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Spill the Beans: Confiscated drama-watching devices and frightened parents

Far be it from us to tell you that dramas aren’t important, but stay in school, guys! Do your homework! Once we find the opening to the fourth dimension, y’all will be the first to know, but until then, those flower boys aren’t going to do the studying for you! (Trust us, we’ve tried.)

To submit your story, email us your stories, and we’ll keep sharing them as long as you guys keep sending them in.

 
It’s okay, yuja. We know the struggle. (Dare we ask what the other half is, though?)

So I was mostly dismissive of kdramas for a really long time, despite being born to a Korean household of intense drama fans. My parents immigrated to Canada when I was a baby and it was difficult to watch kdramas for probably a long time. But once they found out how to get them (primarily VCRs, CDs from a sketchy Korean supermarket in those early days), they went really nuts with it. The problem was, we only had one TV. With my parents hogging it during primetime, I could never watch my American shows. Plus, if it was something my parents were into, it couldn’t possibly be any fun for me, right?

So growing up, I just wasn’t interested. That is (dun dun), until my mom started watching Boys Over Flowers. I don’t think I even really liked it. I distinctly remember wanting to punch Gu Jun-pyo in his smug little face. But god, if nothing else, it was SO ADDICTING. I needed to know what happened. Too bad my mom decided she was bored of it. So I had no choice but to find it and watch it myself. And I did. And then I started watching Coffee Prince. And then You’re Beautiful. And it was like the dormant crazy kdrama fan genes were activated. There was no going back…

Since then I’ve:
– Accidentally ended up marathoning a 12-episode drama in basically one sitting until literally fainting from exhaustion.
– Stolen my neighbour’s wifi (ours was down) to watch the last episode of Two Weeks.
– Gotten my phone confiscated for trying (and failing, thanks to shitty wifi) to watch kdramas during class.
– Gotten my iPad confiscated for trying (and failing) to watch kdramas during class.
– Locked myself in a suite bathroom at a party so I could watch the last episode of Healer in peace.
– Scared the shit out of my roommates, sobbing on the living room couch at 2 A.M., trying to watch Queen In-hyun’s Man through my tears. (This has happened multiple times since then but they are no longer fazed)
– Finished 123 episodes of High Kick 3 in the span of about 10 days.

THIS IS NOT EVEN HALF OF IT. I BLAME MY PARENTS.

 

 
The drama love is strong with jyh:

Hello Dramabeans,

I’ve been actively reading this twice every single day (once before sleeping and once when I wake up) since five years ago, when my addiction for Korean dramas officially started. I’ve been watching Korean dramas on my local television channel since ten years ago, but they only showed long and dramatic crazy family dramas and the occasional sageuk, so I was never in love with it but still watched it with my family.

One day, my then-best friend (current frenemy due to stuff that happened) was going crazy about a boy named Lee Hong-ki and Jeremy who was the same person from You’re Beautiful. After her annoying encouragement, I gave it a try and didn’t like it. I was thirteen back then and I found it so childish, but I discovered a gem: Jung Yong-hwa. I fell in love with him despite his straight-faced acting and was so eager to see him back with more dramas. He did come back a year later with Heartstrings which I didn’t enjoy… (I still love him like crazy.)

Secret Garden was the real first love Korean drama for me, the first ten episodes bored me but I was crazy in love with Episodes 10-20 and I rewatched the whole drama series about twenty-five times and I just couldn’t move on. When I finally moved onto My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, the same process and agony occurred once again. (I stayed up all night watching dramas and I also got retained twice because I did zero studying).

One of the dramas that made me literally go crazy was Master’s Sun. I was so in love I stayed up all night waiting for the subs and I cried in school when it wasn’t out yet, LOL. The power of love.

I’ve watched a total of at least 100 dramas (including Taiwanese dramas) since ten years back. I have no regrets, despite my report book saying otherwise.

 

 

We’re more than glad to have you aboard, Mae Pearl. Thanks for the love!

I was reading an article about another person who became interested in Korean culture, and I too have fallen in love with Korean dramas. I was in middle school when Boys Over Flowers came out, and my best friend who was Korean always talked about how cute the four flower boys were. I was like eleven and had no idea what she was talking about, so the idea of having to watch something in another language had me very skeptical until one day when I was super bored at home and decided to go online and look up this Korean drama she kept going on about.

