
SUMMARY
HER PRIVATE LIFE [๊ทธ๋
์ ์ฌ์ํ/Geunyeoui Sasaenghwal]
(tvN, 2019)
Written by Kim Hye-young, Directed by Hong Jong-chan
Based on novel by Kim Sung-yeon
Production company: Studio Dragon (์คํ๋์ค๋๋๊ณค ์ฃผ์ํ์ฌ) and Bon Factory (๋ณธํฉํ ๋ฆฌ)
Genre: Romantic Comedy
April 10, 2019 ~ TBA [Wed~Thur]
16 episodes
Art museum curator by day, fansite webmistress by night — such is the double life led by Sung Deok-mi. What happens when both her worlds collide in real life? — by Mich KDL
CAST
Senior Curator at Cheum Museum of Art;
fangirl of Cha Shi-an
โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ
Cha Shi-an (One/Jung Je-Won)
Lead singer of White Ocean
Nam Eun-ki (Ahn Bo-hyun)*
Deok-mi’s adopted brother
Lee Sun-joo (Park Jin-joo)
Cafรฉ owner and Deok-mi’s best friend
Sung Geun-ho (Maeng Sang-hun)
Deok-mi’s father
Director of Cheum Museum of Art
โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ
Eom So-Hye (Kim Sun-young)
Former director and owner of Cheum Museum of Art
Choi Da-in (Hong Seo-young)
Artist and Ryan’s good friend
Sindy/Kim Hyo-jin (Kim Bo-ra)
Intern at Cheum Museum of Art, So-hye’s daughter and fangirl of Cha Shi-An* Eun-ki’s role was first proposed to Lee Kyu-hyung. But he declined.
THE WRITER & DIRECTOR
This drama was adapted to the television screen by Kim Hye-young (๊นํ์) — seemingly her first drama script — based on a novel by Kim Sung-yeon (๊น์ฑ์ฐ).
As for Hong Jong-Chan (ํ์ข ์ฐฌ), he is a prolific K-Drama director who has directed some well-known dramas in past years. He mainly works for tvN; with the exception of 2018’s Life (๋ผ์ดํ) that broadcasted on JTBC. Before that, he directed The Most Beautiful Goodbye (์ธ์์์ ๊ฐ์ฅ ์๋ฆ๋ค์ด ์ด๋ณ) (tvN, 2017), Live Up to Your Name (๋ช ๋ถํ์ ) (tvN, 2017), Dear My Friends (๋์ด ๋ง์ด ํ๋ ์ฆ) (tvN, 2016) and My Secret Hotel (๋ง์ด ์ํฌ๋ฆฟ ํธํ ) (tvN, 2014).
He started out in the K-Drama industry as an assistant director for The Legend (ํ์์ฌ์ ๊ธฐ) (MBC, 2007) and Bichunmoo (๋น์ฒ๋ฌด) (SBS, 2008). Hong continued to hone his skills as a producer for SBS with shows like Prosecutor Princess (๊ฒ์ฌ ํ๋ฆฐ์ธ์ค) (SBS, 2010), City Hunter (์ํฐํํฐ) (SBS, 2011) and The Master’s Sun (์ฃผ๊ตฐ์ ํ์) (SBS, 2013), while in parallel working as a co-director for such dramas as Tamra, the Island (ํ๋๋๋๋ค) (MBC, 2009), Padam Padam (๋น ๋ด๋น ๋ด… ๊ทธ์ ๊ทธ๋ ์ ์ฌ์ฅ๋ฐ๋์๋ฆฌ) (JTBC, 2011-2012) and Doctor Stranger (๋ฅํฐ ์ด๋ฐฉ์ธ) (SBS, 2014).
THE NOVEL
< Image from carpoint07 >
Her Private Life is based on the novel Noona Fan Dot Com / Nuna Paen Datkom (๋๋ํฌ๋ท์ปด) written by Kim Sung-yeon (sometimes also romanized as Kim Sung-yun) (๊น์ฑ์ฐ), published in 2007 in two volumes by Yeoubi/Yeowoobi Publishing [์ฌ์ฐ๋น] and re-published by Haksan Publishing Company [ํ์ฐ๋ฌธํ์ฌ] in 2019.
