Pachinko (2022) released 25 March 2022 on Apple TV
Written by Min Jin Lee (author of the book Pachinko)
Directed by: Justin Chon
Cast: Kim min-ho, Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Min-ho
Pachinko is an American drama series based on the novel of the same name written by Min Jin Lee. The series includes an impressive line-up of stars including a few of my very favourites such as Youn Yuh-jung as the older Kim Sunja (Youn was the first Korean actress to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2021 for her performance as the eccentric grandmother in Minari), andLee Min-ho (check out Eternal Monarch) who plays the gorgeous, rich and naughty Koh Hansu.
Surprisingly, all actors were required to audition for a role in Pachinko. According to his interviews, Lee Min-ho was so keen for the role that he agreed to his first audition in 13 years.
Pachinko (the name is a reference to Japanese gaming/slot machines) is the story of forbidden love, hope, family and belonging as an immigrant family from Korea trying to survive in Japan. It’s based on the life of Sunja (the youngerSunja is played superbly by Kim Min-ha) a poor young woman from a fishing village in Busan during the Japanese occupation of Korea , who has a love affair with a handsome, rich, and unfortunately married Koh Hansu.
Sunja’s choices lead her to another lifestyle where she endures oppression and discrimination, overcoming adversity and heartache while caring for her family, including her grandson Solomon, inevitably linking her back to Hansu.
It’s an epic saga that spans across four generations and three countries, often highlighting the lack of options and inequality between the rich and the poor. There are only eight episodes (whispers of more) and while I find it totally engaging, I do wonder how viewers who may not be familiar with the story, make sense of the changing scenes between characters and timelines.
If you don’t have access to Apple TV (it’s worth the free trial or $7.50 for a month of membership to watch it) you could buy the book ‘Pachinko’ and prop a picture of Lee Min-ho up next to you while you read. It’s an unforgettable story.
Did you know that I upload an average of two videos a week on YouTube these days? In the meantime, I have sold products on Amazon and released paid services on our website. But I want to focus more on YouTube content and monthly newsletter in 2022.
So I decided not to sell products on Amazon for a while. I lowered the price of the product below the cost for stock disposal. If you're interested, check it out here.
https://www.alphakoreanclass.com/Stationery
And I'm desperate for feedback on the video. If there's no response from the comments, I don't know if the video was good or bad. So I have to decide the next direction by looking at the data by myself. As a result, if the response to the content is not good as it is these days, I am thinking about whether to abolish the series that I just started.
However, isn't that confusing for subscribers? wouldn't you think it's a channel where nothing ends?
So I decided to ask for your help. Please send me an email to (helena@alphakoreanclass.com) if you are willing to cooperate with feedback or planning in order to improve the contents of the Alpha Korean Class channel.
You can send me the
Simple motivation for support,
and advantages and disadvantages of the Alpha Korean Class YouTube channel that you have identified.
I will provide secret lessons to those who are selected as participants like other team members.
I'll let you know the details by individual replies to the mail.
Now that I've shared my concerns,
Please enjoy this month's contents prepared by me and my team members.
Korea's next president, Yoon Seok-yeol, is trying to change the concept of the "Korean age".
The existing Korean age system was to consider a child as one year old as soon as he was born and to add another year on the upcoming January 1.
According to this system, a child born on December 31 will be two years old in two days.
Due to the complexity of this age calculation method, administrative confusion occurred recently regarding the age limit required for COVID-19 vaccination.
South Korea's next president and his team said they will push ahead with their pledge to match the nation's age calculation with international standards by early 2023 as a solution to the problem.
I rushed to the bookstore about two weeks ago to read Pachinko's original novel on Apple TV. Usually, I order online at Kyobo Bookstore, the largest bookstore in Korea, but this time it was an exception. Because I wanted to read it as soon as possible.
Not long ago, while I was talking to my mom on the phone, I found out that she wanted to read this novel very much. So last Friday, I ordered a book from Kyobo Bookstore online and sent it to my mom's house. However, Kyobo Bookstore said the delivery will start in three days because the book is out of stock.
Delivery hasn't started yet even after 3 days. And on the fourth day, I got a text from Kyobo Bookstore. Pachinko's supply and demand may be delayed further, and if supply and demand become impossible, it will be notified by text message again.
Thinking that my mom might be waiting anxiously, I decided to buy a book myself and send it to her. I went to the small bookstore where I bought the book on purpose. Then, there were only 6 copies of volume 1 of Pachinko, and no copies of volume 2 . When I went to a smaller bookstore I found by chance, surprisingly, there was only one set of Pachinko books.
When purchasing two books with a sigh of relief and joy, the boss asked. Did you call me two days ago? I said no. Someone must have been looking for the book like me. He said the book is temporarily out of stock, but the problem will be solved if it is reprinted soon. And then, in a cracking voice,
"It wasn't very interesting," he said, discouragingly.
However, when I got home, I found that the bookstore owner's prediction was wrong. This is because the copyright contract between the publisher "문학사상" and writer Lee Mi-Jung will expire on the 21st. The re-extension of the copyright contract has become unclear as the author has yet to give an answer.
For this reason, large bookstores such as Kyobo Bookstore and Aladdin have virtually suspended the sale of the novel "Pachinko" from the 12th.
My mother and I were lucky. This is because it will be difficult to meet the Korean novel "Pachinko" at any bookstore for the time being.
And I will soon make a video about why I enjoyed reading the novel Pachinko.
나는 약 2주일 전에 애플 TV에서 방영중인 파친코의 원작 소설을 읽고 싶어서 서점으로 달려갔다. 보통은 한국에서 가장 큰 서점인 '교보문고'에서 온라인 주문을 하지만 이번엔 예외였다. 가능한 빨리 읽고 싶었기 때문이다.
얼마 전에 엄마와 통화를 하던 중에 엄마도 이 소설을 무척이나 읽고 싶어한다는 걸 알았다. 그래서 지난 주 금요일(8일)에 온라인 '교보문고'에서 책을 주문해 엄마의 집으로 배송되도록 했다. 교보문고에서는 재고가 없어서 3일 후에 배송이 시작될 거라고 했다. 이때까지만 해도 '베스트 셀러다 보니 재고가 부족한가보다'고 생각했다.
