MsLatte’s Daebak Cybercafé (Kdrama addicts #15): Tiring of your usual telly during lockdown? Want to be transported somewhere else? Try our escapist boxset recommendations

[boatyardblues]

A quiet corner of MN for serious addicts of Kdrama, or the K-curious. (MsLatte is a Her Private Life reference.) Most of our viewing is drawn from Netflix and Viki, with a sprinkling of Dramabus (non subscription, maybe dodgy) and AmazonPrime. 

We also dip into Japanese, Taiwanese & Chinese drama as & when. The previous thread is here but our ‘Addicts Recommend’ list below is cumulative so includes recommendations and favourites from all previous threads.


Shows marked with an asterisk are more uniformly loved or admired. In categorising series, its important to note most Korean dramas have multiple strands - e.g. supernatural, romance and a thriller; crime series with fantasy elements. Genre-busting mash-ups are normal. Series that are tagged as dark may also have moments of comedy or the absurd, likewise fluff can have heavier moments. View the categories below as best approximate & ask if you need guidance, eg about suitability for younger teens.

Comedy (with a side order of absurd)

I picked up a celebrity on the street (Viki)
My Fellow Citizens (Viki)
The Fiery Priest (Netflix)

Crime/Thriller

Come and Hug Me (Dramafast)
Graceful Family (Viki)
Healer (Netflix)*
Heartless City (Viki)
He is Psychometric (Viki)
I Hear Your Voice (Netflix /Viki)

Life on Mars (classy remake of BBC series, Dramafast)
My Secret Terrius (Netflix)*
Signal (Netflix)*
Suspicious Partner (Netflix)*
The Lies Within (Netflix)*
Tunnel (Netflix)*

Historical/Period drama (“sageuk”)
100 Days My Prince (Viki)
Crowned Clown (Viki)*
Mr Sunshine (Netflix)
Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung (Netflix)
Tale of Nokdu (Viki)*

Romance - lighter & fluffier
Beating Again (Netflix)
Coffee Prince (Netflix)
Don’t Dare to Dream (Netflix, or as Jealousy Incarnate on Viki)*
Gogh, The Starry Night (Viki)

Happy Once Again (Netflix)
Her Private Life (Viki)*

His Master’s Sun (Netflix)

Love from a Star (Netflix)*
Pinocchio (Netflix)
Radio Romance (Netflix)

Romance is the Bonus Book (Netflix)*

She Was Pretty (Dramabus/Netflix)*
The Beauty Inside (Viki/Netflix)
The Secret Life of My Secretary (Viki/Netflix)
Thirty Not Seventeen (Viki) or as Still 17 (Netflix)
Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo (Netflix/Viki)
What’s Up With Secretary Kim (Viki)*
Where Stars Land (Viki)*
You are my Destiny (Netflix)


Romance - heavier weight/more grown up themes

Another Miss Oh (Netflix)*
Because This Is My First Life (Viki/Netflix)*

Chicago Typewriter (Viki/Netflix)*
Crash Landing on You (Netflix)**
Descendants of the Sun (Viki/Netflix)
Doctors (Netflix)
Fight For My Way (Viki/Drama bus)*
Go Back Couple (Viki)
I’ll Go To You When The Weather is Nice (Viki)

Just Between Lovers (Viki)*
Melo is my Nature (Viki)/Be Melodramatic (Dramafast)
My Strange Hero (Viki)
One Spring Night (Netflix)
Red Carpet - film (Netflix, very adult content)
Romantic Dr Kim - seasons 1&2 (Viki)
Search: WWW (Viki)*

Something in the Rain (Netflix)
The Package (Viki)



Straighter ‘Slice of Life’ dramas on universal themes
Hospital Playlist (Netflix)
Itaewon Class (Netflix)
Live (Netflix)
My Mister (Viki)**
Prison Playbook (Netflix)*

Stove League (Viki)

