์๋ ํ์ธ์, itโs Ari, your friendly Korean source and your weekend reminder ๐ Todayโs newsletter is about the hottest trends in South Korea, a quote from a K-Drama, Our Beloved Summer, and a ramyeon recipe. Letโs start!
๐ง You can listen to this newsletter on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or other your favorite podcast platforms.
๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ What young Koreans are obsessed with
๐ฅ Photo Booth
Last Saturday, I went to downtown to meet my friends. There were many new photo booth stores with dozens of young people lining up. They are mostly cashierless so theyโre called ๋ฌด์ธ ์ฌ์ง๊ด (unmanned studio) or ์ ํ ์ฌ์ง๊ด (do-it-yourself studio). The most popular store is ์ธ์๋ค์ปท or Life 4 Cut which means โthe best four shots in my life.โ Itโs known for its 4-photo limit and various kinds of photo frame designs. Fashion brands, K-Pop idols, and K-Dramas collaborate with the store to make promotional frames. Itโs especially popular between teenage girls. Taking pictures with friends, a boyfriend, or by oneself at a photo booth is the hottest trend between them. Photo booths were super popular back in early 2000s in the country. Itโs one of retro trends that are coming back along with wired earbuds, scrunchies, and big hair bands. (๐บ Watch how a fan of STACY, a K-Pop girl group, takes a picture at a photo booth.)
๐ฅ๐ฅ Body Profile
Another trend is also about photos. This has been popular for years now between Koreans in their 20s and 30s. Itโs called ๋ฐ๋ ํ๋กํ which came from the English word, โbody profileโ and often shortened as ๋ฐํ. It means photos taken after significant weight loss and training. People who succeeded at losing weight show off their accomplishment by uploading their bodybuilder-like & shot-at-studio photos on social networks. Men usually show off their muscles and women usually show off flat abs. The trend is praised and criticized at the same time. Some people think itโs good since it gives motivation to lose weight and be healthy. Others criticize the trend because of side-effects. For the photo shoot, most people go through excessive diet (a lot of them donโt even drink water for days before shooting ๐จ) so they often suffer weight rebound and some of them even get eating disorders after shooting. A Korean celebrity whoโs known for his muscular body criticized the trend saying, โLife is a movie, not a picture.โ (๐บ A Korean girl says she suffered bulimia and hair loss after shooting body profile.)
๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ Dr. Oh Eun-young
If you ask me whoโs the hottest celebrity in the country, I would say itโs Dr. Oh Eun-young or ์ค์์ ๋ฐ์ฌ. Sheโs a child and adolescent psychiatrist who got famous for her superb treating skills. Her show, ๊ธ์ชฝ๊ฐ์ ๋ด์๋ผ or Oh Eun Youngโs Golden Clinic in which she treats many children with mental illness and behavior problems is one of the biggest shows in S.K. now. (You might have noticed the word, ๊ธ์ชฝ์ด in many Korean posts and tweets lately. It came from this show meaning โa troublemaker kid or a child-like adult.โ) Though the show is mostly about children and their family, young Korean singles relate to the show a lot because stories of the families in the show remind them of their childhood. Many people say that after watching the show, they understand what happened to them in childhood more and people who suffered during childhood get consoled by Dr. Ohโs counselling. She recently launched another show called Circle House where she counsels adults. (๐บ In one of recent episodes, she counselled a woman who spends most of her salary for buying K-Pop idol albums and merch ๐)
๐ค Mic Drop- Our Beloved Summer (2021)
Mic Drop is a voicemail where you send me your Korean speaking or rap. Todayโs line is from Our Beloved Summer ๐, a romance K-Drama which is about a reunited couple. Itโs known for good OSTs including Christmas Tree sung by V of BTS ๐ In the first episode, Yeon-soo, the model and the 1st place student in high school meets Choi Ung who is the 267th out of 267 students in the same school for the first time. When Yeon-soo saw Choi Ung, she thought to herself,
์ ๋์ ๋ฌ๋ผ๋ ๋๋ฌด ๋ค๋ฅธ ์ ๋๊น์.
The line means, โHe was the exact opposite of me.โ I picked this line because of the expression, ๋ฌ๋ผ๋ ๋๋ฌด ๋ค๋ฅด๋ค which means, โto be too different to be trueโ (it might sound weird in English?) or โto be the exact opposite of.โ Itโs a daily expression Koreans use a lot. When something or someone is โdifferent,โ use ๋ค๋ฅด๋ค (to be different) and when itโs โthe exact opposite ofโ different, use ๋ฌ๋ผ๋ ๋๋ฌด ๋ค๋ฅด๋ค. You can also say 180๋ ๋ค๋ฅด๋ค.
Words in the line
์ I, me (polite)
๋ With
๋ฌ๋ผ๋ ๋๋ฌด ๋ค๋ฅด๋ค V. To be the exact opposite of
์ Kid
๐ You can practice speaking the sentence on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or other your favorite podcast platforms. Donโt forget to send me your speaking ๐ If you send it by Wednesday 6pm ET (extended!), your voice will be on the next weekโs podcast!
๐ Green onion ramyeon
๋ผ๋ฉด or ramyeon or instant noodle is the food that Koreans canโt live without. We love it because itโs quick to make and spicy. Itโs the soup that determines ramyeonโs taste. To make the soup more delicious, Koreans add some vegetables when cooking. The most popular ones are green onion and garlic. Thereโs a viral ramyeon recipe which uses green onion and garlic. Watch the video โ and try for yourself. I tried this recipe myself and I was blown away! Itโs sooooo good! Youโll thank me later (You know I donโt say this often :D)
๐ข The paperback & full version of my second Korean exercise book came out! I finally fixed the technical issue that kept me from publishing on Amazon ๐ The paperback is longer than the digest e-book. If you want more grammar, vocabulary, and questions, check out the paperback!
Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, โค๐, share, leave a comment, or buy my book. Donโt forget to send me your rap and visit my virtual McDonaldโs where you can practice how to order in Korean because itโs finally reopen ๐๐๐ฅค This weekโs challenge is to order in Korean McDonaldโs way. Check out Korean menu here. It opens between 5:30 to 6:30 pm Sunday ET on Twitter (audio chat). ์๋ !
What Young Koreans Are Obsessed With
์๋ ํ์ธ์ ์๋ฆฌ์จ!! I canโt wait to get your Korean book!! It sounds amazing๐hopefully when I come to Korea, I can try the photo booth. It looks really fun!! ์ข์ ํ๋ฃจ ๋์ธ์๐