하지만 공지한 3일이 지났는데도 배송이 시작되지 않았다. 그리고 4일째 되던 날(오늘) 교보문고에서 문자가 왔다. 파친코의 수급이 더 지연될 수도 있으며, 혹시 수급이 불가능해질 경우에는 문자로 다시 한 번 알려주겠다는 것이었다.
엄마가 애타게 기다릴 지도 모른다는 생각에 내가 직접 책을 사서 보내드리기로 했다. 내가 책을 구매했던 작은 서점을 찾아갔다. 그랬더니 1권만 6권이 쌓여 있고, 2권은 없었다. 웃음이 나왔다. 돌아오는 길에 우연히 발견한 더 작은 서점에 갔는데 놀랍게도 파친코 1,2권이 딱 한 권씩 있었다.
안도와 기쁨의 한 숨을 내쉬며 두 권의 책을 구입할 때, 사장이 물었다. 혹시 이틀전에 전화했었냐고. 난 아니라고 했다. 누군가 또 그 책을 애타게 찾고 있었나보다. 그는 이 책이 임시 품절상태지만 곧 다시 책을 찍어내면 문제가 해결될 거라고 말했다. 그리고는 갈라지는 목소리로
"별로 재미도 없던데." 라는 맥빠지는 소리를 했다.
하지만 집에 돌아와보니 서점 주인의 예상은 틀렸다는 걸 알게 됐다. 21일을 만기로 출판사 '문학사상'과 이미정 작가와의 판권 계약이 만료될 것이기 때문이다. 아직 작가측에서 답변을 주지 않아서 판권 계약 재연장이 불투명하다고 한다. 때문에 온라인 교보문고와 알라딘 등 대형서점에서는 12일부터 소설 '파친코'를 사실상 판매중단 선언했다. (관련기사 https://www.mk.co.kr/news/culture/view/2022/04/326820/)
나와 엄마는 운이 좋았다. 왜냐면 당분간은 어떤 서점에서도 한국어 소설 <파친코>를 만나기 어려울 것이기 때문이다.
Last weekend, I went to the filming location of "Our beloved Summer" and copied the acting of my husband and the main characters. I didn't know I couldn't forget this drama for so long. Because I made it into a vlog, this precious moment will be remembered for a longer time.
Writers: Yoo Young-ah adapted for film from Cho Nam-jo’s novel.
Cast: Jung Yu-mi, Gong Yoo.
Kim Ji-young: Born 1982, a film adapted from the novel of the same name, is the story of a 30-year-old Korean woman, (beautifully played by Jung Yu-mi), trying to juggle motherhood, depression, and her relationships after leaving a successful career to be a stay-at-home mother. She begins to experience dissociative episodes causing concern for those who love her.
Gong Yoo plays the role of the concerned husband, confused and uncertain about how to support his wife in a world where she faces gender discrimination at every turn and at every stage of her life.
After writing the book, the author Cho Nam-joo said her intention was ‘to make this into a public debate’ and that’s exactly what happened.
This film divided the Korean community with some believing it presented an unfair view of men, while others (mostly women) said they related to the character of Kim Ji-young and her experiences resonated strongly with them. Gong Yoo and Jung Yu-mi both received hate mail from anti-feminists during the filming, but said they were not concerned because it was more important to do well in the film.
Kim Ji-young – Born 1982 is a film that still promotes change because it continues to ignite discussion about the changing role of women in a more contemporary Korean society.
Available on Netflix in some countries. How do Korean women cope with gender discrimination?
To me, love is a thing you can’t stop when you’re caught up in it, a brief moment you can escape from only after it turns into the most hideous thing imaginable when you distance yourself from it. This is the uncomfortable truth about love that I learned in the ICU and recovery wards.” (‘Love in the Big City’, p. 118)
It is quite easy to say that love is beautiful: it supposedly makes the world go round; it can bring out the best in you and in others; people go to lengths they would never imagine for those that they love. But conversely, love can bring out the worst in others. It comes with jealousy, possessiveness, hatred. Just as you can find yourself in love, you can also lose yourself in love. What it comes down to is that love is complicated, in all its forms. We can never quite understand what love is, or why we love. But what we do know is that love is not simple, and that we continue to do so even when it hurts us. That is what we learn as we follow Young in the book ‘Love in the Big City.’
That’s when I realised that my time with Jaehee, which I thought would last forever, was over…. Jaehee, who had taught me that every season is its own beautiful moment—that Jaehee didn’t live here anymore. (p. 50)
“Love in the Big City” follows Young as he navigates love and relationships in Seoul. The story is told non-linearly in four parts, with each part centred around each of the defining relationships in his life. In the first section, ‘Jaehee’, we meet his female friend, after whom the section is named. Young and Jaehee meet in college, and become friends while bonding over the many (and I mean many) relationships that they have. They are so close that they even sleep over in each other's rooms. When Jaehee has to leave for an exchange program in Australia, though Park writes it simply, we can feel how much Young misses her during that time. Even after they graduate, they continue living together (except for one time when they fight), up until Jaehee gets married and they separate. This section was beautiful to me. It is quite common for people to think that the reverse is true; that romantic love trumps all other loves. But here, in a book about love, Park wrote about friendship as a form of love that is on par with romantic relationships. Not only that: he wrote about a strong male-female friendship, which is not something I see many authors do. There was no gratuitous sexual tension, no microaggressions - just two people who found their person. But there is also a tragic touch to this. After Jaehee’s marriage, their friendship seems to stall, and we are reminded of how friends drift apart and how much losing friends can hurt.
The more he seemed like a mysterious world I would never fully know, the more I wanted to conquer him. I wanted to squeeze hum until he couldn't breathe. He didn't care if I was his, but I wanted him to feel it was either me or nobody else. (p. 108)
I used to feel like I'd been given the whole world when I held him. Like I was holding the whole universe. (p.126)
The second section is told in retrospect, and would be what I consider Young’s ‘first great love’. While caring for his mother who contracts uterine cancer, Young attends a philosophy class on emotions, an attempt to manage his own emotions. There, he meets an unnamed character who invites him out for a post-class meal. One meal turns into many, and they begin dating. From the beginning, we are sure of how much Young loves Mr. No-Name. He wants to truly become part of his life, he wants to understand what Mr. Unnamed has gone through. But time and time again, we see how Mr. Unnamed vacillates; we never know what Young is to him. He lies again and again about simple things like his tattoos, he is so focused on himself that he ignores Young completely, as if Young has no effect on him. Which is sad, because he seems to have Young eating out of his own palm. All signs point to no for this relationship: it seems bound for doom from the beginning, something we can tell from how Young staunchly refuses to say his name, as though by leaving him unnamed, he can erase all traces of Mr. Unnamed in his life. This is love that hurts, as all unequal relationships are fated to.
