Happy Friday! (from a playground)

Korean Cultural Note I'm debating talking about Muism, but I might wait for the first episode of Master's Sun, since I'm sure the Hong Sisters are going to use that.

So I'll do Korean folk medicine instead since I had to go through it while in Korea....

Japanese Cultural Note On Honorifics. 'Cause people think it's easy when it's not. (Though I take this from Jim Breen)

Lee Soon Sin *spoilers* *Ranty fest*

Right, I have serious words about adoption for this show, not only do the mothers need a personality make over, but the premise of this adoption bugs me to a whole lot of pieces. I can tell when someone doesn't check out the basics.

First, I have 4 parents and 8 grandparents. One side is adoptive and the other side is Korean. I'm active in the adoption community and have done minor advocacy (on the more neutral issues such as adoption portrayal in the media and bridging gaps in the community).

And I have something to say to you who are thinking of adopting, related to someone who is adopted, or just don't get it. No matter how many times I'm try to tell you this while you ask stupid questions and portray adopted people:

1. Love is not limited to a frickin' title handed to you. You are allowed to love someone with a title who is "Grandmother" more than one or two times. You are allowed to love beyond the bonds of blood. But it doesn't mean blood isn't important either. I WISH THIS SHOW WOULD GET THAT. OMG and the mothers too--all of them. Every single last one.

2. Love is not some kind of sick competition/quantity game.
I want to pound this into all of the mother's brains so badly. If Lee Soon Shin *chooses* to love both mothers, that's not a *bad* thing. I don't get this "competing" idea about love in terms of family. What? Love is so limited that if you hold the same title, you must compete for it? People relate to other people in different ways. You don't relate to your older siblings all the same way just because you call them "Brother" or "Sister" why does it have to be different for "Mom" or "Dad?" Why? Why do you have to go on about "Whose" daughter LSS is. She's BOTH. Leave it. If she chooses both, then fine, if she chooses one, then fine, but that won't change the impact that either person has had on that person. *ranty rant* Love is not a frickin' competition and it shouldn't matter if you label it "nature" or "Nurture" Love is love. Stop asking Who do you love more to adopted people.

3. You cannot replace anyone in this world just because you carry a title that's the same.
No one can replace anyone else in the world. Their existence is unique in every choice and action they take, the impact they have, and when they are gone--as we all are, the singular existence they had where you can no longer talk to them, good or bad, and what you shared, even momentary is something unique. Even if you don't talk to them, even if they are just that person in front of you at the traffic light, the little existence they have in the trillions of years this universe has existed is important and cannot be replaced or erased. So get off of trying to "replace" someone just because you hold the same title. Because we all know that George V was not anything like Henry VIII just because they held the same title of King of England.

This should be independent of how or to what quality one loves another person.

And minor: Real Mom, doesn't float in English use. It's frowned upon by adoptive parents and also in the birth family community. ("birth" anything is too... but I'm waiting on them to organize and find a more neutral word. Relinquishing is about the closest I got and I wracked my brain to get that one.) And don't give me that crap about nurture v. nature. I got another rant for you on that and it won't look pretty. "Real" works in Korean because it's used to quantify other things along the same line without it being about the validity of a person's existence in another person's life. (Comes down to usage). Despite that in Korean, Appa and I used, "American" v. "Korean" parents which avoids the whole thing. So did the people around me.

Basically, I wonder why dramas and people outside of the adoption community and sometimes inside of it insist that love is so limited. That you can't love more than one person who holds the title of "Mom" or "Dad" why it can't cross simple family boundaries and that it needs to be quantified and weighed. What I know is that love doesn't work like that and insisting that it does, I find sad.

I also dislike the show's portrayal of how adoption legalities work. A lot of adoptive parents work really hard and think deeply before adopting a child, and if they don't they get smacked with it later on. These filters show how much the parents actually care about the child. It doesn't mean a child can't get kidnapped or taken in illegally, though that seriously causes issues with deportation, getting a job, a license to drive, etc for the adopted person (basically seriously irresponsible towards the child.) But I can't buy the legal issues of this drama either. Won't work in Korea, even 20 years ago. I'm still asking, how did Lee Soon Shin get a job without a registration number? And if she has one, how did she get one without a birth certificate?

Also the mothers have serious boundary issues--I mean beyond the usual Korean poking around. I think we can safely put them all in Axis II. They often treat their children as an appendage or extension of themselves, don't respect boundaries, and keep on projecting.

So I wish, wish this show would understand the nature of love beyond the romantic.

Though Joon-Ho won my heart as he called out 2 of the horrible mothers for their behavior. I wish all of them would get a personality transplant ASAP and show real love. The love of sacrifice, wanting the best for your child even when it's hard for that child to face, and not thinking love is so limited.

Last Cinderella

OMG, the proposal, the bed scene, the tipping point--it's all in there. Did anyone catch Rin-kun's tipping point in this episode when he closed the door and had that expression? Or did the discussion come as a surprise in the bar? Ahhh! I love my subtle.

