mother and is immature as to steal money from his mother’s hard-earned savings and use it to gamble it all away. He ends up getting into some deep trouble and they make him sign a contract to sell his organ away if he does not pull through with the payment he owes them. While on his way home, he ends up meeting a gentleman in a suit who offers him money if he wins a very simple children’s game called “딱지” that involves flipping your opponent’s card with your own card by hitting it on the ground. Gi Hun wins the game and wins $100. He gets a small taste of victory and the gentleman makes an offer by asking him “would you like to play a game” in which he can win millions of dollars just by playing simple games like he just did. 

After he agreed to participate, he later wakes up in a room full of beds with 455 other people who are wearing the same tracksuit as him. Suddenly, a group of men in red tracksuits enter the room and tells them that they will get the opportunity to play 6 games and if they are able to win all of them, they can get millions of dollars. The men also remind them that this is probably their best bet for survival since all of the participants are in heavy amounts of debt- impossible to pay off no matter how much they work. All of the participants are eagerly waiting to play the game now. 

The first game is called “무궁화 꽃이 피였습니다" which is “Red Light Green Light,” a classic children’s game that I also used to play when I was little. All they had to do was to get to the finish line without getting caught by this giant girl robot. At first, it seemed very light and easy. However, when one person got too greedy and started to run for the finish line without being careful, he got caught by the robot and was shot on the scene. This caused entire chaos and panic which got even more people killed because their movements were being detected by the robot. It was only the people who stayed calm and absolutely still that were not eliminated. By the end of the game, almost half of the entire participants have been killed and the rest are in utter shock of what they have signed up for. 

After watching the first episode, I was also in complete shock, but I was also completely hooked on the storyline and the motifs that were touched in this show. It reminded me so much of the oscar-winning movie “Parasite” in a sense that it also covered the subject of the socioeconomic divide in the world. Overall, the first episode was a killer opening which is why I think it got everyone addicted and wanting for more.