Kim's Convenience: Kim's Convenience - Season 1
August 4, 2018 10:24 AM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe
While showing in Canada in 2016, Kim's Convenience was recently added to Netflix worldwide.
The series centres on the Korean Canadian Kim family who run a convenience store in the Moss Park neighbourhood of Toronto: parents "Appa" and "Umma" – Korean for "dad" and "mom" – along with their daughter Janet and estranged son Jung.
I really loved this show and it brought home for me that we have a lot of ground to break, still, in terms of diversity on-screen. Not just diversity of ethnicity but also diversity of experience.
I have a friend who is part of an immigrant community in our city, and when we talk about our weekends I realize that in the same city we have tons of communities living alongside each other and having very different experiences. I'm so curious about the other worlds in my city and wish I could understand them all, or at least catch a glimpse. But I don't see a TV show about families in my flyover state being a thing anytime soon.
posted by bunderful at 7:19 AM on August 5, 2018
I have a friend who is part of an immigrant community in our city, and when we talk about our weekends I realize that in the same city we have tons of communities living alongside each other and having very different experiences. I'm so curious about the other worlds in my city and wish I could understand them all, or at least catch a glimpse. But I don't see a TV show about families in my flyover state being a thing anytime soon.
posted by bunderful at 7:19 AM on August 5, 2018
You may also enjoy Jean Yoon (Umma) as the kick-ass Martian battleship commander in "The Expanse" episode "CQB". Next I want to see her play a world-weary cop on her fourth marriage, or maybe Puck. The actor has range.
posted by Mogur at 10:03 AM on August 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Mogur at 10:03 AM on August 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
This show is how my husband realized that my grandmother's name was not, in fact, Hermione (halmoni = Korean for "grandmother").
Anyways, this show is sweet without being cheesy or cloying. I do wish they'd give poor Janet a win every once in a while. Some people take offence to Paul Lee and Jean Yoon's put-on accents, but for me the most offensive thing is that fact that Kimchee is nicknamed "Kimchee" (and shortened to the ridiculous "Kimch"). Isn't that like nicknaming a white character "Taters" or "Mayo"?
posted by Rora at 1:15 PM on August 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
Anyways, this show is sweet without being cheesy or cloying. I do wish they'd give poor Janet a win every once in a while. Some people take offence to Paul Lee and Jean Yoon's put-on accents, but for me the most offensive thing is that fact that Kimchee is nicknamed "Kimchee" (and shortened to the ridiculous "Kimch"). Isn't that like nicknaming a white character "Taters" or "Mayo"?
posted by Rora at 1:15 PM on August 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
I really love this show. It has some of that cheesiness that I expect of Canadian media, and the Noah's Ark approach to diversity, but it's really funny and really sweet. I love Mr. Chin and his dog.
posted by arcticwoman at 3:09 PM on August 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by arcticwoman at 3:09 PM on August 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I love this show. This and Schitt's Creek have been dominating my Summer viewing.
posted by KazamaSmokers at 3:25 PM on August 5, 2018
posted by KazamaSmokers at 3:25 PM on August 5, 2018
I just recommended this to a friend thinking of moving to Canada, with part of my recommendation as "the guy is so hot. I mean, just really. He's just hot." The Korean church scenes with the hyper competitive passive-agressive women and the preacher manipulating them all crack me up.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 1:40 AM on August 6, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 1:40 AM on August 6, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm finally getting around to watching this. It's hilarious! Shades of my own life everywhere.
posted by numaner at 10:42 AM on August 27, 2018
posted by numaner at 10:42 AM on August 27, 2018
I saw a few episodes of this on a recent flight and now I've spent the last few days binge-watching the rest. I wasn't expecting to like it so much; I'd been vaguely interested when it first premiered in Canada but hadn't actually bothered to set time aside for it.
This show really is just incredibly sweet and I find myself rooting for all the characters. I don't mind Paul Lee and Jean Yoon's accents - both Lee and Yoon have explained how the accent enriches the characters they play.
posted by invokeuse at 7:36 PM on September 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
This show really is just incredibly sweet and I find myself rooting for all the characters. I don't mind Paul Lee and Jean Yoon's accents - both Lee and Yoon have explained how the accent enriches the characters they play.
posted by invokeuse at 7:36 PM on September 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Slate asks: Netflix has made Kim’s Convenience a word-of-mouth sensation. But who is it for? — Inkoo Kang, Slate (The link text is from Slate's Twitter thread for the article.)
I love how all the replies are basically "uh, everyone, duh, what kind of question is this"
The essay itself is a little bit more nuanced than Slate's tweet suggests. I get the impression the author is first- or second-generation Korean-American and so can't help but continually evaluate Kim's Convenience for its authenticity. I understand this impulse; I've done it too (see: The Joy Luck Club, Chemistry, Girl in Translation) The problem with this, of course, is there are many, many different immigrant stories, but we tend to interpret through the lens of our personal experience. It's inevitable, then, that some aspects will ring true and others seem like a watered down version of one's culture. That being said I think that's also how integration works; you keep some things, you replace some things, you modify some things. Asian-American/Canadian culture is distinct from Asian culture.
posted by invokeuse at 5:12 PM on September 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I love how all the replies are basically "uh, everyone, duh, what kind of question is this"
The essay itself is a little bit more nuanced than Slate's tweet suggests. I get the impression the author is first- or second-generation Korean-American and so can't help but continually evaluate Kim's Convenience for its authenticity. I understand this impulse; I've done it too (see: The Joy Luck Club, Chemistry, Girl in Translation) The problem with this, of course, is there are many, many different immigrant stories, but we tend to interpret through the lens of our personal experience. It's inevitable, then, that some aspects will ring true and others seem like a watered down version of one's culture. That being said I think that's also how integration works; you keep some things, you replace some things, you modify some things. Asian-American/Canadian culture is distinct from Asian culture.
posted by invokeuse at 5:12 PM on September 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I just discovered this show and I've been bean plating the character Shannon's Maritime diaspora background and moving to the big city, putting on that white person middle class accent and getting a job managing a rental car agency. So far the most tragic of all the characters.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:47 PM on October 13, 2018
posted by Space Coyote at 5:47 PM on October 13, 2018
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posted by k8t at 10:26 AM on August 4, 2018