Umma was now lying on the grass and staring up at the sky. She looked incredibly calm. At peace. I wondered if that ninety-nine pound, fifty-eight-year-old woman staring at the fading firmament was feeling the same way I was feeling. That my life could not be summed up like the neat columns of numbers of a chart.... That the person I though I knew best just because we had blood ties could actually be the most mysterious and unknown. (p. 126)
I think that's why I was so terrible to you. I was scared. I wanted to keep you in my tiny soy-sauce dish of a world forever. (p. 123)
Parental love, or the lack of it, is not explicitly named in the book, but Young’s relationship with his mother is constantly explored at different points in the book. Our parents are the first love we supposedly know. But for many people, this primal connection is also a source of intense pain. While Young is in high school, his mother hurts him deeply (I am trying not to spoil the book so I won't say what she does), to the extent that his only motivation for continuing is so that he can hurt her too when she gets old (by abandoning her). But when she does get old and becomes ill, it is Young who takes care of her. In a complete reversal of roles, he wipes her vomit, takes her to the bathroom and cleans her upafterwards, and nags her to follow her treatment plan. All this even when she never apologises for what she did to him. In the case of his Umma, their love is 미운정, a drawn out battle of like and dislike: two people repel each other, but are forever bound together.
I loved the writing of this book. There is a way Young is written that makes you feel like you are inside his head, or that he is inside yours. At each turn, we feel what emotions Young is going through: you might not love Young, but you want to listen to him. Park makes his such a personable character, and a funny one too: during the Jaehee section, I caught myself giggling several times. Of course, the fact that I can read this and get all the nuance attached is because of the wonderful job that Anton Hur did in translating this book. His translation is unapologetic in keeping South Korea and Korean as the centre of reference for readers of this book. He does not try to spoon feed the reader by over-explaining terms and places to us. It all makes for a very rich reading experience.
I have not experienced all forms of love. I don’t believe that anyone can, and that is not what Park sets out to do in ‘Love in the Big City’. But Park does show us one man’s love story in all its uncomfortable, untidy yet deeply true nature. Whether we relate or not, we know that this is a universal human story. Reading this book may make you examine the various ways you love and receive love, because just like Young, our relationships define a great part of our lives. But unlike Young, I hope that the greatest loves of your life remain with you, in all the best ways possible.
If you’d like to see a little more of Gong Yoo, if you know what I mean, have a look at A Man and a Woman, a 2016 film about two people leading incomplete lives due to their individual responsibilities, who meet and begin a love affair in a snowstorm in Finland. I mean, why wouldn’t you if Gong Yoo was just standing there?
Jeon Do-yeon excels in the part of a married woman who takes her autistic son to a camp. There she meets Gong Yoo, also married, who has just dropped his depressed daughter off to attend the same camp. Two average people, trapped in empty lives have a brief sexual encounter and agree not to exchange names. They find each other when they return to Korea and are forced to make heartbreaking choices.
Some critics have found this movie to be slow paced and without a strong plot, while others can see the hidden message of the film and that inconsolable yearning that happens when we don’t live the life we want to live.
The film was visually appealing and I don’t just mean Gong Yoo in the steamy sauna scene. The cinematography showcased Helsinki’s snowstorms and forests, perhaps a reflection of the often cold and difficult lives of the two lead characters who’s marriages to other people were complex and lonely.
I really like the film. The story was subtle and painful and I could feel their yearning and loneliness long after the credits.
To me, love is a thing you can’t stop when you’re caught up in it, a brief moment you can escape from only after it turns into the most hideous thing imaginable when you distance yourself from it. This is the uncomfortable truth about love that I learned in the ICU and recovery wards.” (‘Love in the Big City’, p. 118)
It is quite easy to say that love is beautiful: it supposedly makes the world go round; it can bring out the best in you and in others; people go to lengths they would never imagine for those that they love. But conversely, love can bring out the worst in others. It comes with jealousy, possessiveness, hatred. Just as you can find yourself in love, you can also lose yourself in love. What it comes down to is that love is complicated, in all its forms. We can never quite understand what love is, or why we love. But what we do know is that love is not simple, and that we continue to do so even when it hurts us. That is what we learn as we follow Young in the book ‘Love in the Big City.’
That’s when I realised that my time with Jaehee, which I thought would last forever, was over…. Jaehee, who had taught me that every season is its own beautiful moment—that Jaehee didn’t live here anymore. (p. 50)
“Love in the Big City” follows Young as he navigates love and relationships in Seoul. The story is told non-linearly in four parts, with each part centred around each of the defining relationships in his life. In the first section, ‘Jaehee’, we meet his female friend, after whom the section is named. Young and Jaehee meet in college, and become friends while bonding over the many (and I mean many) relationships that they have. They are so close that they even sleep over in each other's rooms. When Jaehee has to leave for an exchange program in Australia, though Park writes it simply, we can feel how much Young misses her during that time. Even after they graduate, they continue living together (except for one time when they fight), up until Jaehee gets married and they separate. This section was beautiful to me. It is quite common for people to think that the reverse is true; that romantic love trumps all other loves. But here, in a book about love, Park wrote about friendship as a form of love that is on par with romantic relationships. Not only that: he wrote about a strong male-female friendship, which is not something I see many authors do. There was no gratuitous sexual tension, no microaggressions - just two people who found their person. But there is also a tragic touch to this. After Jaehee’s marriage, their friendship seems to stall, and we are reminded of how friends drift apart and how much losing friends can hurt.
