Candy 8th May 2022
Jung Geu rae 20th May 2022
Water maid 24th May 2022
Noble idiot 29th May 2022
Eunuch in drag 7th June 2022
Chaebols poor doppelgänger 20th June 2022
Goblin’s underpants 1st July 2022
Wrongly accused fugitive 9th July 2022
Errand boy 17th July 2022
Rooftop room dweller 17th October 2022
Loan Shark with a heart of Gold 4th May 2023
Entertainer in training 14th October 2023
Fan club President 11th March 2024
Unemployed slacker in a sparkly tracksuit 5th October 2024
I just talk, a lot. It seems there is an approximate number of words needed per level. Checkout Kiara and Kurama both are at the same beanie level as me with a lot less comments than me. Kiara posts informative essays in the comments and on her fan wall and Kurama uses the tortoise approach consistently commenting most days over a range of posts. Some beanies write short comments and post lots of pictures on their fan wall so need a lot more comments to get the necessary word count. Cera has been commenting on the site since September 2023 and is already the next level up from me, Contract girlfriend, so it’s about how quickly you get to the word count. Due to the frequency of their commenting Cera has achieved 3000+ comments every 6-8 weeks and with it comes a level climb. In contrast in the last 6 weeks I wrote 500 comments🫤
We noticed that beanies were getting trapped in Errand Boy because it is the first level where the number of words needed to climb to the next level tripled compared to the previous levels. Those who struggled to level up tend to comment infrequently so it takes a long time to reach the word count. Once Errand boy is achieved all the later stages need an even higher word count but by this point beanies have managed their expectations so don’t expect to change levels any time soon🤣
Because you are commenting more in-depth and frequently due to the What comes after love discussions you may level up soon. It’s hard to tell based on number of comments as the veteran beanies who transferred to the new site in 2017 kept their previous comments but the word count required to climb from Candy started from scratch so even if you had 2k comments when you transferred over only the new comments counted. That’s why some veterans have high comment counts but are at lower levels and other beanies are at high levels with a relatively low comment count.
The levels are a reward for beanies making the site an interesting place to be. The more comments we add to the posts on the main site the longer the lurkers stay and eventually some will decide to join the banter to share their own views. I hope that helps to explain the challenges for the Errand boy beanies.
Sorry, just checked Kurama’s comments and currently they have more comments than me, but when they levelled up into this level they had 10K comments. So 1400 less comments than me and I had 6000 less comments than Cera when they levelled up into this level.
Some time ago Sic and Lord Cobol did the research into the mystery of the level climbs and with the newbies like Cera it is much easier to test the theories. Although, I speak with certainty it is still just a theory as there is nothing definitive from DB regarding how the levels work.
Celebrating 2k comments as a Fan club president. I will at some point level up and embarrass myself by living in a dream world thinking my tracksuit is all that 🤣.
Fan clubs are all about friends with common interests and I am using a new tagline to symbolise connections with strangers who make this corner of my life fun. To all my DB chingus old and new, thank you🫰
You’re a such a great president you should have your own fan club, Reply.
Thank you so much for always being such a great chingu. 💚
Underpants buddies for life! 😎
I see your profile by chance, and I like your visual from Yumi Cells. So, I just type this friendly message! I’d like to say you “see you soon”. But alas, there is a kind of bug on my computer, and even if I like this website, it’s so slow to display that I can’t comment or read often. 😘
We all have slow days on the website it’s more a bonus when we can communicate freely without having it freeze on the wheel of doom, refresh while typing or just leave us facing a blank page for ages. However, when we do get to enjoy the comments and fan wall posts there is no place like it in K dramaland fandom.
See you next time you get to chat freely.
Oh that was cute! Well done, marketing department. (It makes Dubai look a lot more comfortable than I think it is though- I suspect it was filmed in the early morning. And notice that the only time she is showing her ankles is inside the hospital courtyard? And only bare arms on what must have been a closed beach)
I think it’s an excellent marketing approach to have those two as their Dr slump characters. Dubai has a lot of K drama fans so I wonder how they do the Come to Korea equivalent for the Dubai audience?
