Every once in a while one of these articles will pop up raving about some Canadian show -- Corner Gas, Schitt's Creek, now Kim's Convenience, I think Murdoch Mysteries (or "The Artful Detective"...
Every once in a while one of these articles will pop up raving about some Canadian show -- Corner Gas, Schitt's Creek, now Kim's Convenience, I think Murdoch Mysteries (or "The Artful Detective" as it was shown in America) got some buzz -- and it's always from Americans, and when I ask my (fellow) Canadian millennial friends, no one really watches them. For some reason Americans seem to care way more about our shows than we do.
I asked around a few of my Asian friends (almost all my friends are Asian so I can't really get the non-Asian impressions) and none of them really watched it, citing the reasons as "it's not appealing to Asians to watch", "people put on fake accents", "the story isn't that relatable", "it's kinda cringe", and "it's a Korean family so I don't feel as connected [this is from a Taiwanese immigrant]".
Anyway that's just an anecdote, not gospel. I'm sure it hits a note with a lot of people here, but at least among people I know they just prefer big American shows, or global Korean or Japanese shows on Netflix. I think the Kim's Convenience dad appearing on the Mandalorian and the guy from it being in Marvel now seemed like a bigger deal to people than the actual show.
Here in Toronto, the show is massively popular (and generally across Ontario at least based on anecdotal evidence). Tons of people, including immigrants I know from across all stripes, watched it...
Here in Toronto, the show is massively popular (and generally across Ontario at least based on anecdotal evidence). Tons of people, including immigrants I know from across all stripes, watched it and loved it. The "not relatable" one is especially strange based on what I've seen from other immigrant responses, but that almost might just speak to the folly of ascribing all possible immigrant experiences to proper noun The Immigrant Experience.
There's one particular scene that always sticks out to me where three different immigrants are trying to speak English, their second language, to communicate but they all can't understand each other's thick accents. I found it to be a perfect little representation of how varied but parallel the different immigrant experiences can be. The show may stick to Korean culture as its basis but the struggles of an immigrant family in western society should have plenty to relate to.
Yeah, I suspect @an_angry_tiger may be a bit biased due to poor sample size. The ratings for Kim's Convenience were really good, especially for a CBC show. See: And also anecdotally from the...
Yeah, I suspect @an_angry_tiger may be a bit biased due to poor sample size. The ratings for Kim's Convenience were really good, especially for a CBC show. See:
CBC today announced the renewal of its breakout hit comedy series KIM’S CONVENIENCE, following an acclaimed first season (13 x 30) that is drawing an average audience of 933,000 per episode to date (2+ AMA), with 39% of viewers in the 25 – 54 demographic.
-Source
Half-hour comedies Kim’s Convenience and Schitt’s Creek (Playback’s 2018 Show of the Year) both gained significant momentum with multi-territory Netflix deals over the past year returned to larger audiences for their January 2019 premieres over 2018. The first episode of Kim’s third season scored an average audience of 804,000, up 7% from a year ago, while Schitt’s garnered 781,000, up 19% from last year. According to CBC, their premiere episodes reached 1.3 million and 1.35 million Canadians, respectively.
-Source
And also anecdotally from the opposite pespective, I literally finished watching Season 5 two nights ago! :P
Although to be fair, I was initially recommended it by an American friend and his Chinese wife, whose whole family also loves the show. I am friends with 3 other Asian-Canadians who also started watching it now too, on the same recommendation of our mutual American friends though.
This is what turned off someone I know, a fluent multilingual Millenial in southeast Asia. They don't find it offensive or anything, simply bad/obvious enough to the point where they couldn't...
"people put on fake accents"
This is what turned off someone I know, a fluent multilingual Millenial in southeast Asia. They don't find it offensive or anything, simply bad/obvious enough to the point where they couldn't enjoy the show after trying maybe half a dozen episodes. Particularly (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) Mr. Kim's fake accent.
I was enjoying the show until they pointed it out, and now I can't unhear it. Not a complete dealbreaker, but it did move the show down a bit on my long to-watch list.
Well, I'm an American and I enjoyed it. Part of it is due to my spouse being in a similar circumstance to the adult children in the show. One of her parents was an immigrant, and the other was the...
Well, I'm an American and I enjoyed it. Part of it is due to my spouse being in a similar circumstance to the adult children in the show. One of her parents was an immigrant, and the other was the first generation on that side to be born here. The parents all spoke Greek in their homes when younger, but for whatever reason, didn't teach it to my spouse and her sister. She says that the daughter's story is very relatable for her. I imagine that if her parents had both been 2nd generation American, she wouldn't be able to relate to it, though.
Society doesn't take much time to understand Asian people and the cultures they come from. In film, they tend to be interchangeable (and yes, even Kim's Convenience does this). And that's probably...
Society doesn't take much time to understand Asian people and the cultures they come from. In film, they tend to be interchangeable (and yes, even Kim's Convenience does this).
And that's probably exactly why this show speaks to so many people. It shows the American (Canadian?) Dream of being a melting pot where multiple cultures mix together. The main characters are uniquely Korean, but are also a part of their larger community - they are the most ideologically pure versions of what we think of when we think of immigrants coming into the country. It depicts people who have a heritage that informs their worldview, but doesn't define who they are.
