My husband watched ‘My love, Eun Dong’ on Netflix and wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks. Even to our friends, which I thought was embarrassing! But here we are 6 years later, still watching! There’s a lot just wrong about that first drama, but it did introduce me to GOT7’s Jinyoung, and I think it was worth seeing just for that. 😆

Hulu used to be free for some shows/episodes if you watched it on a computer, and my parents didn't understand streaming yet, so we weren't paying for it. I had watched all the free shows I wanted and was looking for anything new and free to watch. Boys Over Flowers came up.

Wondering what these overdressed, crazy hair teenagers with a pink background were all about, I started episode 1. Subtitles? Sure. Wow, that school is huge. What is going... wait, what... how... omg... this is crazy... this is great!

Needless to say, I couldn't look away. I'm pretty sure I watched all 25 episodes that weekend. I had to see more. I think there were 4 other Korean shows on Hulu. And I watched them all. Off to Google, where I stumbled upon Dramafever (RIP), and the rest is history.

Because of the crazy fan hype around that best-forgotten drama "Playful Kiss". Despite the very problematic leads and their romantic story, that was the one drama that managed to get a lot of my non k-fans friends tune in. Which means I eventually ventured out of my k-pop and k-variety comfort zone to understand what the hype was about.

Thankfully it was then followed by a much more winsome "My Girlfriend is a Gumiho". Though it's not until a year later when "I Hear Your Voice" aired that I got properly hooked to k-drama, to the point of surfing the web for the best subtitle-providing sites and also learning English outside of class.

That was the main reason I loved to point out that at least, the very first k-drama I watched was the great "Dae Jang Geum" back in my childhood days, Long, long before South Korea was even known for its TV series.

I still remember how I got sucked into Kdrama. The memory is vivid.

When I was an university student, one fine weekend I was bored out of my wits that I started browsing channels one by one and came across this scene of an adorable looking girl with the most innocent look, holding onto to the bottom hem of this angry looking guy's shirt and pleading him to not leave because "He is the only human she knows". Right there, I was hit with feels.

Back then, I did not know she was an angel who lost her powers, but the dialogue was right, the background music was good, the atmosphere was wholesome and I could feel the dilemma in the guy's face and the desperation on the girl's side.

After the episode ended, I immediately binged on all the available episodes and was frutrated with the wait for remaining episodes. Flash forward to 8 years and here I am still impatient with the Live watch.

I know, the scene described here looks like a common trope in million kdramas, but it was from "High School Love On!" ❤

I put my tv in storage and used an iPad to watch Youtube or Prime while I exercised on a rowing machine at home. I was incredibly slow so it took ages to hit the distance goal for the session so I used to watch subtitled programmes to distract myself from looking at the monitor. I wanted modesty and no swearing so initially it was Indian films as I like musicals, then it was Chinese drama then Korean dramas came up on the suggestions and once I noticed the cinematography and family relationships I was in and gave up on all other programmes.

I never liked guns nor gun fights. Sword fights are my thing because of its graceful execution. Gun fights are to simplistic for me, swordfights aren't. So imagine my joy when a see a drama of such nature.
So I came across Jumong and it began with this beautiful sword dance between Have Mosu and his friend, the then prince of Buyeo. I got entranced and made it a point of duty to watch other kdramas of that nature...Iron Empress, Gwangaetto, and Dae Joyoung. From there I got interested in Sagueks kdramas that had little swordfights and that was Fugitive of Joseon.

Then thanks to dramabeans I embraced the other side of kdramas which is modern kdramas and that began with Temperature of You. I had watched Glass Mask and Ruby Ring but it didn't really draw me into the world of modern kdramas. And like, I got the final introduction to the entire kdrama world.

I was more of a politics/news follower before I found K-dramas, but I was finding the news so stressful after 2016 (I'm in the US). Not only was the real world stressful, but so was the entertainment that I was watching like "Orange in the New Black" and "Jessica Jones." A friend of mine sent me a link to a NYTimes article that was an introduction to K-dramas. I jumped right in and started watching most of the dramas in the article that were accessible. It was eye opening! They were fun, enjoyable and it was a pathway outside the stress I was feeling. While US shows had long turned away from romance stories and the more interesting (to me) inner lives of characters, the Korean shows embraced it. When I finished most of the dramas on that NYTimes list, I discovered this site. I lurked quietly for a few years, but jumped into commenting a few months ago, which is still somewhat uncomfortable to me. I am ever thankful to k-dramas. They added a richness to my life, giving me a pathway to entertainment from other parts of the world. I'll paste the link to the article, not sure if we can link here, but will see...https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/watching/k-drama-streaming-guide.html

