My Writing Journey (So Far)
Whenever I mention I have published a few books, people tend to ask me how I got into writing. Was it that I just all of a sudden knew it was what I wanted to do or had I been planning to write for a long time? The truth is my journey started rather young and not in a million years did I think I would be doing what I’m doing now. Let’s begin shall we.
I started writing at the age of 10. Journal entries that are so cringy whenever I happen to pick the journal up to read an entry I think what a simple childhood I had. And also, can I go back to that simpler time? Yes, I still have my journals. I have kept them all. My first ever journal was a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen journal. (I know that dates me, but I’m pretty sure we all know I’m old.)
Those journal entries soon blossomed from the everyday what happened in school or at practice to what if I had said or done something differently? How would my life, my story, have changed? Journal entries were no longer journal entries. I ignored my real life to instead dive into a fantasy world I had created. Where the boy I had a crush on did actually like me back. (I sound like Tina from Bob’s Burgers and her erotic friend fiction.)
I would scribble the night away and when my mom would come into my room to say goodnight, she would ask what I was writing about and I would quickly slam the journals shut and say she couldn’t read it. And the reason my mom would have an interest was because at the time she had recently started her book publishing journey.
When her first book was published, I used to go to her book signings a lot and watch in awe at how she could get people to stop and pick up her books as she explained the story with such an affection for her characters that it could convince total strangers to read her works. I saw the good and the bad. The people picking up the book, excited to purchase and the people who picked the book up only to place it back down and move on. I saw the good days when she sold a bunch of books and I saw the bad days when she didn’t sell any. But on both days the one thing I saw most was her resilience. And now almost 30 years later, and the cool ass title of being a NYT Best Seller, she still keeps putting herself and her amazing works out into the world.
I never thought I would be a published author. Sounds crazy as I have 4 Korean books, 1 romantasy book, and 1 short story published and out in the world, but up until I was about 20 years old all my writing, I kept to myself. And the only reason anyone saw my stories was when a college friend stole my journal one night because she wanted to know what I was writing. Yeah, not the best approach but when she came back with my journal in her hand she said, “I need to know what happens next.”
I was surprised I had drawn someone in like that, especially when I thought it was just brainstorming on paper. I continued to write and she continued to read. Once out of college I chose to anonymously put myself out there on the wonderful world of Wattpad. Yep. I was a fanfic writing girlie. I would reach out to all these other fan fic writers that I liked to beg them to read my stuff. Most of them ignored my messages but there were a few who responded and read my stories and ended up enjoying the things I wrote.
One of those people, who I still consider a friend, even inspired the romantasy book I have out now. Gray, if you read this, hope you’re doing well and thank you for letting me create #graykub!
Before that she helped me create a story on Wattpad. A story that was my one big success on the site. I had reached close to one million reads and people begging for new chapters faster than I could push them out. That was the first time I felt proud of my writing. And it was the first time I felt confident enough to share my writing with the one person who had always asked what it was I was writing.
When I showed my mom she started reading the first chapter and asked, “You wrote this?”
I nodded my head and she followed her question up with, “You need to publish this.”
And so, with a lot of help from my mom, I did. Now I won’t share this book or title with y’all because I am no longer proud of the book. However, I do plan to edit and restructure it so that down the road I will in fact put it back out into the world and share it with you once again.
After that, I continued to write for myself. I had the thought, “Well I did it. I published a book. I can cross it off the bucket list.”
But the world would have much crazier plans for me.
When I got into K-dramas and K-pop I never thought it would bring me to where I am today. I started watching and decided I wanted to learn the language. And when I started I found the ‘normal’ way of learning really didn’t work for me. It was meant to be fun and engaging but I was bored and ended up losing interest fast.
I noticed that I was able to pick up words and phrases from watching the K-dramas I had become obsessed with and so I would repeat those and would speak the into a translator that would give me the 한글 .
And as I continued, I started writing again but my lead males became Korean. If they’re Korean, they will need to obviously speak Korean. That forced me to get cracking on my Korean. When I began to throw the words into the stories, I would leave myself footnotes on the pages. That was when I had the lightbulb moment. Other people could learn this way.
I had written most of Seoul Searching when I went to a writers’ conference and decided I would throw my hat into the pitching ring. Every single editor and agent said no. One even said “Why Korean? Who wants to learn Korean?”
While I was upset, it didn’t stop me. I instead said, “Fine. I’ll do it myself.” Which is how this site, Korean From Context, was born. I would try and post chapters weekly, as well as build a blog about K-dramas I was watching (which I def want to get back into) and K-pop concerts I was attending (I would love to but this one might be tougher). All aspects of the site would try and teach Korean in a way that had you not even realizing you were learning.
How did this get me into the world of actually publishing my books? Glad you totally asked. I went to KCON in NYC in 2019 to cover it for this site. As I was sat in the press room with some other people making sure all my stuff was fully charged, I had a woman come and sit with us and happily started chatting and she asked who I wrote for. I went into a very long-winded story about my site and in my head I was screaming, “STOP TALKING AND ASK WHO SHE WRITES FOR!”
I finally did shut up and asked to which her response was, “Forbes.”
To say my jaw dropped is an understatement. But what she followed up with nearly had me fall back onto the floor because I had surely died.
She said, “I love the concept of your site, I would love to interview you for an article if that’s ok with you.”
IF THAT’S OK WITH ME?!? Of course it was! And so she did. Korean From Context was featured on the Forbes website and she even asked when I planned to publish the book so she could write about it then as well. That got people to my Instagram and to my website where I had people begging for the next chapters and asking when it would be a book they could hold in their hands.
The plan was to release the book for a limited time, sell some preorders with special gifts, and call it a day. Once again, my ideas never seem to be what actually happens. Here we are a few years later, 4 books published and another who knows how many coming soon.
So yeah, that has been my writing journey thus far. I am so excited to see where it takes me next! And I hope you will continue to follow along!