Dubai has quite a big marketing/tourism budget. They don’t have a lot of natural attractions, and they also use it to get business for their national airline. Korea probably has more low key marketing, also I suspect the halal food options are a bit limited in Korea.
I’m surprised how the countries are promoting for Korean people. Myswitzerland is the tourist website and I discovered they had a Korean Insta count to target the Koreans. Lately, it was Steve Sang-Hyun Noh who was promoted Switzerland by visiting the famous places, he was in my region and I didn’t know 😭
Mother Bean- oh keeper of all knowledge – do you know if any other couples have done ads like this after shows? I think it’s brilliant marketing I wasn’t a huge fan of this show but they are so cute in this. Especially our PHS.
@nivar I tried to google the TvN website for the character info you mentioned but could not find it are you able to cut and paste it into a reply here or give more info on the other site that links it? Is it in English as I could only see the Korean site and google translate option didn’t appear as an option.
It didn’t translate on my laptop, so I had to go to the Google Translate site, click on “website” tab, and paste the link into the box. Yes… I’m that motivated (for the unimportant suff obvs, not to do my taxes :p)
I do equally ridiculous things usually on Bogummy’s YouTube channel as they rarely translate his behind the scenes. So my approach is take a photo then highlight the words click on translate and watch the translate do ridiculous things😬 Apparently the female leads name translates to Pomegranate! So it doesn’t look like it will make sense anyway but thanks it may come in handy for other programmes in the future f I want to check if it’s a straight rom com without murder mystery.
@anne18 I will tag you here when I finish watching Unmet so we avoid spoilers for those wanting to watch it.
I am really enjoying it I am half way through and it is really disappointing to see so many dodgy people taking advantage of the most vulnerable person in the room.
It’s okay 🙂. I wish I could hint at something, but with this drama anything and everything is a spoiler 😂. So just I’d just say that for me the last 3 episodes were like a balm to my soul. So hang in there!
I am on episode 8 and the two characters that still worry me the most are the grandfather who is ruthless to everyone. The way he talks to his daughter in law is out of order initially I thought she was the housekeeper. The director of the hospital who spends all his time watering his plants is the other one I get we benefit from down time and a calming environment but we rarely see him at work. We saw that he is risk adverse for a reason but with that child cancer case the child was going to be at risk whatever they did and one had a far better outcome. The choice he went for just delayed the inevitable the one that the gung-ho Dr chose was the one with the better outcome and I agreed it was worth the risk.
In the UK hospital and social care work environments there are strict rules about access to staff medical and safeguarding records so only those on a need to know basis can see them. So the female lead should also be giving permission in writing in this instance when colleagues want to have an over of her care she could do this by requesting a second opinion and asking for her records for her own sake is permissible which also has to be done in writing and takes time due to the need to review and redact third part info.
@reply1988
Ugh, the grandfather and the way he eats the frog dish 😂. Really old school villainy!
I had to read twice to figure out which characters you were referring to coz I never saw the grandfather as quite ‘grandfatherly’ 😅. He was always “the shady chairman” for me. Although, “gung ho Dr.” is such an appropriate term for Dr. Sanpei. That’s such good information about access to medical records! Patient’s willingness is both a highlight and an issue with the writing here. I liked how Miyabi (the FL) took that into account with the aneurysm patient (the man with curly hair who kept worrying). She ensured that she got an informed consent (based on the patient’s outlook on life) before his surgery. On the other hand, there are at least two characters here who are too emotional to understand the difference between informed consent and pushiness/ taking things in one’s own hands. At least one of them is better at respecting the feelings of the one with ailment/ disability. Again, If I say more, I’ll be spoiling things!
Not long now and we can have the full discussion. I always suspected that the arranged marriage was actually a love marriage from the woman’s point of view and her vindictiveness regarding Miyabi was uncalled for and really led me to dislike her. In the last episode I watched you see that they really were friends and I think that makes it even harder for me to forgive her treating her that way even if it was petty jealousy. I am now at the point where she is asking plant man about the real cause of the memory loss. I think the accident was caused by her awareness of something so I have two theories she was worried/concerned at the time of driving and lost concentration or the second theory she was under the influence of a drug or something and lost control of the vehicle.