Supernatural/zombies/vampires/fantasy/sci-fi - lighter & fluffier

Extraordinary You (Netflix)
Goblin (Viki)*

I am not a Robot (Netflix)
Legend of the Blue Sea (Viki/Netflix)
My Holo Love (Netflix)*
Orange Marmalade (Netflix)

While You Were Sleeping (Viki)*



Supernatural/zombies/vampires/fantasy/sci-fi - darker/more grown up themes

Black (Netflix)*
Hotel del Luna (Viki)*
Kingdom (Netflix)*

The Guest (Dramafast)
Train to Busan - film (Amazon Prime)

W: Two Worlds (Viki & Netflix)*



Guilty Pleasures (for the joy, not the quality)
Bride of Habaek (Netflix)
Hwarang (Viki/Netflix)
The Last Empress (Viki/Netflix)
Sassy Go Go (Netflix)



Mad as a box of frogs/uncategorisable

Strong Girl Bong Soon (Netflix)

Not Korean but just try it
Regulars occasionally branch out into Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese drama. The Chinese & Taiwanese stuff is much more variable quality-wise, so we’ve noted anything decent here:

Before We Get Married (Viki - Taiwanese)
Go Go Squid (Viki - Chinese)
Instead of Tipsy Why Not Get Drunk (Viki, Chinese)
Love O2O (Viki - Chinese)
Morning Call (Netflix - Japanese)
Put Your Head on My Shoulder (Netflix - Chinese)
Tientsin Mystic (Netflix, Chinese)

Thread Regulars’ Top 5 Dramas of 2019
(courtesy of Hello’s kdrama spreadsheet, scores range from +10 if very good to -10 for truly awful)

1. Her Private Life - 9.40 (5 votes)
2. Melo is My Nature - 9.00 (5 votes)

3.= Crash Landing On You, The Crowned Clown, The Lies Within, and The Tale of Nokdu - 8.75 (4 votes)

1. Hotel del Luna - 8.50 (4 votes)

5.= Romance is a Bonus Book, and Search: WWW - 8.17 (6 votes)

We are generally fans of all things Korean, so equally happy to talk about Korean cookery, language, film and music when the mood takes us. Quite a few of us are learning Korean, Japanese and/or Mandarin (some more diligently than others admittedly), so we swap tips and links to language resources. Basically, anything topical goes.


We have a few frequently used acronyms:
FL/2FL = female lead/2nd female lead
ML/2ML = male lead/2nd male lead
SLS = Second Lead Syndrome (where the FL/ML is too dense to realise the 2ML/2FL is better)
🥾🍑 (boot, peach) = kick up the arse to go to bed



We also abbreviate titles if they’re long, but usually with an obvious abbreviation. Some favourite actors & actresses have been abbreviated for speed/efficiency, eg Park Min Young (PMY), Kim Jae Wook (KJW). Don’t be afraid to ask for help/clues if we’re not making sense or have descended into acronym soup.



If you want to join us down the kdrama rabbit hole, welcome! Pull up a chair, say goodbye to early nights and get stuck in…

Yes that was well done. It's classy stuff. Glad to see the return of the elder mafia

Oh no! I feel so sorry for Han Shanyang. 😮Nian Nian’s mother is deserving of a horrible MIL thread in relationships.

Um, for some reason I thought there were 22 episodes of Go Go Squid & I was perplexed by the state of play (currently on ep 21). There’s only 41 bloody episodes! I’ll be watching it until Christmas. (Not really. There’s probably another 10 days’ work here for me.)

The episodes are only 45 mins long and a disproportionate amount of that seems to be taken up with title sequences 😒

I’ve started Mask & have the weirdest sense of déja vu but I don’t think I’ve seen it before, just the cliff top scene at the beginning seems very familiar. I haven’t got into it yet and not sure that I will but it did make me snigger that the shower scene was due to man getting puked on by v drunk FL (referring back to earlier discussion about differing drinking habits of Cdrama FLs & Kdrama FLs

Excited myself by being able to read and partially know/partially deduce Sung Hoons insta comments about his dog! Concentrated learning is starting to pay off 😁 I'm getting there with the listening but reading/writing is taking me a while.