Well, it was very addicting to say the least, and I began to watch it every week, all excited that two episodes aired instead of just one like over here in the USA. After it ended, I looked up more and found You’re Beautiful, Full House, and more until my whole life involved a daily dose of Korean dramas. Soon, I found this amazing website with recaps that allowed me to relive the dramas by reading, and soon my reading comprehension skills went up and I started to want to know everything about Korean culture.

I remember crying my eyes out while watching A Werewolf Boy with Song Joong-ki, who is my favorite. I’ve never been to Korea, but I do write blogs about Korean dramas and kpop music videos I love. I’ve made so many new friends online and in person who have this same feeling of interest and devotion to this amazing culture. I want to thank Dramabeans for always keeping me updated on my favorite shows and showing me that I’m not alone in this addicting kdrama world.

 

 

Ana Beatriz is a great example of a drama fan who gives back to her community, as she shares below:

Let me try explain how my addiction to dramas started and became a big part of my entire life…

Everything started in a sunny day (well, every day is a sunny day in Brazil, but ok) of 2010, my second year of high school. The year had just started and, as usual, the classes were mixed up so there was a lot of people that I didn’t know in my new class. One of these people was a friend of one of my friends so I also became friends with her. That new friend had a sister and my new friend’s sister had just discovered the wonderful world of dramaland. She was in the time of addiction when you want EVERYONE around you watch the dramas you love, so she gave me A LOT of DVDs with A LOT of dramas, Japanese mostly, and told me to watch “when you have some time.”

Yes, I had some time so I gave it a try. BEST THING I DID EVER… OR MAYBE NOT. I watched everything in matter of weeks! That was it. I was addicted and could not do much about this anymore. After that, I watched dramas back to back like crazy. (REALLY! My mom was really worried about it. HEHEHE.) The following two years was like this, dramas all the time. I just talked about dramas. I was practically living off them. (Luckily it didn’t compromise my grades). After this two years, there was nothing subtitled in Portuguese that I hadn’t watched, so I started to watch dramas subtitled in English (even if my English was not that great).

Dramafever and Viki had started to become popular, so I could watch a lot of dramas in “real time,” and thanks to Facebook I could “meet” other people to share my craziness. Everything was great until I realized that just few people could watch the dramas I could watch. Either because of the access to Dramafever and Viki or because they couldn’t understand English, so I thought: “Bah, I can do this much for my people, I can subtitle these dramas and let people be happy.” And then I started a fansubber. It was me alone at first, but, after some time, more people came to help and we could form a great team.

My initial idea was to subtitle dramas that were airing in Korea, and it worked very well. A lot of people supported the idea, a lot of people were happy with this and, in some time, the “old fansubbers” started to subtitle the dramas in “real time” too, following the new trend I had started. Everything was great and still great for us. My love, our love, for dramas allowed us to not just to watch and enjoy, but also to help people enjoy them, and that feels great. The fansubbers have grown a lot in the past years, as well as the team. I’m still the leader, or the “Boss” is how they call me, but now we are a group of twelve, working on five parallel projects and some others “cold” projects.

In 2014, I went to Korea as an exchange student so I could fulfill my dream and the dream of many others. It was a great year, perfect actually. I could understand a little more about culture and costumes and I could finally live in the reality we just see in dramas.

These days, time is a little complicated. I’m in university during the morning, in work during the afternoon and at home working on subtitles or watching dramas during the night. How do I have time for all this? Well, you can sleep just four hours and use the time you “lose” in transportation to do something useful, like study or translate, or read… There is always time for something you really love. Yes, I should really get a boyfriend, but, nah, I’m ok with it. HEHEHE And, of course I have time for friends and family. I get out too! I even go to parties on the weekends! So dramas are a big part of my life, like 80%, but I do other things too…

Just to finalize, I would like to say that, during all these years, I’ve been reading Dramabeans and keep being amazed by how you guys can express all my feelings in a recap. This blog has contributed A LOT to my addiction and had showed me that I’m not alone in this world, so thank you a lot! Really love you, guys! That is it! Please forgive any english errors. Bye bye!

 

(Since a specific drama wasn’t mentioned, I inserted a picture from A Love to Kill, which helped to jumpstart my drama addiction.)

 

Classy Glass shares her experiences with others who’ve come into the fold. We can all thank King Sejong the Great for making Hangul so easy to learn!

I have two stories to share, but both are not mine; they’re my friends’ stories, who have been extremely influenced by Korean dramas and Korean culture.