What made me laugh was the scene where Kaede’s dad was riding his bike in a country lane and then they changed scenes. I immediately thought if this was a K drama this would be the point when a white van would come from no where and take him out. Next scene he at hospital having had an accident with a lorry shedding its load!
@reply1988
Where would you get creative methods to cause traumatic road accidents, if not in a medical drama? 😅 And a lot more creative than white trucks actually! And when you mention K-dramas, I was quite in the mood to follow this up with another medical drama, and landed on “Chocolate”. And lo, behold! The first episode had a heart surgery with blood literally gushing on the horrified face of our surgeon hero, and him getting injured in an “explosion”. I retreated to J-dramaland, lest I should need a surgery for my heart as well (for which, I won’t trust a K-drama doc for sure).
PS: Sorry, I gave you some spoilers earlier. I hope you didn’t read them
I didn’t see it!
Have you seen Dr Storks? That was a two season medical drama that I enjoyed. Have you seen on A starry night? I didn’t like that one as much due to deaf man having no concept of personal space.
I finished it. It was lovely to see how Sanpei put her back together again one memory at a time and he never once took advantage of her waiting until she had regained her memories of him. I love that she fell first from the moment she heard him speak she was mesmerised.
I may have missed a bit but I was thinking at some point the matcha powder was going to be something he started because of it was something connected with her taste.
I was also confused why he left her in the bed waiting for medics to arrive before making the trip to hospital when everyone talks about the golden hour with strokes.
I also found it odd that she was so ill yet her family were not visiting the home or hospital.
I was most confused about the incident she overheard that led to the accident as if she was having an affair with the board member they bribed.
I have been very impressed with the Japanese dramas this year I think these three will be my standouts:
Tiger with wings
Unmet: Aru Nogikai no Nikki
Umi no Hajimari
Previous favourites were First love, Silent, Brush up life, He’s expecting and Why I dress up for love.
@reply1988 This will be a long reply in parts 😅
“until she had regained her memories of him. I love that she fell first from the moment she heard him speak she was mesmerised.”
I don’t quite follow 😅. Is this your understanding of the last scene? Coz the subtitlers mistake changes it all.. She DID NOT regain her memories.. Infact, she might have LOST MORE as Sanpei fears. The drama kept emphasising that brain injuries/ ailments, and surgeries often leave physiological/ psychological/ intellectual after-effects which CANNOT be completely cured. He knows that as a neurologist. Still he fought against that throughout the drama. In the end however, he had come to a kind of defeated acceptance and focused just on saving her life, never hoping for her to regain her memories, which is pretty much impossible (it would have been odd if the drama showed that).
Her tears are only meant to emphasise that she may not remember him, but she still FEELS something. The emotional core of the drama relies on “the heart remembers” which was also a repeated theme if you noticed (Miyabi experiencing these strong emotions she doesn’t know the source of, and the painter’s story with his wife which I found the most poignant thing in the entire drama).
Ah yes 😅, the mistake actually was translating Sanpei’s last question to Miyabi as “Do you know where you are?”. It was actually meant to be “Can you hear me?”… so Sanpei was just checking her level of consciousness and if her senses worked fine, not hoping that she remembered
I meant Senpei didn’t tell her that he was her fiancé for the second time until the last episode when she had regressed again. He never once got in her personal space and at the very end he was never in bed with her or had kissed her.
I thought throughout the drama we saw snippets of things things from Miyabi’s perspective like she was eating meals, walking with Senpei or sitting in the room with him at the end of the day because she enjoyed being with him and we saw flashbacks to conversations they had had in the past. She didn’t always let him know that she had remembered, an example was her remembering the meal in South Africa and discussing that memory with Mai. (I didn’t get Mai’s job as she didn’t appear to be a medic but an administrator and they don’t get to fly out for International conferences with medics).
I also wondered about Miyabi crying in that scene where she touched his face and drew him asleep as if there was something she needed to capture in that moment of clarity. I also wondered if he woke up during that scene maybe when she touched him but pretended to still be asleep for her sake.