I Can Hear Your Voice
OMG, I love the mom in that so thoroughly. After wanting to strangle the LSS moms and preach to them about the nature of love, this one rocks my world. She has everything on my wish list for an awesome mother. She sacrificed herself when necessary, kicked her daughter's butt when her daughter needed it for her own good, believed her, doesn't coddle her (but still gives her love), knows her daughter well and understands that love is about and knows about boundaries. Mom==Awesome. Plus she has a life outside her daughter... (Mentions doing work, etc).

The small details also rock my world. The journal, the revolving door walk, the sign language, learning how to read braille, the annoyance at the street light. It's the small character moments that illustrate them through direct action that makes me smile.

And the gender dynamics are fun to watch as well. The cold female versus the hopeful males. But at the same time, I don't feel like the life of the males is only centered around our female character or are there to just serve her. Plus +1 for acknowledging the difficulty of women in the work place.

The pacing is well done. It isn't too fast where things are rushed, but it's not draggy and slow. Because of the multiple flashbacks, I have some hopes that the live shoots won't ruin the plotline. I really hope they don't 'cause I detected it in Nine.

The multiple phone calls, keeping characters separated, and the multiple flashbacks has me hopeful that they'll keep the shooting on schedule=P Takung notes.

Dating Agency: Cyrano

Good story, needs and upgrade on feminism.

1. Three stories, where are the female clients?
2. STILL Episode 7 and she has NO talent or contribution to the team besides she has boobs... Being a female isn't a talent.

I like the rest of it, but the females needs some work... then it'll put my heart into a heart attack mode.

Lee Kwangsoo, BTW, was a A++ add in my opinion... but maybe because I'm writing a script with him as the actor playing the main character.

Gu Am Heo Joon
Continues to be good.

Galileo
Not as good at the first series.

Barefoot Friends

The book blowing part was hilarious. I loved it. I rolled. You'll know what I mean.

Otenki Oneesan Continues to be good. Ends next week.

35 sai no Kokusei
I like this very much still. Nice twist on the whole teacher reforms thing. It reads allegorical rather than realistic, but I don't mind that.

Mayononaka Panya san
Continues steadily at a nice pace. The plots aren't always realistic, but it keeps a consistent tone.

Korean Cultural Note: Ethnomedicine

This is the story of how I got sick and had Korean ethnomedicine done on me by my Korean father. Personally, I find it hilarious... I was staying with some people that my Korean father knew at the time. I should note I'm really weak to pain and my Korean father was sure to tease me mercilessly about it.

Let me tell you that you can overeat Korean food easily and you really, really need to learn how to say no. But Korean food is so damned addictive, it's really hard saying no. So you have to start early.

The first no should be Anniyo 안니요. Second no should be Teseoyo 뎄어요(This is getting troublesome...). Third No should be kwaenchana 괜찮아[요]. And the final no said there or four times is anDWAE 안돼 ... the dwae said strong. And if it doesn't stop.. keumanhae 그만해요. Don't be fooled by the look of disappointment in the server's eyes and the teasing of, but you're so skinny... but you didn't eat that much. You need to really say no....

Why I got food poisoning when no one else did... was because I was under a lot of stress.

I woke up in the middle of the night and threw up EVERYTHING. Korean food tastes good going down, but coming up it's nasty. For the last few days I'd been sensitive to smells lately and didn't know why. My insides turned into liquid and I had the worst time that night. Let's just say that neither end of me could agree which should come out first. I was so sensitive that smelling my throw up made me throw up more...

Early in the morning I woke up and weakly reached for the phone. I'd been saying in a restless sleep all night, in Korean "It hurts Appa" like a child. It occurred to me the words sounded similar.. Appa... Ap'eo... I weakly said into the phone that my stomach hurt. Appa said he'd be over.

There were three major things wrong with me. 1. Stress. 2. Ate too much. 3. I ate too much meat without enough vegetables. (Also food poisoning in general) 4. I ate a lot of salt which my system isn't used to.

Appa arrived and woke me up. I was still feeling like hell. He gave me a sympathetic face.

Appa started by assessing the house's energy with dousing. He had me sit in the living room and put the metal rods over my head. He said that my energy was weak "Ki" in Korean. And that's one cause. He also made sure I was sleeping in the right direction. My Cultural Anthropology training kicked in. I watched him as he checked the halboji of the house and halmoni that I was staying with.

When he determined every symptom in the book, he pulled out the acupuncture (which in Korea is all about letting out the bad blood, not hitting pressure points so much). Then he had me sit on the floor.

Appa tortured me on all four. First he hit the spot it hurt hard, three times to make sure it was the spot. When I cried out he hit it three more time and then found the corresponding back point. He hit that spot three more times. I cried out like a little baby. He made fun of me for having so little pain tolerance and started to say I was like I was a baby and then laughed.

