Chicken and Beer(Chi-mek) is popular in China thanks to drama "You Who Came From The Stars”

Chicken and Beer! it is called Chi-mak (combination of chicken and mek-ju which means beer in Korea)

It usually comes with sour radish cube as a side dish which is a must-eat thing.

SBS drama "You Who Came From The Stars”, which stars Kim Soo-hyun and actress Jeon Ji-hyun - the latter who successfully made her TV comeback through the drama, has been a huge hit not only in Korea, but also all around Asia.

It drew over 800 million views on Chinese video-sharing websites and was one of the highest rated Korean series in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

The huge success of this drama sparked interest in many other K-culture.
What main cast of drama wear,go,eat draws a lot of attention among chinese fans.

Korean style chicken and beer(chi-mak)is one of them.

Drama’s main character (played by Jun Ji-hyun) is crazy for chi-mek.

She specifically likes to partake in a meal of chimek to celebrate the year’s first snowfall.

That on-the-screen tradition is playing out in real-life fried chicken joints across China as fans of the show get their chimek fix.

“These days when my friends and I get together, we order fried chicken with beer,” said Ada He, who works for a real-estate company in Beijing and is a self-professed Korean drama lover.

In particular, "You Who Came From The Stars” craze reversed AI ​​crisis situation in China.

The first recognized case of H7N9 human infection emerged in east China last March. The virus re-emerged in October and has rapidly spread since January, primarily in southeast China.

But even with current AI crisis situation, korean fried chicken restaurant in Beijing and Shanghai formed a long line of customers waiting in front of shop every night.

Korean TV series have long been popular in China, and discussions about “My Star” are among the most-discussed topics on Sina’s Weibo microblogging platform. More than 3.7 million posts related to the Chinese term for chimek have been published on Weibo over the past few weeks, while Tencent’s WeChat is getting on the craze by displaying falling snowflakes or snowmen when users send messages to one another that include the Chinese expression for chimek, zhaji he pijiu.

Even some Chinese celebrities are fans of the show, fueling the craze. “The first snow arrives, where is the chimek?” Gao Yuanyuan, a prominent Chinese actress, posted on her verified Weibo account, earlier this month. “Did you have chimek on the day of the first snow?” the Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily asked on its verified Weibo account.

Sim June-bo, owner of Barsak Chicken and Beer, a Korean restaurant in Beijing’s Wangjing district, said he has noticed a significant increase in the restaurant’s Chinese clientele since the show began airing.

“I have been doing fried chicken business for eight years, but this is the first time I’ve seen so many Chinese customers coming to order fried chicken with beer,” he said.

“In the past, 40% of our clients who ordered fried chicken were Chinese and 60% were Korean. Now it is 80% Chinese and 20% Korean,”

Even those who don’t follow the drama are falling for the chicken-and-beer craze.

Of course, what remains to be seen, and what major restaurants like KFC will be watching for, is whether the fad can cure slumping chicken sales amid the recent bird flu spike, or if it’s just a passing trend.

“I don’t usually eat fried chicken and I don’t like beer, as it is so unhealthy,” Ms. He said. “But it is such a trendy thing to do now in China.”