I know he was telling her the story of their engagement etc. so she didn’t remember that or that the eating of the sweets was something that she had told him.
I agree that the painter’s story and that of the little girl who was trapped immovable but could hear and understand were the ones that touched me the most. The girl was like the true story of those people trapped inside statue like bodies portrayed in the Robin Williams’ film Awakenings.
In the last episode it looked like they had gone backwards because in the last few episodes all the times we saw her with everyone she was chatting normally but then in that episode we saw that they still needed to introduce themselves to her. The resident made me laugh with his enthusiasm every time he did his intro. It was also funny how they all reacted to them being engaged. I also loved the earlier episode where the nurse friend stayed over to be her Cliffsnotes version of the diary so she could get ready for the first time she was going to take part in an operation. I did wonder how she got through the diary each day as more and more info was added.
Her team were lovely and I loved how they supported each other after the safety officer managed to relax her vice like grip on things and regain her own confidence. It seemed like it was a place of nurturing for everyone there.
At the very end I don’t know if she knew him or not but she felt safe.
I wonder if the words are quite similar and are context dependent and it was on reflection they realised their mistake or if someone else pointed it out to them later?
@reply1988 (I’m just tagging to ensure this reaches, I hope I’m not being a bother 😅)
“I was also confused why he left her in the bed waiting for medics to arrive before making the trip to hospital when everyone talks about the golden hour with strokes.”
I don’t quite follow here either 😅. Are you saying he left her and went to the hospital? He didn’t do that. He just went to the fridge to eat something cool to calm his overwhelmed mind which was, hey, yoghurt ppl 😅, but also something relatable and entirely understandable (he knew she was in a coma, and things won’t get dramatically worse in a few moments). The emotional turmoil someone faces during a beloved person’s medical emrgncy (inappropriate word 🙄), is something unimaginable (I have certainly faced that, so I found that scene very realistic). The most important thing that occured in those few moments (it wasn’t actually that long before the medics arrived) was that he got to know her perspective regarding her disability/ ailment, as well as the depth of his feelings for him FOR THE FIRST TIME. As I said earlier, in the end his hopes regarding Miyabi became more realistic (and less selfish). Reading her diary really helped him focus on WHAT SHE WANTED during the surgery (that scene in the surgery where we are shown a “view of his mind”). He had a faint hope that she would remember him throughout the drama, but in the end, he just wanted to keep that “light inside her” (which he had fell in love with) ALIVE.
I meant he rang the hospital to let them know the stroke had kicked rather than ringing to discuss that while they were waiting for the ambulance. I don’t see the difference having them come in the ambulance or have them waiting at the hospital to greet the ambulance.
@reply1988
Regarding the absence her parents…. I have no explanations and found it odd myself.
The shock that caused her accident might have an explanation. She idealised Prof. Osako (the plant doctor) her entire life, you see. So it might have been shocking to see that he is not “so godly”. But that shock was still quite dramatic, of course.
A lot of things have not been made explicit in the drama, for better or for worse. For the worse, coz it made all the backstories incomplete, and all the “mysteries” anticlimatic in the end. And for the better coz a lot of screen time was saved so that it could be focused on some very well-done patient stories and the main characters’ emotions, while we could exercise our imaginations to fill in the gaps.
I agree Prof Osaka went rogue to get the money and power to be able to do the good things he wanted for those vulnerable people who didn’t have access to the best resources.
I guess they were referring to another woman the board member was associating with and Miyabi just happened to be visiting the Professor at the time so overheard the conversation. I agree it was an unnecessary plot device to bring in tension and it was great they didn’t waste time on it.
Did you read the original manga? Or background on the story? It really seems to have gripped you.
