Local cultural critics have noted that Jung’s public image may suffer. Popular culture critic Ha Jae-geun said, “Korea remains deeply conservative regarding issues between men and women. Public disappointment in Jung Woo-sung, who has maintained a clean image, will be significant. In Korea, there’s an expectation that fathers take full responsibility beyond just financial support.”

There may be many reasons why marriage is off the table. A Korean lawyer was quoted that he believed under current support guidelines, Jung would pay $530,000 in child support until age 18 (unless some other settlement is reached). If he married Moon, then divorced, Jung could lose 30 to 50 percent of his wealth ($10-15 million).

Some commenters think Jung’s recent actions were pre-planned to mitigate the fall-out from the scandal. He has not done any commercial endorsements in two years despite being a high-demand movie star. One reason, CF contracts have a large morals penalty clause that could be two times or more of the appearance fee. He also recently resigned as a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. One cynical social media comment read, “He advocates for accepting refugees but can’t accept his own child.”

Another day, another entry of knetz doing surprised Pikachu face at the "unexpected" reveal of celebs being humans (and thus occasionally messy) too. Sucks for kid, but as a someone who went through that, I firmly disagree that people who don't love or want to be together should get married for the sake of appearances only to drag their innocent child into the inevitable divorce dirtpool later instead of just co-parenting. Get a grip, SK, Joseon era has already ended! And yall are in no position to worry about illegitimacy of some kids with your tragic birth rate...

This is low-key confusing since they talk about him "taking responsibility" for the KID, but the entire article is about him not marrying the kid's mom and having many girlfriends or the consequences for his career.

It doesn't say one thing about the actual responsibilities of a father to their child. And I didn't really understand what kind of agreement he had with the mom besides the money, or how his relationship with the kid is. They didn't even mention Moon's perspective or anything.

I'm guessing he was dating Moon at one point in the past? How old is the kid? At the beginning I thought he had donated his sperm or something. LOL I'm high-key confused.

I choose my fictional dramas over this. 😆

When I read about that 3rd woman, I instantly thought of the scene from A Korean Odyssey (Hwayugi) when Ma Wang was reported to be in a coma and bunch of women came out of the woodwork to claim he had a relationship with them and fathered their children.

This story is such an invasion of privacy in my opinion and the criticism is excessive (but it always is with Korean celebrities). I've seen him called so many names and the word "victim(s)" being used and it just made me think how naive and young some commenters are. Just because you grow up in a conservative society, is it really so unbelievable and a shock to the system to think a man can father a child without being married, wanting to be married, or wanting to be involved? This is literally shown in dramas! Dramas that are reflective of real life.

Sidenote: this is one of the reasons I always feel kinda weird when people are like "it's only a drama, you don't think that stuff actually happens? How gullible/dumb are you"

The worst thing as a woman is devoting your life to a playboy. One minute you're starring in a melodrama (handsome top star falls in love with you! You leave your husband for him!) and the next minute he has a baby mama *and* side chick young enough to be his daughter. You go from living a dream to living a nightmare. What a waste of time and energy. How meaningless. I think he attracts a certain type of gullible woman who is able to put common sense on hold. Don't watch too many rom-coms, especially those that start off with a one-night stand leading to shotgun marriage. How many of those have worked out in real life? How many actresses and movie/drama viewers emulate this storyline in real life only to crash and burn? This is why I hate dramas that start with one-night stands because the chances of it leading to happiness are ridiculously slim. Maybe it helps to have a great-grandfather who was a philanderer in Shanghai to know the havoc one man's actions can cause to multiple generations of descendants. I mean, I never met my great-grandfather but his legacy lives on in the rage and depression I see in my relatives.

Not sure why he is getting so much flack about it. He is taking responsibility by giving financial support.
From my understanding it was a one night stand but both parties agreed to the child support amd current setup.
The guy is a well known actor but he is human and appears to be taking responsibility. We dont know to what extent but whatever its a private matter.

I never like him, back in 2011 when he was dating Lee Ji Ah, new media reported that Lee Ji Ah had been secretly married to the famous musician Seo Taiji for over 15 years and hid the marriage from the public at Seo's request, who was much older than her. He quick broke off with her and acted like he did not know she was married before they dated. The public was much less forgiving to Ji Ah and put her through hell even though at the time of the report, she was already separated from Seo for years and was in the process of divorcing him. Much later, he finally acknowledged that he did know she was married at the time of him dating her, by then, her once promising career was pretty much destroyed while he and Seo were not affected at all, and many even feel sympathy for him. I am glad that after several years, ji Ah started to star in dramas and regain some of her previous fame. As to him, the scene at Blue Dragon Award ceremony last night when actors/actresses cheered and applauded him after he gave a speech mentioning taking responsibility for the baby indicated despite the so called public outcry, he will not be affected at all. The hypocrisy lied in the fact that if an actress gave birth to a child while being in a long-time relationship with someone else, she would most certainly be banished and suffered serious consequence.

The fervor over When The Phone Rings reminds me of Marry My Husband, and we all know how that show crashed and burned. Obviously, I hope When The Phone Rings stays good until the end, but I haven't started watching it yet, so I don't mind it being preempted for two weeks (one week) since it'll give me time to catch up.