Beyond that, most of the characters on the show are depictions of specific types of people that you're likely to encounter in the real world, and it pokes fun at them while still managing to take them seriously. In a way, it's kind of like a modern version of King of the Hill. I know a lot of people who don't think KotH is funny, and it's almost certainly because they don't know anyone like the characters on the show. Likewise, if you don't know many people from Korean immigrant families, you probably won't find Kim's Convenience to be very funny.
The dreams of Canada/Canadians and the US/Americans are pretty starkly different, IMO. A melting pot society (which the US largely is) strives for full assimilation and integration, resulting in a...
It shows the American (Canadian?) Dream of being a melting pot where multiple cultures mix together.
The dreams of Canada/Canadians and the US/Americans are pretty starkly different, IMO. A melting pot society (which the US largely is) strives for full assimilation and integration, resulting in a more heterogeneous monoculture. Whereas Canada explicitly, in both ideology and policy, strives for multiculturalism in an attempt to achieve more of a cultural mosaic.
Every once in a while one of these articles will pop up raving about some Canadian show -- Corner Gas, Schitt's Creek, now Kim's Convenience, I think Murdoch Mysteries (or "The Artful Detective" as it was shown in America) got some buzz -- and it's always from Americans, and when I ask my (fellow) Canadian millennial friends, no one really watches them. For some reason Americans seem to care way more about our shows than we do.
I asked around a few of my Asian friends (almost all my friends are Asian so I can't really get the non-Asian impressions) and none of them really watched it, citing the reasons as "it's not appealing to Asians to watch", "people put on fake accents", "the story isn't that relatable", "it's kinda cringe", and "it's a Korean family so I don't feel as connected [this is from a Taiwanese immigrant]".
Anyway that's just an anecdote, not gospel. I'm sure it hits a note with a lot of people here, but at least among people I know they just prefer big American shows, or global Korean or Japanese shows on Netflix. I think the Kim's Convenience dad appearing on the Mandalorian and the guy from it being in Marvel now seemed like a bigger deal to people than the actual show.
Here in Toronto, the show is massively popular (and generally across Ontario at least based on anecdotal evidence). Tons of people, including immigrants I know from across all stripes, watched it and loved it. The "not relatable" one is especially strange based on what I've seen from other immigrant responses, but that almost might just speak to the folly of ascribing all possible immigrant experiences to proper noun The Immigrant Experience.
There's one particular scene that always sticks out to me where three different immigrants are trying to speak English, their second language, to communicate but they all can't understand each other's thick accents. I found it to be a perfect little representation of how varied but parallel the different immigrant experiences can be. The show may stick to Korean culture as its basis but the struggles of an immigrant family in western society should have plenty to relate to.
Yeah, I suspect @an_angry_tiger may be a bit biased due to poor sample size. The ratings for Kim's Convenience were really good, especially for a CBC show. See:
And also anecdotally from the opposite pespective, I literally finished watching Season 5 two nights ago! :P
Although to be fair, I was initially recommended it by an American friend and his Chinese wife, whose whole family also loves the show. I am friends with 3 other Asian-Canadians who also started watching it now too, on the same recommendation of our mutual American friends though.
This is what turned off someone I know, a fluent multilingual Millenial in southeast Asia. They don't find it offensive or anything, simply bad/obvious enough to the point where they couldn't enjoy the show after trying maybe half a dozen episodes. Particularly (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) Mr. Kim's fake accent.
I was enjoying the show until they pointed it out, and now I can't unhear it. Not a complete dealbreaker, but it did move the show down a bit on my long to-watch list.
Well, I'm an American and I enjoyed it. Part of it is due to my spouse being in a similar circumstance to the adult children in the show. One of her parents was an immigrant, and the other was the first generation on that side to be born here. The parents all spoke Greek in their homes when younger, but for whatever reason, didn't teach it to my spouse and her sister. She says that the daughter's story is very relatable for her. I imagine that if her parents had both been 2nd generation American, she wouldn't be able to relate to it, though.
Society doesn't take much time to understand Asian people and the cultures they come from. In film, they tend to be interchangeable (and yes, even Kim's Convenience does this).
And that's probably exactly why this show speaks to so many people. It shows the American (Canadian?) Dream of being a melting pot where multiple cultures mix together. The main characters are uniquely Korean, but are also a part of their larger community - they are the most ideologically pure versions of what we think of when we think of immigrants coming into the country. It depicts people who have a heritage that informs their worldview, but doesn't define who they are.
Beyond that, most of the characters on the show are depictions of specific types of people that you're likely to encounter in the real world, and it pokes fun at them while still managing to take them seriously. In a way, it's kind of like a modern version of King of the Hill. I know a lot of people who don't think KotH is funny, and it's almost certainly because they don't know anyone like the characters on the show. Likewise, if you don't know many people from Korean immigrant families, you probably won't find Kim's Convenience to be very funny.
The dreams of Canada/Canadians and the US/Americans are pretty starkly different, IMO. A melting pot society (which the US largely is) strives for full assimilation and integration, resulting in a more heterogeneous monoculture. Whereas Canada explicitly, in both ideology and policy, strives for multiculturalism in an attempt to achieve more of a cultural mosaic.
In schools here in Canada, we're taught that Canada is a salad whereas the US is a melting pot.