The more he seemed like a mysterious world I would never fully know, the more I wanted to conquer him. I wanted to squeeze hum until he couldn't breathe. He didn't care if I was his, but I wanted him to feel it was either me or nobody else. (p. 108)
I used to feel like I'd been given the whole world when I held him. Like I was holding the whole universe. (p.126)
The second section is told in retrospect, and would be what I consider Young’s ‘first great love’. While caring for his mother who contracts uterine cancer, Young attends a philosophy class on emotions, an attempt to manage his own emotions. There, he meets an unnamed character who invites him out for a post-class meal. One meal turns into many, and they begin dating. From the beginning, we are sure of how much Young loves Mr. No-Name. He wants to truly become part of his life, he wants to understand what Mr. Unnamed has gone through. But time and time again, we see how Mr. Unnamed vacillates; we never know what Young is to him. He lies again and again about simple things like his tattoos, he is so focused on himself that he ignores Young completely, as if Young has no effect on him. Which is sad, because he seems to have Young eating out of his own palm. All signs point to no for this relationship: it seems bound for doom from the beginning, something we can tell from how Young staunchly refuses to say his name, as though by leaving him unnamed, he can erase all traces of Mr. Unnamed in his life. This is love that hurts, as all unequal relationships are fated to.
Umma was now lying on the grass and staring up at the sky. She looked incredibly calm. At peace. I wondered if that ninety-nine pound, fifty-eight-year-old woman staring at the fading firmament was feeling the same way I was feeling. That my life could not be summed up like the neat columns of numbers of a chart.... That the person I though I knew best just because we had blood ties could actually be the most mysterious and unknown. (p. 126)
I think that's why I was so terrible to you. I was scared. I wanted to keep you in my tiny soy-sauce dish of a world forever. (p. 123)
Parental love, or the lack of it, is not explicitly named in the book, but Young’s relationship with his mother is constantly explored at different points in the book. Our parents are the first love we supposedly know. But for many people, this primal connection is also a source of intense pain. While Young is in high school, his mother hurts him deeply (I am trying not to spoil the book so I won't say what she does), to the extent that his only motivation for continuing is so that he can hurt her too when she gets old (by abandoning her). But when she does get old and becomes ill, it is Young who takes care of her. In a complete reversal of roles, he wipes her vomit, takes her to the bathroom and cleans her upafterwards, and nags her to follow her treatment plan. All this even when she never apologises for what she did to him. In the case of his Umma, their love is 미운정, a drawn out battle of like and dislike: two people repel each other, but are forever bound together.
I loved the writing of this book. There is a way Young is written that makes you feel like you are inside his head, or that he is inside yours. At each turn, we feel what emotions Young is going through: you might not love Young, but you want to listen to him. Park makes his such a personable character, and a funny one too: during the Jaehee section, I caught myself giggling several times. Of course, the fact that I can read this and get all the nuance attached is because of the wonderful job that Anton Hur did in translating this book. His translation is unapologetic in keeping South Korea and Korean as the centre of reference for readers of this book. He does not try to spoon feed the reader by over-explaining terms and places to us. It all makes for a very rich reading experience.
I have not experienced all forms of love. I don’t believe that anyone can, and that is not what Park sets out to do in ‘Love in the Big City’. But Park does show us one man’s love story in all its uncomfortable, untidy yet deeply true nature. Whether we relate or not, we know that this is a universal human story. Reading this book may make you examine the various ways you love and receive love, because just like Young, our relationships define a great part of our lives. But unlike Young, I hope that the greatest loves of your life remain with you, in all the best ways possible.
This month I want you to meet the delicious and delightful 43yr old Gong Yoo, who is one of my very favourite actors. His real name is Gong Ji-cheol, but he used his father’s family name Gong, and his mother’s family name Yoo, as a stage name to remind himself to always work hard to make his parents feel proud. Gotta love that that about him already, right? He’s also a descendant of Confucius, the non-Chinese line (about 79 generations later, but still a descendant.)
Gong Yoo was born on 10 July 1979 in Busan, South Korea and completed his primary and secondary education in Busan before moving to Seoul and graduating from Kyung Hee University with a BA in Theatre.
Gong Yoo began his working life as a model (he’s certainly got the goods for that job too), then debuted as an actor in a supporting role in 2001. His first lead role was in the SBS series Hello My Teacher in 2005 and his ability to portray different characters, particularly drawing the viewer into the emotion of the scene just kept getting better from there onwards.
Korean men have an obligation to complete two years of mandatory military service so just when his acting career was taking off, Gong Yoo enlisted in Jan 2008 and was discharged in Dec 2009. He was straight back into work again with Finding Mr Destiny, a romantic comedy film released in 2010. His next rom/com was a k-drama series of sixteen episodes, Big (2012).
He selects his scripts very carefully and has tried to use his celebrity status to highlight social issues and injustices as in the film based on a true story, Silenced (2011) and the feminist film, Kim Ji-young:Born in 1982 (2019 film). See my reviews on this site.
Gong Yoo turned down the lead role for Crash Landing on You (known affectionately as CLOY by the fans) because of other work commitments. He was offered the lead role in Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016 – 2017) for five years, yes five years, before he agreed! It’s reported that he wore 180+ different outfits in that k-drama series, (some time rich soul made a YouTube video) and may I say that he looked mighty fine in every one of them.
Gong Yoo generously donates loads of money using his real name, so he doesn’t draw unnecessary media attention. He’s a very private person, doesn’t use social media (until very recently when his agency opened an Instagram account to promote his latest work), he’s not married, no girlfriend we know of, and when interviewers asked about kissing scenes, he’s not sure if he’s a good kisser. Bit clueless really because he looks pretty good to me.
Personally, I find it hard to watch any of his kissing scenes without tilting my head to one side and puckering up a bit. Maybe that’s just me.
If you’d like to rest your eyes on Gong Yoo for a bit, I’ve done some very quick reviews of just a few of his films and k-dramas, however, a more comprehensive list is always available online.
Pachinko (2022) released 25 March 2022 on Apple TV
Written by Min Jin Lee (author of the book Pachinko)
Directed by: Justin Chon
Cast: Kim min-ho, Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Min-ho
Pachinko is an American drama series based on the novel of the same name written by Min Jin Lee. The series includes an impressive line-up of stars including a few of my very favourites such as Youn Yuh-jung as the older Kim Sunja (Youn was the first Korean actress to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2021 for her performance as the eccentric grandmother in Minari), and Lee Min-ho (check out Eternal Monarch) who plays the gorgeous, rich and naughty Koh Hansu.
Surprisingly, all actors were required to audition for a role in Pachinko. According to his interviews, Lee Min-ho was so keen for the role that he
agreed to his first audition in 13 years.
