K is For Drama: How this All Started, Part 2

Okay, so as I have already stated, this love for Korea all started with a Kdrama... AND what I have also told you is when I was first introduced to the drama by my dad...I was merely humoring him and I didn't really like what I saw.

 

And that could have been the end of the story... or rather that was the end of the story, for two years...  

Fast forward to March of this year.   I am now happy and healthy living in a great apartment with my younger brother.  I work at a elementary school library and while I still don't have a love life to speak of... I enjoy my life and my freedom.   I thought that my life was complete... easy... normal even... 

Until that fateful day...  When the KDramas returned.  

I was hanging out with my dad, my brother, Nathanael and his girlfriend, Emily... When the subject of Kdramas got brought up.  Emily suggested that we watch one.  Now that it was two years later, PTSD gone and my second attempt with that old boyfriend over (don't ask...)  I thought maybe it was time to give "Korean Soap Operas" another chance... After all it was spring break... a time for making dumb life altering choices that you won't be able to take back later.  

We watched the same drama as before, starting over and even moving on to the second episode....  Let me tell you... It just was not the same as the first time.  

Meet my new friend... "You are Beautiful" 

"You are Beautiful" is the story of a young woman training to be a nun on her way to Rome, when a strange man approaches her, asks her to dress up as her twin brother and join Korean boy band (KPop band)  for a day.  Well, you guessed it, a day ends up being months of dodging reporters, fangirls and evil actresses who bent on finding out the secret...and of course along the way she falls for the lead singer while unbeknownst to her, the other members of the band are falling for her.  Needless to say it only took the two episodes (mind you, I only watched one the first time,) to get hooked.

I found myself enjoying the show so much that I was spending any spear time I had watching it.  (And since it was spring break, that was a lot of time)  I finished that first 16 Episode drama in less that a week.  (Yeah, yeah... I know there are some that can watch a drama in one sitting, but I am not one of those people.)  

Now I know what you are thinking... wait what about all of your complaints?  Why the sudden change of heart.  Well, I guess there was a lot of things that changed.  Turns out you get used to the subtitles...  The humor is actually fantastic if you give it more than one episode and the makeup on the guys?  Well, that's a cultural thing and I not only got used to it but I now sort of find it attractive...

Sometimes....

In the end... I have to hand it to my dad,.,,  He knew what he was talking about. 

 I admit that I was wrong about Kdramas... The are great!! 

But there was more to it than that...than just a great show.

You see a couple of years ago I was in a very deep and hard depression.  After the tornado I started to heal and become more open to bright and happy things again.  

By March of this year the depression was gone but I was still dealing with some residual effects.  When you have a big sensitive heart you learn to be cynical and calloused to survive.  But this calloused bitter person was not who I really am.  "You are Beautiful" was just a little too bright and pure and happy for my emo tastes at the time.  (Not that there aren't tear-jerker-emo KDramas.. cuz there are. But YAB isn't really one of them.)

So YAB  touched something deep inside that I thought I had lost, little girl pre-teen Bekah.  You see I don't just have a big heart, I am a true romantic. That was a part of myself that I had tried to stamp out after years of getting burned.  But to stamp it out would be to truly lose part of myself.  Everything about YAB woke that part of me... That love of beauty and romance and something a bit silly... YAB touched all of that... It was while I was watching this TV show that I started to look around... I started a Facebook album called Looking for Beauty, where I look for beauty in the everyday and I take pictures of it.  

This has changed my outlook and is helping me search for the good in where I am right now.  So did a Kdrama change my life? Actually, yes. God used it to show me beauty in the small things and that it was okay to be silly and a true romantic again.  He used it to whisper an I love you to my heart.  

So how did all of this lead to a desire to learn Korean? Well....That is another story and it involves a whole other portion of Korean pop culture. 

To be continued...