The Noona Romance

[idiosyncreant]

Noona is one of those brilliant words that will never quite translate into another language, it's so tied up in its culture's own dynamics.
It sounds a little funny on the English tongue, but you hear cute young Korean boys say it enough times and all those objections to double "oo" sounds...
down the drain.



Noona means "older sister" but it also can mean "foxy older lady" by way of being a term of affectionate respect from a younger male.

Girls call older girls "unni" which also looks and sounds misfortunate in the context of English and even in Japanese, my other language, where it strongly savors of fish, if not worse. Again, it's super-cute sounding in the context of the actual Korean language.

So noona romances are the ones where an older woman gets together with a younger man, or at least thinks about it..
Do you know Kimi wa Petto/You're My Pet? That's a noona romance.

hairwashing: sexy or maternal? different every episode!

I find these dramas very therapeutic. Usually the younger man is closer to my age, and the older woman is 30 or above. And yet, of course, I identify with these older women.

They're single* at an age where they're expected to be at least going on matchmaking dates, hopeful to have something more exciting in their lives but also wanting to know their futures are settled securely...

*the ones where women of middle age who have been married are caught up in a new romance are ajumma romances. "Ajumma" sounds just the same in Korean, where it means mother-aged woman, basically.

can I handle this kind of flirtation at this advanced age?!

Anyway. The kinds of wish-fulfillment involved is geared toward the mature woman. The guys tend to be less perfect (I mean, except for the second-lead guys, sometimes barfingly ideal, just like in any k-drama) because half of the tension is in "NO NOONA CAN'T" feelings.

I've watched *several* of these lately, and I haven't really reviewed all of them. So here's a little round up.




Lest You Be Fooled: This drama is about a woman discovering she has terminal cancer. I like this poster, however; it's not completely misleading. The focus is on how this one woman decides to spend her time, the consequences of trying to say "Yes" to the things she wants while she can, and how all the characters can use a shake-up in how they live.

It involves some very hot tango, filmed so grippingly you hardly notice it's a dance sequence. It involves a show-stealer second lead who is the one to actually make you cry for the unfairness of people dying, when he starts out the doctor who's completely  analytical to protect himself in the beginning. It involves THE BEST vacation in Japan arc for being poignant, funny, and beautiful to see.

Toward the end it got to be too much boyfriend, not enough roller derby...if by "boyfriend" we mean "rich boyfriend's social circle's disapproval" and by roller derby we mean "tango-ing with Doctor McGrumpy".

This show is full of beautiful sets all around--the fact that the business she worked for and the hero stands to inherit is a travel agency is woven throughout as a natural element that also gives a great view.
The heroine starts out a doormat, backlashes by being angry, but settles into a very mature but strong woman that I think stands toward the top of k-drama heroine lists. (Go Kim Sun-ah!) Loved the tango school characters. Loved the depth of feeling that never wallowed, but allowed itself some real dark.




Another poster that's a bit misleading, but still works for me. It's not a young, pretty drama, but the characters are thrown together very much like this...

Unjustifiably-adorable hero is the baby brother of Our Heroine's best friend. He's a little younger than her baby sister, and these two girls helped raise the kids (something they mention often in fights), carrying them on their backs... A pretty big age gap, 8 or more years.

She's trucking along at a job for a "mens magazine" where she does most of the work, including overseeing photoshoots and writing the "confessions" columns. These confesssions are luridly sensual enough to fool her boss into thinking she's quite the player but...the opposite is true. Her crush of the past 10 years or something turns out to be gay, which he reveals when she's trying to comfort him over his divorce.

Meanwhile, lil-bro has come back from a backpacking trip across the world, and when she shows affection for him in a motherly way it's clear it makes him uncomfortable. We don't really get to see that play out for very long, because as she's mourning her lost love and gets waaaaay too drunk one night, well, something happens between them.

It's awkward. But in a delicious way, to the drama-viewer. Unlike some of the other awkward things she experiences, because this is a drama focusing on an adult's life in a pretty unglamorous way.

While some of the side-stories are stubbornly uninteresting so far, I have come around to the other romance-line that's developing, just as backward and unrealistically as the main one, if totally different in details.


These are the two I think I haven't discussed really, but here's a list of others I've enjoyed recently in a similar vein:

In Time With You, Taiwan featuring Ariel Lin and Wilson Chen

These two went through a lot of unnecessary grief to go from "bestie" to "lovers" but their cuteness and the realistic see-saw of their friendship? Totally worth it. The guy she gets involved with (that she shouldn't) is a hot bastard, so I found that detour completely unusually believable.

Flower Boy Ramyun Shop ft. Jung Il Woo, Lee Ki-Woo, Lee Chung-Ah and many other pretty people


I've written A LOT about this one, but I think it's getting up there toward Coffee Prince in terms of long-lasting good feeling. Chemistry, characterization, superior trope-busting writing... it has it all.
Next on my list is darkeyedwolf 's highly recommended Dal Ja's Spring. Which has a siren call, shipwrecking my queue...