I was watching it while finishing up charts for work and the episodes (after ep 1) are all less than an hour. It zipped along quicker that I expected. I had seen half of the first episode several weeks ago with my husband and he didn’t want to continue, so I was able to skip that too. I’ll probably be able to get another 5 done today as my kids will be at a fall party tonight. And then my husband comes back home and I’ll be watching MY COUNTRY again. It may be a couple more weeks before I get to watch this again (when he goes on another trip). I intermittently binge watch, I guess!

You haven’t even gotten to the good parts yet! You need to hold out until about ep. 15 when all the action starts happening.

Well, that’s not any better. 😆 I’m terrible at guessing ages of Asian actors in shows. These shows have them acting so much older that their real age. I guess it’s a testament to their skill though! I always think to myself that if my mom had me when she was 20, I could easily be this guy’s (and YJG’s) mother in another life (which is crazy).

It is! Which I actually feel better about. He’s adorable!

It’s better than the first one!!! It just keeps building and getting better and better. It zips along at a fast gallop and doesn’t look back. I was so affected by the end that I had to go back and watch the beginning to remind me what it was like before the end. I wasn’t ready for everything that happened. If anything, the pacing was too fast for me. I expected more exposition on the characters. But I liked it still!!!

@ndlessjoie It’s not like Arthdal ….. this one has better lighting so you don’t need night-vision goggles to watch it!

I’m already on live with cast—al of them. The veteran actors are all amazing too!

My heart is ready to be broken and mended and broken and (hopefully) mended again! I love all these actors already. I believe I’m their stories already. I’m all in!

That’s why I usually don’t make it through an entire saguek. I don’t want to watch the inevitable ending.

Lol. I really have no idea who lives there. I may be giving your name to a serial killer or mob boss for all you know!

Prom is at the end of the school year. It’s a Thursday night too. I’d say homecoming, but I that’s usually on Friday night. Also, no teenagers live in this house. I’ve never actually seen the people who live there. They just moved in less than a year ago.

(plus no one’s seen the neighbours at all)

Are you sure he still keeps track of you? Chills…

Oooof the creepy side of makjang

*shudder* the creepy side of makjangs for real!!!

WOW. That’s crazy. I’m happy you got out of it safely in the end.

Awesome performers, and so freakin’ adorable!

Where were you sitting? Did you do that hi/touch thing? I didn’t get tickets in time to get those, but the girl I was sitting next to and her friend did. We should have hung around for a bit to see what that was like, but I’m old and hubby was hungry! I hope you enjoyed yourself! I may have convinced my husband to go to another one in the future! The energy was just amazing. There were so many things that I thought I knew about kpop concerts that I was totally wrong about. For some reason I thought there would be majority Koreans there, totally mistaken. I think I say no more than about a dozen Koreans I saw—-there were probably more, but the majority were not. Also, not as many Asians as I thought there would be. The girl I sat next to was Hispanic. There was a cute girl and her dad across the isle from us. It was so cool to see people across racial and ethnic divides all singing in Korean. It was impressive. I know all the melodies, but not all the words, but there were people that knew all the words—and I’m sure they weren’t Korean. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Definitely worth the effort getting there.

Not really, we’re traveling to get there! We’re supposed to be there about 3:30 pm though!

I’ll be thinking about you and the potty training! Lol.

An Opus in 15 movements! And I’m a writer, or trying to be!

There should be more and instead of being the protagonist this time, I want to be a spectator and just enjoy the show!

Looking forward to on!

You’re welcome! I’m going to link some other entertainment that you missed while gone, ok? Did you ever see A Poem a Day? We had an all put poetry slam competitions for it and an island party with awesome music and a shipping war and then a beanie fan fic for the ship that didn’t sail! Then we had Beanie island party 2 this summer as well. And Dear, February which was so touching. And other introspections on the Theme of the Month Posts as well. My favs were @cloggie’s In Defense of the Truck Of Doom and Cloggie fixed it, @greenfields’ That’s Me (but I like everything she has written) and my own Trends in Kdrama’s Hair piece (which I’ve just copied my link below—maybe the others will copy their pieces here too so I can have them!) I don’t expect you to read them all in one day, but these are the highlights!

Apad poetry and island party:
http://www.dramabeans.com/members/earthna/ac

Fanfic:
http://www.dramabeans.com/members/raonah/activity/488601/#acomment-517580

http://www.dramabeans.com/2018/06/open-thread-557/#comment-3257905

Love, February posts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HTPnPtjm2rXRlVzQQY4hcJ-BvgEscLnHsCI5x2qcrno/mobilebasic

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2_rgWkZaTSKrVV2juZaAjkviuYdfJ_At

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOCR78qJkbjLkZkVHfxPnZTKx7hCYT7Kh

TREND INSPIRATIONS: Bad hair today
http://www.dramabeans.com/2018/09/trend-inspirations-bad-hair-today-representation-tomorrow/

Oh, and I almost forgot, @sicarius became our Queen…after introducing us to Melona bars.

http://www.dramabeans.com/members/ally-le/activity/851832/

feeling like a successful historian 🤓 :
my book (=super recap post) about another Beanie’s story aka Azzo is passed down from generation to generation of Beanies 😆

You need a Mrs. Gong-yoo or Mrs. Dong-wook to pop up and challenge your love for your Oppas, that’s how it all starts!