너의 시선이 머무는 곳에 Episode 1-2 Review
너의 시선이 머무는 곳에 epi 1-2 review
We’ve been dying for this show to come out ever since @blworld1 on Instagram shared it on their story. A Korean BL drama?!?! Like HELLLLOOOOO, we knew we were ready for our two worlds to collide. And now it is finally here so we are going to give our thoughts every week about the two episodes airing that week.
We couldn’t even wait until it was fully subtitled that’s how excited we were! We also found this was a great way for us to practice the skills we learn and try and teach here on the site. We re-watched with subtitles a little while later to confirm what we believed to be said and we were pleasantly surprised that we were able to grasp close to 75-80% of the show. Now let’s get into the good stuff.
WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT! If you don’t want to know before you watch then pause on reading, watch, and then come back to us so we can have a full-on discussion.
1화 (huwa-chapter/episode): 안 좋은 버릇 (an jueun boreut – bad habits)
The first episode had similarities to most shows. Characters were introduced, their roles to the story identified, and what we need to know for us to proceed with the rest of the show was learned. We understood from the trailers that the relationship between 한 내 주 (they call him Han TAE Joo in the romanization but his name tag read내 주) is a wealthy heir to a large company while 강 국 (Kang Gook) is his not so well off bodyguard. What we didn’t know from the trailer was that 내 주 is supposed to keep his identity unknown to the world and 강 국 is there to protect not only the secret but also 내 주.
That doesn’t go so well as in the first two minutes of the show 내 주 get’s into a fight because he keeps stealing this other dude’s girlfriends and then brags to the bully that he is the son of the president of the super big company. To be fair, if three of your girlfriends are seeking comfort somewhere else…take a look at yourself bruh.
As the episode proceeds, we find that 내 주’s father is, to put it bluntly, a dick. Like all rich parents in K-dramas are. He takes out his anger on 강 국 instead of his own son, hinting about ‘a habit’ his son has. Now this bit confused us. What habit is he talking about? Fighting? Girls? Or, does his father assume and/or know his son is gay?
To us 내 주 doesn’t seem to know he’s gay, or at least plays a very naive boy who is unsure where his feelings lie. Like he calls 강 국 “자기야” (jagiya- honey/darling). 강 국 on the other hand seems to wear his sexually frustrated feelings on his sleeve however much he tries to push his feelings aside.
For real if 강 국looked at us the way he looks at 내 주, nsfw things would have already been happening. It is evident from the second he comes on the screen that his feelings for 내 주 are not simply bodyguard and friend.
As 강 국 gives 내 주 first aid in their shared apartment (the rich father put them in a small, ‘average’ liveable space to keep up the mediocre appearance to the rest of the world) they start to rough house making quips and jokes about each other and their fighting techniques. And then that sexual tension that 강 국 so easily portrays comes to hit us head on when 내 주 plays with his earlobe. Rendering 강 국 useless and also hella turned on.
At the end of the episode, the bully who clearly has girl issues comes to apologize and 내 주 chooses to befriend the kid joking it will make it easier to not steal his girlfriends. But then he goes to grab the boys earlobe and 강 국 is not having it.
OUR FAV SCENE: When they go to grab a bite to eat and the woman who owns the shop asked if 강 국 is the attacker and 내 주 is the defense. (Essentially seme/uke top/bottom) Basically this woman is us in 20-30 years and that’s why we loved this scene.
Our cutest scene: When 강 국is taking care of 내 주 and내 주 gets all adorable saying he doesn’t want to go to England (which his father threatened him with) and starts rubbing himself on 강 국 like a little puppy. The actor does give us puppy dog vibes to begin with, so this just solidified his little doggy look.
Our least fav scene: We know this sounds messed up, but any scene with the girl, who we can tell is going to be the strain in the boys’ relationship, is just not for us. She just rubs us the wrong way. I mean she walks into her first scene a legit sneezes loudly not covering her mouth or anything. We outright cringed. Like hello, pandemic? And for real…it’s just basic manners and hygiene. #sorrynotsorry
2 화 : 동등한 관계 (dungdoonghan gwangae – equal partnership/relationship)
Now here is where the story starts to get interesting. And by interesting we do mean the plot thickens, but we also mean the tension builds even more between 강 국 and 내 주. After the incident with 내 주 grabbing the bully’s ear and 강 국 not having it, our two lead boys decide to have a sparring match to prove who really is the better fighter. And now all the fun juicy stuff our ‘hard stan’ BL hearts love takes front stage. 강 국 takes off his shirt to reveal a very sexy back (yeah no abs, we were a crushed but don’t worry we’re on the mend) and 내 주 even compliments his handsome frame. Who wouldn’t?! Boy has a nice backside.
We come to find our that내 주 gave that annoying girl, who honestly we don’t even know if we got her name or not…we don’t care, 강 국’s real phone number! UGH! The nerve of him. 강 국 is not impressed and doesn’t get why 내 주 had to step in and make that move for him. As they begin to spar, (this is where our hearts started to mend) we were trying to hold back our squeals at their heavy breathing, groans, and moans. It was a struggle. And not to mention they seemed to actually have some solid moves.
강 국’s phone keeps blowing up, (GIRL can you get the freakin picture?! He isn’t interested) and while distracted내 주 starts touching 강 국’s bare chest. *Cue the hallelujah chorus on this one* But to cover up the fact he was most likely enjoying the touch, 강 국 puts the hand in a back bend that ends up injuring our rich boy lead’s wrist.
Oh what a shame. NOT! Now our lovely 내 주 needs help doing the most basic of things. “Like what?” you maybe asking yourself. Oh…ya know…cooking…cleaning…showering.
Our bodies hit the floor, our souls were sent to outer space, and then the episode ended, our souls sky rocket back into our bodies, which sat up from the floor and proceed to punch our TV screens for doing us dirty like that.
