My Love from the Star : Why Did a Drunk Cheon Song-yi Keep Pressing Her Neighbor’s Door Lock?

My Love from the Star Episode 2 has a scene that makes viewers laugh. Hallyu superstar Cheon Song-yi (Jun Ji-hyun) comes home drunk and keeps pressing the passcode on the wrong door, her neighbor Do Min-joon’s apartment (unit 2302) instead of her own (unit 2301), rambling the whole time.

Koreans watching this think, “Oh, I’ve seen that before!” Foreigners might think, “Wait, a front door with a keypad?”

How common are door locks in Korea?

Korea adopted digital door locks early. According to a trade report, more than 50% of Korean households already had a digital door lock by 2011. The same report put the rate for Japanese apartment buildings at about 32% in 2014. Another report noted that metal keys are hard to find in Korea these days, while in some European countries like Slovakia, traditional keys and locks are still more familiar.

That’s why many foreigners who move to Korea say the door lock is one of the first things that surprised them.

So why did Song-yi press the wrong door?

In the drama, Song-yi comes home drunk after a rough day filled with online hate and humiliation. And Korean apartment hallways make this mistake easy to understand:

• Identical doors line up side by side. Only the unit number is different. The doors and locks look almost the same.
• There’s no keyhole to give you a clue. With a key, you’d notice right away if it doesn’t fit. With a keypad, you just keep pressing numbers.
• The passcode becomes muscle memory. When you’re tired or drunk, your fingers know the code, but the door is wrong.

Stories about someone wandering up to a neighbor’s door and entering their code are a classic Korean apartment joke, so the scene lands even harder with Korean viewers.

What surprises foreigners

“Isn’t a keypad on the outside of the door unsafe?”
That’s the first question many foreigners ask.

Why door locks spread so widely

1. Apartments and multi-unit housing are everywhere.
Door sizes are similar, so installation is easy. It’s common to replace the lock or set a new passcode when you move in.

2. They’re convenient.
Your hands are full of groceries, you’re carrying a child, or you’ve lost your keys. A keypad solves all of it, and it’s useful in homes where kids come home alone.

3. They suit a lifestyle with lots of people coming and going.
When family members or cleaning and housekeeping staff need to enter while you’re out, it’s easier to share a code and change it later than to hand out keys.

4. Koreans adopt new tech quickly.
Door locks come in passcode, fingerprint, card, and smartphone app versions, and heavy competition among manufacturers has made them affordable for ordinary homes.

Is it secure?

An exposed keypad sounds risky, but there are safeguards.

• Decoy digits: You can press extra numbers before or after your passcode and the door still opens. It makes it hard for a bystander or a fingerprint smudge to give away the code.
• Fingerprint, card, and app options can be used together.
• Some models sound an alarm or temporarily lock after repeated wrong attempts.
• Many have an external terminal where you can touch a 9V battery to open the door in an emergency if the batteries die.

Tips for foreign visitors

• At an Airbnb or hotel, after typing the code you often need to press “#” or a lock-shaped button at the end. Models vary, so read the instructions first.
• Check the unit number. To avoid a Cheon Song-yi moment, glance at the number beside the door, especially late at night.
• Doors often lock automatically when they close. If you step into the hallway without your phone or code, you can easily get locked out, so remember your code.
• The “ddi-ri-ring” sound can be loud at night. Some locks let you turn the volume down.

Next time you watch

When you see Cheon Song-yi jabbing at her neighbor’s keypad in Episode 2, you may recall your first time facing a Korean door lock. A door that opens with numbers instead of keys is a small symbol of Korea’s convenience, trust, and fast embrace of technology. And in the drama, one wrong door starts the story between the two leads.

How do you lock your front door in your country?

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