@anne18 I will tag you in here when I am done to avoid spoilers for others in the chain. I am half way through and enjoying it. It is so disappointing to see how many people are happily taking advantage of the most vulnerable person in the room😞
@reply1988 I had fun revisiting this drama through you. In the end I’ll state my overall opinion on the drama
Here’s what I noted in “my diary” 😅 about Unmet A Neurosurgeon’s Diary
The drama tried to portray different attitudes in the society, as well as in the medical community, towards people with incurable disabilities/ ailments. Sanpei’s and Osako’s opposing approaches towards treating such patients, posed a moral dilemma – what’s the right way to illuminate the worlds of people with these disabilities/ ailments? Should one aim at complete recovery (which thankfully, the drama was realistic enough to show NOT happening), or should one prioritise patients with better prognosis over those with poor chance of recovery? Neither of them were ideal in how they dealt with those questions. (And those dilemmas/ questions might have been based on some kind of reality that the original manga writer faced in his real-life experience as a neurosugeon). The answers lied in understanding the point of view of the patients (or their guardians), their relationship with their disability/ ailment, and that they get to decide how to deal with it (I think a lot of which, we got through Miyabi’s diary, feelings, and her way of practicing medicine). Though clichés, dramatisation and mystification distracted the story from these important points (one has to stay true to the “serialised manga” roots 😆), they also reeled in the audience (like me 😅) and connected them to the characters, most of who I found as relatable (for once, someone humanised doctors by showing how much they FEEL and PRACTICE for surgery, instead of turning them into these tone-deaf “geniuses”) as they were intriguing, even if flawed (whether intentionally or unintentionally 😅).
Other things I liked include the minimal dialogues, small talks (with some amazing improvised dialogues, or dialogue-less scenes by Hana Sugisaki and Ryuya Wakaba), and the visual storytelling (the scenes within people’s “heads”). In the operating room, the casual banter, the relaxed attitude (especially Sanpei’s), as well as the calm tension which was so perceptible even without graphic scenes, were all so realistic and delicately filmed. Also thanks to some really good acting by the rest of the cast. And gosh, I DO NOT regret loving the chemistry as much as I did ❤
PS: I am sorry. You might find my disorganised way of writing difficult to understand 😅
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoyed this discussion with you as I don’t often get to talk in detail about the J dramas I am watching which is a real shame when there are so many elements of interest. I also don’t get to hear about the good slice of life ones like this and only see the light rom coms. But my three favourites for this year were all flagged up by beanies although it meant going on an undercover operation to find them it was definitely worth it.
I am really grateful for this experience too. This drama “gripped me” is such an appropriate term 😅🙈. I am actually in bed with a fever with nothing else to do.. So please be understanding of my craziness 😂. I hijacked your post with my uneeded enthusiasm 😅.
I talked to the subtitler, who had read the original manga (it’s in Japanese so I can’t, even if I want to). Here’s a bit of a cute addition to their love story from the manga…. While they were caught off in the island due to Covid outbreak, they stayed there for 2 months to treat other patients even after Sanpei recovered. Since they had lied about being engaged, the locals held a surprise wedding ceremony for them as a “thank you” 😃. Later, Sanpei asked her to stay with him forever (real proposal).
Oh wow poor you but what a drama to spend your time with. I hope you feel better soon.
You can’t casually mention that you chatted with the subtitler without giving context as to how that came about🤣. I met someone on here who casually mentioned they were one of the Viki subtitlers when we were criticising Viki for not paying them when they are the reason people prefer Viki over Netflix.
I am glad you confirmed it was Covid as the African context made me wonder about Ebola I just couldn’t remember which country that originated from or the timing.
I wonder what the neurosurgeon’s colleagues thought about the manga. It’s like Daily dose of sunshine was written by a psychiatric nurse.
There’s no secret about my chat with the subtitler 😂. They are a fan-subber who take initiative to announce their subtitle updates by themselves on MDL (I don’t know if that’s a usual practice, as I am new to fan-subbing). So I asked them on MDL. They said it was Covid too.
The manga writer has stopped their medical practice and is a full time manga writer now. I understand the need for mystification as this manga was one that’s serialised in a periodic magazine. So one has to keep the interest alive even by betraying one’s own former profession 😂
Great news about the surgeon turned manga writer few people get this level of success in two very different careers. I wonder if he was forced to be a doctor and once he had proved himself gave himself permission to leave and follow his true calling or if it was always his plan to make big money so he could retire early to follow his passion? I wonder if he is married has children?