OUR FAV SCENE: The sparring scene. Do we really need to explain ourselves? Pretty sure we did above.
Our cutest scene: The shower scene. It isn’t a sexual scene at all, like one might think from us freaking out over it. The way 강 국 takes care of 내 주 is sweet. The way he tenderly moves the shampooed hair from 내 주’s ears and softly scrubs at the boys scalp… let’s say our hearts pitter pattered. It was such a soft and gentle moment.
Our least favorite scene: Once again, any scene with this girl just…ugh. Her mother, who is our spirit animal, says to not interfere with the boys relationship. SHE CAN TELL THEY HAVE A RELATIONSHIP, and yet her daughter is like, “nah, they aren’t like that. I’m gonna pursue this dude who gave me a fake number, totally on accident, because he def likes me.” Beesh BYE!
If you want to watch the show yourself and see everything we talked about and more, the show is airing on Viki. Check it out. So far we have not been disappointed and neither will you. If you want to chat about the show feel free to reach out to us on Instagram (@koreanfromcontext) or Twitter (@koreanfrmcntxt). We would love to hear if you’ve started the show and what you think!
Our Top 10 K-Drama Kisses
We like kisses ok? BL or otherwise. Kisses are kisses and as romance obsessed humans, kisses are important. We can lose all interest in a show if the kiss lacks in emotion and decent kissing form. Yeah. We take kisses that seriously. Sometimes if we haven’t watched a drama we will go to our girl @kdrama.kisscene on Instagram to see some quality kisses and make the decision to watch the drama.
ON TO THE KISSES!
10. The Liar and His Lover (그녀는 거짓말을 너무 사랑해)
We are kicking it off short and sweet with this kiss. Now this drama…well tbh wasn’t good at all. The concept lacked a LOT, and it was just…just not good. The one thing we did love however, was the band that was the best friends of the male lead. Shockingly we will see the kissing ability of one of the other members of the band in a future number in this chart. But this kiss was between the band leader who is also the lead singer, and sexy mf, played by the god who is Sung Joo of UNIQ, and their old high school friend who became their manager. They always flirted and when they are hanging out they realize their romantic connection. Only problem is she believes he doesn’t like her because he never received her confession letter when they were in high school. After the misunderstanding they share a very adorable kiss.
9. She Was Pretty (그녀는 예뻤다)
This was the first drama we learned we had to wait for episodes to come out every week like normal tv shows. Seriously, it was rough. And while we disliked the concept of the show, Park Seo Jun being a douche to the not so attractive girl until he realizes it’s the pretty girl he was in love with when he was younger, we have to admit their relationship after that fact was shockingly cute and adorable. This kiss comes when he is trying to convince her to stay the night at his place. Nervously she declines, but once she leaves, she realizes she doesn’t want to go and so she knocks on his door to make up an excuse to stay. He pulls her back into his apartment for the bow chika wow wow and this kiss was our first look into the slightly steamy kissing K-dramas had to offer.
8. I’m Not A Robot (로봇이 아니야)
If we had started this website earlier, and started making these lists earlier, we would of made lists for top dramas of every year since we’ve started watching dramas. And this drama would probably be in the top 3 of 2017-2018. It was fun, cute, romantic and all around adorable but heartfelt and made us cry a few times. Our kiss is from when our two leads have finally resolved their problems, which tbh are A LOT, and she is making him her super-secret recipe, which is just covering up the fact she can’t cook well. He knew about the recipe due to her young niece telling him about it. And he sees how much she loves him, and how much he loves her and smooches the heck out of her. It is a solid kiss and when he pulls her closer…oof!
7. Mistress (미스트리스)
We didn’t watch this show. I know we said kisses can make us watch shows but we did try to watch this drama and shockingly with all the steamy scenes in it, the plot wasn’t for us. But this scene? The biggest of oofs! This scene is by far the MOST sexy scene we’ve seen in a k-drama. No lie, we watched the scene several times, and at one point drooled. We admit that to all of you. We drooled. Sex in a car. IN A K-DRAMA?! Seriously we can’t even describe how hot this scene is so just watch for yourself.
6. 1% of Something (1%의 어떤 것)
Clearly dudes pushing women against a wall really sends us. This drama was an example of the total cliché rich guy, poor woman, thrown together by a contract, and fall madly in love with each other, but someone tries to stop their love from thriving. But it was cute, and while cliché, sometimes we need clichés in our lives. This kiss is one of our favorite scenes in the show as well. It was just a funny little feel good kiss when he realizes he wants more than just a kiss. And she looks like she is all for it. He presses her against the wall after she just gets out of the shower (don’t worry she has a robe on. He isn’t a total horn dog), and just makes her melt. She’s gonna need another shower after he’s done with her. Too much?
5. Clean With A Passion For Now (일단 뜨겁게 청소하라!!)
We loved this drama. We feel it was very underrated and needs more appreciation. And this kiss was one of the ultimate kisses of the show. She makes it clear she is going to spend the night in his house and then kisses him to make her meaning known. When it truly clicks in his head what she is implying he lifts her up with ease, endlessly kissing her before placing her on the counter to continue their make-out session. We wished they continued to the bedroom but ya know, we take what we can get. Oddly one of our favorite things about this kiss was their outfits. Sounds weird, we know, but they complimented each other so well that we took note.
4. Search:WWW (검색어를 입력하세요)
TWO kisses in this drama deserve the #4 spot. We couldn’t choose between the two so we chose both! We really loved this drama and the strong women it provided for us to be inspired by. They all had their problems, but dealt with them and came out stronger. Two of the leading women had some pretty adorable relationships. And also shared some great kisses. A kiss shared by that #10 other band member, Jang Ki-young, we mentioned. The coffee making scene was super adorable and the ASMR killed us. The only things heard are the coffee maker and their smooching lips. Amazing. The second kiss, a confessional kiss between a fangirl and the man she has fangirled over. A true fan fic moment right there. She surprised attacked him and he got her right back. We should also mention the man she kissed is also the second lead in Extraordinary You. And we were very excited to know he had some solid kissing abilities with those nice lips.
