Cool Korean Trends (not cool otherwise)
We’re noticing a trend with our TL;DR’s lately. We always want to start them with apologies and disclaimers. Some people might take offence to the opinions we post here, but we can’t apologize for them every time we start these posts. So, forget about it: on with the show!
The number one question for this week was “what are some cool trends in Korea that might not be considered cool in Canada or the States.” To which we answer: some Korean male fashion trends. The first and easiest one to talk about is those hideous sparkly, shiny suits that men wear. They’re just godawful. *Martina and Simon fight for the keyboard….* WHAT!? They are totally amazing! Simon, you’re crazy! I love those suits! They are really crisp and totally sweet looking!!!! *scuffle for the keyboard* Forget about a nice, professional three piece suit. Actually, don’t forget about it: think about it, but add some glitter and shine to it. BAM! Korean trend #1 that we can’t see transferring over to North America very well. Or maybe it has transferred over already: we haven’t been living there for over three years now. Please, oh please tell me people aren’t wearing shiny suits there! We just can’t take them seriously. *Martina throws Simon a ranch bone and he runs off* I guess our opinions are split here. I think the right person could pull off this suit, or maybe wearing them for a special occasion like a wedding would be awesome, but I think the everyday wearing of these suits to work probably wouldn’t be a catchy trend. Try googling “korean shiny suit” if you want an idea of what we’re talking about.
The second trend we’re gonna talk about is kind of a trend that requires you to be born as an exceptionally good looking guy. We’re referring to Flower Boys. They’re guys who don’t fit the typical look of manly looking men. Flower boys are pretty boys, VERY pretty boys. They’re usually skinny, have gorgeous hair and have feminine features. They’re not beefy or muscly, but are quite lean. Fashion is extremely important to them and they dress really really well, often with tight fitting clothing. They have exceptionally smooth skin, quite possibly from usage of BB Cream and sometimes they might wear gray or blue contacts lenses, along with circle lenses. They’re ridiculously and unfairly pretty looking.
However, to an uninitiated North American audience, they’re sometimes mistaken for women, otherwise thought of as looking quite girly. To a Korean and Asian audience, though, Flower Boys can be thought of as exceptionally beautiful and hot. If we could match it up with a North American archetypal equivalent, they would be the “jocks” or “preppy guys” of Asia. Not that they’re athletic or buff, they’re just the kind of guy that’s really model worthy.
We know that lots of people all over the world find Flower Boys hot (including Martina after a couple months of living in Korea). Our only point here is that if they were to form a kpop band and be presented in other parts of the world besides Asia, it’s possible they would be confused as girls and, possibly, mocked by some ignorant people. Remember Taylor Hanson…anyone? MMMbop? No? Guys? Anyone?
Anyways, this should not be seen as an insult to them, it’s just that to the uninitiated – like some of Martina’s friends – Flower boys are confusing. This is the #1 trend that we don’t think will transfer over very well into North American culture of be considered very cool. It’s hard to understand why. I mean, look, for example, at this article on Soompi, in which one of the members of Super Junior jokes about his looks as a girl. And, really, he pulls off a girl look quite well. In fact, many male kpop celebrities and actors have dressed up as girls on Korean variety shows just for fun. Can you imagine North American pop stars pulling that off well (apart from maybe Justin Bieber, of course). Oh, perhaps Lil Wayne? Foo Fighters? Now they’d make for some uuuuugly women. SEUNGRI! TIME FOR KISSES!
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Yep. It took me a while until I started thinking: OHMYGOSH, they are so hot&cute!
However, never ever again, I’m going to show them to my friends. (they gave me “the look”… :’/ )
It’s funny how many of the stuff we like are acquired taste.
Hello,
I was wondering if Koreans have any specific views or ideas about Native American. Or maybe they don’t think about Native Americans.
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TROGDOR!!!! LE….BURNINATOR!!!!!!!!
