A Love/Hate Letter to Kim's Convenience

A Love/Hate Letter to Kim’s Convenience.

Canadian-made, Canadian locale, Canadian-Korean family running a corner convenience store.

It’s got cutesy, it’s got hot, warmth, hilarity, and even some sad reality of being someone of a different race. I can relate wholly to a lot of what this show has.

And THAT is why it’s guilty.

I’m an avid Anime fan, I find comfort in things like bloody sword-fights and superpowers taken to universal extremes. I build my identity around those ideals, to the point of god-complexy behavior - I digress.

This show has a little bit of everything for everyone, and I’ll explain why I have to feel guilty about that.

The Show mainly SORT OF follows Janet, the only daughter of “appa” and “umma”, Mr. Sang-il Kim and his wife, Yong-mi Kim. She’s a creative soul in a big city, living at home, and definitely wanton for a life beyond that microcosm. She is me from the ages of 12-20.

I’ve been seeking writing and authoring since I was exactly 12, poetry and comics mostly, and in her pathos, you manage to find glimpses of being put down for being the creative type in a world filled with practicalists.

Getting into awkward situations in not wanting to admit you struggle, wanting to look stronger and more emotionally well-off than you’d have others think. Breaking through that shell of worrying about what others think, even the overbearing and heavy weight that can be a parent’s gaze and expectation. Going through the show I was able to confront that part of my past and it definitely made me uncomfortable...beneath all of the laughings.

And I’d be remiss to not talk about our obvious shared traits since I’m devilishly handsome and all.

Haha. This is Jung Kim, the oldest child of the family. He is me, and it’s embarrassing because he cares too much about what people think of him in the physical world. Mainly his body and work. Which, yeah I’m not immune to the world around me, I notice my body and others. I don’t exactly share what he has, but I still care about it much the same in my head. And as for work, I can relate to not feeling nearly close enough to what I could be doing. This is the pushing motivation for his story and the slow-burning will-they-won’t-they romance with his boss. Before i dive into that, I want to explain a little bit about why his existence on the show brings me comfort and discomfort all at the same time.

Being a son in a family of expectation is never easy, but Jung’s character handles it in the exact way I did.

Angrily, almost child-like, warranted, with prose, and the occasional tantrumous yell.

I don’t much publish that knowledge about myself, but in this medium, it’s harmless enough because I believe in almost all Television, we can find ourselves because a lot of writers write from personal experience.

So Jung acting this way is me, the guys, gals, and everyone before me, and guys, gals, and everyone to come after.

This firecracker of a human being. No, that’s not enough.

Shannon is like if you tied a firecracker to a voice box that everyone talked into to release their Lawful chaotic energy into, with a heavy dose of quirky cute adorkable-ness.

Yeah.

She is me, and it’s embarrassing to admit because everything she’s ever done in this show has been me. And I mean EVERYTHING. You’ll know why that’s bad when you watch.

I don’t know if I even need to say more about her, but I will.

Shannon is Jung’s boss, she is quick to attract to the physical presence of Jung, and even quicker to back away from even a hint of sexual attraction. ME. Gosh.

I’ll leave it at that because I’ve just decided I might want to write even more about this show. Stay tuned, I guess? NEXT IS THE PARENTS!

This is them! The beautiful immigrant parents.

They’re so adorable together. I aspire to have this.

Appa and Umma are both me, and it’s embarrassing as heck! Let me tell you why.

Deeply loving, argumentative, prideful, conniving, chaotic good, sweet, and downright deeply loving. Nothing beats these two. Like at all.

Appa is the “Man of the house” which means that Umma is the “man of the house” haha.

He is argumentative for only the menial things and it’s entirely proper because so is his lovely wife.

I often...TOO often find myself in arguments with my Other for reasons so little that I can’t even remember. The fights linger because I’ve made the same mistakes more than a hundred times. Eventually returning to the scene of the fight to apologize and make up for it in a small way, only to go and make a secondary mistake and not know how or why. I am he, and he is me. Ugh.

And Umma! Omg, I am Umma, and geez, going through this show puts me through the wringer because of this woman. She is the deeply caring half. Which, when I let my stupid Jung/Appa bravado pass, I let myself linger in feeling human emotions. Crazy right?

Umma is quick to assume, quick to be right and even quicker to assume to be right.

Which if ain’t me, I don’t know what is.

The truth is…

This show is everyone, and everyone is in this show. The reason behind my guilt and embarrassment of this is that I way too much want to be something either more than human or less than. God Complex, remember?

TV shows like Kim convenience let me see through my nonsense and let me just sort of enjoy the moment of seeing others go through what I have and will. It’s a gift and a curse to both love/hate this show, But I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Until next time.