3. Suspicious Partner (수상한 파트너)
Ji Chang Wook is bae. That is all you really need to know for this kiss. But if you need more than that, this kiss is steamy, steamy, steamy! We weren’t expecting that kinda make-out session from a lawyer drama. But this lawyer drama wasn’t like many lawyer dramas we’ve watched. Possibly why we liked this one more than most. We loved this kiss so damn much we can’t even describe it. And while the kiss was amazing in the drama, we attached the behind the scenes of the kiss because…WOW. They really went in. It made a lot of sense why people thought the two were dating in real life.
2. W: Two Worlds (더블유)
Our number one K-drama has the number two spot in our kisses list. We think this kiss is what sold us on Lee Jung Suk as an actor. And once again the fashion during this kiss made us sweat. That teal suit with the white stripes at the cuffs, oh my lawd. *chef kiss* The kiss. Let’s focus on the kiss. This one was emotional as he finally admits his feelings for the woman who holds the key to his destiny. Not only does he lift her out her seat to drop her on the table, it involves handcuffs.
1. What’s Wrong Secretary Kim? (김비서가 왜 그럴까)
Park Seo Jun makes his second appearance on this list and it so happens to be the #1 spot! Yes, he is THAT great of a kisser. I mean we could make a whole top 10 of his kisses. Maybe we should? Let us know what you think. But back to this particular kiss. The #1 kiss. Why is this #1? Maybe it’s the pressing her up against the wall, maybe it’s the heavy breathing, maybe it’s her pulling off his tie, maybe it’s them tumbling onto his bed, or maybe it’s him pulling off his shirt and dropping down to tell her he loves her. It could be any one of those things. Or all of them combining to make a glorious sexy make-out to the bed scene. Yeah, it’s definitely all of them.
What do you think of our top 10 kisses. Have you watched these dramas? What are your favorite K-Drama kisses? Let us know!
Our Top 10 K-Dramas
This Tuesday’s list is brought to you buy our love of what helped create this website. K-DRAMAS! Hopefully all you BL-er’s aren’t disappointed, we promise to have more BL goodness in the future so please look forward to it. But back to the list that is this list. During this stay-at-home, don’t leave EVER, quarantine, you may be wondering, “What can I binge today?” Solid question. And in a large, very general way, we will respond, “K-dramas DUH.”
But there are wayyyyy too many K-drama’s out there and if you’re new to the scene, you might feel that the sheer amount of decisions can be discouraging you from even starting. Well fear not! We are here to provide our top 10 k-dramas. Think of it as the entry into finding what you like, and from here you can venture out into the vast k-drama world and not feel so frustrated.
10. Healer (힐러)
Coming in at #10 is a show that has everything someone could want from a show. Hilarity, action, murder, mystery, and romance. Oh, it also has Ji Chang Wook. So that’s a thing. He is a super-secret ‘deliveryman’ who gets paid bookoo bucks to make special deliveries to people. He is known as ‘Healer’. He doesn’t know what he’s delivering but, he knows that it most likely isn’t the most legit business dealings. People begin hunting him down as he’s been delivering very important blackmail information. His badass self goes undercover as a nerdy, socially awkward journalist and meets a woman who is determined to make name for herself in the world of news. They team up to find out who Healer is, obviously he knows who he is, and suddenly a dark underbelly is uncovered that threatens to tear apart corrupt businessmen and politicians alike. This really is a drama to get you into all sorts of dramas.
9. Save Me (구해줘)
If romance isn’t your thing…then why the hell are you getting into k-dramas? WE KID! WE KID! But also, think about it. Almost every k-drama has some sort of love plot line. No matter how big or small. But this drama has probably the SMALLEST amount of romance. This drama is dark AF and revolves around a religious cult that takes a small farming town by storm. Brain washing citizens into believing in some higher being that will bring them enlightenment. But only if they buy what the cult is producing and work for no pay because it’s what the higher person says is a good thing to do. A girl moves into town with her family and her brother is instantly the boy bullies choose to make miserable. She is not about to let it slide and while trying to fight them off meets a group of four best friends, two of which form a crush on her. But while trying to save the brother from the bullies, the brother chooses to end his life. Fraught with grief the father tries to find solace and ends up finding it in the cult. Crazy shiz goes down for the rest of the show and you will never be bored. We were on the edge of our seats every episode.
8. My Love From Another Star (별에서 온 그대)
We always have to put what started it all on our lists. And this drama is just that. This drama started off strong, got a little boring in the middle, and had a stellar finish. It’s about an alien- hold up, hold up, let us finish. It’s about an alien, who had been stuck on Earth for hundreds of years, unable to get home, when an obnoxious, and very annoying k-drama actress moves in next door to him in his luxury apartment building. Since he is an alien he has super sonic hearing (obviously) and can hear through the walls as she constantly complains and just all around of her jackassery which pushes him to a breaking point. But then weirdly they form a friendship, which inevitably grows into love, and well you’ll have to watch the show to see how everything transpires.
7. Circle (써클: 이어진 두 세계)
Another drama where romance was not the focus and also our introduction to actor Yeo Jin Goo and the acting abilities of Gikwang of Highlight. Two men who inspired characters in our K-drama book Seoul Searching. This is a sci-fi drama that takes place in two different time periods but focuses on the same people throughout. One world is the one we all know as present day while the other is this bizarre future where everyone is implanted with this weird chip that erases bits of your memory. Not that people realize that’s what they paid for. And throughout you are unsure of who exactly the story is following. It is full of suspense, mystery, and aliens. The plot is so out of the ordinary we were sucked in by the first episode and couldn’t escape. You will never see major plot twists coming, and you will most likely scream at the end, but that’s life my dudes.
