Kim Hyun Jun and Jin Sa Woo are recruited into the National Security Service (NSS), an organization that prevents enemy attacks against the nation. Both Kim Hyun Jun and Sa Woo quickly turn their feelings of betrayal and shock back into romantic interest for Choi Seung Hee, but she only has eyes for Hyun Jun as she goes against company rules and establishes a relationship with him. Hyun Jun and Sa Woo are then given a mission to figure out the reasoning behind Yamamoto Dackasi entering Korea and to thwart any terrorist plans. Despite Dackasi being assassinated by his accomplice, Hyun Jun and Sa Woo are able to save the targeted politician. While waiting at the Blue House to be thanked by the prime minister, Hyun Jun's memory is triggered by a painting, where he recalls being there as a young kid with his parents, who were later killed in a targeted car crash.
In episode 2, Seung-hee invites Hyum-joon and Sa-woo to her house, and drinking together. Due to her higher ranking as team leader, both Hyum-joon and Sa-woo use formal and honorifics language when they talk to her, although they are both elder than her. Hierarchy is a huge part of Korean culture and can be seen even through the language they use. In Korea, formal language is used when addressing people who are elder than you as well as more senior in ranking. In the episode, Seung-hee tells her two subordinates to drop the formalities. In Korean culture, only under the approval of your superior are you allowed to use regular speech during a conversation.
ReplyDeleteAll true, but pretty basic info. Why would she do this? If you get into her motivations and their reactions you can expand this to a deeper level without changing topic.
DeleteAdding to Shengjie’s comment, I also found that in this episode, the stress on hierarchical systems (in the sense of language) were brought up quite a lot. The importance of being “polite” to one’s superiors and the acknowledgement that one can be “impolite” to one’s inferiors in Korean society were portrayed through the characters’ interactions. Around the beginning of this episode, When Kim Hyun Joon confronted Choi Seung Hee about her profiling him and toying with him, she warned him to be careful of his language because she is his superior (even though it is later revealed that she is younger than him). Later in the episode, when Kim Hyun Joon and Jin Sa Woo were drinking with Choi Seung Hee at her house, she gave them permission to speak to her in ban-mal instead of jon-daet-mal outside of work. This overt consent that Choi Seung Hee gave for her inferiors to speak to her “impolitely” shows how important it is for interiors to speak to superiors politely in Korean society, where hierarchical systems are so important in everyday life.
ReplyDeleteI am always happy to see response and interaction, building on previous entries. However, go deeper. Why is this important? Why did it strike you as something to comment on? I'm not saying it's not, but let's get into the deeper significance of the rules and breaking the rules of language (considering that language structures society...)
DeleteUnpopular Opinion (?): A Lack of Nationality in IRIS Episode 2
ReplyDeleteIn our second class, we talked about the two contradicting ideas: “cultural proximity” and “lack of nationality.” Right now, I am referring to the latter.
But—wait—what? Karen, how can you say there is a lack of nationality? The first two episodes are all about Hyun Joon and Sa Woo sacrificing their lives to be in the military and now the National Security Service (NSS)to better serve and protect the people of Korea. That’s true. But ever since the first episode—and now the second—I saw something unfamiliar and foreign about IRIS: the cinematography. The way the camera moves (shaky cam, zooms-in, pans, establishing shots, etc.) all pay tributes to cinema camera shots, especially an American style. This may be a way to attract an international audience. Or it was maybe paying tribute to a sort of trend with the Western style spy cliché in 2009. To me, the way the drama is filmed almost strips away at what makes it a Korean drama since it feels more like a Western film.
interesting and insightful. perhaps an example or two as illustration, and even a comparable Western drama/film in this style would expand your comment and make it even clearer
DeleteHaving recently talked about Korean Geography, and how people may want to visit locations filmed in a drama, there are a few locations that interested me in episode 2 and 1. With their first mission, Hyun-Joon and Sa-Woo follows known terrorist Takashi from the airport to an outdoor plaza (Cheonggyecheon). Similarly to Hyun-Joon in episode 1, Takashi acts as a tourist and carefully examines the outdoor plaza, later revealed to be where a politician would be. Afterwards, there was a chase between the agents and Takashi. With the help of satellite tracking which were portrayed with many bird eye view shots, it shows a different view of what Korea looks like. It showed many small streets, small shopping malls (ones with friendly ahjummas that treats you like their kids), and many other small places that a tourist wouldn't know about. Then they go back to Cheonggyecheon for an election speech, and many buildings were shown as they try to find the snipers. Although these buildings are traditional and typical Korean buildings that appear in every drama, it will seem different to many first time Korean drama watchers.
