Thank you both for your insight. It makes me reflect on the educational privileges I have experienced and still continue to. When I was in college, “C’s get degrees” was our mantra.
Yes, it can get pretty competitive at the top, but if you’re not at the top, it’s usually not a deterrent to making money, providing for yourself, and living a “successful” life. I never really felt that pressure.
My nose bled once while I was taking a test when I was in middle school. It wasn’t because I studied so hard, but I did have a really full schedule at that time and was lacking sleep. While nosebleeding was not super common, it wasn’t that uncommon, either.
I always hear my uncle’s career story: He studied in a really tiny engineering university in a rural town and is now a software engineer in California, working with Harvard grads. It’s not like he even topped his class.
And now we have engineering graduates from mediocre city universities forced to work as rickshaw/ taxi drivers because there’s just way too much competition. It’s scary. Not only is it for a “successful” life and career, but the main thing is also: the more marks you get, the less you have to pay for education. And education fees are no joke. So students fight through the national exams because the top students can choose where in India they want to study and the government will reserve their seats for them. No running around trying to find contacts or paying “donations”.
I’ve been watching a few Thai dramas and I noticed sometimes when they kiss they don’t kiss, they sniff. I kept seeing it so I had to google this one.
There are quite a few articles about the Sniff Kiss but this video is really funny…
This seems C-drama specific, but is it common in China to demand that people treat you to dinner? When people first meet, when something good happens to a friend (like new job, money, girlfriend/boyfriend, etc.) the characters are always demanding that the other person takes them out to dinner. Where I am this would seem like the height of rudeness to the point where I’d probably distance myself from the friendship.
More generally in all Asian dramas, people are ALWAYS eating out. They can be broke students and they’re still eating half their meals in restaurants. I’ve heard that in places like Tokyo this really is common because the apartments are so small, but even broke people survive on convenience store onigiri before they’d ever consider cooking rice at home. Make it make sense! Even in established adulthood I’d struggle to afford eating out at a table service restaurant every day–here that would run $25 or more per person.
And the drinking. THE DRINKING. Is it common to drink to the point of passing out or not remembering what happened? I have literally never done this.
EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERY LITTLE THING, goes viral. It doesn’t matter if it’s a granny singing traditional music or a person fainting. If it’s related to any main characters, it WILL make it to the top ten searches and have millions of fans/insults in days. 
My friend recently moved to Korea. It is way cheaper to eat out (get delivery) than what we pay for it here (the Netherlands). Another friend of mine moved to Thailand. They don’t even have a kitchen in their apartment, they always eat out. Again, way cheaper than what we spend here on food 
It definitely does seem cheaper - the drama characters are always complaining about meals that cost a whole $3 or $4 a plate! - but wouldn’t wages also be a lot less? I can believe that there’s more inequality but in plenty of the dramas, the main characters or their families are running a restaurant and even they are always eating out somewhere. I do recall that in Singapore, certain food was incredibly cheap (like South Indian thali plates). Japan was as expensive as the US, though. Maybe post-covid I can travel and learn more about the east Asian restaurant scene. Science demands that I eat all the food!
Granted, maybe Asian drama economics are as bad as US show economics - like Sex and the City and Friends, where the characters have totally absurd Manhattan apartments.
Yes, the general wages are less than here in America.
Certain dishes, especially street food can be cheap, but I was actually surprised that dishes at a regular restaurant in Korea (not the fancy ones) were barely cheaper (around $10-$12 per dish) than what they charge at a Korean restaurants in America. The only difference was that there was no tax and no tip, which adds up.
Also funny: In Kdrama you always see lot’s of food on the table but the Korean portion sizes are actually quite small compared to the portion sizes I’m used too and I think US portion sizes are huge. (From what I saw and heard of my parents, never been to the US yet). So when we went for dinner we always ordered extra. When they said something was for 3 to 4 people we counted it as 2.
That’s also a thing btw, sometimes restaurants won’t allow you to eat alone because many serve a minimum of 2 portions depending on the dish. Even if you can finish the minimum of 2 portions on your own just fine.
We usually like sharing dishes and we sometimes get only 3 dishes for 4 people when we go out here in America. But at one restaurant in Korea, they said we have to order 4 dishes since there are 4 of us, and there was not an option for one person not to eat or share dishes because we were taking up 4 seats. I don’t know if all restaurants are like that or only that one was like that. It was a very popular and busy restaurant, so maybe they had their own rules.
This is really amusing and I’m thinking the restaurant owner was probably the loner/outsider that sat on their own in the cafeteria IRL like those scenes in high school dramas and still has nightmares about it to this day 
I suppose if the tables are set out to seat 4 you wouldn’t want to have one person taking up a whole table. More bums on seats = bigger orders = more money, Yay!
This makes me think about some articles I read on how dating is on the decline in Korea because it is too expensive. Ive seen this in dramas too. Does this have anything to do with eating out frequently?
So they reckon dating is expensive huh? Wait until they get married, then they’ll know the true definition of EXPENSIVE! 
Not to worry, 7-Eleven Korea have already got the singles fine dining market covered.
7-Elevens in my country are never this luxurious, just buy your stuff and get out.
Renting out an entire amusement park has got to add up as well. I understand that’s a typical first date.
This reply genuinely made me laugh out loud. Thank you
So hilarious every single clip!
Not mention reserving an entire posh restaurant to propose in when all she has to do is take him to the little local BBQ grill and bar that she frequents near where she lives and he’s happy as Larry. 
As usual I’m here dying from behind 
ja!l. Makes me so hand tied, no hearts to relay my 
of the thread 
This brings home the point indeed. I think Thailand and those nearby countries, were some of the countries who kept their countries from internal lock downs, through much of the world’s lockdowns. The borders were closed to foreigners, yes, but internally, they already had such great hygiene in place, they kept the virus out of their countries.