Pachinko (the name is a reference to Japanese gaming/slot machines) is the story of forbidden love, hope, family and belonging as an immigrant family from Korea trying to survive in Japan. It’s based on the life of Sunja (the younger Sunja is played superbly by Kim Min-ha) a poor young woman from a fishing village in Busan during the Japanese occupation of Korea , who has a love affair with a handsome, rich, and unfortunately married Koh Hansu.
Sunja’s choices lead her to another lifestyle where she endures oppression and discrimination, overcoming adversity and heartache while caring for her family, including her grandson Solomon, inevitably linking her back to Hansu.
It’s an epic saga that spans across four generations and three countries, often highlighting the lack of options and inequality between the rich and the poor. There are only eight episodes (whispers of more) and while I find it totally engaging, I do wonder how viewers who may not be familiar with the story, make sense of the changing scenes between characters and timelines.
If you don’t have access to Apple TV (it’s worth the free trial or $7.50 for a month of membership to watch it) you could buy the book ‘Pachinko’ and prop a picture of Lee Min-ho up next to you while you read. It’s an unforgettable story.
Hi.
This is Helena.
Did you know that I upload an average of two videos a week on YouTube these days? In the meantime, I have sold products on Amazon and released paid services on our website. But I want to focus more on YouTube content and monthly newsletter in 2022.
So I decided not to sell products on Amazon for a while. I lowered the price of the product below the cost for stock disposal. If you're interested, check it out here.
https://www.alphakoreanclass.com/Stationery
And I'm desperate for feedback on the video. If there's no response from the comments, I don't know if the video was good or bad. So I have to decide the next direction by looking at the data by myself. As a result, if the response to the content is not good as it is these days, I am thinking about whether to abolish the series that I just started.
However, isn't that confusing for subscribers? wouldn't you think it's a channel where nothing ends?
So I decided to ask for your help. Please send me an email to (helena@alphakoreanclass.com) if you are willing to cooperate with feedback or planning in order to improve the contents of the Alpha Korean Class channel.
You can send me the
Simple motivation for support,
and advantages and disadvantages of the Alpha Korean Class YouTube channel that you have identified.
I will provide secret lessons to those who are selected as participants like other team members.
I'll let you know the details by individual replies to the mail.
Now that I've shared my concerns,
Please enjoy this month's contents prepared by me and my team members.
News
[News] Pachinko, a novel sold out in Korea.
Articles
[K-Comics] Idol Webtoons Part 1 [Series]- Shanna
Video lessons
How To Conjugate Korean Verbs into Past, Present, Future Tense
29 Korean Verb Endings🌺 - Most Common Korean Verb Endings With PDF| Verb conjugation chart
A/V+ | Korean Honorific Verbs | -(으)십니다, -(으)세요, -(으)셨어요, -(으)실 거예요
Korean Podcast(100% Korean, Eng Sub)
(ENG)[Korean Podcast]🌺 ep.1 - 재밌게 본 드라마 A drama I enjoyed watching
(ENG)[Korean Podcast]🌺 ep.2 - 쇼핑 Shopping
Korea's next president, Yoon Seok-yeol, is trying to change the concept of the "Korean age".
The existing Korean age system was to consider a child as one year old as soon as he was born and to add another year on the upcoming January 1.
According to this system, a child born on December 31 will be two years old in two days.
Due to the complexity of this age calculation method, administrative confusion occurred recently regarding the age limit required for COVID-19 vaccination.
South Korea's next president and his team said they will push ahead with their pledge to match the nation's age calculation with international standards by early 2023 as a solution to the problem.
Related Articles
https://www.insider.com/south-koreans-one-year-younger-plans-eliminate-korean-age-2022-4
I rushed to the bookstore about two weeks ago to read Pachinko's original novel on Apple TV. Usually, I order online at Kyobo Bookstore, the largest bookstore in Korea, but this time it was an exception. Because I wanted to read it as soon as possible.
Not long ago, while I was talking to my mom on the phone, I found out that she wanted to read this novel very much. So last Friday, I ordered a book from Kyobo Bookstore online and sent it to my mom's house. However, Kyobo Bookstore said the delivery will start in three days because the book is out of stock.
Delivery hasn't started yet even after 3 days. And on the fourth day, I got a text from Kyobo Bookstore. Pachinko's supply and demand may be delayed further, and if supply and demand become impossible, it will be notified by text message again.
Thinking that my mom might be waiting anxiously, I decided to buy a book myself and send it to her. I went to the small bookstore where I bought the book on purpose. Then, there were only 6 copies of volume 1 of Pachinko, and no copies of volume 2 . When I went to a smaller bookstore I found by chance, surprisingly, there was only one set of Pachinko books.
When purchasing two books with a sigh of relief and joy, the boss asked. Did you call me two days ago? I said no. Someone must have been looking for the book like me. He said the book is temporarily out of stock, but the problem will be solved if it is reprinted soon. And then, in a cracking voice,
"It wasn't very interesting," he said, discouragingly.
However, when I got home, I found that the bookstore owner's prediction was wrong. This is because the copyright contract between the publisher "문학사상" and writer Lee Mi-Jung will expire on the 21st. The re-extension of the copyright contract has become unclear as the author has yet to give an answer.
For this reason, large bookstores such as Kyobo Bookstore and Aladdin have virtually suspended the sale of the novel "Pachinko" from the 12th.
My mother and I were lucky. This is because it will be difficult to meet the Korean novel "Pachinko" at any bookstore for the time being.
And I will soon make a video about why I enjoyed reading the novel Pachinko.
나는 약 2주일 전에 애플 TV에서 방영중인 파친코의 원작 소설을 읽고 싶어서 서점으로 달려갔다. 보통은 한국에서 가장 큰 서점인 '교보문고'에서 온라인 주문을 하지만 이번엔 예외였다. 가능한 빨리 읽고 싶었기 때문이다.
얼마 전에 엄마와 통화를 하던 중에 엄마도 이 소설을 무척이나 읽고 싶어한다는 걸 알았다. 그래서 지난 주 금요일(8일)에 온라인 '교보문고'에서 책을 주문해 엄마의 집으로 배송되도록 했다. 교보문고에서는 재고가 없어서 3일 후에 배송이 시작될 거라고 했다. 이때까지만 해도 '베스트 셀러다 보니 재고가 부족한가보다'고 생각했다.