Go Go Nian Nian's mum is sooo mean but her dad is really sweet. If you're halfway there then you'll start to see more of the softer side of the ML. I always skip the intro/end credits so you end up with an episode that is around 35 mins

I’m skipping the opening and closing credits...

I had a similar sense of deja vu over a interior set the other day, I am sure I have seen the same living room in more than one drama 🤔

There’s a cliff top scene at the start of Black. Was it that one?

The ballerina’s house in Angel’s Last Mission crops up in multiple kdramas.

There’s a cliff top scene at the start of Black. Was it that one?

That may have been it, there's also one in Angel's Last Mission. I am struggling with the first episode & there's no sign of Ju Ji Hoon yet

Good going monkeywench I'm still at the letter by letter looking up stage!

Am I sensing a soft spot for Ju Ji Hoon, Betty? I’m willing to admit that it’s JJH in Joseon robes that’s helped me power through the zombies in Kingdom.

He’s not a top oppa but certainly makes it easier to get through a so-so drama.

I am just marking time until this afternoons ep of King anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️

He’s not a top oppa but certainly makes it easier to get through a so-so drama.

For some reason, his drug charges listed on wiki (party drugs) and the insight that he’s a very naughty boy made me like him more.

I am just marking time until this afternoons ep of King anyway

Uh huh, me too.

For reasons I can’t even remember there’s a debate raging in the Westminstenders thread about how Chinese language is described and categorised at the mo. I thought this post was interesting, as characters in Go Go Squid have referred a couple of times to the Shanghai dialect:

Just chipping in on the question of Mandarin vs 'Chinese'...

^My local high school calls their course 'Mandarin Chinese'. This might be like calling a British language course Irish Celtic/Gàidhlig Celtic/Cymraeg Celtic, or Scots. It's very unusual to see a course called simply 'Chinese'. Rosetta Stone specifies that they teach 'Mandarin Chinese'.
www.rosettastone.com/learn-chinese/^

Mandarin is aka 'Modern Standard Chinese' (Putonghua) and is based on the dialect of Beijing, though there are several dialects of Mandarin. It's a heavily promoted, semi-artificial language, similar to Taiwanese Mandarin but not exactly the same.

Cantonese is the main everyday language of HK and Macau, with MSC taught in schools and becoming more prominent. Cantonese (Yue) is being squeezed out. There is a serious political motive behind the spread of Mandarin in Canton/Guangdong and into HK.

The major Chinese languages (there are 7-13 regional groups, or 8-10 depending on how you count them, with a total language count of about 300 in all) are, generally speaking, mutually unintelligible and even subgroups within those main groups are mutually unintelligible, to different degrees, with some transitional geographical areas where merging of languages or learning of neighbouring languages is occurring or has occurred. There are also non-Sinitic languages, in the north, far west, and bordering Laos and Vietnam.

The idea of a nationally understood language has always been part of the approach by any administration, Imperial or Communist, seeking to establish and maintain control over the state's many and varied ethnic groups, 56 in all as currently recognised. The term 'Modern Standard Chinese' is as much a political manifesto as a name for a language. It's the language of literacy for hundreds of millions of Chinese.

Another great post from Westminstenders:

TheElementsOfMedical

What do the Malay Chinese community speak? I studied with some years ago, and I know that they said that Chinese people used to mock them for their expressions and accents. Not real Chinese.

Did somebody call? grin Get ready for a LONG derail - feel free to scroll past grin

The historic Chinese diaspora are very complicated in SE Asia. There were multiple waves of migration from China to SE Asia for differing purposes, from different Chinese provinces and they acted in varying ways when they arrived.

The dialects and languages spoken in parts of the Malay Peninsula reflect the complicated history.