In 2009, the novel was adapted to the webtoon Noona Fan Dot Com – Her Private Life (๋๋ ํฌ ๋ท์ปด – ๊ทธ๋
์ ์ฌ์ํ) with the cover illustration done by ๋น์ฒด์ฑ.
You can read the webtoon at Naver online here (Korean).
FILMING LOCATIONS

Search Her Private Life (๊ทธ๋ ์ ์ฌ์ํ) (tvN, 2019) on KDL for a visual look of all locations.
Last update: 22/04/2020
SEOUL
DOBONG-GU [๋๋ด๊ตฌ]
Banghak-dong [๋ฐฉํ๋]
โ Dobong Top Judo [๋๋ดํ์ ๋๊ด]
โ Balbadak Park [๋ฐ๋ฐ๋ฅ๊ณต์] [E12]
DONGDAEMUN-GU [๋๋๋ฌธ๊ตฌ]
Yongdu-dong [์ฉ๋๋]
โ Neocure [๋ค์คํ์ด]
GANGNAM-GU [๊ฐ๋จ๊ตฌ]
Daechi-dong [๋์น๋]
โ Prugio Valley [ํธ๋ฅด์ง์ค๋ฐธ๋ฆฌ] [E4]
โ Cafe M [์นดํ์ ] [E15]
Nonhyeon-dong [๋
ผํ๋]
โ Gyeongseon Jeonjib [๊ฒฝ์ ์ ์ง] [E6]
โ Sookseongui Myeongga [์์ฑ์๋ช
๊ฐ] [E6]
GANGSEO-GU [๊ฐ์๊ตฌ]
Hwagok-dong [ํ๊ณก๋]
โ Kotileikit Furniture Workshop
[์ฝํฐ๋ ์ดํท ๊ฐ๊ตฌ๊ณต๋ฐฉ] [E8]
GWANGJIN-GU [๊ด์ง๊ตฌ]
Neung-dong [๋ฅ๋]
โ Childrenโs Grand Park [์์ธ์ด๋ฆฐ์ด๋๊ณต์] [E4]
JONGNO-GU [์ข
๋ก๊ตฌ]
Wonseo-dong [์์๋]
โ Vitoga Foto [๋นํ ๊ฐ์ฌ์ง๊ด] [E2,4]
JUNG-GU [์ค๊ตฌ]
Jungnim-dong [์ค๋ฆผ๋]
โ Yakhyeon Cathedral [์ค๋ฆผ๋์ฝํ์ฑ๋น] [E12]
Taepyeongno 1(il)-ga [ํํ๋ก1๊ฐ]
โ Bus Stop Gwanghwamun/Chosun Ilbo [๊ดํ๋ฌธ/์กฐ์ ์ผ๋ณด] [E10]
MAPO-GU
Hajung-dong [ํ์ค๋]
โ Seogang Bridge [์๊ฐ๋๊ต] [E5]
Sangam-dong [์์๋]
โ SBS Prism Tower [SBSํ๋ฆฌ์ฆํ์] [E1]
Sangsu-dong [์์๋]
โ Gonbap [๊ณค๋ฐฅ] [E4]
Seogyo-dong [์๊ต๋]
โ Caferia [์นดํ๋ฆฌ์]
โ Eoulmadang Street [์ด์ธ๋ง๋น๋ก] [E6]
โ West Bridge Live Hall [์จ์คํธ๋ธ๋ฆฟ์ง ๋ผ์ด๋ธํ] [E6]
โ 702 Recording Studio [702 ๋ ์ฝ๋ฉ์คํ๋์ค] [E11-12]
โ Gyeongui Line Forest Park [E16]
Sinsu-dong [์ ์๋]
โ Hwasumok [ํ์๋ชฉ/่ฑๆฐดๆจ] [E8]
Yeomri-dong [์ผ๋ฆฌ๋]
โ Gyeongui Line Plaza [๊ฒฝ์์ ๊ด์ฅ] [E9]
SEOCHO-GU [์์ด๊ตฌ]
Yangjae-dong [์์ฌ๋]
โ Yangjaecheon [์์ฌ์ฒ] [E4]
SEOUL CONT’D
SEODAEMUN-GU [์๋๋ฌธ๊ตฌ]
Hyeonjeo-dong [ํ์ ๋]
โ Seodaemun Prison History Hall [E16]
Namgajwa-dong [๋จ๊ฐ์ข๋]