Trogdor was a man! I mean, he was a dragon-man…Or maybe he was just a dragon…But he was still TROGDOR! TROGDOR! Burninating the countryside, Burninating the peasants, Burninating all the peoples, And their thatched-roof COTTAGES! THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES!
And the Trogdor comes in the NIIIIIGHT!
i live in America. and i’m so deep into Kpop and the Korean Culture. That the men here no longer appeal to me. I like the flower boys ;) Can’t wait till i go to Korea in a couple months!!
I’ll just say it outright…. I LOVE this thread-community-petition for Flower Boys XD XD <3
I love Flower Boys :P OMG so SEXY
Best thing I have seen so far is the kissing games with boys on variety shows. I can understand that guys can be affectionate and touchy with male friends, I am always arm in arm with my best friend, so I can accept that in Korea not just girls but guys can do that. But the kisses???!!! WTF???!!!
And there’s the couples with band members. I am a fan of Supernatural american tv series and there is a huge amount of Wincest (Winchester brothers + incest) videos on youtube. With all the intense stares and arguing at kissing distance, you just put on a romantic song and you have what you want to imagine. So, the coupling videos about band members didn’t strike me as odd, other than because of all the skinship there is SO MUCH MORE material to work with.
But the kissing games?
Seriously?
They kiss better than any damn k-drama.
How is that possible?
I love flower boys! All the boys I’ve seen in England are gangsters :(
I know I’m a bit old here, but really – has no one heard of Glam Rock? Or seen all those goth rockers from the 90s… Flower Boys are just beautiful boys – very talented ones as well. Oh & some are NOT wimpy looking (sorry, Lee Min Ho – really not a wraith & very much hunky in City Hunter & Faith – & check out Rain in that ninja film before calling HIM skinny…) Anime (yes, Japanese – I’m aware) is FULL of bishu boys. & yet we have one in the newly released Rurouni Kenshin (HAS to come to the US) kicking TOTAL a$$. So nothing new here, & TOTALLY could make it huge in the US w/proper marketing. I mean, THESE boys are TALENTED (vs dweeb Bieb as my daughters say)
Well, with the popularity of Justin Bieber… Maybe in 5 or 10 years it will transfer over here, who knows?
I am CRACKING UP because I use to be like this! The first drama I watched was BOF and I told my friends (about Ji Hoo) “Why in the f**k is his hair like that? Is he gay? Why do they wear their hair like girls?” And now I’m like OPPA SO SEXAYY! LOL I loved this video, it made me reminisce on my first Korean culture encounters :D
How do south Koreans feel about plastic surgery?
Just would like to make an observation about the flower boys, their image is gay and femenine not in my words but in the korean entertainment statements they say that´s the image the girls prefer, do not confuse it with a metrosexual man which could be even a man with muscles and no make up but even in my country Mexico a man like Rain would be called gay, some others would be like dragqueens. so there is no need to introduce ourselves into kpop to have eyes and call a duck by its name, no matter the difference of culture a gay with makeup,childish behaviour and feminine manerisms here and in another planet is gay so just think about why a girl likes gays?
I’m quite a newbie on EatYourKimchi and started to watch all your old videos.
Love it!!!
My first K-pop MV was Sorry,Sorry (thanx to my Thai friend) and I seriously thought that some of them are girls! And when she told me that they are ALL guys, I was like “O_O Noooo! How can a guy be prettier than a girl???” LOL
And Flower Boys…not really my typre BUT they ARE pretty and I LOVE their clothes and they REALLY look cool!
Whenever I showed my mum K-pop MV she went like “they are gay~!” and I was like “No~! It’s just Korean fashion!” but I failed to bring her over…
….so I stoped showing her K-pop MVs because I love K-pop! (◠‿◠)✿
Every time someone says shiny, I think of SHINee.
And I like flower boys :D they’re cute.
I also don’t think that the flower boy concept can easily ‘go’ with Western standards. There’s a guy in my school who is Ukrainian and wears clothes similar (not exact) to what flower boys wear, tight-ish jeans, cardigans, etc. and a lot of people call him gay for it (and yes, it’s rude to homosexuals to say that) whereas me and my kpop loving friend say he looks stylish-ish.