6. Tempted (The Great Seducer) (위대한 유혹자)
If we are being 100% honest, this show is not the best show there is out there. BUT we will say Woo Do Hwan, the inspiration for Hwan Soo in Seoul Searching, is the sexy lead of this show who was the reason we watched until the bitter end. He is a bad boy, with major daddy issues, and two friends, who are not the greatest of people. In fact, his best girl friend is the absolute worst and loves to destroy people’s lives since her mom destroyed hers. This show is straight drama. ALL DRAMA. ALL. THE. TIME. Just when you think something good is happening, a car hits a bish, parents have affairs, and people come to kill your love. But we have to say Woo Do Hwan’s sensually deep, slow, voice makes everything ok. The lead girl is played by Joy, of k-pop girl group Red Velvet. We aren’t the biggest fans of her acting, but we have to say we saw major improvements in this drama from previous ones. This is a drama for people who who love to say “I am not someone who likes drama in my life. I like to be drama free.” Because we know you’re lying through your teeth, so grab some popcorn and much to your hearts content.
5. Extraordinary You (어쩌다 발견한 하루)
This drama was one that took us totally by surprise. We tend to avoid high school dramas. They are sometimes too dramatic, cliché, and don’t target at people our age. Hence why we don’t watch them. But when we saw Rowoon from SF9 and one of our newest k-drama actor obsessions, Lee Jae Wook, were the male leads, we threw our previous conceptions aside and watched a high school drama. But this truly wasn’t like any other high school drama we had ever seen. In fact, the reason we love it so much is because it thrives off making fun of high school plot lines while also creating a totally insane, romantic, heart wrenching, funny, and life altering show that had us praying for the next episode to come out. Lucky for you guys it’s binge-able. All shows on this list, minus one, are completed so during this quarantine you can go ham and binge to your hearts content. This story focuses around a girl who seemingly looks to have a good life. She’s pretty, her family has money, she is well liked in school, but she does have a heart condition that causes some minor issues here or there. Suddenly she starts to notice odd things happen around her. Time passes but she doesn’t remember what happened, her friends constantly repeat themselves but don’t realize it, she thinks her heart is causing issues in her life. FUN FACT: It’s not her heart. She is a character in a 만화! Once finding out she is determined to change her plot line, but it comes with some costs. Find out when you watch. You won’t be disappointed. (PS we told our friend at Forbes about this article and she binged the whole show and wrote and article about it. #justsaying)
4. Love Alarm (좋아하면 울리는)
And now for the only show that has yet to be completed. And with this whole coronavirus craziness we don’t know when it actually will. This drama is when Netflix tried to make k-dramas like all other shows in the world and create multiple seasons out of a show that could’ve easily been one. We’ve noticed, for now at least, they’ve realized the error in their ways and have been providing a normal season length. Anywho, this six episode ‘season’ revolves around a girl, fairly normal school life, but an ugly step sister (actually her cousin) and an evil step mother (her aunt) who are making her pay for the debt of her dead parents. Trust us, the shiz is messed up and her aunt is a piece of crap, but that isn’t the main focus of the show. The main focus is the fact a new app comes on the market that shows you if someone within 10 meters of you is in love with you. ‘JoAlarm’ aka Love Alarm. She refuses to download it and it catches the attention of the sexy new boy in school. He chases her, and falls in love. Too bad his best friend has been in love with her for ages. Oh well the Love Alarm sounds off when the Love Alarm sounds off.
3. Crash Landing On You (사랑의 불시착)
A show that we have been able to convince even non interested parties in is Crash Landing On You. Yep. People who didn’t want to even start k-dramas have binged and fell in love with Captain Ri and his band of merry men as they navigate the worlds of North and South Korea. This drama is in the top three for so many reasons. The love story is one for the flipping ages, the friendships that are created between all the characters sends us, and well the plot line is refreshing, fun, filled with love and action and tear jerking scenes that everyone can love this drama. A well-known CEO decides to be the test subject of a new paragliding suit. Too bad a freak storm sends her whirling around and landing in a tree stuck until someone can find her. Luckily someone does. A North Korean soldier. She landed in North Korea! Trying to escape proves fruitless and the soldier does what he can to help her escape not only to keep her safe, but to keep him and his team out of fire for failing to do their jobs. But since North Korea doesn’t come to play, other officers start to get involved and things start to take a turn for the worst. Corruption, murder, and the CEO and soldiers past all come to light and well…we really don’t want to spoil this story for you guys. Just trust us, this is one that you will not soon forget.
2. Reply 1988 (응답하라 1988)
The first drama we got Sammie’s mother to watch is this beautiful masterpiece of a semi-historical drama. When you think historical you think anything before the 1900’s so let’s call this a throwback masterpiece. A story of four neighborhood friends growing up in half block radius, whose parents are just as close, and how they navigate life in South Korea during the late 80’s and early 90’s. While the teenagers were filled with comedy, love and heartbreak, the parents were really an amazing plot line as well that left Sammie’s mom sobbing, both laughing and heartfelt, along with us. We also learned some crazy laws like, did you know that people with the same last names couldn’t marry? We sure as heck didn’t.
We couldn’t find a trailer but we decided to share one of the funny scenes that legit had us rolling at how embarrassing it was.
1. W: Two Worlds (더블유)
If you follow us on Instagram (@koreanfromcontext) or Twitter (@koreanfrmcntxt) we have mentioned our love for this show. Not even just this show but a very specific episode. If you remember, wow, you’ve been here awhile! Thanks for staying with us! This show wasn’t initially a favorite of ours. In fact, we didn’t watch it when it came out because we, don’t come for us yet, didn’t find Lee Jong Suk all that attractive. We have since taken that back and are very loyal to our boy. We aren’t even sure why we chose to finally watch but now it’s here at the number one spot so clearly it was good. We have a love for 만화 , obviously since two of the titles here revolve around the concept as well as our last list was all about BL 만화. This story is even crazier than Extraordinary You. What if you liked a story so much, but didn’t like the plot so you got sucked into the story so you could change it? And then the lead of the story falls in love with you, and the story begins to change, and characters begin to disappear and people in the story and outside are trying to kill you both? And then you have to constantly change the story so that it can fix itself and your 만화 love ends up in the real world? Yeah, this drama is all of that and a bag of chips and we can re-watch until the cows come home. (We mean that literally we live in farm country lol) Also the orchestral scores are so epic. OST solid but the ORCHESTRAL SCORES ARE THE MOST AMAZING!