하지만 공지한 3일이 지났는데도 배송이 시작되지 않았다. 그리고 4일째 되던 날(오늘) 교보문고에서 문자가 왔다. 파친코의 수급이 더 지연될 수도 있으며, 혹시 수급이 불가능해질 경우에는 문자로 다시 한 번 알려주겠다는 것이었다.
엄마가 애타게 기다릴 지도 모른다는 생각에 내가 직접 책을 사서 보내드리기로 했다. 내가 책을 구매했던 작은 서점을 찾아갔다. 그랬더니 1권만 6권이 쌓여 있고, 2권은 없었다. 웃음이 나왔다. 돌아오는 길에 우연히 발견한 더 작은 서점에 갔는데 놀랍게도 파친코 1,2권이 딱 한 권씩 있었다.
안도와 기쁨의 한 숨을 내쉬며 두 권의 책을 구입할 때, 사장이 물었다. 혹시 이틀전에 전화했었냐고. 난 아니라고 했다. 누군가 또 그 책을 애타게 찾고 있었나보다. 그는 이 책이 임시 품절상태지만 곧 다시 책을 찍어내면 문제가 해결될 거라고 말했다. 그리고는 갈라지는 목소리로
"별로 재미도 없던데." 라는 맥빠지는 소리를 했다.
하지만 집에 돌아와보니 서점 주인의 예상은 틀렸다는 걸 알게 됐다. 21일을 만기로 출판사 '문학사상'과 이미정 작가와의 판권 계약이 만료될 것이기 때문이다. 아직 작가측에서 답변을 주지 않아서 판권 계약 재연장이 불투명하다고 한다. 때문에 온라인 교보문고와 알라딘 등 대형서점에서는 12일부터 소설 '파친코'를 사실상 판매중단 선언했다. (관련기사 https://www.mk.co.kr/news/culture/view/2022/04/326820/)
나와 엄마는 운이 좋았다. 왜냐면 당분간은 어떤 서점에서도 한국어 소설 <파친코>를 만나기 어려울 것이기 때문이다.
그리고 나는 곧 소설 <파친코>를 왜 재미있게 읽었는지에 관한 영상을 만들 예정이다.
What are you gonna do this weekend?
Last weekend, I went to the filming location of "Our beloved Summer" and copied the acting of my husband and the main characters. I didn't know I couldn't forget this drama for so long. Because I made it into a vlog, this precious moment will be remembered for a longer time.
Kim Ji Young – Born 1982 (2019).
Director: Kim Do-young
Writers: Yoo Young-ah adapted for film from Cho Nam-jo’s novel.
Cast: Jung Yu-mi, Gong Yoo.
Kim Ji-young: Born 1982, a film adapted from the novel of the same name, is the story of a 30-year-old Korean woman, (beautifully played by Jung Yu-mi), trying to juggle motherhood, depression, and her relationships after leaving a successful career to be a stay-at-home mother. She begins to experience dissociative episodes causing concern for those who love her.
Gong Yoo plays the role of the concerned husband, confused and uncertain about how to support his wife in a world where she faces gender discrimination at every turn and at every stage of her life.
After writing the book, the author Cho Nam-joo said her intention was ‘to make this into a public debate’ and that’s exactly what happened.
This film divided the Korean community with some believing it presented an unfair view of men, while others (mostly women) said they related to the character of Kim Ji-young and her experiences resonated strongly with them. Gong Yoo and Jung Yu-mi both received hate mail from anti-feminists during the filming, but said they were not concerned because it was more important to do well in the film.
Kim Ji-young – Born 1982 is a film that still promotes change because it continues to ignite discussion about the changing role of women in a more contemporary Korean society.
Available on Netflix in some countries. How do Korean women cope with gender discrimination?
Review: Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
But is love truly beautiful?
To me, love is a thing you can’t stop when you’re caught up in it, a brief moment you can escape from only after it turns into the most hideous thing imaginable when you distance yourself from it. This is the uncomfortable truth about love that I learned in the ICU and recovery wards.” (‘Love in the Big City’, p. 118)
It is quite easy to say that love is beautiful: it supposedly makes the world go round; it can bring out the best in you and in others; people go to lengths they would never imagine for those that they love. But conversely, love can bring out the worst in others. It comes with jealousy, possessiveness, hatred. Just as you can find yourself in love, you can also lose yourself in love. What it comes down to is that love is complicated, in all its forms. We can never quite understand what love is, or why we love. But what we do know is that love is not simple, and that we continue to do so even when it hurts us. That is what we learn as we follow Young in the book ‘Love in the Big City.’
That’s when I realised that my time with Jaehee, which I thought would last forever, was over…. Jaehee, who had taught me that every season is its own beautiful moment—that Jaehee didn’t live here anymore. (p. 50)
“Love in the Big City” follows Young as he navigates love and relationships in Seoul. The story is told non-linearly in four parts, with each part centred around each of the defining relationships in his life. In the first section, ‘Jaehee’, we meet his female friend, after whom the section is named. Young and Jaehee meet in college, and become friends while bonding over the many (and I mean many) relationships that they have. They are so close that they even sleep over in each other's rooms. When Jaehee has to leave for an exchange program in Australia, though Park writes it simply, we can feel how much Young misses her during that time. Even after they graduate, they continue living together (except for one time when they fight), up until Jaehee gets married and they separate. This section was beautiful to me. It is quite common for people to think that the reverse is true; that romantic love trumps all other loves. But here, in a book about love, Park wrote about friendship as a form of love that is on par with romantic relationships. Not only that: he wrote about a strong male-female friendship, which is not something I see many authors do. There was no gratuitous sexual tension, no microaggressions - just two people who found their person. But there is also a tragic touch to this. After Jaehee’s marriage, their friendship seems to stall, and we are reminded of how friends drift apart and how much losing friends can hurt.
