Spill the Beans: Irreplaceable family memories and cultural exchanges

by HeadsNo2

To submit your story, email us your stories, and we’ll keep sharing them as long as you guys keep sending them in.

 
Dramas: Bringing Families Together! leleyleley shares her story:

Hi Dramabeans,

I’ve been an avid Korean drama fan since Boys Over Flowers aired in my country. Since then, I’ve been downloading dramas religiously, never thinking that my massive collection would save me in later years.

I am a woman nearing thirty, single, and still living with my parents. And just like any Southeast Asian mother (or a mother in every part of the world?), my mom is constantly nagging me with the question, “Why haven’t you gotten married yet?” Every conversation that we had always led to a heated argument over my singledom, and despite my best intentions, I spent less and less time with her.

Until one day, my mom accidentally saw me watching Six Flying Dragons, grew curious, and asked me to replay it from the first episode. Next thing I know, we spent one weekend binge-watching ten episodes of Six Flying Dragons. She loved it and became obsessed with the idea of watching every drama in my collection. And that was the beginning of our evening drama-watching routine, and we’ve grown closer since.

For the past eight months, my mom and I have bonded through our love of dramas. The last drama we watched together was Mirror of the Witch, and as superstitious as she is, she told me a lot of creepy stories of real life witches and magic that she heard from her grandparents. It was so much fun! I also got to see my mom’s cute fangirling over Lee Jong-seok, and her changing her phone background to a Lee Jong-seok photo (earning a disapproving look from my father, lol).

I can say that dramas made me rediscover my relationship with my mom. We even had honest conversations while watching characters or scenes that we could relate to. She’s still nagging me from time to time, but rather than pressing me to get married, she’s more eager to ask about what drama we’re watching right now.

 
A positive study story from dramas? Doth my ears deceive me? onella is headed for greatness:

So as most of the others, my story starts with Boys Over Flowers. One fine day, my sister brought a drama series from a foreign country, which she said that she was so not interested in. I was in ninth grade at the time (which is fourteen years old here in Sri Lanka), so I started watching it because I was not interested in spending a single minute on my studies. I was so hooked! It was a whole new world for me. It was so different from Sri Lanka, and definitely different from boring Sri Lankan dramas.

I marathoned my way through the drama and finished it through two days and one night. Of course I didn’t get any sleep… then I googled Lee Min-ho and started watching his dramas right away. Then, I eventually ran out of his dramas, so I explored the Korean drama industry and discovered Playful Kiss, You’re Beautiful, To The Beautiful You, and the list goes on. Then I started doing my ordinary level exams (which is a public exam and is a must), so I had to cut down on drama watching. Not because I wanted to, but because my mom forced me to, so I thought about all the Korean drama heroines who put all their effort into studying, and started studying.

Then, after the exam, I started watching dramas again like crazy. When I started doing my advanced level exams, I was battered by all the evil mothers-in-law and unfair stepsisters, etc. So I decided that I will only do my best in my studies, so I was never second in my class. But the bigger problem arose: I was running out of time to keep up with dramas. But then, I found this amazing site which eventually turned out to be a family.

Now, the first thing I do early in the morning when I wake up is to see if there have been any updates. It eases my mind, and I’m able to laugh out loud many times. It actually reduces my stress. Now, I can keep up with dramas while studying. And I’m proud to say, javabeans, that this little girl of yours has given birth to five new infants in the drama world. Not literally, but I turned my two sisters, my mom, and my two cousin’s sisters into drama addicts as well. Now they always ask me what to watch next.

 
What I love about these posts is reading about how dramas surpass cultural boundaries big and small. irian shares an intellectual tale:

My addiction to K-drama began in 2004, when I accidentally stumbled upon a Korean channel on my satellite dish that was airing ‘full house’ with English subs. The drama was fresh, the main protagonists were good-looking, and they just seemed to suit one another (I was in school back then and hardly knew about chemistry/romantic tension between the leads). Before long, I’d been hooked to the drama and fought with my siblings for the remote twice a week! But before I could reach the end, the channel switched its satellite frequency and disappeared. I was finally able to watch the end in university when I realized I could stream dramas on the internet! (I’ve been a naïve kid, yes!)

Soon after, Arirang, the global Korean channel, started broadcasting Heaven’s Fate, and I started watching it regularly with my family. Watching Korean dramas became a family activity for us then, with my father translating the English subs to Punjabi (my mother tongue) for my mom’s benefit. We felt comfortable watching K-dramas, because to us, there were numerous similarities between Pakistanis and Koreans regarding family and societal norms and traditions, despite religious, linguistic differences.

Interestingly, I stopped watching dramas for a while when Arirang, my sole guide to Korean culture, stopped airing regular dramas. I returned to it with Boys Over Flowers, which a random girl sitting beside me on the bus one day was watching. I admit I’d thought myself something of an authority on Korea by that time, and did not anticipate someone else with the same obsession. It dawned on me then that I could still get my fill of K-dramas through the internet and live streaming! Years went by, and I gradually moved from my school to college, university, and finally, to my job teaching at university—yet my love for k-dramas continues. From Boys Over Flowers, I went on to binge-watch all the dramas with Lee Min-ho as a lead.

