ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and a public laundry in a South Korean television show, Crash Landing on You, created by Studio Dragon, originally broadcast in South Korea on TvN between December 14, 2019–February 16, 2020 and then streamed on Netflix. This internationally popular Korean drama – or K-drama as such shows are called – tells the story of a South Korean businesswoman who accidentally paraglides into the DMZ and lands in the arms of a North Korean army officer. He and his men commit to getting her home safely. While they are working on that, she spends a month in a very poor North Korean village. The life of the village women centers around a public laundry, an institution which has disappeared in the developed world, and which represents both the distinction in development between North and South and the communitarian lifestyle that the heroine has never had.