Chinese migrants from later periods (say 19th - early 20th century) were often "shipped in" as labourers for farming, tin-mining, and rubber-tapping. Many came from villages in Fujian and Guangdong, bringing their local gang disputes with them to Malaya which helped to decide where each group would settle. Therefore (roughly speaking) in northern parts of the Peninsula, the majority of settlers were from Fujian so Hokkien (as it is called in SE Asia) became the main dialect for everybody. In the middle part of the Peninsula, the majority of settlers came from Guangdong and so Cantonese is the main dialect. In the southern part of the Peninsula, a different group of Hokkien-speakers settled. Obviously people came from other parts of China with their own dialects, just that they would also have to learn the majority local one in order to get on with work/shopping/socialising.

The Nyonya (or Peranakan Chinese) are considered the "oldest" arrivals in SE Asia - they came for trade or politics in relatively small numbers as early as the 15th century onwards, and initially intermarried with local Malay gentry. For obvious reasons often they were wealthier, more educated and privileged than the later waves of labour migration - they were able to take on administrative roles, etc. Very approximately, the Nyonya population is based around historic trading ports - usually considered to be the British Crown Colonies of Penang, Malacca and Singapore. Nyonya people speak: their ancestral dialect of Chinese, the majority local dialect of the area, and (reflecting their "standing" in colonial society) English and Malay. Penang and Singapore Nyonyas tend to speak fluent English as their additional language. Malacca Nyonyas tend to speak Malay as their first language, with Chinese dialect as the secondary language.

Because the Chinese migrants were either uneducated recent-ish labourers from poor background, or had been "away" from China and immersed in SE Asian culture for centuries, all these groups would have lost fluency and vocabulary, and developed a local SE Asian set of accents and unique way of speaking incorporating the background soup of other languages spoken around them. So yes, a bit of a pidgin. In fact, several pidgins developed with different language bases.

It wasn't until post-independence in the mid-20th century when SE Asian countries started looking East instead of West that up-to-date "proper" Chinese language (i.e. Mandarin) education became really popular and widespread among the [ethnic Chinese] general population. For example, Singapore made a massive push, making Mandarin Chinese compulsory in education, plus a huge public information campaign with the slogan "Speak Chinese, It Helps." Singapore being so influential, Mandarin soon also became the majority dialect spoken in the southern part of the Peninsula.

the insight that he’s a very naughty boy made me like him more

🤣🤣 yeah, there is something appealing in him! If it’d been dodgy sex crimes that’s a different matter 🙅🏻‍♀️

Absolutely. Sexual assault convictions are definitely a no-no.

boatyard those are really interesting to read and I think I'll have to go and seek out the thread. It's on a smaller scale but I speak a very odd but accepted local dialect and during school it was punishable if we spoke using hints of the dialect instead of standard English. It lead to a slow phase out of the dialect because young people didn't use it anymore. It's still around obviously but to a lesser extent. I can see how doing that on a larger scale and enforcing 'Modern Standard Chinese' could result in a loss of a cultural identify in these small groups.

Hello - here’s the link for the current thread. The debate about Chinese languages started about 3 days ago, so fairly near the current end of the thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3897682-Westminstenders-Following-the-EU-lead It’s a really useful thread for keeping an eye on UK politics, Brexit negotiations and currently the political aspects of COVID. It’s the kind of thread where sloppy thinking gets pulled up, hence the side-debate at Chinese languages.

bettys I'm still at the stage where I'm sounding out everything, but I have an advantage because some words sound similar to Japanese so I can hazard a guess. The one that gets me is ㅓㅏㅣ when the font is tiny and I'm trying to figure out if the stroke is there or not.

Feel like I'm back in nursery learning how to read lol Korean 101 has been a really useful resource

I’ve found a combination of Drops & Lingo deer to be quite useful .

Gah I’ve just realised who Ju Ji Hoon is in Mask - I should’ve realised after the shower scene as they wouldn’t waste that on anyone but the ML 🤦🏻‍♀️ He has a fringe in this

You’re slipping if a fringe put you off JJH’ trail, Betty.

I’m still struggling to work out which ㅆ/ㅅ+ vowel combinations in Korean give the ‘sh’ pronunciation instead of ‘ss’.

I must be slipping indeed, I put it down to trying to watch 2 programmes at once (lockdown compromises)