So my first friend is Vietnamese, and I saw her practicing writing the Korean alphabet in her notebook. So I asked her why she was writing Korean, and she told me her entire story. She got so into Korean dramas that she wanted to learn the language, and I was actually pretty impressed by that. She then proceeded to ask me if I watched some drama and we would fangirl about it together. When she signed my yearbook for that year, she wrote “saranghae,” (obviously with Korean letters) though she funnily spelled it wrong and wrote “salranghae.” I pointed out her mistake. The next year she signed my yearbook, she wrote it correctly.

My second friend I met in gym class, and she’s African American. That class, we weren’t doing anything significant so we were screwing around and whatnot. I happened to see her phone case and there was a Korean word on it (can’t remember what, though) and the handwriting was really good, so much so that I actually thought the second friend was half-Korean. Turns out she just really liked kpop and Korean dramas, so much so that she actually learned the language and is pretty fluent in it. I’m Korean, and I think she’s actually better at Korean than I am.

But yeah. Ten years ago, I remember when I told people that I was Korean, they would ask where that was. Now, Korean media and culture has so much influence throughout the world that people even learn Korean just to further indulge in the culture. It’s pretty amazing.

 

 

Okay, that last picture was also from one of my biggest addictions. We can’t help the ones we love! We’d love to hear more of you guys’ stories, so feel free to email us and submit them.

 
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Oh boy I remember when I got my Mexican macho dad super invested into boys over flowers and Scandal-The shocking incident. The one where one kid dies and so the dad steals the kid of the dude responsible for it.

He cried so much and then watched don't hesitate all by himself. After that one he realized he was getting addicted and never watched another one again. I blame my uncle who made fun of him.

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I get teased by my family all the time. I think they hear "drama" and automatically assume its only for girls. It isn't. I'm a 34 year old guy who loves dramas and am not ashamed.

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Looks like you need Operation: Get Uncle Addicted to Kdramas.

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I would if he wasn't the type to use just terrible slurs for everyone. Men who cry are basically not men in his eyes.

My dad is reserved and very much a stickler to the constraints of society that seeing him get overly emotional when Jandi falls into the pool to jog his memory was awesome.

It was like a bonding between us since he never had much to say to me since he could not relate at all. He was still stuck in a time when children and wives obeyed without question so he related very well to don't hesitate lol.

But then my uncle began to call him names and say that was "novels para viejas" Old women dramas. And then called him homophobic slurs.

Its society who deems what belongs to what gender and it's us who sometimes do not challenge it. It's my dad who rather be respected by his trash brother than enjoy what he likes.

One day I will sit him down again and watch something good-maybe something trashy because I know he is a gossip at heart.

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Hi am Joanna from Africa .I want to share my story because am deadly in love with Korean dramas.it all started 2012 a neighbour of my was watching a man called god ,I was amused ever since then I've watched over 80 Korean dramas.I am an addicted Korean fan in fact I love the language ,culture and the kpop music.when ever am singing any of my favourite kpop songs people call me crazy ,I don't listen to them and I don't blame them because they don't understand. Thanks to drama fever and Viki they've made understanding of Korean language more easy .bye

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I think we usually tend to like the version we watch first because there's nothing to compare it with.

I'm also puzzled that lots of folks prefer the j-version of HanaDan, when for me the best is Meteor Garden. Haha. Then I noticed that in all the dramas w/ multiple versions: Hana Kimi, Nodame, ISWAK, etc I like the one I saw first better.

Same goes for movie adaptations of books. If I read the book first, I end up hating the movie. If I saw the movie first, I get bored by the book.

Maybe BBF looks bad to you because you already saw j-version and liked it. But for folks whose first drama is BBF, it must look so fresh and strange/addicting to them.

Besides, most Spill the Beans that talk about loving BBF also mention that they find it weird now that they liked it back then. So maybe it's also a case of not knowing the existence of other better dramas out there. :D

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For me, my first drama was actually Goong; Princess Hours and then followed by It's a Wonderful Life and it was a "dippy toes" experience. It was only due to Boys Over Flowers that I plunged into K dramas, but it wasn't exactly BOF the drama but rather because it was around that time and because of it that I found DB and its discussions and snarks and scoffs and general squees and hazing and the rest is history.

I once considered writing an entry for Spill that Drama but then decided not to the moment I started channeling Lee SeoJin and wondering if charges could be made for leading to emotional hostage. Because everything is other people's fault, never mine!

Because I want this site to exist for as long as possible. And also, I'd look ridiculous.

