If You Value Sleep, Don't Watch K-Dramas

K-Dramas should come with attached warning labels: "Warning: Watching this drama can severely affect your health. It can cause severe obsession, consume time best spent elsewhere, interrupt your regular sleep schedule and keep you awake fretting about how the characters are going to resolve their problems."

 I know. It sounds utterly ridiculous. However, if you ventured into K-Dramas (typically of the romantic comedy type) you would see how this could be true. I haven't (yet) delved into too many K-Dramas (I do have a real life to live, thank you very much) but of the ones I have, I find several similar threads: endearing, believable characters that become like friends, hilarious, ridiculous, often extremely awkward scenarios that throw the most opposite of persons together, and unlikely romance.

 I just finished the 16-part series, "Full House Take 2."

Okay, ignore the fact that it shares a name with a well-known American tv show of the 80's/90's. I happen to, inexplicably enough, be a fan of that show as well (weird, yes, but that's another subject entirely) but if I had to chose between the two very different "Full House" tv dramas it would be the Korean one, hands down. For one thing, Korean dramas put about as much attention into detail and cinematography as one would expect from a movie. For another thing, the characters aren't shallow cardboard cut-outs who have half an hour's time to resolve their issues, as they are in American sitcoms.

"Full House" is actually the name of the manor where the story plot takes place. (It is sort of a double entendre, as several extremely different people do end up situated in the house together in an absurd manner.) The story follows K-Pop star Tae-ik, the rightful heir to "Full House," who due to unfortunate events has lost ownership and has "sold" himself as a teen idol in hopes of eventually claiming his inheritance back. Kang-hwi is his fellow star sidekick, and Man-ok is the peppy girl who, thru a series of cataclysmical events, ends up as the duo's personal stylist. The story follows the three as they are thrown together in one impossible, ridiculous situation after another. Oh, yes, and there's another girl in the mix, too, as well as numerous other characters both delightful and comical.

The opening episodes are a bit hard to take. Honestly, it looks at first sight like it's just a show about two shallow, silly pop idols who bicker and have no life outside of the stage. Tae-ik's appearance is especially jarring; on stage his exaggeratedly effeminate appearance, hair and fashions beg the question, "Is this a guy or a girl?" (According to my sister who lives in Korea, the outrageous, effeminate fashion is the norm in the K-pop world, even for heterosexual males.) Still, I have to admit all the fashion was a fun touch in this particular series. The character Man-ok, as an aspiring designer, has fun taste - I admired all her quirky, funky outfits that combined various textures and patterns.

As the story unfolds, it soon gets past outside appearances, and we start to see that each person here is a real person with a real heart, as layers like an onion are peeled back bit by bit. We see that Tae-ik is quite a bit deeper than the robotic, obsessive, self-centered freak he is, and oh... maybe he is capable of caring about people besides himself. Kwang-hwi is adorable, warm and loving, someone that you want to take care of and protect from all the horrible things that have happened in his life. And feisty Man-ok glows, holding the story together and never giving up even when circumstances get rough, continuously and selflessly caring for and looking after her friends' well-being.

 Why do I like K-Dramas so much? Is it the characters themselves, whom we begin to believe are real people, as we see their multi-dimensional human-ness? Is it the way they are all thrown together, the comedy that ensues when they rub each other wrong and annoy one another in the extreme, but then end up ultimately growing thru the process? Or maybe it's the universal themes that run thru them, the themes that make me think that maybe I'm not just a hopeless romantic, that maybe these themes appeal to us because they're true.

Themes like:

Love isn't just a feeling. It's an action. It's about how you treat people, show them care, and prefer them above yourself.

How true friendship endures, and how incredibly valuable it is.

How telling the truth is just so much better (and simpler) in the long run.

How a man's heart can be deeply moved and touched by a woman.

That a man needs to fight, even against insurmountable odds, to get the girl.

That people can change.

That "true love" is real.

Those, I think, are reasons why at the core, K-Dramas are so endearing. Even tho the stories are not in any sense spiritual, they still remind us of things that, deep down, we truly desire. Things that are worth hoping for, even while the world is screaming at us to be "realistic" and face the "grim realities of life." Things that serve as a reminder to never stop dreaming, hoping and loving.

"Love...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

1 Cor 13:7