TROGDOR!!!!!!
Hello There!!! Well, i just read this and let me tell you that i’m a Mexican living in Canada for 5 years already (Montreal) and well, let me tell you that last year i wore for my prom a ”Shiny Suit” and i though i would be the only one, let me tell you I was WRONG! Most of the guys there had shinny suits! I guess Montreal is very much into it now, I see it more often everytime, they even whear those Shinny shirts that are like made out of silk, or smthg like that, and well, Circle lenses are also very common over here now, everyone whears them! EVEN my mom! keke
Recently my Polish teacher wore such suit on school festival and it was so glittering that he caught all peoples’ looks. So not only Koeans wear such clothes :D
Also I must say, that I was exactly as Martina. When I started listening to kpop I watched some Korean show, where a group of pretty and skinny boys were dancing as girls and I thought ‘OMG, are they gays?!’, but then my friend told me that the’re very popular and hot in Korea. It didn’t even took me a month when I saw that video again and thought ‘Man, they’re really sexy’. I believe that kpop addiction always starts the same :)
yeah……GD’s Heartbreaker was one of the first Kpop videos i ever saw, and Gara Gara Go!! too. Â GD looks especially girly in those videos, and i kept teasing my friend about him looking like a girl for a while. Â i was only teasing tho–i’d already been into anime and stuff, so i got the concept, i just didn’t see real-life “flower boys” real often before i got into Kpop.
i will say this, however: Â first time i ever saw SS501’s Park Jung Min (in Not Alone) i freaked out cuz he looked like he’d walked right out of a shoujo manga. o.O
about the suits: i love them. they’re basically a regular suit, just a little more snazzy. Â i agree that they shouldn’t catch on as everyday office wear or anything, but for nice occasions they’re nice.
I can totally relate to Martina’s feelings, when speaking about Hero (or any other flower boy) to my friends.
OTL
And Simon is totally hilarious when wearing a wig! “SEUNGRI! TIME FOR KISSES!”
*LMAO*
(^_~)v
*heads over to watch music monday*
Ulzzang???
ohh this is soo true !! now I like taemin very very much :D and in boys over flowers lee min ho, in jyj jaejoong is my favorite<3 …
But I am still not used to it. It is so weird sometimes when I see in the Internet that an idol is  *really good looking flower boy* and when I see it and let my sister see it too we say OMG THIS IS WAY TOO FEMINIE SOO GAY although we are used to itÂ
In the drama hana kimi I was always wondering if it would be possible here in Germany or Europe..???The most weirdest thing is some variety shows when Idols wear girl clothes and they see who looks the best and admires someone who looks nice?!here it would be really bad if someone can look as a girl or a guy but there it is kinda normalÂ
but come on they sure are confused about costumes or things here or in the USA that is not normal there:D that could be the topic of the next TLDRÂ
ok I'm writing to much XDÂ
Lolol, didn’t you just describe a manga character when you talked about the flower boys? xD
non testosteronian ???  아 ë¹µ Â í„°ì¡ŒìŒ ëŒ€ë°• ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ what a smart expression of gay.
OMG…your mistake at your first restaurant…was the same exact one me and my daughters made! We ordered the cow (not beef) and the pig (not pork) off the menu and it was all ugly grisle and fat…I thought we were being served AS#! LOL. We started hiding the pieces under lettuce and kimchi until we could pay and get out! Love you guys from Daegu…bracing for the next typhoon in 5 days.
I am a lurker, well, WAS a lurker. I can’t help but comment. You guys are so funny. I just got interested in Kpop because of you guys.
First K-pop I ever listened to was ‘Rokugo’ by Super Junior T, I was amazed at Heechul and his looks especially after seeing him again in ‘No Other’ MV. Such a beautiful specimen.
