Spreading the Joy

My family knows I have and addiction to korean dramas. Pretty much anyone who knows anything about me does.... Sometimes they indulge me and watch a few episodes with me. My biggest supporter is my mom. She watches shows I pick out/screen for appropriateness and has even gotten into watching some on her own when I'm not around. She's so cute :) . So far she has watched Pasta, Spy Myung Wol (failure on my part), and is now currently fascinated by Fermentation Family. Mom is now thoroughly convinced that I should move to Korea so she can come visit and eat tons of yummy vegetables. My other convert to kdramas was an accident. Little brother's girlfirend came to visit on college break and we started watching What's Up. I walked into the room the other night and hear "come on, just one more episode...please?" Insert evil chuckle here. She's a keeper. My favorite though is my father. Lately he's been sick, so the other day I made him all nice and cozy in the living room...and set up the first episode of History of A Salaryman. He's a history junkie that works in the retail world, so it wasn't that hard of a sell. Best part- mom called to check in on him and when she heard he was watching kdramas, her first words were "oh, he's really sick isn't he?". 

Fermentation Family- Impressions

I think I might recap this show, but I haven’t decided. It’s not because I don’t love the show, I do- very much. It’s just that not much really happens. I suppose that could lend itself to super short recaps. Hmmm….

Fermentation Family, also known as Kimchi Family, is like Monarch of the Glen (a most fantastic British show) meets any random makjang k-drama- plus food. Vegetables are my least favorite ingredient, but this show almost makes me want to eat them. Almost. The scenery is beautiful. The camera loves to focus on something small, like the tree memorializing the mother, and then slowly pull back to reveal a gorgeous panorama. The overall feel of this reminds me of A Star’s Lover before it got deadly boring. Oh crap.That better not happen here. The acting is pretty decent. Sometime Song Il Guk overdoes it a bit, but he’s so sincere and totally putting his all into this, so it doesn’t bother me that much. I love the way the relationships are forming between all the characters- and constant character growth from everyone. In fact, they’re pretty blatant about it. Sometimes k-dramas tend to develop their leads and ignore the secondary characters, or leave the hero’s character stagnate- not here. Oh, and have I mentioned the food?

Each episode contains food “homework” from the father (who ran away from home in the first episodeJ) and we get a delicious crash course in preparing some sort of kimchi dish. So yummy! Overall, this isn’t the most addictive drama I’ve seen or even prettiest. What it does is give me the warm fuzzies…like eating gooey macaroni and cheese while curled up on the couch during a snowstorm. That, and this is pretty much the first drama world I’d actually like to live in.

Winter Poetry

I am sooooo cold... so,  here's some poetry. The first is just so pretty. The second is my current favorite.



A Winter Day by Lucy Maud Montgomery

I

The air is silent save where stirs
A bugling breeze among the firs;
The virgin world in white array
Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day;
All heaven blooms rarely in the east
Where skies are silvery and fleeced,
And o'er the orient hills made glad
The morning comes in wonder clad;
Oh, 'tis a time most fit to see
How beautiful the dawn can be!


II

Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie
Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky;
A glistening splendor crowns the woods
And bosky, whistling solitudes;
In hemlock glen and reedy mere
The tang of frost is sharp and clear;
Life hath a jollity and zest,
A poignancy made manifest;
Laughter and courage have their way
At noontide of a winter's day.


III

Faint music rings in wold and dell,
The tinkling of a distant bell,
Where homestead lights with friendly glow
Glimmer across the drifted snow;
Beyond a valley dim and far
Lit by an occidental star,
Tall pines the marge of day beset
Like many a slender minaret,
Whence priest-like winds on crystal air
Summon the reverent world to prayer.

 

As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor by James Wright

And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?

-- Written A.D. 819


Po Chu-i, balding old politician,
What's the use?
I think of you,
Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze,
When you were being towed up the rapids
Toward some political job or other
In the city of Chungshou.
You made it, I guess,
By dark.

But it is 1960, it is almost spring again,
And the tall rocks of Minneapolis
Build me my own black twilight
Of bamboo ropes and waters.
Where is Yuan Chen, the friend you loved?
Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness
Of the Midwest?Where is Minneapolis? I can see nothing
But the great terrible oak tree darkening with winter.
Did you find the city of isolated men beyond mountains?
Or have you been holding the end of a frayed rope
For a thousand years?

Both can be found at http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/