another old flame

A fandom I didn't mention in my previous blog entry about fandoms were Thai dramas.

Some might think that this is a more recent fandom for me but it in fact is not. I did however realize a few things about my attraction to and interest in Thai dramas recently, which I will talk about in this post.

Venturing into non Japanese dramas came when I was still in high school. My friends and I watched a variety of dramas from different countries Taiwan, China, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam... My dad also loves watching Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese dramas. My mother was also watching Vietnamese dramas on TV because we got the international VN channel with our new satellite dish (kinda liket the VN pendant to NHK world, I guess... ?)

VN dramas were too cheesy for me, so I kind of gave up on them.

Chinese period dramas were... too much for my goldfish attention span lol also the language

Taiwanese dramas were fine but same as with Chinese dramas, the language broke my brain

South Korean dramas were okay but I couldn't quite connect with them for the most part?

So that left Thai dramas. I somehow didn't mind the language as much as with Chinese or Taiwanese dramas, maybe because it does sound sort of similar to Vietnamese (although it is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT language). My Thai skills are nonexistent even now to be honest lol

I wasn't watching them religiously or anything... just here and there. And then came JE's venture into Thailand with Golf/Mike and then I started to follow the GMM boys of that time as well, falling into Thai Pop music along the way.

The side interest in Thai dramas never really went away... and recently (okay I noticed a few years ago already but I was too busy with other fandoms then) Thai BL dramas became a pretty big thing, so since the whole lockdown and stay home time meant I had... well, TIME, I decided to download and watch stuff. I went with titles I saw around, which had lots of good ratings.

So I watched:

1. Until We Meet Again

2. WHY R U

3. TharnType

And I really enjoyed all of them a lot. Just like in Japan, BL dramas in other countries have developed and evolved and there has been a big change in the mentality and in the makeup of the genre. It's great!

I hope, just like other actors, that this will cease to be its own 'genre' at some point soon and BL dramas will just be, well, dramas. That homosexual relationships will no longer be the selling point but be normal.

But...it was something else, is something else, that kind of attracts me to the dramas. And back in the days, attracted me to the Thai artists. But I didn't realize then but I did realize it now. Funnily enough I didn't realize it when I watched things but when I read fanfics.

The cultural closeness. Like, more than the language, it felt closer to the culture I was familiar with. Like, things the people did and how they acted and how certain things work in the drama worlds. Like the school and uni life look similar. The life outside in the streets and a lot of the family interactions.

One of the things I noticed first were what fandom dubbed "sniff kisses" that I guess don't exist in western culture? Or at least didn't realize they didn't until...I read that expression in a fanfic lol

For me that's always been how my dad (and some other members of the family) showed is affection to me. Also my dad's somewhere between Fighter's and Type's dads. There are a lot of behavioral patterns that I recognize. So it's easy for me to relate to.

On the other hand, I've never really gotten into western series ._. well, Buffy was there but even that was... like "yay vampires" and nothing more? Nothing else has really clicked with me. I wonder if it's because of my upbringing and circumstances?

How is it for you? Why do you enjoy certain things?