Lee Dong Wook you can have! I’ll take Goblin Gong Yoo, you can have Coffee Pronce Gong Yoo!

Juan and I were working in our cubicles, maybe there were other fellows there, but I just remember his conversation. “What do you think about that new nurse?” he asked me. “Umm, I think she’s pretty nice. Wait, do you like her?” “I’m going to ask her out, I think.” “Really?” I’m really dumfounded at this point. Because for the past year, I’d only listened to him bemoan his failed marriage; he never thought he’d be divorced. (His wife had asked several times if he would stay with her. She ended up fired from her residency for inappropriate behavior.) And Mary the nurse, I’ll call her, had been all but throwing herself at Juan since she had arrived. And after reading @hotcocoa’s account of nurses she’s worked with, you can imagine what I was thinking. “She’s cute, I guess.”

He really liked her. And from what he would tell me (which was probably more than I should have known) she really liked him too. At least she knew what a great guy he was. Several of our co-fellows worried that she was too controlling because she had to keep dibs on who he was with, where he was, and how long he’d be gone. But as Juan told me, she told him that she knew what a great catch he was and knew there would be other women wanting him. (To which I was like, maybe?) Who do you think was enemy #1? You guessed it. ME. So no more Taco Bell dates or hanging out with my husband and me, unless she was there.

I went to their wedding. It was a smallish affair, his second wedding. (His first was a 3-day traditional Indian extravaganza.). It was mainly family, and us co-fellows and attendings with whom he worked. I hoped he’d be happy and that she wouldn’t hurt him, but she was kind of a bridezilla, and I had my doubts. I had really stopped being an emotional crutch for him at this point. And Mary liked me better that way as well.

They’ve been married for 7 years now with four girls that includes a set twins who were just born this year! And they are all princesses! I send them baby shower gifts every time they have a child. I’m more than happy for Juan right now. His makjang really turned into a fairy tale ending, and I turned out to be the random supportive friend.
(Maybe Nam-woo in “A Poem a Day.” Well, I didn’t have an alligator, but Juan was my “frog” for a while.)

I like that nearly all these #MakjangMonday stories have a time-jump! 😄

Thanks for the fun read @ally-le 💖💙💚💛💜

I remember when the second plane hit and then I knew, oh god. Everything just changed. Until then you could still think the first one had been a small plane’s accident. An NBC person saw it just after it happened and called straight to The Today Show (live on air) where she tried to describe it but Matt Lauer said something like, oh no I’m sure it wasn’t a full size airliner. She kept insisting that it really was. That whole little story has been edited out of all the 9-11 shows.

I was too young to remember any of it, but as I learned of it I knew one thing: the world has changed since then. And what’s sad is I’m not being dramatic. Distrust, fear. Racism. Stigmatization. War. LOSS. Long gone are the days where you don’t need to lock the doors of your home.

I was still at school at the time, and the reaction was the same as we watched it on TV: disbelief, horror, shock that the world as we knew it was falling apart. Yes, the world can change in a second. Thank you for the reminder to cherish our loved ones and our lives to the fullest while we can @ally-le!

My children were very young at that time, and I tried to keep the images off television when they were home and awake, but this was very difficult.

The day of the attack was horrific. My husband was out of town on a business trip in South Dakota, working almost around the clock. But as much as I had tried to shield my kids from the worst, and to make them not be as scared and uncertain as we all were, one of my daughters asked me question a few days later that gutted me. “Was Dad on one of the planes?” She had been thinking he was on one of those planes for days, and never said anything. Possibly one of my worst moments as a mom to be honest.

I was ten at the time, and my dad worked in DC. The Pentagon had been hit too, so my mom spent hours trying to get a hold of my dad to see if he was okay (thankfully, he was fine). We went over to my grandmother’s, since we didn’t have cable, to watch the news. Interestingly, that happened to be one of the only times in my life where I kept a diary, so I have a diary entry for that day from my 10-year-old self.

I was in fourth grade when it happened. I remember the teachers being upset and watching the television discreetly. I remember my mom telling me something bad had happened and being glued to the tv. But somehow, I didn’t get it, I didn’t understand what was going on, I don’t remember none of it clearly and for this I am so grateful. Even as a child, I suffered with anxiety and panic attacks that it impacted my health. It wasn’t until I was older that I saw the footage and heard the stories, and it still shook me up a little were I just was out of it for a few days. It’s definitely a day we will never forget, but for my sanity, it’s good that I don’t remember it as it was happening.

I remember my mom waking me up and saying that the US was under attack.
Then just having the tv on for the around the clock coverage, it was ABC with Peter Jennings mostly.
When he became I’ll and passed away a few years later I just remembered how he was such a steady presence at that time.
It gives me chills still when I think about it.