Regarding how the translater got the context wrong and how they realised their mistake… I quote them
In Japanese, doctors usually just ask a very general “Do you understand/know?” question to check someone’s consciousness/orientation, while in English they usually ask things like “Can you hear me?” / “Do you know where you are?” / “Do you know what happened?” etc.
For most of the drama, I translated it as “Can you hear me?” because it was usually a scene of unclear consciousness or seizures and strokes.
I didn’t feel that this line was appropriate for the last scene, but I couldn’t think of a better question that wouldn’t normally have an embedded question in English, whereas in Japanese they just leave out the embedded question, so yeah, the result is a slightly more specific question and answer than the original script intended.
Also, they realised after
I was afraid of this, but when I read another interview with the producer of Unmet, the last line in the drama was really meant to be as ambiguous as possible. I made a conscious decision to be more specific in the translation
So a purportedly ambiguous ending… but the director also pretty much made it clear that they had tried to stay true to the fact that sequalae (after-effects) remain uncurable. And… they also said there would be a second season.. I don’t know how I feel about that though. This was enough for me. A special might do to satisfy my curiosity about their backstory which was piqued by her sleep-talking about “my wallet is missing” and “stay” 😃
A second season might be like Dr Storks with more info on the lovely team and the case examples. I loved that drama for showing the multiple things that happen when mothers or babies have issues during pregnancy or birth. I wonder how the manga ended or if they will add their own continuation?
I have worked with psychologists who support families managing their children’s new personalities after an acquired brain injury and it really is devastating for siblings and parents.
The manga’s last part was actually published AFTER the drama ended (but the ending was already decided). It had explored the side characters with greater deatail, so there might be scope for season two, but no menacing grandpas please!
Wow, now I am really curious how an insider like you perceives medical dramas? Do you find the “creative liberties” laughable or offensive 😅
I always see dramas whatever the setting as just that and sometimes they add ridiculous elements just to make a story work.
I am a family therapist so love dealing with family relationships and that’s why I love slice of life and found family dramas like Reply 1988 and Be melodramatic, and why I could handle the awfulness of the family stories in The good bad mother and Strangers again. However, I can’t take even the mildest tension like stalkers and other ‘abnormal’ elements in what I assumed was a rom com as I did not sign up for that after an emotionally draining day at work.
I am pretty forgiving about most tropes and family issues too. And I loved Reply 1988 too! I found the middle class neighbourhood very well portrayed. My no-goes include severe depression, death and terminal illnesses. I also avoid “too much realism” 🤭
Oh you wouldn’t like Umi No Hajimari then as it starts with a death of a parent and then tells the story of what happens next and Tiger with wings covers World War Two and the aftermath although it is really uplifting for the most part. Did you watch Brush up life as that was more about the comedy as she kept getting reincarnated.
No I haven’t watched it, yet. I really like female POVs. Though, time loop stories are a hit or miss with me and I have never tried that set-up in a drama. So, let’s see!
Meanwhile, I just read that Unmet has won 6 Japanese drama academy awards (including Best Drama)! Here are interviews of the winners that you can translate and read (they reveal how much of the drama was just brilliant improvisation born out of the team’s passion for their work):
Best Director- https://thetv.jp/news/detail/1214050/
@zgs1994 my email if you are interested in being included in the meet up list: [email protected]
The Watch and Discuss K Drama club meets monthly on Zoom to discuss an agreed drama this month is My holo love. We are a small group of Beanies from diverse cultural backgrounds based in different countries and meet even if we have not watched the drama as it is such a friendly group, we modelled it on the Book club from I will come to you when the weather is fine.
Thanks to all the beanies who joined the discussion on The sense of wonder. I really enjoyed the book and the points raised by those able to join the discussion.
We are now getting ready for the DB book club Autumn read: Almond by Wonpyung Sohn.
Please note this is a Young Adult novel that covers some triggering material which may cause offence or be upsetting in terms of violence, bullying, trauma and depictions of neurodivergent conditions.
Our host will be: @too_much_tv
Please look out for their fanwall posts with the questions which will be available in advance of the discussion.
