Winter Sonata

I watched the weather forecast yesterday which actually excited me quite a bit when one question was asked during the board-cast: “Is this winter already?”

Just enough to remind me of the old time when Korean dramas and the “Four Seasons Series” especially were a big part of my childhood and teenage. Despite of me getting way a bit too Western now that I don’t watch Korean dramas anymore but there are a few good ones that could never seem to get old to me.

“Hallyu” – The term for Korean entertainment arrived in Asia in the late 1990s. When I was 6 or 7, I still remember how we used to have to wait every single day for a certain time of the day to turn on the TV to see again the faces of all the most beautiful and talented Korean actors. We all agreed that the Korean succeeded at that. Everyone wanted to look like Korean, even now, and I call this “Koreanization” by my own term.

Having said that, I was and still am very much in love with some of my favourite Korean dramas. I love Winter Sonata as much as I love winter itself. Perhaps it was because I was born in winter for one reason. But I know I love this drama for so many reasons: Yiruma’s music and of course for Bae Yong Joon too. It’s hard to find some woman who doesn’t fall for him once they know him. I still remember when I was at secondary school, I was called “Yujin”, the name of the main actress by a-not-so-secret admirer from the class. Maybe I didn’t like the drama as much that time. I was too young for that. But a few years later I watched it again with my sister and started to get “addicted”.

It’s common sense that once you get addicted to something, you do it over and over and over again… I’ve really watched this drama over and over and over again. I still remember my very first few days when I first arrived at the Blue Mountains. It was in middle of July when the temperature was almost lowest and the wind was strongest, I was all my myself in a new place and I was a little home sick, so I decided that I could watch Winter Sonata and that I can think of the time that I watched the drama with my sister too.

And during the very first few weeks living up on the mountains, I kept listening to some of my favorite Yiruma’s songs which I could never get enough of them…

And the songs…