โ Myongji University โ Social Science Campus [E13]
SEONGDONG-GU [์ฑ๋๊ตฌ]
Seongsu-dong 1(il)ga [์ฑ์๋1๊ฐ]
โ Trimage โ Seoul Forest [์์ธ์ฒํธ๋ฆฌ๋ง์ ]
SEONGBUK-GU [์ฑ๋ถ๊ตฌ]
Seongbuk-dong [์ฑ๋ถ๋]
โ Atelier VertVert Flower School [E8]
SONGPA-GU [์กํ๊ตฌ]
Bangyi-dong [๋ฐฉ์ด๋]
โ SOMA Museum of Art [์๋ง๋ฏธ์ ๊ด]
YONGSAN-GU [์ฉ์ฐ๊ตฌ]
Ichon-dong [์ด์ด๋]
โ Dongjak Bridge [๋์๋๊ต] [E14]
Itaewon-dong [์ดํ์๋]
โ Rooftop Apartment Itaewon-dong [E13-14]
INCHEON
JUNG-GU [์ค๊ตฌ]
Euljiro1(il)ga [์์ง๋ก1๊ฐ]
โ Lotte Hotel Seoul [๋กฏ๋ฐํธํ
์์ธ] [E1]
SEO-GU [์๊ตฌ]
Simgok-dong [์ฌ๊ณก๋]
โ CKU [๊ตญ์ ์ฑ๋ชจ๋ณ์] [E4]
Unseo-dong [์ด์๋]
โ Paradise City Hotel & Resort [E1]
โ Incheon Airport [E1/Teaser no. 3]
YEONSU-GU [์ฐ์๊ตฌ]
Dongchun-dong [๋์ถ๋]
โ Square1 [์คํ์ด์] [E7]
Okryun-dong [์ฅ๋ จ๋]
โ Songdo High School [์ก๋๊ณ ๋ฑํ๊ต] [E3]
PAJU
DONGPAE-DONG [๋ํจ๋]
โ Yakcheonsa Temple [์ฝ์ฒ์ฌ] [E16]
TANHYEON-MYEON [ํํ๋ฉด]
โ Cafรฉ Zino [์ง๋
ธ ํ์ฃผ] [E7]
NEW YORK CITY
Brooklyn
โ Red Hook Stores [E1]
TOUR SEOUL AT NIGHT LIKE RYAN AND DEOK-MI

In episode 10, Deok-mi takes Ryan on a personalized Seoul Night Tour in an “open convertible car”, as she calls it; actually, their trusty ride is Seoul City Tour Bus, which they hop on from Bus Stop Gwanghwamun/Chosun Ilbo [๊ดํ๋ฌธ/์กฐ์ ์ผ๋ณด].
During the first minutes of their tour, they pass the following Seoul landmarks (in chronological order):
โ Gwanghwamun Square [๊ดํ๋ฌธ๊ด์ฅ](side)
โ Dong-a Media Center [๋์๋ฏธ๋์ด์ผํฐ]
โ Gyeongbokgung Palace [๊ฒฝ๋ณต๊ถ] (front – Gwanghwamun gate)
โ Sejong Center for the Performing Arts [์ธ์ข
๋ฌธํํ๊ด]
โ Sungnyemun Gate / Namdaemun Gate [์ญ๋ก๋ฌธ / ๋จ๋๋ฌธ]
โ Seoul Hall of Urbanism & Architecture [์์ธ๋์๊ฑด์ถ์ ์๊ด]
The Seoul City Tour Bus tour that seems to be the closest to this itinerary is the Downtown Palace Namsan Course [๋์ฌ๊ณ ๊ถ๋จ์ฐ ์ฝ์ค] — ironically, it is not the Gold Night Tour (a pun the show passed up).