Date for discussion: 10th November 2024
I was just thinking the book club has been running for a while now and some of you may have decided you no longer want to be in the tag list please let me know as I have just realised I have two lists so we can update the list to only include those who remain interested going forward.
I’ve been dealing with family crises all summer so I haven’t been keeping up with things too well, but I would love to stay on the list and hopefully read the book for fall.
@toomuchtv The DB book club revised membership for the invite to discuss Almond on 13th October 2024.
When you post the questions on your fan wall please tag in these beanies. When I post there are usually a few beanies who decide to join the DB book club because they are interested in that particular book and they will let you know if they want to be tagged in.
4 stars because I came out of the story a couple of times. I really liked it otherwise and listened to it several times to see if I could catch the relevance of the several mentions of the ‘frame of reference’.
I’m not sure if I was the audience for this. I don’t care for sport (unless it’s in a Kdrama :P) and this specifically was about American Basketball / the NBA. Plus everything mentioned about Kdramas I already knew, tho I do remember reading an article where the author said the Kdramas in the novel were ideas he thought for actual Kdramas! Which honestly I’d watch, especially the one about the fortune-teller and the woman who sees ghosts. Anyway a lot of the context went over my head particularly about the basketball references. For example, I didn’t know who Jeremy Lin was or “Linsanity” and that this novel was somewhat inspired by his story.
Yes, I wondered if the use of the two industries with sexism and racism being the focus of each meant the author was trying to widen the appeal to a wider audience than sports fan.
I felt it could be read without having an awareness of the real person it related to because there are plenty of other examples of racism in other areas of life and for me I was very aware of the experiences of Black players in British football over the years.
Yes good point! I think that could also tie back it into the frame of reference. We all have different experiences, from the countries we live in, our various cultures, beliefs and the media we consume. Our frame of reference is all different. I might not have much knowledge about sport but I have experienced and seen racism in other fields and particularly the media
Reply1988 — thank you so much for hosting! Your moderator qustions above are great, to which I plan to add my thoughts.
I give Sense of Wonder 4* (out of 5*). I was pleased to read a novel by and about Korean Americans. I bonded with the characters enough to be saddened by (what seemed to me) their unhappiness and resentment resulting from being taken from the culture of their birth yet not being able to feel completely part of the culture of the country of their upbringing.
For the past few years I have followed US basketball, so I appreciated the sports aspects (though I did not understand all the jargon used). I enjoyed the interplay between the story and Kdrama references/observations.
I guess I do that rating thing a lot since I frequently record my reading on GoodReads. On there, I see I gave it 5 stars when I finished the book back in May. Here’s the thing: I love to read novels. I am always so pleased right when I finish a book. This one had great pacing and intelligible structure, so I felt great when I read it.
While I enjoyed the book thoroughly in parts, there were some that went above my head. I bought this book twice – one in hardcover, and then in Kindle just because it was easier to revisit on Kindle. I never mind investing in books but this is an overkill because it’s not a book I would revisit once the book club is over, much like a K-drama you finish because you want to be a part of the community discussing it.
I wondered if it was referencing what Carrie had called the love triangle bromance between Robert, Paul and Won or if it was the friendship being renewed between Robert and Won. I even wondered about whether Britt and Paul re established their relationship without basketball and her having her own career again.
I also wondered if the frame of reference in the wider context could refer to the normalising of Asian American basketball players or the explosion of K-dramas on the global market and how readily available they now are on platforms like Netflix.
I really don’t know though and I hope someone in the book club has been able to work it out.
To be very honest, the ‘Frame of reference’ remark felt more like grandstanding than a meaningful insight. The book is littered with how each individual has been stereotyped into behaving a certain way in every situation.
In India, kids born in US are often referred to as ‘ABCD’ – American Born Confused Desis (Desi being the term applied to all Indians).
What I meant to say is that if we do take a frame of reference, with frame being a tangible object within which the book has been written, I think it would be racism, societal projections, cultural limitations and glass ceiling.
The intergenerational trauma of the overseas adoption of Korean children and the impact of immigration for the parents who chose to leave South Korea to give their children opportunities in the US were shown from multiple angles throughout the book. What are your thoughts on these themes of adults making decisions that changed their child’s experiences of ‘being Korean’?