So what do you think? Have you watched any of these dramas? Are you going to? What are some of your favorite dramas? We want to know!
Our Top 10 BL Drama Kisses (WARNING! 18+ content)
We have had a rough few days if we are being totally honest. Coronavirus has taken a toll on our lives and those we care about. We are taking life day by day and trying to find some positives during this time. We are putting our Travel NYC Like____ series on hold, for obvious reasons, and we have been trying to figure out something to do instead for the time being. Getting side tracked we began talking about our favorite things. And listing them in top 5-10 lists. And that’s when we came up with the idea to make lists of our favorite things to remind us of what makes us happy and hopefully try and make you happy as well.
Enjoy!
*Sips some coffee* Good day, (not sure what time is will be when you read this so just going with day here) if you’ve been following us for awhile you know our guilty pleasure. If not, here is where we introduce you to some of the best of what we not so secretly lust for.
Welcome to our top ten BL kisses. BL? What’s BL? Simple. Boys Love. BL. And for us it has become part of our everyday life. On Mondays we still crave boba tea (a shoutout to TharnType), and we crave Lays potato chips on Tuesdays (Shout out to Until We Meet Again), and lately on Fridays we really want to start getting into playing the guitar (Shout out to BOTH 2gether and WHY R U).
Now let’s start off with…none of these are Korean, but one does have a korean actor in it, but there are some Korean BL’s out there. We just haven’t watched enough.
We watch several series, and then re-watch to get our fix. After all the watching and re-watching, we go to Instagram where @blworld1 feeds us even more bits and introduces us to new shows and then @mochiigun for all the adorable and NSFW edits.
Just when we think we have had enough we realize we’ve lied to ourselves. We still need more and so we go to our phones and read 만화 (Manwha – Korean version of manga). We will also possibly talk about some of those in an article as well.
We are dedicated to attractive men loving on each other. We think it stemmed from fandoms coupling up members of bands. And not just K-pop. Even One Direction had Larry.
Let’s crack on to the list shall we.
10. Because Of You 2020, JunCheng & Lin Xun: We are starting off soft and sweet. This kiss is just that. It warms the heart when JunCheng professes his love for Lin Xun to the woman who raised the man he loves. He screams it at the ocean, as the mother passed and Lin Xun threw her ashes into the ocean so he could easily visit her. (cue the cuteness)
Come on this is adorable! 9. Until We Meet Again, Win &Team: We didn’t follow this show religiously. In all honesty, we skipped to the scenes that mattered. Which were any with Win and Team. The bad boy with tattoos and a rough exterior but a heart of gold, and the fresh new innocent meat, who totally deserved their own dang series, were more entertaining than the main couple. (this is all our opinion so please don’t come for us. We respect everyone in the show, but everyone has their favorites) They had such a natural feeling relationship. And anytime Win smiled all we could think was, “What that mouth do?” What it does is leave little love bites on our Team for the whole world to see.
add captions to see just how lovely this scene really is. 8. HIStory Crossing the Line, Zi Xuan & Yu Hao: This was the first HIStory season we watched. In fact, it was what got us in BL dramas. They gave us such heart clenching, butterflies in the stomach that we needed more and were sad to see their story come to an end. But this kiss was such a happy lighthearted love that we fell in love with BL.
Why is it so sexy when the glasses come off to make out more? 7. WHY R U?, Fighter &Tutor: This is not the last time you will see these names on this list. They have been serving so many good kiss scenes and the series, as this is being written, isn’t even over. This particular kiss had us screaming and throwing our pillows because one thing we always said was Fighter’s Adam’s apple was so prominent that it was really sexy. And guess who agrees? TUTOR AND HIS MOUTH! We screamed, and we mean do mean SCREAMED.
That Adam’s Apple got the holiest of treatments. 6. THARNTYPE The Series, Tharn & Type: This show kind of fell of the rails near then end for us, BUT there is a second season coming so let’s hope they can redeem themselves. That being said, their ‘first time’ scene was one for the books. Tharn explaining to Type that you don’t simply just get to it, but you take your time to enjoy your partner, really did send us. Throw in his ice foreplay…and well…we melted almost as quick as that ice cube passing between their mouths.
Tharn really makes Type want those kisses after a little coercion. 5. Love By Chance, Tin & Can: A couple that at the end of the show, still wasn’t really a couple had a very adorable and sensual kiss. You could see that while at first Can really was against the kiss, he found it enjoyable and even asked for more of Tin’s kisses. While the second season will be the last BL drama for the actor who plays Tin, we can still go back to this kiss, and hopefully the ones that will come in this upcoming season.
Swipe that lip boy. SWIPE IT! 4. HIStory 3 Make Our Days Count, Xi Gu & Hao Ting: This was the first BL that made us sob ugly tears. It had a devastating ending, so if you plan to watch, keep that in mind. These men had one of the best relationship growths in our limited BL drama knowledge. And when Hao Ting decided to make his big move, the shock was that Xi Gu took the initiative. The scrawny little bottom chose to kiss the big muscular guy straddling him. And what was even more intriguing was Hao Ting not only going along with it but then nervously giving the go ahead to Xi Gu to continue what he’s was doing. The biggest of OOF’s
Is it just us or does the cupping of the cheeks makes this hit the feels even more? 3. WHY R U? Saifah & Zon: We clearly have a thing for sexy kisses…we are hard stans after all, however this kiss was much more tender and cute. Saifah and Zon’s relationship stemmed from their growing friendship as they had to work together but even as they were friendly, you could see their was a lot more flirtation as the friendship grew. And when Saifah said that Zon had his heart?!?! Forget it! We curled into the fetal position and wept at the adorable-ness.
