What is Jun Pyo?

What is Jun Pyo?

a) A Chinese cuisine

b) A gay lingo

c) The korean prime minister

d) A phenomenon which renders its victims useless and incapable of speech nor any other bodily function. Usually occurs within the time period of 6:00 - 6:30 PM.

Correct Answer: D)



The Korean Smash hit Boys Over Flowers (which we call "Jun Pyo" because it's shorter and has less potential for double meanings *wink wink*), a version of the legendary Taiwan's Meteor Garden from the Japanese Manga Series Hana Yori Dango, has captured the hearts and imagination of thousands in Asia... including my mom. Everyday, the routine holds supreme in this household that within six to six thirty in the evening, time stops for 30 minutes, all activities halted and all eyes focused on one place, the TV.


The show centers around high school cliches, romantic cliches, cliches about rich people and all the stuff that makes TV interesting. The Flower Four (F4), a super rich gay, I'm sorry, GUY group of bullies with haircut phobias terrorize Shinwa High until the commoner Jan Di enters the scene and somehow managed to make F4 leader's Jun Pyo fall in love with her.

Cue in various love triangle, square, pentagon, octagon dramas, family problems of the rich and famous, a cat-eyed dictator mother, a tour scene in Macao (probably sponsored by the Macao Tourism Board), a forced marriage arc, a maid-master fetish episode and finally a partial amnesia finale bomb and you've got yourself a one entertaining series.

Since airing in May 2009 here in the Republic of Lapu-Lapu, (See, it will never work. Whoever thought of this name as a possible replacement for "Philippines"?) after it's 4 month run in the airwaves, the hit series is finally taking a bow tonight. And though I've already finished watching it in youtube.com, with better english subtitles I must add than the forced tagalog dubbed version of ABS-CBN, I decided to write this post as a memorabilia of the insane fixation this household has been under for a while now. Ah, we will miss the incomprehensible starter theme of the show and the gay-ness of the lead character's haircuts. Farewell.

Click HERE to revisit the good old days 10 minutes at a time (maximum youtube upload video duration) or to watch the finale in all its 4 years later beach-y glory.

Oops, spoiler. Ha.