2010 ish, we went to a friend of my dad and he had a daughter my age (15). We start talking about our intrests and hobby’s and dhr mentions Korean drama’s and shows me Playful kiss. 15 year old me didnt see anything problematic with it 😅. Next was boys over flowers and you’re beautiful. I’ve been watching kdramas since then but im glad my taste evolved 😂

I grew up with Japanese animes like Saint Seiya, City Hunter, etc. that I watched on TV. But after I started to watch them on internet with Naruto, Bleach and others. I watched Nodame Cantabile in anime and discovered there was a version with real actors. I think I was very lucky that it was a very good adaptation that could balance the craziness and the classical music very well. Juri Ueno was incredible in this role.
I started to watch others Jdramas like Hana yori dango or Hanazakari no Kimitachi e and discovered great actors like Shun Oguri or Maki Horikita (I miss her).

But it became more difficult to find Jdramas so I turned to other countries. It can sound weird but Korean sounded very well to my ears when I had a lot of difficulties with the Thai. Thai dramas had too much violence for the couples for my taste too. I tried TW and Chinese dramas. I prefered TW ones.

So I watched Que Sera Sera and I really liked the actors. So I tested the classical KDramas I could find. At the beginning, I was watching with French subtitles but there was less choices, so I watched them with Eng subtitles. I began to watch them in real time too and not binged them because they were over.

Until two years ago, my experience of the Korean entertainment industry was limited to two films, Oldboy and Parasite.
Then my brother recommended Squid Game to me. I found the series quite entertaining, but nothing more.
After that, however, Netflix suddenly suggested other Korean series to me, including Oh, My Venus! I was in the mood for a romantic story, watched it and that was the beginning of it all.

My first korean drama was Playful kiss. My best friend was reading manga's and heard there’s a tv version and made me watch so she has someone to talk about it. The culture was so different from ours (European) that we started casually watching more dramas. Mostly we were watching for the craziness of carrying someone on your back, the alien sounding language and the 100 different ways you can call someone, a totally different world from ours.
Then came Healer a drama for which episodes I stayed up waiting all night to watch raw and my kdrama addiction was born.
And so couple years ago we (my best friend and I) visited Korea and travelled everywhere we could in 6 weeks.

Short answer: Boys Over Flowers

Long Answer:
A friend I met in college was really into Taiwanese, Chinese, and Japanese dramas. She had me watch things like ISWAK, Why Why Love, Devil Beside You, and Hana Yori Dango with her. I then watched Hana Kimi, Love Contract, and, eventually, Boys Over Flowers by myself. I realized very early into my solo East Asian drama watching that I liked K-dramas more, and now I watch them almost exclusively (of the non-English language media I consume).

I broke my wrist a while back and had a lot of down time. My sister suggested kdramas and my very first was "Secret Garden". Ha Ji Won and Hyun Bin! I was hooked from the get go. American TV was boring and overly violent. I needed something fresher and more wholesome, certainly more creative than the usual. What impressed me the most was the drama fandom, which would analyze episodes and story movement, characters and development of story lines. Kdrama fans are so invested in the stories. It was only natural for me to get involved in K-Ent stars, OSTs, Kpop, language and history.
Kdrama even instigated my first trip to Seoul! So, I'll be happily watching noble idiots and white trucks of doom for a long time! Fighting!!!

The first k-content I watched was movie Seducing Mr. Perfect on muy friend's insistence. As you have guessed it I completed it because of Daniel Henney.

It took me while to watch k-drama though. I used to dabble in anime which lead me to Hana Yari dongo then Boys over flower popped in my recommendations. Thank God , I never touched it but it lead to me other Korean dramas. I do remember watching Cinderella and four knights , Coffee prince and Heirs as part of starting pack of k-drama.

In hindsight it gave me idea that what k-drama can offer - good, bad and ugly.

Winter of 2004 or 5, I was watching a soapy Irish series on BBC every afternoon. One day while ironing, I hit one digit wrong for the channel and when I looked up I saw Seoul! (It was a cable channel named AZN that broadcast a completed kdrama 5 days a week.) I had traveled for business in East Asia and I recognized the location (the Sheraton Walker Hill, the drama was Hotelier). What is this? I sat down, ironing forgotten because I had to read subtitles, and that was the beginning. Next up was Phoenix, which was completely addicting. By the time they showed Rooftop Attic Cat it was clear I had to know more, so I googled “Korean soap opera” 🤣, learned they were called dramas, thank you very much, and ended up on a discussion board with other fans where I met my now best friend! It was just a matter of waiting for Javabeans and Girlfriday to start DB, and here we are! But for the slip between channels 112 and 113, I would have missed my favorite thing in the world 😮

My progression was classic Japanese films / current Japanese films / current Korean films / Korean TV dramas. Basically, it was me searching for more content after I had watched all the Kurosawa films. I believe my first K-drama (that I recall) was 'Dating Agency Cyrano', 2013. With a VERY young Choi Soo Yeong. Wow, nine years ago.

