Hooked

I've finally done what I swore I would never do.

One by one, friends have succumbed to this addiction and how I have scoffed and sniffed at them and their weakness. But as they say, the more you scoff the harder you fall. Or something like that.

It started in the hospital, when bedridden, thanks to the bloody urine bag, I was forced to watch, night after night of My Sassy Girl Chun Hyang - bubble-gum pop Korean drama dubbed into Mandarin. I can thank my drama addict Gillian for this.

Yes I could have surfed to a different channel, but anaesthesia does funny things to your judgement and I have to admit that the bubble-gum, as with all bubble-gum, is sweet goodnatured fun.

My disease progressed thus:

By the time I was discharged, watching the daily episodes had become a daily highlight I looked forward to.

By week 1, I had developed the habit of zooming straight into the drama synopses section of 8 Days just to get the plot of the week. Even that wasn't enough.

By week 2, on the day I visited my doctor, I took the opportunity to visit the video shop to surreptitiously suss out the boxset of My Sassy Girl. I told everyone who asked me (with that once familiar aghast look I once wore myself in similar situations) that it wasn't for me - it was for Gillian.

But who was I kidding?

And by the way, since it was a buy 1 - get 1 free deal, I nipped another box set. Full House - which had the awful-looking Rain and the very pretty Song Hye Geo in it. It came with rave reviews. I had descended to the point where I actually accosted virtual strangers in the shop to ask their opinions on what was a great K drama to watch. A really nice lady obliged my madness and we really bonded over 15min of recommendations and suggestions. It was good fun and I thank the lady who fed my thirst, though I never got her name!

By week 3, it was the school holidays and Gillian and I had polished off every disc in the My Sassy Girl boxset. For the first time, Gillian willingly came home early from school without the usual excuses for dawdling after school. By 3pm, both of us would be perched on the sofa, the dvd player humming and the familiar theme piping through the speakers.

The day I actually finished TWO discs back to back, I knew I was a goner. The telly was on from 10am to 6pm. I've never felt so guilty about electricity usage in my life. Lucky the kids were all at their cousins' for the day. Gillian was really sore with me for finishing two discs (8 episodes) without her!

Have to say Gillian and I really bond over the K dramas. We bitch about the villains, we sigh in sympathy when the lovers separate, we grin in delight when they reconcile. We have a lot of fun discussing what happened and what will happen next. Gillian and I have had many happy moments tearing away in front of the TV together. Its been great fun!

Unlike the heavy handed TCS dramas, the K dramas were light, frothy fun. There was no sex, and any on-screen kissing did not involve tongues. They were either chaste pecks on the cheeks or boringly dry 'chin' kisses. Any suggestion of a carnal nature in the series was met with wide-eyed horror by the main characters.

What's there not to like? The actors and actresses were all good-looking. Doe-eyed, bee-stung lips (and those were just the men!) Okay, so we know the plastic surgery rate in Korea is sky high and nothing you see there is really real or natural... big deal. Yes, we can tell who has had a perky nose job. So what? Everything about the K-drama is sheer fantasy anyway. The plots are often trite - boy meets girl, fall in love, meets with obstacles, enter a rival/s, they separate, they reconcile, overcome obstacles, live happily ever after. Not award-winning stuff, but just plain fun. Everything is just too cute. And rather than pathos and tragedy, I really enjoy the light bubble-gum flavours of the romantic comedies I have seen so far.

The characters are so likeable, I just can't help rooting for them, and of course feeling a twinge of pain when the sad bits hit. I've been so long out of the old romantic grind that watching stuff like that brings back nice memories of what it was like back then. All that teen angst! So fun! Man, I miss those days...

And finally, I've never met a K drama soundtrack I didn't like. They really know how to work those strings arrangements! Cue soulful violins and contemplative piano! So much so that Gillian and I have hit the CD stores and the video stores - looking for K soundtracks and for new box sets. We've even gone online to discover blogs and sites on K dramas! Which of course makes us more eager than ever to find new boxsets to sigh over.

So I guess I'll just go ahead and admit it - I'm now officially a K drama addict. There. I've come out of my closet and joined the K fan club. If anyone out there has a good suggestion for a delicious K drama for me to sink my teeth into, please send it my way.

Even better, fork over those boxsets.