안녕하세요, it’s Ari, your friendly Korean source and weekend reminder 🎉 Today’s newsletter is about two entertainment stories that rocked the Korean Internet, a line from Welcome to Wedding Hell, and a spicy diet food recipe. Let’s start!
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📢 Top two entertainment stories of the week
Ari, your friendly Korean reporter brought two entertainment stories that rocked the Korean Internet this week. First one is,
1. Manner steals girls’ hearts ❤️🔥
This gif ☝ recently rocked the Korean Internet. It’s a scene from Running Man, a super-popular variety show where hosts and guest celebrities play physical games. In the latest episode, Jeon So-min, an actress/female host of the show lost a game so she was about to get a penalty of black water splash on her head. It was Cha Eun-woo (차은우), a member of Astro, a K-Pop boy group, who had to give her the splash. At the time of the penalty, he poured the water in front of her, instead of right into her head so that she gets only a little bit of the water. It was because he heard her whispering to a staff of the show that she didn’t prepare extra underwear. After the splash, he hugged her feeling sorry about giving the splash. (Watch the full vid)
His kind manner and the hug 😍 stole many Korean girls’ hearts. There were many thirsty? reactions like, “Eun-woo, don’t seduce me when you’re not gonna marry me,” “Why are you so perfect?,” and “Eun-woo is guilty, I will sue him.” There’s new fan-girl term referring to a guilty? celebrity called, 유죄인간 meaning ‘guilty men.’ The gif was a true 유죄인간 차은우 moment!
Btw, Cha Eun-woo is super-popular in Korea right now for being incredibly handsome. (His nickname is 얼굴천재 meaning ‘face genius.’) He featured a lot of commercials which only big stars can do here.
2. The winner of V and Jennie’s dating rumor 💺
Probably the biggest-ever K-Pop idol dating rumor rocked the Korean Internet this week. It all started with a photo which a Korean uploaded on his/her Instagram story. The photo (now deleted) that looks like a screenshot of a video featured two individuals resembling BTS’s V and Blankpink’s Jennie. The man who looks like V was driving a car while the woman who looks like Jennie was next to him in the passenger seat. The photo went viral and the two got swept in dating rumors. The agencies of the stars didn’t respond to or confirm the rumor yet.
When the photo first went viral, it was known to be taken at Jeju island. Because someone wrote that the photo was taken at Jeju on the caption and there was an anonymous post claiming that they were spotted in an airplane to Jeju. The post claimed that they were on business seats of T-way airline, a low-cost Korean airline. The airline is popular between people who travel to Jeju or neighboring countries like Japan on budget. The ticket price is very cheap. The last time I checked for my mom’s Jeju travel, it costed only about 70 USD for a two-way economy seat ticket between Daegu and Jeju.
We don’t know if the post is true or not. But it went viral because it reminded many Koreans of something we never knew existed. It was the business seats of the low-cost airline. 😱 Many Koreans didn’t know that the airline has business seats; I didn’t know that (even though I used it multiple times) so I was shocked too. That’s why there were many comments saying, “What? It has business seats? This is more shocking than the dating rumor!” It turned out that it’s been less than two months since the airline started business seats late March this year. Now many people learned about its new business seats. Some say that the winner of this rumor is T-way airline because they accidentally but very successfully promoted their new seats for free 😅
🎤 Mic Drop- Welcome to Wedding Hell (2022)
Today’s mic drop line is from a new romance K-Drama, Welcome to Wedding Hell. Just like the title says, it’s about how wedding really is like in South Korea. If you’re interested in Korean wedding culture, you will love it. (You can also listen to my podcast about it.) It’s available on Netflix. In the first episode, there’s a scene where women talk about marriage while attending a couple’s wedding. I picked a line from the conversation,
결혼은 이런 기분이야, ‘내가 도대체 이걸 왜 했을까?’
The line means, “This is how marriage feels like, ‘Why did I ever decide to do this?’” 😅 I picked this line because it’s funny; and also because of the word, 도대체. It’s an adverb which Koreans use a lot. Just like ‘ever’ and ‘on earth’ in English, it’s used for emphasis in questions and other remarks, especially when you want to know something you know nothing of or something you desperately want to know.
Words in the line,
결혼 N. Marriage (결혼식 is ‘wedding’)
기분 N. Feeling
왜 Why
👄 You can practice speaking the line on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or other your favorite podcast platforms. Don’t forget to send me your voice message 👇 If you send it by 4 pm Wednesday, June 1st ET, your voice will be on the next podcast episode!
🍜 Shirataki noodles with gochujang
Today's food is a spicy diet food. It’s shirataki noodles or 곤약면 with gochujang, the Korean pepper paste. Shirataki (곤약) is a popular food ingredient in Korea especially between people who are on a diet because it’s low-calorie. If you’re not on a diet, you can use rice or other noodles as long as they’re thick. My YouTube algorithm recently recommended this food recipe video ☝ for me. At first, I thought it was a foreign dish from a foreign cooking channel. But then I saw the YouTuber makes the noodle sauce in a very Korean way with gochujang, mirim (sweet rice wine), garlic, and sesame oil. So I thought it’s Korean enough to include in my newsletter :D Try for yourself! 🍜
Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, ❤, share, or leave a comment. Don’t forget to send me your voice message and visit my virtual McDonald’s where you can practice how to order in Korean 🍔🍟🥤 This week’s challenge is to ask for extra ketchup. Opening hours are 5:00 to 6:00 pm Sunday ET on Twitter (audio chat).
🙏 My deepest condolences for the victims of the recent Texas shooting.
📢 I take a break next week. See you the week after next :D 안녕!