Once again, I know what you mean here! Just recently my friend finally became interested in Kpop and posted SHINee’s “Hello” mv on her Wall on Facebook. Â I was super proud of her and left a loving comment, ha ha ha, but someone else commented and said, “Oh look, Korea’s learned how to make porcelain dolls dance.” Me: *frage face* Â So anyways *cough cough* , I know what you mean :( Western culture (not to be insulting it in any way) is very… finicky…. about how the men should look, always loving the big, tough, football-playing guys more than the clean-shaven, “hipster”, nice-smelling guys >.< I wish that eventually those flower boys will be accepted more in Western culture so all of these nasty comments on Kpop stars from my friends (and other people's friends, and other's people's other friends, etc) will cease to exist~ ^^
buahahaha. Flower boys are LOVE, man. :) I have tons of photos of Kim Jaejoong in every single one of my electronic gadgets so friends got through it and go: Is it a girl or a guy? -.-
Ahhhhh, Asians <3
You’re video has me curious now. What about trends here in North America that aren’t in Korea?
 And I’ve been wondering about this too, are things like facial piercings and tattoos big in Korea? I’ve noticed a few tattoos but not many, and the piercings that I’ve noticed are all ear piercings…
The first kpop video I ever watched was SHINee’s Lucifer and it took quite a bit of time before I believed Taemin was a guy. Now I love him! As for Jaejoong, I first saw him in Mirotic and my thoughts were “thats one sexy man!!!!!!!” lol.
LMAO SAME FOR ME :-D
In the beginning when i started paying attention to kpop and checking it out, at first I was like……
…uhhh these guys are beyond metrosexual…they are tooo girly…..literally like 2 months later:
AKFNDSAKLHFKDLYÂ JAEJOOOONG *O*Â :-QÂ /drools
i used to show pictures of korean celebrities to my friends and made a game out of it. i would make them guess the gender and they would always say he is a girl. i would tell them they were the type of guys i like and eventually they asked me if i was a homosexual. the only person who could tell if he was a male was me because to me, they were obviously male, but not to them. to this day, whenever i go to allkpop.com in school, some people will ask me if the person im reading about is a male. it is still one of my favorite games ever and i still continue to make people guess the gender.
Lol I remember my first time seeing GD I thought he looked a bit girly looking but I completely got used to it afterwards but I understand what you guys mean. Also where I’m from in the states there are a couple of guys that we consider pretty boys because they also where tight fitting clothes, are lean and also have no hair what so over and look more fashion forward then most girls…except I havent seen any of them where makeup…unless they do nd I havent really noticed…hmm
lol i totally agree abt flower boys taking a while to get used to – when i first saw Youre Beautiful (not knowing anything abt kpop) i was so confused thinking how people could NOT see that park shin hye was so obviously a girl – but then when i rewatched it recently (after a year n half of being obsessed with kpop) i understood that there were guys that actually looked like girls in korea so i finally thot the premise was semi believable
OMG YES I remember Taylor Hanson! Actually, I sorta liked him back in the day.
…And yes, now I’m into K-pop. XD
i can’t imagine foo fighters dressed up as girls! wait.. on second though i could! they dressed up as girls many times in their video, especially Dave xD
oh how i love flower boys, and i always have :D it’s unfair, though, how people ignorant of Korean/Asian culture ridicule them :( it’s pretty hurtful to see people insulting them, like insults i’ve seen about my favorite boys from Super Junior-M…Â flower boys are such lovely sweethearts and i personally prefer them much more than most guys you see in western countries. XD
true true….i think its also because of the different standards of masculinity that exist in western culture vs korean culture…like in the US men are encouraged/expected to show that they are MEN, and one of those ways is looking like a man aka big muscles etcetc
yes, that’s true… and i think it’s also because Korean men tend to have more delicate features than western men, so that’s why they end up pretty XD it’s not something westerners are used to. men in Korea and other Asian countries are allowed more femininity than guys in western countries, so some things that are considered manly in Korea would definitely not be considered manly in the US >___<
yes exactly…which is a shame really, they are missing out :-P