[Anchor]
These days, many people are waiting in long lines outside stores just to get their hands on rice cakes.
Some even camp out overnight. Reporter An Huijae investigates why these dessert trends keep shifting from one item to another.
[Reporter]
This is a dessert shop in Seoul.
It has gained word-of-mouth popularity for its "fruit chapssaltteok" (fruit rice cakes), and people of all ages crowd the area from early in the morning.
[Lee Seo-yul / Gangdong-gu, Seoul: This is my first time standing in such a long line to buy something. It went viral all over social media....]
The long waiting queues continue late into the night.
[Store Official: (How long do I have to wait?) You'll have to wait about an hour and a half to two hours right now.]
The term "tteokeun-run" has even been coined, combining rice cake with "open-run," meaning to dash into a store the moment the doors open to buy rice cake desserts.
At this shop, which sells desserts combining rice cakes and chocolate, customers still have to wait in line even after making a reservation to pick up their orders.
Reviews flooded in from this store about how people had to stay up all night guarding their spots just to successfully purchase "mochi," prompting the shop to recently switch to an online reservation system.
Even so, those slots sell out in a split second.
[Choi Do-yeon / Yeongjong-gu, Incheon: I kept refreshing the page to grab a canceled slot. The better the food tastes, the happier you feel, and I think a sense of competition builds up knowing that only the chosen ones can pull it off....]
Despite the high prices and the sharing of homemade recipes online,
[YouTube Channel 'Yoonchacha': Put plenty of halved green grapes, and then add another layer of yogurt....]
The purpose of this consumption goes far beyond simply eating.
Experts analyze that consumers do not mind even if they devour in an instant what they spent 10 hours waiting for, as long as they find personal meaning in the process.
[Chae Sun-ae / Director at Macromill Embrain Trend Center: You cannot buy experiences with money. People are channeling the time and money they saved into things that make their hearts race, since major luxuries are out of reach. It is a miniature version of "zero-point consumption," meaning spending accurately and decisively only on things that hold personal meaning....]
From the trend of chewy chocolate cookies earlier this year, consumers have been rapidly shifting their emotional consumption targets as dessert trends evolve.
(Video by Park Ji-in | VJ: Lee Ji-huan)
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