The Rookie Grandparent

I know this is more of a family thing and not a grandparent thing, but it’s a Thought based on my advanced age, so hopefully it’s still relevant to other grandparent-type folks.

The rage around the household in the last few months has been all things Korean, and my wife and daughter have been watching Korean dramas on the Internet and NetFlix. They have conspired together to identify a drama about golf that I would watch called Birdie Buddy, and my wife and I watched it together. I do remember how dramas work… I watched soap operas thru college, and was one of the several hundred students sitting around the big TV in the Foy Union building at Auburn watching Luke and Laura get married on General Hospital. But, I gave them up after graduation as there was not enough time after work to watch.

 

Here are my thoughts about the K-Drama experience…

• In Korea, Golf is for Girls.  The story starts with the heroine as a small girl being inspired to play golf by watching Se Ri Pak on TV… this must have happened a lot in Korea as there are many great female Korean golfers who followed in her footsteps.  I always laugh now when remembering the line from the golf scene in Goldfinger that “golf is not yet the national game in Korea”… times changed.  :-)
• Throwback morality.  The storyline relied on doing the right thing even when it’s hard as opposed to celebrating the easy path as we do on American TV today, and in America in general.  Daughter says this reflects the current state of Korean culture, which for me was a refreshing alternative.
• Dramas drag along.  This particular K-Drama had 24 episodes of 50 minutes each, which is not an unusual length… but some K-Dramas have two or three times as many episodes.  The flashback is used liberally… it’s one thing to flashback to something that happened a few episodes back, but you really shouldn’t have to be reminded of what happened in the previous scene.   I think Birdie Buddy could have easily fit into 20 episodes.
• Learning the language.  One of my regrets in life has been not learning another language.  I think watching subtitled TV or movies would be a good aid in learning another language, as I picked up a few words along the way.  I finally have a Korean word to call my wife, which is “Noona”.  This is what guys in Korea call their girlfriends and it means “older sister”.  Somehow that fits  :-)
• Subbing is an art form.  Many K-Dramas, including Birdie Buddy, are subtitled by volunteers.  I think this translation and subtitling is as much of an art as developing the original screenplay and editing the video… especially for an audience that can’t understand much of the dialogue.  If someone was interested in language and theater, I think it would be pretty interesting work.  Also, because different people are subbing, sometimes flashbacks are different from the original.
• No multitasking.  You don’t get to share focus with other things and watch K-Dramas since you miss the subtitles.  This was hard for me to do… especially in the slower parts of the story.
• Plot twists.  These are pretty much the same as American dramas… don’t want to give away the storyline, but there are some unusual events that happen that reminded me a lot of soap operas here.
• The Orange Ball.  The heroine started playing an orange golf ball at episode 13, and had much success.  As someone who has also played the orange ball for many years, I had to think “What took you so long?”  :-)