Remember when Norway's beach handball players were each fined 150 euros for wearing shorts rather than the required bikini bottoms?? 🙄

Are there also men only schools?

https://terractive.in/products/cuddle-tee

This might be what you need... If you need help shipping, I could try helping you... get in touch with me via DM!

Bonuses: another big interview. Lol at his naive confusion why Tencent keeps flustering him with compliments – dude, they hold not 1, but 2 of your soon-to-air ML dramas, ofc they're gonna praise you in advance! The “studying psychology to pick up body language of being in love” is also funny – surely at your age and experience you know a thing or two about that without textbooks, mister?^^ Reminds me of that time when he was asked during livestream to do something that girls like – and this menace of a man dropped his voice like 2 octaves down, made it husky and sultry and went: “This? I have NO IDEA, honestly!”, then laughed it off. Ugh, not that I ever truly bought his innocent act, but that was still a rude awakening)))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbBnQw1oDM

Some acting detail clips because I feel the urge to stress one last time how GOOD his performance was, adlibs included. Heavy spoilers because duh. Trembling hands scene – oh, this felt so emotionally RAW!
https://x.com/fandoestrans/status/1857076150515732960

Rain breakup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7pJXCi9UN8

Betrayal reveal – sloppy writing aside (how tf he never felt off vibes? wrong genre savvy you were, my guy), his face alone says it all. Also, action sequence because I never get tired seeing Yuning doing flying kicks)))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrapC-ipWXg

Too bad the official clip cut the scene in half - the award for worst editing of the year goes to... - but other sources got us covered (sorry for non-eng subs):
https://x.com/love03150108/status/1859948053719085197

Commanding voice time – average line delivery, sure... Where's my ice bucket again?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbhW1NscAVo

@gikata, Happy First Anniversary!
I enjoyed Liu Yu Ning’s performance in A JOURNEY TO LOVE (my first LYN drama). I am sure I picked it up because the plugs it got while airing from a number of beanies including you and @kiara.
Now I am almost tempted (with SEE HER AGAIN (loved hearing Cantonese) wrapping up (along with FAMILY BY CHOICE) and my viewing card opening up (I am getting my WDH fix by watching Mr. PLANKTON (only through episode 2))
of starting LYN’s Tencent drama HEROES (2024). I gather you enjoyed it. Right? Co star Qin Jun Jie I recently enjoyed in the excellent Youku crime drama THE FIRST SHOT.

Have you tried Kocowa?

Best-est of luck to you!! Hope you are able to balance both, your personal and professional lives and ace them both. 👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Hwaiting!! 😊❤

Best of luck, and remember to find ways or things to do to keep your mental health in check and to take care 🥰 It’s hard, especially in moments of being overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin with a long list of things to do, but it’s the only way to be sustained long term

As someone who has, from time to time, accidentally clicked on Dramacool or other unauthorized sites, for shows that are not available in the U.S. but also, mainly, kdramas that are older and wouldn't ever be available on Viki, Netflix, Prime, Hulu/Disney, etc. I definitely understand the upset.

I pay the subscription for all these sites, so I am not trying to rip anybody off. And if there was an omnibus kdrama site that would have all these dramas--or, in addition, an omnibus jdrama site, I would pay for that as well, since I'm generally an honest man. But there isn't, and Disney/Netflix in particular make these totally financially driven, and likely algorithm-driven decisions about what they make available in what region--decisions that do not reflect my fandom!

But, despite my criticism of algorithms, I do appreciate the fact that Netflix now keeps showing me jdramas in their "recommended for you" shows. My wife and I are watching more and more of those these days (we're presently enjoying a kind of sappy and mindless show "After-school Doctor" where a lot of really cute child actors drive home the subtle and unexpected lesson that parents should love and take care of their children).

https://focustaiwan.tw/sports/202411260014

I love baseball, especially baseball broadcasts on the radio which doesn't really exist anymore. What a great story. You can't make this up.

In the US, this year was "yes, you can buy a championship" lesson when the Dodgers defeated the Yankees in the World Series.

For the last year I have been a fangirl of Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, even though I live in the east coast of US rather than near LA where he plays for the Dodgers. Hopefully he will return to pitching as well as batting next season -- and become a phenom of the ages. So, I was super excited to watch him play in the MLB final championship games (on TV) on my recent trip to Korea and Japan. I even took a photo on of my Tokyo hotel TV of him batting in the last game against the Yankees.

I had planned to buy a baseball tshirt with Ohtani's name in Japan, where he is widely beloved. But to my surprise, there were no Ohtani shirts for sale that I could find. Not only did I not see anyone wearing Ohtani stuff but they did not wear any sports-themed gear, except for some adorable Japanese middle-schoolers dressed in full baseball uniform who were obviously walking to their team practice. I was told that, except for baseball caps, people wear team branded clothes only when they go to actual games.

I can remember first noting in the early 2000s that besides their local teams, people wore Man United, NY Yankees, etc. shirts all over Europe and the US.

I'm not sure about the others but apparently HYBE made sure to collate enough content of all members of BTS for their 18 months' absence. So now they are drip releasing the content filmed before enlistment.