ReplyDeleteexcellent observations-- indeed a bird's eye view adds a lot of 'depth' to a geographic /spatial understanding of Korea
DeleteAs we discussed in our last lecture, scenic areas shown in Korean dramas provide an opportunity for tourism. Many companies in Korea offer drama-themed tours where they’ll take one to get a behind-the-scenes look at a set and more. In this episode, like Rachel said, I instantly recognized the Cheonggyecheon Stream due to its unique plaza. While doing research for my vacation to Korea this past summer, Cheonggyecheon piqued my interest but I didn’t get the chance to visit it. After watching this episode, I regret not being able to see it in person and will definitely go the next time I travel to Korea. This tourism also relates to next lecture’s reading by Joo Jeongsuk who writes about Korea’s nationalism. One notable part about this episode was how the enemy was a Japanese man. Like Hollywood films portraying Russians as the bad guys, so does Korea with the Japanese, emphasizing the tension between the two countries as a result of the Japanese colonization.
ReplyDeleteThis comment is somewhat sprawling-- you've touched on geography, tourism, nationalism, and the use of Japan as the customary 'enemy' -- more focus will allow you to go deeper. All of these topics are def. worth exploring more^^
DeleteIn this episode, hierarchy was a theme that came up multiple times making it hard to ignore. Like the comments above, the age barrier between people make it difficult to get along compared to western cultures where saying hello doesn't change depending on the age of the person you're talking to. In Iris, it also shows how one has to talk in a polite matter to someone who is in a higher position even if they are younger which is the case with both Hyun-Joon and Sa-Woo. I found that Hyun-Joon was most westerly when Seung-Hee told them that it was okay to lower their speech compared to Sa-Woo. I find that this correlates to how Hyun-Joon has better luck with Seung-Hee as he is more straightforward than Sa-Woo therefore being in better relations with Seung-Hee. I believe that this is a problem within the Korean society as it is difficult to make relations whether it is at a workplace or outside. I do think that it is right to respect the elderly but when it comes to working together as a group, I would find it very difficult if I was in that situation with older Korean people as I would not be comfortable voicing my opinion just because I am not talking as an equal.
ReplyDeleteIntroduction to topic (hierarchy in language)
DeleteConnection to IRIS
Speculation about Hyeonjun as a more 'Western' character than Sa-u and potential ramifications for dating success
Personal reflection on stratification and respect vis-a-vis public discourse in the workspace
-- All of these topics are connected, but going into more depth would be awesome. "This is a problem within Korean society" is a statement that begs for more exploration
As most of my group mates of mentioned, hierarchy is an important aspect in Korean culture and it has been brought up numerous times throughout this episode. I would like to talk about the contrast between Hyun-Jun and Sa-woo in how they approach this hierarchal system. Hyun-Jun comes off as someone who does not care about this system within the Korean culture. Even though Seung-hee constantly reminds him that she is his superior, Hyun-Jun disregards and does whatever he wants. He goes to the length of kissing her, which was against what she wanted at the time. Near the end of the episode, Seung-hee told the two agents that they can drop honourifics within the workplace and Hyun-jun was the first one to say okay without hesitation. On the other hand, Sa-woo is always respectful to everyone who is more senior than him. He hesitated and refused the offer to drop the honourifics when Seung-hee proposed the idea. Despite being best friends, Hyun-jun and Sa-woo both have different takes on the hierarchal system as Hyun-jun does not follow it and Sa-woo honours it.
ReplyDeleteOkay, but what does this mean? What does it say about their character, about desirable masculinity in contemporary Korea, about the chances of having a relationship with a woman if you cannot speak with her comfortably (use banmal), what does it foreshadow about the choices that Hyeonjun and Sa-u will make later in the drama?
DeleteAccording to the journal written by Jin and Jeong on the ‘effects of specific television dramas on perception of single life and fewer children’, they pointed out author Kim’s (2005) assertion that the “advance of women’s social status can result in the increase of the number of singles”. According to Kim (2005), this is because receiving higher education and working more actively in society may lead to an increased interest in self-actualization rather than dating and having children. In contrast, I believe there are overwhelming number of popular kroean dramas that depict the fulfillment of love/romance regardless of character's circumstances. In the episode 2 of Iris, Choi Seung Hee’s identity is revealed as one of the members of high rank in a male dominated organization called NSS. When the NSS’s new recruit Kim Hyun Joon catches Choi off-guard with a surprise tongue action, she claims to Kim that she is his superior and that an organization like NSS “never allows romantic relationships to develop”. Interestingly enough, before the episode could even end, viewers can obviously point out the fact that Choi is catching major feelings for Kim. This contradicts author Kim’s (2005) claim that a woman of working class with high education such as Choi Seung Hee would be more interested in her career rather than love. Furthermore, I’d like to argue the exact opposite, that Korean dramas more often than not reinforce the prevalence of love and selflessness. Whether its about a male or a female character in any given status, korean dramas always have this natural tendencies to find romantic success among the characters. It seems as the universal outcome of numerous dramas is one that defies all odds to make love work. Jin and Jeong discovered that television shows may function as a ‘natural prime’ that enables viewers to encode information and features into their memory. Therefore, it could also be true that these types of dramas may overemphasize the viewer’s perception of romance in reality to be one that will somehow work for them as well despite their real life circumstances and perhaps even falsely keep everyone hoping for the impossible romantic jackpot, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteTotally awesome. Thank you for going into depth and engaging with the reading.
Deletep.s. next time add enough of a biblio entry that non-class members who stumble on your blog can find the reading.