Seriously grab a neck and brush a cheek and we are sold on the kiss! 2. THARNTYPE The Series, Tharn & Type: Yeah, yeah. We know. If we didn’t like this series that much why do they hold two spots? WELL…after skipping past the drama that didn’t seem to make much sense to us, we did want to watch their final special episode and boy are we sure glad we did. This was the ending we wanted from day one! The scene starts with no backgwound music, just some crickets so the ASMR of the making out is PRIME! When we watched Tharn lift Type and we couldn’t tell which one let out the light moan, we groaned. And then when they fell onto the bed and Tharn says hes gonna show Type how he’s gonna be a husband, our groan became an outright howl! Boi!! D-E-A-D!
If Type wasn’t such a dbag for most of the show we probably would’ve liked it more…but this makes up for it a bit. 1. WHY R U?, Fighter & Tutor: Yes they are back for the #1 spot on this list because that’s how good we find this couple’s chemistry. This is their ‘first night’ scene and boy does Tutor’s lustful looks give him a such a powerful vibe. And Fighter, who was nervous at first definitely fed off the sexual energy to give the best bed scene we’ve watched. The actor who plays Tutor had been in Love By Chance, and tbh his chemistry with his partner their is nothing like this show.
So there you have our top 10 BL kisses. We hope you enjoy and hope you watch the series and send all the actors love. If you have any kind of questions on where to watch, or who the actors are, feel free to hit us up on Instagram (@koreanfromcontext) or Twitter (@koreanfrmcntxt).
Travel NYC like Kino and Hong-seok of PENTAGON
We truly must thank idols for going to places we have always wanted to go, but never had reason to go near. While we might’ve complained about one or two locations, even we have to admit we had some fun in Times Square.
We digress. New York is known for the many different bridges that go in and out of all the boroughs. The Verrazano, The Manhattan, George Washington, and even the Outerbridge Crossing. But one seems to have grown in popularity in recent years. And a lot of idols have made this place a stop on their trips.
Cue PENTAGON.
Now we did say a lot of other idols have gone to this particular spot, including Ren of N’uest and all the ‘members’ of PLT, to name a few but we chose Pentagon as we had found certain spots they had chosen to photograph the famous location in a more artistic way.
Fun Fact: we are not as artistic, and had to work with the maddening crowds of a gorgeous summer day, and couldn’t wait until the middle of the night because we were on a time crunch as Sammie had gotten sick as a dog half way through the day.
Just over a mile long, and one of the oldest suspension bridges in the US, the Brooklyn Bridge is where not only cars can cross from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but above the cars is a pedestrian walkway and bike path. And it is the site that, by cloak of night, Hong-seok and Kino chose to visit in their short time in NY.
We loved walking the expanse as the wind cooled out heated skin. The contrasting views of downtown Manhattan and the ever-growing DUMBO area of Brooklyn sitting at opposite ends of the bridge, is fascinatingly beautiful.
We do plan to explore the spot at night very soon so we can say we traveled NYC exactly like Hong-seok and Kino of PENTAGON
1TEAM ‘Make News Like Extra! Extra!’ in NYC for their Hello! Just One U.S. Tour
After only debuting a year ago, 1TEAM, consisting of rapper and songwriter BC , leader and vocalist Rubin (루빈) , vocalist Jin Woo (진우), vocalist Je Hyun (제현), and finally, the maknae and the other rapper of the group, Jung Hoon (정훈), is already conquering the North American Tour circuit. With their unique blend of hip-hop, EDM, and alternative R&B, it was no surprise they were able to fill the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn with hundreds of screaming Team Ones on March 8th 2020.
As the lights went off, the shrieks got even louder as the fans screamed their lungs out for 1TEAM to hit the stage. We could feel the energy pulsating through our own bodies, and also as our eardrums felt they were going to pop from how loud the crowd was. The boys descended the side stage stairs, and hit the main stage, and somehow the cries got even louder.
The beginning of “Make This,” their title track for their most recent comeback, started with its deep, dark, EDM sound and fans recognized it instantly. If we told you we remained professional, we’d be lying. We were bopping along with the crowd, singing along as our camera decided it was going to have its own little fanatic mental breakdown.
While we tried to calm our camera down and let it know the boys were in fact real and in front of it, our hearts continued to race as we watched the amazing dance moves we had seen on our computer screens come to life before our eyes. Oh, and did we mention that most of their opening outfits were made of see through material. We didn’t? Well now we did. Composed of dark black or bright white lace the blouses left little to the imagination of Team Ones.
And once we got our camera to somewhat cooperate with us, they were on to their next song from their most recent mini album “Love it.”
Throughout the entire show they talked about how grateful they were to be on tour, and how excited they were to see the different famous places of not only NYC, but also their other tour locations. They interacted with fans picking different people in the audience to sing their favorite songs. They loved the fans and the fans loved them.
They had another outfit change and our hearts throbbed at the chill, hipster vibe their red and white ensembles gave off. Rubin even flaunted his gorgeous tattoos when he pulled the sleeves down of his dope silk varsity jacket. Which, tattoos on idols? We. Are. Here. For. It.
They continued the show with other tracks of theirs like, “TAK!,” “Countdown,” “’Bout U,” and one of our favorites, the song that got us to stan HARD for these guys, “Vibe.” Every song was filled with more and more energy, like they were simply building it all up to have it explode in the next song. Their energy was unparalleled to other shows we have been to recently. We couldn’t help but shake our butts and tap our feet in the back of the venue as we watched them kill it on stage.
