Ruminations in Korea

Great…just great… I can’t think of a worse way of “promoting the country.”  I had a brief fling with soap operas during the Luke and Laura heyday, but haven’t been able to stomach them since.  I thought that American soap operas were bad.  I was right.  However, I found something much worse and more unwatchable; the Korean soap opera. 

Every single soap opera is an exact copy of every other soap opera.  It has been years and years since I have seen a soap opera that didn’t follow this boilerplate plot:

Dirt poor girl meets and falls in love with rich Chaebol (business conglomerate) son.  Chaebol Son’s old girlfriend is a mean and nasty bitch who treats dirt poor girl like crap and tries to frame dirt poor girl for things in an effort to win back the love of Chaebol son.  Chaebol son’s mother hates dirt poor girl and forbids Chaebol Son from meeting dirt poor girl.  They see each other anyway.  Meanwhile, someone mother or grandmother is sick, dying, or recently dead, which makes one character, usually dirt poor girl, cry all the time.  Every character spends the majority of their time either crying or screaming at every other character.

All of the above is performed by overwrought, overacting “Actors” who’s rediculous facial expressions and reactions would be much too big and exaggerated even for the biggest of theatrical stages.  The sound tracks are universally awful. 

I personally can’t think of a worse way to promote your country that to push that crap off onto someone else.  Whoever came up with that stupid idea should be instantly sacked and replaced with someone who can find a better way of marketing Koreas traditional culture and image.

So, who gets this crap?

The ministry recently decided to supply local soap operas to many foreign countries free of charge, excluding China, Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries where “hallyu,” or the vogue for Korean pop culture, is already a factor, according to the officials.