ISWAK

I've been watching an old drama. A Taiwanese drama.

Let me give some background:
I think perhaps Korean dramas started first. A friend of mine told me that her mom watched them when she was little, and laughed at me for watching dramas. Or, "doramas" - as that's how they usually end up sounding when spoken in English.

Korean dramas are long. They're usually 20-30, sometimes 40 episodes, each about an hour in length. They are the longest, in terms of season, of the three types (Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese). They usually have crazy music swelling in the middle - some of it quite good, some of it extremely cheesy - and there are is always...well...drama. And a bunch of weird side characters who are completely, and I mean, COMPLETELY, wacko. They're the "odd relative" stereotype. Every single one.  (I assume they are there for comic relief, but in my opinion, they always get too much screen time, which is why Korean is, generally, my least favorite of the three.) And then there is the evil girl, or guy, who seeks to sabotage everything. And the concerned parents, and the friend who encourages when one or the other party gets discouraged, and then there's the hero and the heroine, who after much trial and tribulation usually end up together, though it's very hard when your favorite actors were once the lead man and then got demoted to the one who gets shafted, or when the ones you didn't like get cast as the new love interest. Grr. There is more variety in Korean actors/actresses than in either of the other types. Meaning, the jobs get spread around more. Also, there are historical dramas, and love dramas, and crime dramas, etc. Historical dramas actually are a surprising chunk of them, more so than J or T. Korean dramas are also the least likely to have a second season.

Japanese dramas are short, usually no more than 14 episodes. They are the most direct in terms of storyline sticking to the main characters. Usually the group of friends surrounding the hero/heroine is really funny, but unfortunately there is almost always one really weird creepy person that has anime tendencies...like wearing very extreme clothing and stalking or skulking around, with very disturbing music and a scary tendency to look derangedly into the camera. Usually, the dramas I laugh the hardest at are Japanese. (Take a watch at Hana Yori Dango, or the one with Oguri Shun where he's a pole vault jumper.)

Taiwanese dramas are middling in length, and in tangents to the storyline, and on weird creepy people. Taiwanese dramas are usually 20 episodes in length. There are a few "golden children" in the Taiwanese acting world who always get the main parts. Not only do they get the main parts, they are also musical and are also models. I wonder how they get any sleep at night. Seriously. For example, Jiro Wang, who always gets the part of the losing point of the love triangle, is a model and also is part of a boy band, Fahrenheit. His voice is actually decent, but the problem is that two of the other three boys (I use the term loosely, some of them are in their early 30s now) have weak voices, but are also part of the media frenzy. My favorite Taiwanese actor of all time (mostly because of a weird experience I had) is like 30 something now but is still playing the role of college students. He was the main character in the biggest smash hit ever, Meteor Garden (which is the Taiwanese version of Hana Yori Dango) and, with the rest of the Flower Four, formed a band called F4, which was wildly popular. Of course they sang their own theme song for the second edition, and were so famous that the author of Boys over Flowers claimed F4 was a copyright issue so they changed the name of the band to JVKV, which is the first letter of the English name of each guy in order of age. Yes, I digress. Anyway, so he is a megamodel and definitely a media mogul. It's bad enough that whenever I go to the equivalent of Little Japan, which usually translates into all of Little Asia, I recognize almost all of the faces on the magazine covers--and they've been the same for years. There are a chosen few who star in almost every drama.

Of course, if a drama is successful, then the neighboring industry makes its own copy. Hana Yori Dango, for one. It Started With a Kiss, for another. Coffee Prince, for a 3rd. The high-jumper one, for a fourth. GAH. OVERLOAD!!!

Anyway. I'm watching ISWAK. Go ahead. Make fun of me. Be concerned for my mental well-being. But actually there are a few gems that are to be had - such as "aim for the person you want" and "spirit is everything" and "life is more interesting with some discomfort" and "it's hard to be perfect - to have the pressure of always having to be perfect, to never disappoint". Also, notes about never buying weird troll figurines and never buy a pink VW bus, and getting your house inspected before you move in, are also in there as well.

Giving up is just not part of the heroine's vocabulary, at least when the hero is concerned. But if every girl was like that...I don't know. Is unrequited love enough? Yes, it is a great angst simmerer, and when it does work out (as it almost always does in drama, though not so in real life), it seems on the surface that it's great...but if I were the unrequited, I, in my skeptic nature, might always wonder if the person just gave in if I pestered them enough. What if, unlike in drama, the hero never came around? Is watching from afar good enough? Or watching from not-so-far, if you are the "friend" who really is pining? How can you live your life in a one-sided way? How can you ever really get to know the person that you think you love if they don't really love you back? How can it just not be a sort of nice, sort of painful fantasy? Is there really love at the end of all the Disney movies, or is it just one person relenting and accepting the little pest that they actually kind of have gotten used to now?