It started with two K dramas I accidently saw in a friend's USB back in 2013. Those two dramas were PSH's "Heartstrings" and KTH's "My princess". I remember enjoying both of them and I began exploring the other dramas of the cast and the process went on. There was no turning back from then. But yes over the years the easy availability of dramas has helped me in increasing my watching range which was initially limited to dramas available in Youtube.

A Korean student came to live with our family nearly 20 years ago - and brought a box set of Full House as a present.
What a gift…

I'm not sure if I recall fully, but I think it may have been because of Rain. I was a kpop fan, though I wasn't a huge fan of him. I liked him, and I was curious about him. I think it was either Soompi or some other site that had links to download or stream - in low video quality- Full House, which Rain starred in. I clicked on it and got really into it. I was already a fan of romance novels and kpop, and Full House with its amazing OST won me over.

Luckily, I was in college at the time and had access to a fast connection on campus.

Of course that also led me to watching Snow White Taste Sweet Love, Delightful Girl Chunhyang, etc. And there was a community of commenters on the Soompi forums.

My kid was in a dual-language Korean program at school. I’m not Korean, so I was trying to learn, too. A bunch of people recommended that I watch Kdramas, but I had ZERO interest (for whatever reason).

One day, about 7 years ago, I was trying to find a Korean cartoon for my kid to watch, and I happened upon “You’re Beautiful.” For some reason, I thought it was a cartoon based on the cover (I wasn’t really paying attention), and I put it on for her. Once I realized it wasn’t animated, I was going to turn it off, but my kid asked me to keep it on. We started watching it together. She got bored and wandered off… But I was completely hooked at that point. I spent the next 2+ years binging nothing but Korean dramas. About two years ago, my kid was 10, and we re-watched “You’re Beautiful,” and she was obsessed with it! But, other than watching “Weightlifting Fairy,” she’s still pretty uninterested in kdramas.

My boyfriend is Korean & refuses to watch kdramas. He finds them mildly traumatizing.

My son was very fortunate in being able to take Mandarin in High School. To help him remember what he had learned we started watching C-dramas and T-dramas, on DVDs from the library. During this time American show were losing their luster. Then I discovered that two T-dramas that I had really liked FATED TO LOVE YOU and IT STARTED WITH A KISS had been remade as K-dramas- so I brought those DVDs home too. Of course, with Jang Nara and Jung Somin as female leads how could we not be bowled over? Next was FULL HOUSE and the rest is history.

I got into K-Dramas 10 years ago. I was always looking for new romantic shows or movies. Be in a historical British mini series or Bollywood. So I stumbled about KDramas. I have a terrible memory and I am not sure, but I think it was the gender bender story of Coffee Prince that I decided I had to watch a Kdrama. I slowed down over the past several years, but every now and than I check a new show out. But it is a lot less as it was in the beginning, where I watched a lot.

My story is kind of all over the place, our local TV station here aired painter of the wind around 5/6 am in 2010, i remember i would get up early to watch the really pretty boy painter (i didn't know it was a korean drama until 2014,and i didn't know the title until i joined DB), they stopped airing that abruptly then aired Jewel in the palace 2011/2012 on Fridays by 1 pm in the afternoon (this got cancelled as well.....scene i always remember was where she lost her sense of taste),I saw man called God around this period as well ( was smitten with song il gook and didn't still know it was korean), fast forward to Uni and the craze of boys before flower went through my school and had girls in a choke hold, i probably would have lost interest but my roommate at the time was a big Kdrama fan from home and had a laptop with oldies...….the rest like they say is history.

I’ve always liked languages so watched shows with subtitles since I was at school but mostly French and Japanese. Then at university my roommate was an international student and she brought with her a wide range of (likely pirated 😅) dramas and films on VCD, which we watched together. I don’t even remember most of them, but I enjoyed them.
Then I saw none for years because I didn’t have access to them.

Then when Netflix and fast internet arrived here, I found Playful Kiss. It was fun and tropey and everything was so over the top and I loved it. This all coincided with me being pregnant and really sick so I couldn’t do much other than watch TV, and I couldn’t watch shows my husband wanted to see too without him 😄 so down the rabbit hole I went.

Accidentally.

Like the Doom of Truck coming towards me out of nowhere.

March 1, 2015. That's when it hit me. And that truck was Boys Over Flowers.