K-DRAMA REFERENCES
TOUCH YOUR HEART (2019)
Snippets of the trailer for Her Private Life were shown before the start of Oh Yoon-seo’s (Yoo In-na) new drama in final episode 16 in Touch Your Heart. Her Private Life takes over the time slot from latter drama.
ENCOUNTER/BOYFRIEND (2018-19)
Deok-mi and Ryan watch the first episode of Encounter/Boyfriend (๋จ์์น๊ตฌ) (tvN, 2018-19) together on a romantic date at home in episode 12 and comment how it is beautiful as they watch Cha Soo-hyun (Song Hye-kyo) relax at Fort of Saint Charles [Castillo de San Carlos de la Cabaรฑa].
MEDIA REFERENCES
Though centered around an art museum, Her Private Life comes with a lot of (missed) opportunities to showcase art works, artists or even timely theoretical perspectives on art and the work in an art museum; a field that undergoes enormous changes in recent years. This becomes especially obvious when Ryan Gold and a just-woken-up Sung Deok-mi have a sudden exchange on philosopher Slavoj ลฝiลพek’s conceptualization of the role of an art curator in final episode 16.
It’s highly probable that they referred to the following passage on page 337 of Zizek’s book The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (2000 [1999]):
“His [the curatorโs] role is not limited to mere selection โ through his selection, he (re)defines what art is today. That is to say: todayโs art exhibitions display objects which, at least for the traditional approach, have nothing to do with art, up to human excrement and dead animals โ so why is this to be perceived as art? Because what we see is the curatorโs choice. When we visit an exhibition today, we are thus not directly observing works of art โ what we are observing is the curatorโs notion of what art is; in short, the ultimate artist is not the producer but the curator, his activity of selection.”
CULTURAL REFERENCE: COLLECTING VIEWING STONES OR ‘SUSEOK’
Casually named “collecting stones” in episode 1, the hobby that Sung Deok-mi’s (Park Min-young) father Sung Geun-ho (Maeng Sang-hun) cherishes is actually a pastime that dates back some thousand years. It consists of collecting and appreciating stones that are called Suseok (์์), or “viewing stones.” The appraisal of the stones relies on different criteria, according to Juneu Kim (president of the American Suseok Viewing Stone Study Group), from shape and color to its CHI energy. Spraying the stones with water helps “to be able to see the beautiful lines of the stone,” as Geun-ho explains to Ryan when he visits in episode 7.
Different types of stones are collected and are placed in different categories. In Her Private life, the “melon stone”, “Gwantongseok” and “landscape stone” (that “holds the view of a landscape,” as Deok-mi’s father shares with Ryan) are mentioned. Also, stones are divided in subparts like the “pedestal” and the so-called “hotdog” for the landscape stone as Ryan also learns from Deok-mi’s father.
Apparently, viewing stones also carry different meanings. The Gwantongseok (Kanto Stone/๊ด๋์), a stone with a hole naturally pierced through it, that Deok-mi’s father gifts Ryan means “good luck.”
The stones are usually collected from rivers or coastlines and sometimes in the mountains; Deok-mi’s father hence goes “on hikes throughout the country they say has good rocks,” as he explains Ryan who visits the family in episode 7.
< Suseok at Changdeokgung Palace, Photos by ยฉ Marion KDL >
Suseok has had, as every pastime, ups and downs in its popularity and in trends of which stones were preferably collected. Early on, for instance, mid-seize and often upright, perforated stones were preferred and are still found in traditional garden layouts of palaces. Apparently another rather continuous trend is to collect smaller stones and display them inside the home; just as Deok-mi’s father does it.
In more fundamental lines, Suseok is very similar to the Chinese scholar’s rocks and Japanese suiseki. One difference to suiseki according to Michael Reilly, an American suiseki collector, however, is that stones are not allowed to be altered in this Korean version of stone appraisal and the containers they are displayed in have to adapt to the stone’s form.
KDL CREDITS
Photos: Mich KDL, Thom Musni
* * *
Any other information to add? Or any thoughts about the drama and its locations?
Let us know in the comments!