Watching TV

I’ve found watching television with my host family to be a worthwhile activity. For one thing, it allows me to just relax after a day of teaching, lesson planning, and TKD-ing. For another thing, we’ll usually see something on the TV that will inspire my host mother to ask me something about American culture, thus the following 0.5 to 1.5 hours will be spent trying to explain something relatively simple in a mixture of English, Korean, and improvised hieroglyphics. (For those traveling to a country where you cannot speak the language at all, a pocket-sized sketchpad is a must. You’d be amazed what you can get across about the American education system with a pen, some paper, and a LOT of stick figures.) Most recently, we were watching the World Track and Field Championships hosted in Osaka, Japan, and she noticed that the Jamaican runner crossed himself. My reaction was a silent, “Sweet!” Her reaction was a flustered one. Apparently, Catholics aren’t Christians, or at least are a lesser form of Christians compared to Korean Protestants. When I told her that some people in my church cross themselves too, she immediately became suspicious of my Catholicity. I had to assure her that I am not Catholic and that I am Christian. (Luckily, my Korean isn’t all that good or I might have been kicked out of the house by now in trying to inform my host mom that Catholics are Christians too and that most of my closest friends have a romantic inclination to become Catholics someday, as I do.)

There are a few things I’ve noticed about Korean TV this week however. The first has to do with subtitles. They are both annoying and interesting. Annoying, because people reading the subtitles (i.e. my host family) can get the jokes before they’re even delivered by the actors. They pre-empt my laugh and that makes it less funny for me.

But they are interesting not only because I can sit there trying to figure out what the Korean is saying based on the dialogue, but also because of the slight differences I can already notice despite my lack of Korean. For instance, I watched “The Kid” starring Bruce Willis last night with my abeoji. I was surprised to find that, whereas the 8-year old Russell would refer to the 40-year old Russell by his name on the English language track, the Korean subtitle would have the boy say a more respectful ajeoshi (아저시). Also, whereas Russell’s assistant would refer to Russell as Russell on the English language track, in the subtitles she would refer to him as boss (I can’t remember the Korean for this at the moment).

I think it says something about Korean society (or Disney, depending on who did the subtitling) that they would change the dialogue of the movie to fit their own cultural norms instead of leaving the dialogue as is and letting Korea deal with it on its own. The producers might not have wanted Korean children calling their old men by their first names nor assistants calling their bosses by the same. It is a sort of family film though, so that might have something to do with it.

(The film itself was entertaining, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wanted something lighthearted to watch. It’s by no means award winning material, but good clean fun to be sure. A coming of age story for the middle aged to childlike audience.)

In watching Korean dramas, I have noticed that sometimes directors get just plain sloppy with their film editing. For instance, in watching one today, the scene was a man racing to a wedding to stop the bride from getting married so he could declare his love to her. He was in convertible, anxiously checking his watch as he sped along the freeway. At least, we were supposed to think he was speeding. Instead of having him actually speed, they just sped up the film so the trees went by quicker. I might not have noticed if it weren’t for the fact that he was in traffic. Apparently, everybody on the freeway in Seoul was also in a rush to get to that wedding…

And a final blurb about Korean television, this time commercials. One advertisement this morning was selling a heated marble bed. That is, the actual part of the bed on which one sleeps was a marble slab with temperature controls. This is supposedly healthy and has been approved by the FDA. Not the Korean FDA mind you. The Miguk FDA. For those of you who don’t habla Korean, that’s the American FDA. Why do Korean advertising agencies think the American FDA is a selling point for a product? I haven’t the foggiest.