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I fully admit that I dove into K-dramas and later branched out to other Asian dramas b/c of BOF. It was on Netflix, and I tried it. At the time, I loved that it was so different than most US shows and I couldn't predict what would happen. Having no background in the series/Kdramas, I was sweating out who she would end up with.....and found the whole show refreshing. Now --- I fully realize that Kdrama has a whole slew of its own cliches and BOF was really predictable/not overly well done for someone familiar with those cliches. However, I love the short format with defined endings and prefer many of those cliches (over the typical US ones). After watching numerous other Kdramas/Jdoramas/Lakorns, I cannot honestly say that BOF is anywhere near the top of my "best dramas" list. It would not be one I recommended to anyone; however, it still has a fond place in my heart as the first drama I watched.

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Hello dramabeans!
I have the classic addiction tale with no hope for redemption. Posco had decided to invest in my country. Thank god for that as it meant airing or 'Jewel in the palace' and 'Emperor of the sea' on Sundays. KDrama was the most beautiful cultural shock to me at the age of 13 (drama in my country is real shit). Our entire family waited religiously for the half and hour of telecast and I remember crying whenever there were cancellations due to broadcast of Cricket matches. After 3 years of lull, I devoured my newly acquired broadband to rewatch Dae Jang Geum..but that was it.
It took me another four years to get back to kdrama. I was going to college and looking through my old stuff, I found a picture of the 'F4' in all their glory..still unaffected I was. But in my first semester break, my friend encouraged me to watch 'My Girl'. We had started at 5 in the evening. I finally slept at 6 p.m. the next day after marathoning the entire show. I could be caught giggling to myself at the dinner table thinking of the romantic hijinks. My friends declared me crazy. I didn't know that this was just the beginning.
A long illness gave me all the time in the world and I utilised it by watching nay binging on kdramas. The year was 2014 December. By Feb 2015, I had finished more than 35 dramas, rewatched thrice Kim Sam Soon, my love from another star, Master's Sun and Coffee Prince amongst many others. And believe me ..no rebuke because I was bedridden:p But the addiction wouldn't go away.
Nights wouldn't end without using hostel wifi for downloading kdramas, the first being Reply 1997. I also became a cultural anomaly for some time with no one to share my overexcited gushing about how cute SJk and how sexy SJS and HB are. But others were at a loss which I couldn't see..so I started spreading the addiction.. I still am doing so.
My craziness was given an official status when I started demanding internet packs for birthday gifts and used up all pocket money on the same after exhausting wifi. My mother gave threatening looks and commented on my waist size while my sister actually gave death threats for sticking up posters all walls. Few days ago, right before my final exams in college, I spent the last one hour before exams downloading the latest episode of Another Miss Oh. My fan fictions are growing by leaps and bounds and so are the no. Of visits on dramabeans. I cant tell you how much I love having found the beanies. It could've almost been my parallel world.
I have watched kdrama on a 2, 5,15 and 50 inch screen..but regardless with those characters, I feel such affinity as if that was my real and only world . I have moved on to learning Hangul and eating Korean food. And looking for study options in Korea. It'll be great of someone could guide me with that.
But I am irrevocably in KLove.
Dramacount at present 136

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I always giggle like a little girl reading these. The first story reminds me of when our wifi was out for 3 months and at the time i was already a big kdrama addict so i did everything to get a connection from somewhere and one night i found this working wifi connection without a password ! Result : i'd watch kdramas all night (it was summer) instead of studying for my uni exams xD (i ended up failing that semester haha). The most strange thing is when we finally got the connection, this wifi of some unknown person stopped working right then and moreover it'd only work on my ipad among all the devices in our house and only at night. What is this if not destiny?

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And omg werewolf boy, i cried for 2 days after watching that movie and i still feel so sad whenever someone mentions it. I hope we'll see park bo young and song joon ki again, the night i watched the movie i couldnt sleep because i kept on crying :/

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Werewolf Boy, made me fall in love with Song Joong Ki and Kdramas!

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~SPOILER~
I have to jump on this comment here about werewolf boy.
I avoided watching that movie for so long since I knew it would be sad and finally watched it with my bestie a month ago. I loved the first 80% of the movie and then the last 20%, I could not stop crying.
It gets me emotional just thinking about it. I was so angry at the ending, despite knowing that we know from the beginning that shes moved on with her life and had a family and grandchildren and so on. I felt robbed. SJK was robbed I tell you. After learning of their story and what happened in their past, to then go to the present and see him still waiting for her. All those years. His "kajima" before she left. The flowers in the hothouse. Him still looking eternally youthful. Its just was not right. I needed them to be together.
I had to make up another ending for them. That when she sees him waiting for her even to this day, as she enters the room, she becomes young again (which totally doesnt make sense as her granddaughter is in her image) and they embrace and then theres a glorious shining light in the room and it slowly goes to fade. It doesn't have to make sense. I just wanted to dream of them having the chance to live their love eternally. Lol, actually tearing up as I'm writing this.
Anyway, I loved them both and I really want them to do another project with a happier ending so badly.
Have a lovely weekend all :)

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You know, this is a weird question, but.... is anyone else in your family secretly addicted to kdramas?

