Essential Korean Terms for Love Interests: Guest Post at Viki

Coco ad Vivi are both currently out of town, but we still found some time to do a guest post for Viki.  We are working on some more reviews as well!

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As summer heats up and Kdrama fans make plans to visit Korea (we wish!), we thought it would be helpful for us to share some Korean phrases that you will need to know for when you run into those rich chaebols and heiresses. We all know, from watching Kdramas on Viki, that when you meet your love interest there is a progression of emotions that you will feel. Here are 5 essential Korean phrases for each phase of your relationship.



1. Phase 1: Hey, do you want to die?

According to Kdramas, most romantic relationships don't start off well. Usually the male and female have a bad run-in with each other that results in mutual hatred. Sometimes this takes the form of violence and/or threats, as in Boys Over Flowers and Protect the Boss. In case this is how your relationship begins with your love interest, we recommend that you learn the Korean phrase for "Hey, do you want to die?".

2. Phase 2: Stop appearing before my face!

Oftentimes, the hatred between two characters evolves into a milder feeling of mutual annoyance. This usually occurs after the main couple has had several awkward encounters, such as in Lie to Me. In case this happens to you, we also recommend that you learn the Korean phase for "Stop Appearing before my face!".  Don't worry though; most likely you will enter into some sort of agreement to fake a relationship that is mutually beneficial for you, and which gradually ramps up your romantic interest in the other person.

3. Phase 3: Now do you see me as a man/woman?

Once you and your new Korean love interest have been tolerating each other for a while, it's time to take the next step by willfully invading the other person's space and asking awkward questions. See A Gentleman's Dignity as your guide to this move. Even though the obvious answer here is "Am I blind?  What kind of person could NOT see you as a man?" it is actually in your best interest to slide away coyly and feign disinterest--for now.

4. Phase 4: I don't have the confidence.

All great Korean romances have absurd obstacles thrown in the way.  Without them, it just wouldn't be true love!  At this point, the most advanced lovers think, "I know!  The best way to deal with this problem is to totally cut off communication and give up on our relationship!"  If you have seen anything with Park Shin-hye in it (You're Beautiful or Flower Boy Next Door, for example), you know exactly what to do.  Work those puppy eyes!

5. Phase 5: I love you.

If phase 4 makes you sad, don't fret!  It's only a temporary ploy until you get to the final phase: complete and total bliss with the one you love!  Just pray that you get a good kiss instead of one of those frozen ones.  You've earned it!

The Queen of Kdrama Kiss Scenes: A Tribute to Yoon Eun Hye

Back in April, we wrote a post about the Best Kdrama Kiss Scenes and asked you to vote on your favorite. We decided to keep that poll open forever, but after 261 votes we believe that we have a pretty good representative sample of Kdrama fans, so we'd like to announce the winner. The clear winners of best Kdrama kiss scenes are Lie to Me at 25% and Coffee Prince at 23%! The main thing that these two dramas have in common is that the leading lady is played by Yoon Eun Hye. When you add in the extra 4% of votes she earned for the kiss scene in Goong, that means that Yoon Eun Hye managed to account for over half of the votes for best kiss scenes! I thereby deem her the Best Kisser in Kdrama Land.

Yoon Eun Hye is my personal favorite Korean actress, and this just confirmed to me a large part of why that is. As Vivi mentioned, she definitely returns the passion and does not leave the man to do all the work. She has the ability to create amazing chemistry with any Kdrama male actor she is paired with. When I watch her fall in love, I believe it, and I believe that the male lead has fallen hard for her too. She has played a wide variety of characters very convincingly and I always believe that she is truly feeling the character's emotions. So here's to the reigning Queen of Kdrama Passion, Yoon Eun Hye!

Who would you deem the King of Kdrama Kiss Scenes? What about the prince and princess? Comment below.

More Kdrama Hollywood Lookalikes

The last post we wrote reminded me that I had been meaning to post another round of Kdrama Hollywood Lookalikes since the first round I did was right at the beginning of this blog.  Some of these might seem kind of random, but they seriously drove me nuts until I figured out why their faces seemed so familiar.  Are k-dramas melting my brain for real, or do these people actually look somewhat similar?

1. Lee Yoon-ji (Dream High) and Jessica Alba

This one feels like a no-brainer to me.  The second Lee Yoon-ji walked onscreen, I thought, "Whoa! Jessica Alba has a Korean twin!" 

Jessica Alba photo source

I also vaguely recall that Jessica Alba was the star of some teen dance movie at some point, so they also have that in common.  This leads me to wonder what would happen if they met in an evil twin dance-off.  Who would win?  Would it break the laws of physics and explode the earth?  I don't know the answers to these things, but I DO know that when it comes to K-pop nemesis dance-offs, you can't do much better than this video.  Go watch it three times in a row, and then we'll get back to this list.

2. Sung Joon (Lie to Me) and Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jung Ryeo-won (My Lovely Sam Soon).

To be fair to Sung Joon, Charlotte Gainsbourg (who was in a version of Jane Eyre, among other things) has a pretty androgynous face, so I'm not necessarily saying he looks like a lady (but maybe a little bit).  Still, I feel like they could be siblings separated at birth.

Charlotte photo source

That being said, the first time I saw My Lovely Sam Soon, I could not for the life of me figure out why Jung Ryeo-won seemed so familiar until I realized that something about the long, windswept hair and the way she carries herself also reminds me of Charlotte Gainsbourg (maybe because I saw a movie with her in it on Netflix not that long ago). 

Charlotte photo source

What I'm trying to say here is that if Sung Joon and Jung Ryeo-won had a baby, she would probably star in obscure French films.

3. Ji Hyun-woo (Queen In Hyun's Man) and Brendan Fehr

Circa 1999, Roswell was the hot new show for teens. Don't remember it?  Well, basically it was about hot angsty teenage aliens in love with hot angsty teenage humans. It was so hard for them to be in love because they came from different worlds.  

Sound familiar?  Well, now in 2013 I'm almost done watching Queen In Hyun's Man, which is about--you guessed it--hot young people learning how hard it is to be with someone who comes from a different world.  But the similarities don't stop there!  I spent the first episode of the series pausing my video stream, just trying to figure out why Ji Hyun-woo looked so familiar. It's because his facial expressions are really, really similar to Brendan Fehr's.  The problem is that it has to do more with the way their faces move than anything else, so getting a screen capture at just the right second was impossible.  Just trust me that they're the same, okay?

It's so hard to be so handsome and also so tormented by supernatural problems, isn't it?

4. Lee Won-jung (Vampire Prosecutor) and Jack Black

C'mon. Two lovingly chubby masters of physical comedy who just put a smile on your face. Can you imagine if Jack Black made a cameo on Vampire Prosecutor as an American detective who steals Soon-bum's thunder?  Can you?  I don't know why people don't pay me the big bucks to write these genius scenarios.

5. Choi Woo-shik (Rooftop Prince) and Tony Curtis

I know I already mentioned this one in my Rooftop Prince review, but the comparison (even when they're both in drag!) is uncanny, and I somehow felt like Choi Woo-shik would feel left out if he didn't end up with the other lookalikes, so here it is again!

So who did I miss?  What random lookalike connections have you made?

Kdramas in the Real World: Texts to a Bestie

When Coco wrote her post comparing her life to a k-drama, I started to wonder how I would react if her life suddenly turned into a kdrama.  Can you imagine the text conversations you would have if Geum Jan Di were your best friend?  I just did:

Which kdrama heroines do you wish would text you?  What would you say?