Arya News - From three-day funerals to ritual-heavy holidays, here`s how ordinary Korean family events serve as storytelling devices.
SEOUL – Korean dramas have become global streaming staples, yet international viewers still run into scenes that resonate most with those versed in Korean custom — from mourners lining expansive condolence halls and daughters-in-law exhausted by ancestral holiday duties to families and friends gathering for a doljanchi, the banquet celebrating a baby’s first birthday.
In the K-drama universe, these milestone rituals aren’t merely scenic backdrops, they’re narrative engines. Funerals, weddings, ancestral holidays and even first-birthday celebrations introduce their own dramatic frameworks, exposing fractures in relationships or dragging past resentments to the surface. Whereas a Western series might reserve a wedding or funeral for a climactic finale, Korean dramas place these ceremonies throughout, using them as emotional punctuation. Below are explanations of cultural rites and how they can recalibrate a storyline.
In many K-dramas, ancestral rites like jesa morph tradition into intense emotional pressure points, which can particularly highlight tension between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law. Jesa is a traditional Korean rite held to honor ancestors, performed on major holidays like Chuseok and the Lunar New Year or on the anniversary of an ancestor’s passing, in which families prepare a table of food and bow to the shrine to honor their lineage.
During jesa, the daughter-in-law is often expected to do the necessary labor: preparing the ceremonial meal, arranging the table, serving and cleaning up, while male relatives relax or look on. Shows such as “No, Thank You” turn that imbalance into drama, using the rite to expose generational expectations, gender roles and family dynamics. In this regard, jesa is almost a K-drama cliche that foreshadows a rising family conflict.
“The Bequeathed.” PHOTO: NETFLIX/THE KOREA HERALD
Funerals and condolence visits often carry some of the highest dramatic tension. In Korea, even distant acquaintances are expected to attend a funeral, which means estranged lovers, rival colleagues and distant in-laws often end up in the same room.
K-dramas frequently capitalize on that collision. A three-day mourning period becomes a stage where past secrets surface and loyalties are tested, as seen in “The World of the Married” — where a funeral sequence remaps the emotional geography among the central trio. Netflix’s “The Bequeathed,” as well as the thriller “The Ugly,” use funeral gatherings as plot pivots that drag suspects and investigators into the same frame. In these scenes, grief becomes central to the narrative architecture, locking disparate characters in the same confined space.
“Anna.” PHOTO: COUPANG PLAY/THE KOREA HERALD
Weddings carry another charge. In Korea, a marriage ceremony is often less about two individuals and more about families, status and social optics. K-dramas capitalize on that social meaning using lavish venues, ornate floral arrangements and formal introductions to create an even more dramatic stage for class anxieties and parental expectations. Take series like “The Glory” or “Anna,” which treat wedding culture as a window into the characters’ desire to climb the social ladder. Whether melodramatic or romantic, wedding episodes often function as power plays disguised as celebrations.
Even first birthday banquets, known as doljanchi, are surprisingly cinematic. These events, which celebrate a baby’s first birthday, can resemble a small wedding reception, complete with formal attire, ceremonial foods and a gathering of friends and family. On screen, they often serve to expose family ambitions or financial disparities, positioning the infant’s future as a public display of household status.
As a result, these life-event rituals follow a dramatic logic, signaling where characters stand emotionally and hinting at which way the story might bend next. Seeing how these ceremonies operate on screen will help explain why so many K-dramas arrive at catharsis in moments that might feel simply ceremonial in other storytelling traditions.