The more he seemed like a mysterious world I would never fully know, the more I wanted to conquer him. I wanted to squeeze hum until he couldn't breathe. He didn't care if I was his, but I wanted him to feel it was either me or nobody else. (p. 108)
I used to feel like I'd been given the whole world when I held him. Like I was holding the whole universe. (p.126)
The second section is told in retrospect, and would be what I consider Young’s ‘first great love’. While caring for his mother who contracts uterine cancer, Young attends a philosophy class on emotions, an attempt to manage his own emotions. There, he meets an unnamed character who invites him out for a post-class meal. One meal turns into many, and they begin dating. From the beginning, we are sure of how much Young loves Mr. No-Name. He wants to truly become part of his life, he wants to understand what Mr. Unnamed has gone through. But time and time again, we see how Mr. Unnamed vacillates; we never know what Young is to him. He lies again and again about simple things like his tattoos, he is so focused on himself that he ignores Young completely, as if Young has no effect on him. Which is sad, because he seems to have Young eating out of his own palm. All signs point to no for this relationship: it seems bound for doom from the beginning, something we can tell from how Young staunchly refuses to say his name, as though by leaving him unnamed, he can erase all traces of Mr. Unnamed in his life. This is love that hurts, as all unequal relationships are fated to.
Umma was now lying on the grass and staring up at the sky. She looked incredibly calm. At peace. I wondered if that ninety-nine pound, fifty-eight-year-old woman staring at the fading firmament was feeling the same way I was feeling. That my life could not be summed up like the neat columns of numbers of a chart.... That the person I though I knew best just because we had blood ties could actually be the most mysterious and unknown. (p. 126)
I think that's why I was so terrible to you. I was scared. I wanted to keep you in my tiny soy-sauce dish of a world forever. (p. 123)
Parental love, or the lack of it, is not explicitly named in the book, but Young’s relationship with his mother is constantly explored at different points in the book. Our parents are the first love we supposedly know. But for many people, this primal connection is also a source of intense pain. While Young is in high school, his mother hurts him deeply (I am trying not to spoil the book so I won't say what she does), to the extent that his only motivation for continuing is so that he can hurt her too when she gets old (by abandoning her). But when she does get old and becomes ill, it is Young who takes care of her. In a complete reversal of roles, he wipes her vomit, takes her to the bathroom and cleans her upafterwards, and nags her to follow her treatment plan. All this even when she never apologises for what she did to him. In the case of his Umma, their love is 미운정, a drawn out battle of like and dislike: two people repel each other, but are forever bound together.
I loved the writing of this book. There is a way Young is written that makes you feel like you are inside his head, or that he is inside yours. At each turn, we feel what emotions Young is going through: you might not love Young, but you want to listen to him. Park makes his such a personable character, and a funny one too: during the Jaehee section, I caught myself giggling several times. Of course, the fact that I can read this and get all the nuance attached is because of the wonderful job that Anton Hur did in translating this book. His translation is unapologetic in keeping South Korea and Korean as the centre of reference for readers of this book. He does not try to spoon feed the reader by over-explaining terms and places to us. It all makes for a very rich reading experience.
I have not experienced all forms of love. I don’t believe that anyone can, and that is not what Park sets out to do in ‘Love in the Big City’. But Park does show us one man’s love story in all its uncomfortable, untidy yet deeply true nature. Whether we relate or not, we know that this is a universal human story. Reading this book may make you examine the various ways you love and receive love, because just like Young, our relationships define a great part of our lives. But unlike Young, I hope that the greatest loves of your life remain with you, in all the best ways possible.
A Man and a Woman (2016)
Director: Lee Yoon-ki
Writers: Shin Eun-young, Lee Yoon-ki
Cast: Gong Yoo, Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Young-sun
If you’d like to see a little more of Gong Yoo, if you know what I mean, have a look at A Man and a Woman, a 2016 film about two people leading incomplete lives due to their individual responsibilities, who meet and begin a love affair in a snowstorm in Finland. I mean, why wouldn’t you if Gong Yoo was just standing there?
Jeon Do-yeon excels in the part of a married woman who takes her autistic son to a camp. There she meets Gong Yoo, als
o married, who has just dropped his depressed daughter off to attend the same camp. Two average people, trapped in empty lives have a brief sexual encounter and agree not to exchange names. They find each other when they return to Korea and are forced to make heartbreaking choices.
Some critics have found this movie to be slow paced and without a strong plot, while others can see the hidden message of the film and that inconsolable yearning that happens when we don’t live the life we want to live.
The film was visually appealing and I don’t just mean Gong Yoo in the steamy sauna scene. The cinematography showcased Helsinki’s snowstorms and forests, perhaps a reflection of the often cold and difficult lives of the two lead characters who’s marriages to other people were complex and lonely.
I really like the film. The story was subtle and painful and I could feel their yearning and loneliness long after the credits.
It’s on Netflix.
Review: Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
But is love truly beautiful?
To me, love is a thing you can’t stop when you’re caught up in it, a brief moment you can escape from only after it turns into the most hideous thing imaginable when you distance yourself from it. This is the uncomfortable truth about love that I learned in the ICU and recovery wards.” (‘Love in the Big City’, p. 118)
It is quite easy to say that love is beautiful: it supposedly makes the world go round; it can bring out the best in you and in others; people go to lengths they would never imagine for those that they love. But conversely, love can bring out the worst in others. It comes with jealousy, possessiveness, hatred. Just as you can find yourself in love, you can also lose yourself in love. What it comes down to is that love is complicated, in all its forms. We can never quite understand what love is, or why we love. But what we do know is that love is not simple, and that we continue to do so even when it hurts us. That is what we learn as we follow Young in the book ‘Love in the Big City.’
That’s when I realised that my time with Jaehee, which I thought would last forever, was over…. Jaehee, who had taught me that every season is its own beautiful moment—that Jaehee didn’t live here anymore. (p. 50)
“Love in the Big City” follows Young as he navigates love and relationships in Seoul. The story is told non-linearly in four parts, with each part centred around each of the defining relationships in his life. In the first section, ‘Jaehee’, we meet his female friend, after whom the section is named. Young and Jaehee meet in college, and become friends while bonding over the many (and I mean many) relationships that they have. They are so close that they even sleep over in each other's rooms. When Jaehee has to leave for an exchange program in Australia, though Park writes it simply, we can feel how much Young misses her during that time. Even after they graduate, they continue living together (except for one time when they fight), up until Jaehee gets married and they separate. This section was beautiful to me. It is quite common for people to think that the reverse is true; that romantic love trumps all other loves. But here, in a book about love, Park wrote about friendship as a form of love that is on par with romantic relationships. Not only that: he wrote about a strong male-female friendship, which is not something I see many authors do. There was no gratuitous sexual tension, no microaggressions - just two people who found their person. But there is also a tragic touch to this. After Jaehee’s marriage, their friendship seems to stall, and we are reminded of how friends drift apart and how much losing friends can hurt.
