A remake of the 2004 movie, ‘Mr. Hong’, Hometown Cha-cha-cha features the story of the dentist Yoon Hye-Jin (Shin Min-A) who moved to the seaside village of Gongjin where she meets the literal jack of all trades, Hong Du-Sik (Kim Sun-Ho). The 16-episode series follows a very simple plot – one that we never thought we need in these daunting times of uncertainty.
There was a time in my life when I also dreamt of becoming a cosplayer, an animator, and a graphic novelist. It was the obvious fascination with anime that led to those childhood fantasies. Growing up, I’ve always pictured myself doing something related to those Japanese animations.
‘Mr. Queen’ tells about the gender-bending story of a Blue House chef from the present (Bong-hwan) who got into a comical accident and got his soul entrapped in the body of the Joseon-era Queen (Kim So Yong).
When the Camellia Blooms follows the story of the single mother Dong Baek (Gong Hyo Jin) who settles with her son in the fictional town of Ongsan. There she puts up a bar business, named Camellia, which became the talk among her conservative neighbors. Years after she meets the local policeman, Hwang Yong Sik (Kang Ha Neul) and finds love in him, the people around her, and the circumstances that came along with her life.
Watching Haikyu!! brought back those years. The crazy energy. The drive. The willingness to practice. The team. So nostalgic. It was the answer to Kei Tsukishima’s question on the first season of the series: if it was just a club activity, why spend so much energy and put your heart into it?
But Nam Do-san of Start-Up Kdrama series made me realize that I’m not a hopeless case. That not everyone can practically manage raising themselves like Ji-pyeong. That it’s okay to not know where you’re going. That it’s fine to have insecurities – and compare yourself to others. That you just have to continue because along the way you will meet people or experience events that will help you answer this existential question. You just have to trust the process.
Here’s what I learned: you don’t have to be like Mulan. You don’t need to be strong. You don’t need to leave home. You don’t need to defeat men. You don’t need to impose physical force. You don’t need to disguise for who you are not. You don’t have to become a legend.
Here are some of the quotes that I truly love from Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild – the story of Christopher McCandles – a young man who was found dead in a bus in Alaska in 1992 after years of traveling across the United States. Into the Wild tells the life story of how Christopher McCandless set out on a solo backpacking adventure into the notorious Stampede Trail.
It’s Okay not to be Okay is a 16 episode South Korean romantic fairytale drama that tackles about emotional and psychological wounds that spring from cases of parental abuse, murder, and trauma that they must confront as they become adults.
Traveling has always been my personal means of escaping the hassles of work and naggings of life. Weekends were my ‘me time’ – a time to recharge, to eliminate the toxics of my life, to connect with nature. But the onset of the coronavirus pandemic has left me constrained within the four-walls of our house, surrounded by concrete buildings, chained by regulations forbidding any geographical movement.
My mind has become a gruesome battlefield for almost four months of quarantine now.
Dakilanglaagan 