Explainer / K-drama: why are ramyeon noodles an invitation for sex? Featured in Crash Landing on You, What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim and more Korean series, this bowl of instant ramen says something saucy

Mar 6 , 2021

The leads in What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim? eat ramen, one of many K-dramas to feature scenes with noodles – but what do they really mean? Photo: @tvN D ENT/Youtube

Similar to the expression ‘Netflix and chill’, the brazen sexual connotation to ramyeon instant noodles is credited to the 2001 film One Fine Spring Day

Parasite’s made-up ram-don was class-war-in-a-bowl, while The Uncanny Counter, Wok of Love, Mystic Pop-up Bar and Possessed all featured key noodle scenes

Thanks in large part to Netflix, we’ve all fallen under the spell of K-dramas – and one cultural aspect you can’t fail to notice is how passionate Koreans are about noodles.

Some variety or other of noodles feature in the majority of the most popular K-dramas and many award-winning films (Parasite’s class-war-in-a-bowl ram-don, for example). And the eating of them – or more specifically an invitation to eat ramyeon – has even become a metaphor for sex.

So where does this obsession with noodles come from?

The made-up Ram-don noodle dish featured in the South Korean movie Parasite. Photo: CJ Entertainment

History and culture

Noodles have played an important role in Korean cuisine and culture since the Three Kingdoms period (57BC-AD668), with plump wheat kernel noodles being introduced around AD300. With production of wheat limited though, most noodles were made from vegetables and legumes. Wheat noodles were highly prized, cementing them as an ingredient for special occasions, with them not becoming a daily food until approximately 1945.

Symbolism and double meanings

In Korean temple cuisine for example, the dish kong guksu (wheat noodles in cold soybean soup) has the nickname “monastic smile”, as this rare indulgence is said to make a monk smile and their mouths water.