The vanishing connection makes me think someone is turning on their mobile internet at night to get their drama fix. (I used to do this haha) Their phone acts as a hotspot so your ipad can share it. That also explains why the magic internet disappeared entirely when yours was fixed.

Or it could just be your Fairy Kdrama-Addicted Godmother.

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They all call me crazy because of my obsession with korean dramas lol, it was a neighbor's wifi for sure because the signal was weak and it could be connected only from my room or from the balcony outside my room (i remember watching i hear your voice episodes in the balcony at night xD).

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Thanks so much for all your Spill the Beans stories this week, they are wonderful. I read them all every time and laugh and cry, and laugh so hard I cry. I'm always left with my heart feeling like it will just explode with love for all Beanies ❤️ You guys are the best!

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I'd like to see some guys "Spill the Beans". It'll be fun to hear from their perspective as a majority of drama watchers are girls I think. My brothers like a drama I introduce to them when there's comedy and humor involved. Something about everything over dramatized in dramas turns them off. Especially when they're cheesy scenes. So i show them short clips of variety shows and let them handle the rest if they want to explore more of it on the internet.

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It's so refreshing to see all the stories about how people got addicted to dramas. For me, I love Japanese dramas more than Korean dramas because I don't really like romance stories. I love crime solving/procedurals kind of dramas so Korean dramas with only romance in it didn't appeal much to me. I ended up getting bored watching rom-com (even now, though I mostly just fast-forward the part I don't like) but my breaking point would be when I got cheated, lied and left by my ex-boyfriend of 10 years and I needed a reason to cry because I don't want to appear weak and cried just because he left me. At that time I watch Queen In-hyun's Man, and it gave me reasons to cry without looking so pathetic. And ever since then, I started to like Korean Dramas and why Queen In-hyun's Man still one of my favorites, no matter how flawed it is or how weird the ending is.

Love hearing stories about all the readers here in Dramabeans!

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I will happily deny I'm addicted to dramas. NO - I'm n love with them. They've brought such joy to my life - which is already busy and happy. My long k-drama start story has already appeared in Spill the Beans a few months ago so I will just update with a funny thing. I don't do well without WiFi. No no no - I do not do well at all. I've been traveling across country to research a book and stayed with good friends in Texas for three weeks before thinking to ask them if they has WiFi. Who doesn't have WiFi??? Once I arrived, there was no other choice for my project in the area so I was stuck. During the day I escaped to the nearest library to "work'. It was 19 miles away. At night I'd huddle in bed with my iPhone and found that watching on a tiny screen was just as good as my big computer. Problem was I was using AT&T cell data. The bill 3 weeks later? $310!!!!! I screamed. But it was worth it. Every expensive minute. I'm still traveling but this time I'm confirming that friends have WiFi. Now in Virginia and so happy to be watching Beautiful Gong Shim, Another Oh Hae Young and Lucky Romance. My drama count on my excel spreadsheet is now 181 after starting in October 2012. LOVE DramaBeans!!

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@lunatic4kd

I wanna see your spreadsheet!!

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so ... my dad cry watching dong yi

I hope my dad didn't lurk here

My family used to watch saeguk at home if it aired on tv
My dad loved OSHIN -Jdrama and watch it since I was a child, then we watch Dae Jang Geum, Dong Yi and QSD

but it was Dong Yi, the episode when the kings saw his son doesn't recognize him after the time jump that gets my dad, I can't believe that's happening my dad cry over a kdrama . . .?

he didn't refute or admit it till this day but I legit saw the tears in the corner of his eye

or maybe it just my delusion...

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Funny thing is that my story got published right before my birthday. I just came here to update because this weekend was like "Celebration Weekend" and saw my story in "Spill the Beans" *pride of myself*

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"Once we find the opening to the fourth dimension..." When I read that, I felt like the Dramabeans team would post something like "Look we found the opening to the fourth dimension!" on April Fools' Day in 2017. Maybe with a link to the website that's the wiki page of April Fools' Day... :)

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