I remember it as the day the world changed for the worst. Racism and discrimination was alive and well still but what happened later to people who had nothing in common with the terrorist except for the way they addressed their God felt the biggest blow. I am not saying all the lives lost and all those horrible scenes we saw unfolding on tv was trivial. My god I am not saying that. People who post their loved ones suffered and people who lost no one in that incident is still suffering. I am a Muslim and I don’t wear the hijab or look like one but I see fear in the eyes of my community and loathing and hatred in the eyes of other communities.

I was a student back then and I don’t remember much of the details now but I do remember the anxiety it brought to people around me. I wasn’t even in the US. I can just imagine how it was for you. It gives me chills just reading your account. It’s different from watching the news. When people talk about experiences, it feels more genuine.

Listening to others’ experiences of 9/11 send chills down my spine. I’m glad you and the Beanies who commented on here are safe. I was still a kid living in Vietnam, and when it happened, it was nighttime there and my dad drove us around trying to buy special edition newspapers to read up on the news. I didn’t fully understand the extent of the events. My parents were horrified for my dad’s family, most of whom lived around DC. They were also worried that our immigration process would be delayed further, considering what happened. They were right. It took almost another decade before we finally set foot on the US. *sending all the Beanies hugs*

I was working from home when my other half called me to ask if I was watching it. So I switched on the TV and saw the second plane hit, and I pretty much didn’t leave the room for the rest of the day. I was scanning the news all the time, not being able to look away. It felt like an addiction, reading every detail, listening to every story. I think I ended up mildly depressed from absorbing it too much, from not being able to tear myself away from the painful stories.

I couldn’t stop (even though I knew it was unhealthy) until I went to a friend’s wedding, with a very small number of guests because a lot of the people from the States had not wanted to fly over to Europe. My other half and I spent a week in Italy without a TV and without internet, and that was what I needed to get my emotions back to some sort of normality.

I’m sorry to offend you, I knew some would be.

According to javabeans: “The term makjang comes from a Korean phrase indicating a story that pushes things to the very last scene—that is to say, goes for the utter limit in terms of plot, emotion, manipulation, realism. It pushes things to (or past) our boundaries of normal behavior to elicit extreme reactions.” Strictly from this definition, war and all the autocracies you describe of war would fit. Unfortunately, in real life, such situations are tragic (see @leetennant‘s submission for Makjang Monday). You would not wish these situations on your worst enemy, whoever it might be. It’s designed to elicit strong emotions and extreme reactions, which 9/11 does, unfortunately. But we all have different points of views, don’t we? This thread is from the mainly from the view of those that saw it unfold from afar, and it still held great traumatic memories. It’s only greater for those who were firsthand witnesses. I guess some back story on my own history may help and also how 9/11 affected my future.

My parents are immigrants, from Vietnam, and escaped when Saigon fell to the Viet Cong. Their escape was harrowing as was their lives during the war. They lived through the Vietnam War, just barely, but that’s why I’m here in the US, very lucky indeed. My parents have told me stories that you describe, of bombs and bombers, escaping towns and villages by the skin of their teeth, with just the clothes on their back, chemical and traditional warfare playing out in front of their eyes, not on television or far away, but literally, in their back yards. Escaping to the US and writing desperately of home to make sure their friends and family were still alive, and not hearing from anyone for years, and crying when that first letter came, that they were alive or word that some had died.

It was this, the sacrifices that I witnessed from immigrant parents, that made me over-achieve where my birth and parenting should have led me, and also what made me join the US Air Force while in college, to be involved in the country that took us in, to show my appreciation to all those soldiers that helped my own family escape. You see, I was in the Air Force reserves as was my husband when 9/11 happened. We joined when the US was at peace, with no active wars to fight, so when those towers fell, we knew it would no longer be that way. One of the reasons my husband was so distraught was because our futures were now in the hands of the US government and that future included going to war. Future me on active duty waited weeks and months on end with 2 children under 2 to see if my husband or I would be in the “bucket” to deploy to Afghanistan, future me working overnight and not seeing my family we were shorthanded and short-staffed, future me caring for families that lost their father to a roadside bomb, future me that almost broke because of the fall out from war. My military days were the hardest…

No problem! I’ll take you off on the next post I write. You might still be on others though!

I’d forgotten how much I liked them! I love this episode, probably my favorite episode of any drama.

Squeeing RIDICULOUSLYYYY!!
That’s so cool, Ally!!

Me, too. I hope I can see it someday.

I was in Chicago just before it opened there a couple years ago and it was 250.00 per ticket for a dress rehearsal! I didn’t go, obviously, but I’m glad the national tours came along sooner rather than later. I’m sure it’ll come to my city at some point. As King George III sings, “You’ll be back…!”

Everything they write is amazing. Great hooks, awesome beats, amazing lyrics. They show off all their individual talents so well!

*tour

GOING TO QUEBEC WHEN?? COME TO MONTREAL TOOOOOOO

Brian= Young K (For those not in on the inside joke, he hates being called Brian!)