Once he found the point, then he beat my back HARD. I think he found it funny. 'cause I complained yet even more. He was showing to his friend too... which meant to demonstrate the pressure points three more times and then show it didn't hurt for anyone else but me two more times. Then he stabbed my hand with an acupuncture needle, but the pen was broken and kept breaking, so he did it by hand. FIVE TIMES. It was because the bleeding kept stopping. Then when he couldn't get the blood out he punctured the back of my finger without thinking. The other point which was near the physical point of my stomach earned another puncture on my left ring finger tied with a string.

He did this for two points and he told me in broken English, "Gogi, NO!" Which roughly means, "No meat!" or in more fluent English, "Don't eat meat."

He got upset when I wouldn't eat fish or porridge, but it smelled strong to me. I heard him talk about pregnant woman... one he treated, I think... I think he started to think I was pregnant because I said, "I'll be a baby" Which also translates in Korean as, "I'm going to have a baby." Haha.

He asked me what I wanted to eat and I drew some fruit on the paper and then drew a fish, put a circle and line around it. I did the same for a cow. He laughed because I put the circle and the line last.

I asked for melons and apples but couldn't eat that much. I fell asleep, still feeling sick, hurting all over now not just my stomach, but oddly feeling better.

I woke up to see him smile at me. There was a washcloth on my head. Through my stupor I looked at him kind of cross-eyed. He pushed a bottle of stuff at me and told me to eat it. There were three medicines. One was a brown powder which I wisely decided not to ask what was in it. One was two pills and the third was like a fizzy mini drink. And I thought American medicine was nasty... this didn't have sugar at least... and it tasted bitter. God Awful! (Or should I say Buddhist awful)?

He told me I had to take this a few more times. He asked also if I wanted to go to the hospital, but I figured if he left me alone I wouldn't hurt anymore. He told me that I had stress. And we talked for a while until he realized he had an appointment with a friend. Appa insisted that he put a towel on my head and smiled sweetly at me while he did so, almost like he'd missed doing it.

After I was not better in 5 hours he frowned and asked me if I wanted to go to a hospital. In pain from his acupressure, acupuncture and not knowing how the hospital would cover me since I wasn't a Korean citizen, I said no.

I slept for the rest of the day and the next day I finally recovered a little, but as I did, Appa sent me on a trip with two boys... "Namja Chingu." --;; Both from America. (I had no idea if I was being set up or not. I watched too many Korean dramas.)

I should note the reason I let him do this to me was because I was curious and I knew I was going to take a witchcraft, magic and religion class in the fall which required an ethnomedicine paper. I didn't know what the ethnomedicine paper was going to be exactly, but I thought going through this would be useful. I was so wrong. The ethnomedicine paper said I had to do it in the week of the assignment. Which meant I had to go to a Korean spa and go through acupressure, Korean style, which hurt like nothing else, but was far more gentle than the above. I still got an A on the paper and used this experience in the paper. But still. TT

And I was asked why this miracle cure wasn't exported, well now you know why.

I also found a website for basic Korean learning: arts.monash.edu.au/korean/klec/

Japanese Honorifics
Online it's taught this way (Which is wrong):
sama is for a respectful way of saying -san.
Kun is used for males who are your friends
Chan is used for female friends.
P- is used for a close friend and is child talk.
san- is like Mr. or Ms. or Mrs.
Chama- is a cute way of saying san.
senpai, kouhai are ways of referring to one's senior/junior respectively.
sensei is used for teachers doctors and so on.

In theory, this is correct, but in practice, this is wrong. Japanese teachers will teach you the simplified version usually... because the contextual meanings are difficult to pick up.

With Japanese honorifics you really need to watch a few things:
1. How you know the person/your relationship.
2. How the person knows the person you're talking about.
3. The larger context.
4. If that person is present or not present.
5. Age of that person in relation to you.
6. How long you've known said person/how close do you feel to that person.

1. Sensei is always sensei unless it is a close friend.
2. Friends or acquaintances who met through children will call each other _child's name_-mama/-papa (or okaasan), especially who have known each other for a long time.
3. Honorifics don't depend on age alone, but whether the person is present or not. Not present is -san.
4. Honorifics also depend on the degree of familiarity of all parties involved.
5. Honorifics change if one insists on being called something else.
6. Nothing is its own honorific.
7. -san can also be used for companies.
8. -sama is used for deferential speech.
9. chama and P are baby talk.
10. -kun and -chan can be used for male or female listeners and are only used when agreed upon when older, or anyone younger than you who is present.

See, there are usage rules involved.

Currently watching: Last Cinderella, What's Up Fox (with Jomo/EE's recaps), Gu Family Book, Heartless City, I Hear Your Voice, Monstar.

Heartless City is intense. I'm struggling a bit with the large cast. Too many who-is-that and who-is-he-working-with moments. I need recaps. I also need to accept that in this world violence is OK even for the "good" guys.

We've all had moments when we wanted our Drama to be written differently. While I agree with Drama Go Go Go that it is easy to criticize, but much harder to write, I do think Beanies must have some brilliant ideas for how plots could have been changed.

So here is the game. Tell me how you would have changed a drama you've seen.

Example: In When A Man Loves, Mi-Do ends splatted under the falling steel box. (kidding)