The more he seemed like a mysterious world I would never fully know, the more I wanted to conquer him. I wanted to squeeze hum until he couldn't breathe. He didn't care if I was his, but I wanted him to feel it was either me or nobody else. (p. 108)
I used to feel like I'd been given the whole world when I held him. Like I was holding the whole universe. (p.126)
The second section is told in retrospect, and would be what I consider Young’s ‘first great love’. While caring for his mother who contracts uterine cancer, Young attends a philosophy class on emotions, an attempt to manage his own emotions. There, he meets an unnamed character who invites him out for a post-class meal. One meal turns into many, and they begin dating. From the beginning, we are sure of how much Young loves Mr. No-Name. He wants to truly become part of his life, he wants to understand what Mr. Unnamed has gone through. But time and time again, we see how Mr. Unnamed vacillates; we never know what Young is to him. He lies again and again about simple things like his tattoos, he is so focused on himself that he ignores Young completely, as if Young has no effect on him. Which is sad, because he seems to have Young eating out of his own palm. All signs point to no for this relationship: it seems bound for doom from the beginning, something we can tell from how Young staunchly refuses to say his name, as though by leaving him unnamed, he can erase all traces of Mr. Unnamed in his life. This is love that hurts, as all unequal relationships are fated to.
Umma was now lying on the grass and staring up at the sky. She looked incredibly calm. At peace. I wondered if that ninety-nine pound, fifty-eight-year-old woman staring at the fading firmament was feeling the same way I was feeling. That my life could not be summed up like the neat columns of numbers of a chart.... That the person I though I knew best just because we had blood ties could actually be the most mysterious and unknown. (p. 126)
I think that's why I was so terrible to you. I was scared. I wanted to keep you in my tiny soy-sauce dish of a world forever. (p. 123)
Parental love, or the lack of it, is not explicitly named in the book, but Young’s relationship with his mother is constantly explored at different points in the book. Our parents are the first love we supposedly know. But for many people, this primal connection is also a source of intense pain. While Young is in high school, his mother hurts him deeply (I am trying not to spoil the book so I won't say what she does), to the extent that his only motivation for continuing is so that he can hurt her too when she gets old (by abandoning her). But when she does get old and becomes ill, it is Young who takes care of her. In a complete reversal of roles, he wipes her vomit, takes her to the bathroom and cleans her upafterwards, and nags her to follow her treatment plan. All this even when she never apologises for what she did to him. In the case of his Umma, their love is 미운정, a drawn out battle of like and dislike: two people repel each other, but are forever bound together.
I loved the writing of this book. There is a way Young is written that makes you feel like you are inside his head, or that he is inside yours. At each turn, we feel what emotions Young is going through: you might not love Young, but you want to listen to him. Park makes his such a personable character, and a funny one too: during the Jaehee section, I caught myself giggling several times. Of course, the fact that I can read this and get all the nuance attached is because of the wonderful job that Anton Hur did in translating this book. His translation is unapologetic in keeping South Korea and Korean as the centre of reference for readers of this book. He does not try to spoon feed the reader by over-explaining terms and places to us. It all makes for a very rich reading experience.
I have not experienced all forms of love. I don’t believe that anyone can, and that is not what Park sets out to do in ‘Love in the Big City’. But Park does show us one man’s love story in all its uncomfortable, untidy yet deeply true nature. Whether we relate or not, we know that this is a universal human story. Reading this book may make you examine the various ways you love and receive love, because just like Young, our relationships define a great part of our lives. But unlike Young, I hope that the greatest loves of your life remain with you, in all the best ways possible.
This month I want you to meet the delicious and delightful 43yr old Gong Yoo, who is one of my very favourite actors. His real name is Gong Ji-cheol, but he used his father’s family name Gong, and his mother’s family name Yoo, as a stage name to remind himself to always work hard to make his parents feel proud. Gotta love that that about him already, right? He’s also a descendant of Confucius, the non-Chinese line (about 79 generations later, but still a descendant.)
Gong Yoo was born on 10 July 1979 in Busan, South Korea and completed his primary and secondary education in Busan before moving to Seoul and graduating from Kyung Hee University with a BA in Theatre.
Gong Yoo began his working life as a model (he’s certainly got the goods for that job too), then debuted as an actor in a supporting role in 2001. His first lead role was in the SBS series Hello My Teacher in 2005 and his ability to portray different characters, particularly drawing the viewer into the emotion of the scene just kept getting better from there onwards.
Korean men have an obligation to complete two years of mandatory military service so just when his acting career was taking off, Gong Yoo enlisted in Jan 2008 and was discharged in Dec 2009. He was straight back into work again with Finding Mr Destiny, a romantic comedy film released in 2010. His next rom/com was a k-drama series of sixteen episodes, Big (2012).
He selects his scripts very carefully and has tried to use his celebrity status to highlight social issues and injustices as in the film based on a true story, Silenced (2011) and the feminist film, Kim Ji-young:Born in 1982 (2019 film). See my reviews on this site.
Go
ng Yoo turned down the lead role for Crash Landing on You (known affectionately as CLOY by the fans) because of other work commitments. He was offered the lead role in Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016 – 2017) for five years, 
yes five years, before he agreed! It’s reported that he wore 180+ different outfits in that k-drama series, (some time rich soul made a YouTube video) and may I say that he looked mighty fine in every one of them.
Gong Yoo generously donates loads of money using his real name, so he doesn’t draw unnecessary media attention. He’s a very priva
te person, doesn’t use social media (until very recently when his agency opened an Instagram account to promote his latest work), he’s not married, no girlfriend we know of, and when interviewers asked about kissing scenes, he’s not sure if he’s a good kisser. Bit clueless really because he looks pretty good to me.
Personally, I find it hard to watch any of his kissing scenes without tilting my head to one side and puckering up a bit. Maybe that’s just me.
If you’d like to rest your eyes on Gong Yoo for a bit, I’ve done some very quick reviews of just a few of his films and k-dramas, however, a more comprehensive list is always available online.
Happy drooling/err, I mean viewing.