Tonight was BYU's annual "Public Domain Film and Music Festival." I have been involved in some way most years. Since the pandemic, I have only been coming up with a list of 20 or so titles of music compositions that enter the public domain in a particular year, though in years past I was a judge or an announcer. This year, Kenny Baldwin asked me to be an announcer again, so I announced the music award. I have learned something about myself from attending these film festivals: I do not pick winners. I am more of an outlier. Although, tonight I was pleased that my favorite short film "Red Hairing" was one of the two that tied for the Audience Choice Award. But the winning film? I did not like it. At all. I thought, in fact, that it was stupid. Color me shocked when it was announced as the winner. Color me twice as shocked when my colleague Eric, who was one of the judges, was so pleased with the winner, because he thought it was the best. Huh. I liked NOTHING about it. I didn't like the plot. (What plot?) I didn't like the music. I didn't particularly like the characters. I didn't really think anything of significance happened. So of course, it was the winner!
I guess that is why I am enjoying my quirky K dramas. I am watching "Welcome to Waikiki" right now. This is a pretty silly show--like The Monkees meets Laverne & Shirley meets Three Men and a Baby. Dong Goo is running a guest house--like an AirBnB--with his sister and his two best friends. Along the way, they find a baby, and then the baby's mom, and then Dong Goo's former girlfriend. There actually are three men and a baby, but also three women.
I really enjoyed a recent episode -- Du Sik develops a crush on one of their guests, Angela, who is from Ukraine. He tries out both his Korean and his English on her, but she doesn't speak either. He is moping around, wishing he could talk to her. His friends Dong Goo and Joon Ki think she is way too pretty to be interested in him, but to humor him, they figure out that among their guests there is Walter, who is from Germany, but also speaks Ukrainian. And Bruno, who is from France, but also speaks German. And then there is a Japanese girl (maybe Hotaru?) who happens to speak both French and Korean.
So, Du Sik can now talk to Angela!! He just has to say things to Hotaru in Korean, who tells Bruno something in French, which he tells Walter in German, and Walter tells Angela in Ukrainian. Naturally, like the old game of telephone tag, messages morph. Adding to the confusion is that Hotaru might be interested in Du Sik, so when he says something like, "It was love at first sight!" she is like, "Thanks, me too." And he has to remind her he is not talking to her; he is talking to Angela.
And it works!! Angela agrees to date Du Sik, although there are always five people on their dates, to make talking possible. It was no surprise to me when Angela ran off with Walter, since they actually could talk to each other. But it was very fun to watch the linguistic soup that this episode was!