I found some brilliant finds in the process. So far, City Hunter, Personal Taste, Healer (after which I binge-watched ALL of Ji Chang-wook and Park Min-young’s dramas), and Descended From the Sun (through which I became Song Joong-ki’s fan!) are my absolute favorites. From last year, I have started following Dramabeans regularly and read most of the drama recaps from the blog. Starting from this year, I also started watching dramas currently being aired. These days, I’m in love with Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim and Legend of the Blue Sea while reading recaps of Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-ju and The Lonely, Shining Goblin. I’ve not only managed to learn much about Korean culture and traditions through dramas, but I also have learned basic Korean language too. I hope I get a chance to visit the country once in my life.

Being a university faculty member, one has to stay attuned to research trends across the globe. While my major is political science and international relations, I’ve observed that intra-state and inter-state cultural influences on national identities and national politics remains significant. I often use examples from the Korean experience to highlight various concepts being taught to my graduate students. But one thing that I got from Dramabeans was a platform where I can fangirl all I want without social constraints. So far, I’ve failed in persuading my friends to watch Korean dramas— they find alternating between the drama and subtitles tiresome and too annoying! But through this blog, I’ve essentially gotten myself a comfy little niche with people who understand what I’m going through while watching a specific drama, and where I know what the writers/recappers mean when they comment on dramas!

Admittedly, this is the first time that I’ve actually commented, but I feel I’ve already developed camaraderie with fellow K-drama addicts, if you will! I’ve laughed, cried, and at times shouted at the screen, and I feel this whole concept of shared experiences in a diverse world extremely valuable. All in all, I think that K-dramas, and indeed Dramabeans, are extremely entertaining and informative to global audiences, and I hope the trend continues forward.

 
CattyEve shares a very, very heartfelt story about how dramas helped her relationship with her father (I’m writing this through blurry eyes!):

I was raised mostly by my dad, who was a stay-at-home dad due to an unfortunate business decision he made in the past. My mom told me that I loved my dad dearly when I was a little girl, but once I entered puberty and became a teenager, I started to resent my dad a lot. It was partly because I compared my dad with my friends’ dads, who had stable jobs and always looked kept and tidy in the morning; a very childish reason, I know, as expected from a teenager. Another issue was that my dad had an affair with my eldest cousin during his late 40s, and I had just found that out at that time. The affair was ugly, it almost resulted in a divorce between my mom and dad, and we still at some point begrudge my cousin for ruining my family. However, my Mom said that the reason for not going through with the divorce is because she unexpectedly was pregnant with me, at the age of 46. I was the savior of their marriage.

I had a love/hate relationship with my dad, but there is one common thing that we both love doing: watching dramas on TV. I used to watch Chinese or Taiwanese dramas that aired on our local TV stations in the afternoon. One day, during my usual watching fest, Dad decided to change the channel to a historical drama about a lowly cook who made her way to the top as the royal physician. I instantly got hooked, despite the strange garments and headpieces that the women wore. We ended up watching the drama, which was Dae Jang Geum, until the last episode. Once, I saw my dad shed a tear when Jang Geum was thrown out of the palace and had to live in hiding after all the sweat (and literally, blood) that she had shed. I patted his hands (we are both quite similar on showing affection, hugs are not really our thing), and he smiled at me through his blurry eyes. The moment passed in a flash, and I soon forgot about it and went back to hating him again.

There are lots of moments that we shared during our drama watching, like when Dae Jang Geum had to be pre-empted due to the airing of ASEAN Games. We both sulked, me in my room and he on the veranda, because it sucked that our only weekly entertainment (and I guess my only bonding time with my dad) was taken away from us. The shared drama watching continued as we watched other airing dramas together, including I’m Sorry I Love You, Lovers in Paris, What Happens in Bali, and many, many more.

My dad has passed away now, and during his later life, he suffered from a stroke and had to be nursed by my mom. You know how it is when someone dies, and the only memories that linger in your mind are the good and happy ones, no matter whether the person had been good or bad to you during his/her lifetime? Watching K-dramas with my dad was my happy memories with him.

Thank you, Dad, for leaving such a jewel for me to treasure. I love you. From your youngest daughter.

PS: Dad, I graduated from university with flying colors, just as you wanted (despite my obsession with K-dramas, but you know that already). We have to thank Dramabeans for providing awesome recaps to let me keep up with my life, heheh.

 
RELATED POSTS

• Spill the Beans: Huzzah for beanie group therapy
• Spill the Beans: In the end, we’re one big drama fan-mily
• Spill the Beans: Dad blaming and troll shaming
• Spill the Beans: Spreading the drama virus and ugly crying
• Spill the Beans: Real-life drama support groups and spreadsheet conversions
• Spill the Beans: Sisterly bonding and bizarre fanfiction
• Spill the Beans: Sunken ships and addicted spouses