Besides their own songs, like every group that comes to the US, they showed off their bilingual skills by singing some popular American music. Songs included Maroon5’s “Girls Like You,” Justin Biebers “Yummy,” and our personal fav Post Malone “Sunflower.”
We have always talked about our appreciation for MyMusicTaste and StudioPAV and how well they put together shows. This was no different. The reason we always love their shows is the fact you get time to interact with the members via Meet and Greets, and Hi-touch possibilities. Fans who had VVIP got to spend some time with 1TEAM and even got signed posters. And VIP’s got Hi-touch where they got to greet the members of 1TEAM.
The concert was one for the books. 1TEAM walked out going 100 and walked off after their encore at level 9000! We hope you guys can see them this tour, and if not please check out all their music videos and join us Team One’s. You’ll “Love it.” 😉
Travel NYC like Seungmin and Hyunjin of Stray Kids
Stray Kids went a lot of different places while being here in New York. And since they’re coming back NEXT WEEK, we decided to do one more before they arrive. Some of the spots we loved (Like when they visited The Roxy hotel, and DUMBO) and some we legitimately try to stay as far away from as possible (like Penn Station and now this new spot).
This spot is actually somewhere we had talked about and been to when ASTRO came to town. Yes, that’s correct. We went back to Times Square. JUST. FOR. YOU! To a section we actually have never even been close to if we’re being honest. We had seen it in videos, pictures, and we knew where it was but since it was in Times Square we avoided it like the plague.
Famous from the Alicia Keys and Jay-Z music video for “Empire State of Mind” those bright red stairs actually hold TKTS, an infamous Broadway ticket selling broker. We say infamous because they say they sell tickets cheap, when really they are the same, if not more than face value for the tickets. Fun fact if you come to NY and want to see a show…don’t go there.
The spot has now become an Instagram mecca for the tourists who come to see Times Square. And the boys of Stray Kids hopped on that bandwagon. And what they do, we do. And we have to admit…
It was pretty cool. Actually really cool. Yes, we will admit that something in Times Square was worth going to see. Between Broadway and 7TH Ave, on 47th St. you will find these large red stairs to climb up and see the enormity of Times Square. And you can snap your shot and check another location off your list as you have now travelled like Seungmin and Hyunjin of Stray Kids.
Queen’s Channel Sits on a Throne of Quality Content
Queens Channel on YouTube has amassed a following with her cute reactions to MV’s from predominantly Asian artists and dance videos from all over the world! We met her almost two years ago and we knew she was some of the good people. We got to sit down and chat with her at KCON to discuss everything KPOP!
Back in 2012, her mom was the one to be the ultimate fangirl of K-pop. “TVXQ and Super Junior were the ones she was really into. And so I would listen to them with her. From there I got hooked and started finding more groups.”
Queen made it her own. She had always been into dance and seeing all the amazing choreography of the artists made her want to follow along. And so she started actually doing it. Watching videos and following along until she was a pro just like them.
And honestly her dancing is some dope stuff. She also freestyles which blows our minds. (for reference: We can do the cha cha slide…) We asked her what her favorites song at the time was to dance to. She responded fairly quickly, “BlackPink’s 뚜두뚜두 – ddudduddu. It’s just a great song to dance to.”
With all of this behind she still hadn’t made her debut on the internet. What pushed to her start her YouTube channel? Once again, her family had a large influence on that. They brought it up with her growing passion for dance and her love of watching the videos, why not share that with the world and find other people like her. “I wasn’t sure at first, because I was still in school and wasn’t sure I had time. But I decided to give it a try and before I knew it, the channel grew a life of it’s own and now I’m doing YouTube part time.”
Now that YouTube has become a part time career for Queen, we wanted to know her favorite aspect of the channel. She loves making the videos, reacting to new music, practicing dances, all that kind of stuff. But she loves the interaction with all the people who have been there to watch her grow into what she is today, a channel with almost 10K subscribers and a loyal fanbase (us included) who wait patiently for her next videos. She says she is, “forever grateful for the love and support.”
And in true Korean From Context form, we asked the most loaded question we have asked in every interview so far:
What’s the Korean phrase you want people to know?
It did take her a little while to think of one. There were so many she wanted to choose from but she finally chose one that is probably the most rational. “저기요 (chogiyo -excuse me) If you need to get someone’s attention politely it’s your best bet.” After wrapping up our interview we spent the entire two days of Kcon NY together meeting new people and old friends, eating delicious food, and bonding over our love of kpop, kdramas, and Korean skincare. She is one of the kindest most generous people we have met and here at Korean From Context, we are so insanely proud of everything Queen has accomplished and recommend you check out her work. Below is one of her many videos. If you like what you see head over to her channel and hit that subscribe button. And def check out her Instagram @ji_q111) where she posts previews to her new dance videos!
Travel NYC like Hong Joong of ATEEZ
Ever have a day where you crave a food so bad that nothing else but that exact meal, in that exact restaurant will do? Well the day we found a spot Hong Joong had walked past was one of those days. And what we craved were steamed rice rolls down on Canal St.
During a usual summer lunch break at work, we loved going for nice walks in the areas of the city we hadn’t fully explored. We would always stumble on a cool new shop with amazing clothing, or a free experience like a traveling double decker bus decked out like a forest.
But that day we were on a mission. To get rice rolls. We knew about the Canal St Marketplace and all the amazing food and shopping (including a k-pop shop) it had to offer. And while one of us craved steamed rice rolls, the other craved to find this gem of a restaurant tucked away on the streets of SOHO. So we struck a deal with each other. One of us got the rice rolls, the other got her picture like Hong Joong.
Near one of our favorite rice pudding joints (yes that is a real thing), Balthazar is a French restaurant on Spring St. We haven’t eaten there yet but maybe now we will after we’ve wrapped up a day of traveling NYC like Hong Joong of ATEEZ.
