The soap opera “My Love From the Star” continues to win fans both at home and abroad, as it wrapped up its first season on February 27. The show, produced by the Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), is a romantic comedy featuring top actress Cheon Song-yi (played by Jeon Ji-hyun) and her extraterrestrial boyfriend Do Min-jun (played by Kim Soo-hyun), an alien who has been on Earth for over 400 years after he accidently fell from a star.


The show’s first season came to an end last week, but its growing popularity shows no signs of fading away. Everything the two main characters touched or consumed, and every shooting location they went to, has become the center of attention for the TV show’s many fans. The handbags, clothes, accessories and even lipstick brands the characters use have hit all-time-high sales figures. Furthermore, Cheon’s love for chimaek—an abbreviation for the Korean words for “fried chicken” and “beer”—has spread beyond Korean territory, sparking off a chimaek craze amongst Chinese fans.

The term chimaek, generally used amongst the younger generations, denotes the fun and affordability of fried chicken and beer. Most people are familiar with the phrase and with the combination itself, one of the most common and favorite menus for the drinking table.


Over the course of the season, Cheon develops a great affection for fried chicken. On one snowy day, she smacks her lips as she speaks in a low mumble: “I feel like chimaek when it snows.” In another episode, when she is deeply depressed, she and her friend decided to have a chat over fried chicken and beer.

Amongst Chinese drama fans, the scenes sparked off interest in Korea’s chimaek culture and, thanks to the new trend, Korean fried chicken restaurants in China have recently experienced significant sales hikes, again hitting all-time-high records. Several Korean fried chicken restaurants in metropolitan areas including Shanghai and Beijing saw Chinese clients waiting in line for three hours to order fried chicken. A Hangzhou-based restaurant provided a special chimaek combination on its Valentine’s Day menu. The Shanghai Planetarium prepared an event for the TV show’s fans last week, screening the last episode and serving fried chicken and beer.

The popularity of “My Love From the Star” also recently received wider coverage in foreign media outlets. The February 26 edition of the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “Korean TV Show Sparks Chicken and Beer Craze in China,” mentioning that, “More than 3.7 million posts related to the Chinese term for chimaek have been published on Weibo over the past few weeks.” The newspaper also said that, “some Chinese celebrities are fueling the craze,” saying that Gao Yuanyuan, a Chinese celebrity, said, “The first snow has arrived. Where is the chimaek?” on her verified Weibo account.

Earlier in the month, the February 19 edition of Hong Kong’s Ming Pao, a newspaper, reported on the increased consumption of fried chicken around metropolitan cities in mainland China. It explained that, “The drama fad seems to possibly help the poultry industry retrieve any losses occurred by the recent bird flu spike.”

The Chinese portal Sina.com created a new section on its web page dedicated solely to the soap opera, coming up with supplementary show information such as opinions about how the plot ended and future plans for the actors and actresses starring in the show.


Audiences in mainland China can watch the show through online TV streaming services. It normally arrives in China within two hours after being aired in Korea.

According to estimates from Iqiyi.com and PPS, two of the more popular Chinese video-streaming sites, the TV show has been watched in China by 660 million or 640 million viewers, respectively. The show’s popularity in China has fueled further local coverage there on the, ”most-watched Korean TV program.”

(All photos courtesy of SBS Production and HB Entertainment)

*Read more about chimaek culture introduced by a member of Worldwide Korea Blogger:
http://blog.korea.net/?p=17303 

By Lee Seung-ah
Korea.net Staff Writer
slee27@korea.kr