I was impressed with the range of different adoption experiences weaved into the story from Carrie’s mum reclaiming her identity, to Robert staying away from the country. The fan who contacted Carrie with her own story was like something out of a documentary.
It was interesting that it was the two dad’s wanting to protect their adult children from the consequences of returning to Korea. I wondered if the dad’s had returned to Korea for trips or had maintained contact with friends/family who could keep them up to speed so the Korea of their day was not still frozen in their minds.
I listened to the book on Audible which used a male and a female actor to read the story. The story included a a number of female characters and yet I felt very conscious of the male voice throughout the story. As a reader did any elements stand out for you as being male or female focused elements of the story?
The elements that took me out of the story into thinking this is written by a man were: the karaoke sex scene, opening with the locker room joke and description of Britt’s bottom as one that ‘looked like it had a daily workout’.
Carrie’s entrapment scene with the executive in Korea just seemed out of character and pointless it didn’t feel like something a woman would write especially for a character like Carrie. I also didn’t understand the scene with the good looking assistant director who Carrie ‘forced’ to have sex with her, I didn’t get how that could happen even bearing in mind the power dynamics that she had reminded him of in the car.
Yes the scene with Carrie and the assistant was a big red flag for me, at best it was dubious consent and I was baffled that it didn’t come up later in the story. Sadly I think those situations are quite common with such emphasis on hierarchy and employees feeling like they’d lose their jobs if they don’t comply with their bosses demands. These type of scenarios are portrayed often in Kdramas tho usually through the opposite gender dynamics. I even remember in the novel KIM JIYOUNG, BORN 1982, one of the interview questions was how would the prospective (women) employees handle sexual harassment.
I’m curious why the author chose to the write that scene, was he trying to say that regardless of gender, when someone holds so much power and authority it can easily be abused? Still it felt nonchalant, as there seemed to be no further discussion or consequence for Carrie. Which yes is realistic but left a bad taste in my mouth.
I agree that we tend to see it with the female being the victim but I literally could not understand how it is possible to physically coerce a man even if he was smaller if it was something he did not want to do. It felt like the term open relationship was short hand for Carrie having a lack of boundaries and forceful nature so men would fall into line if she wanted them to.
I appreciated the spectrum of the female characters: Duckey (whose life seemed to be built around a man), Brit (the cool beautiful female, whom every male would desire, and Carrie (strong, self-made).
I am ok if the author is saying that authority and power can always be abused — even by a woman. However, to me, the Carrie/assistant sex episode seemed carelessly dropped into the story, and not sufficiently explained or resolved.
It was totally, totally male voice through and through. Carrie’s voice was particularly masculine, even though she is supposed to be sensitive and thoughtful. Everything that’s typically important to women is left out completely. She never checks her reflection, adjusts her skirt, becomes self conscious of the male gaze, and treats sex like it’s a bodily need (which it is, but not in the way women generally see it when they are in a relationship, even an open one. It’s odd to say the least). Not that dominance and sexual abuse is not handed down by women, but to me, it felt even more stereotypic of how an “American’ woman would behave with regards to sex – casual and a tool for dominance. It was jarring and not in character. I struggled with Carrie’s character all through the book.
Recently, I enquired of a high school girl what she has been reading. She sputtered before she said, almost embarrassed, that she read romance. To encourage her, I told her there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. To give her company, I bought her favourite author – Ana Huang. She writes racy love stories of troubled characters, many of whom are Asian.
What took me by surprise was her voice for both men and women, but more than that how seamlessly she has woven characters of all races to blend into one rich sheet of diversity, even though she does not shy away from the stereotypical problems Asians and people of mix heritage face. Even though it’s all peppy and sugary and comes with the high of predictability, it’s also a voice that one can’t ignore.
Won and Carrie worked in two very different industries, what are your thoughts on the messages regarding the importance of ‘being seen’ that came through in the exploration of their experiences? (Please note my spelling may be incorrect as I did not see their names written down)
The standout scene for me was Won meeting with the fan wearing Won’s number who did not recognise it was the actual Won and not a random Asian American fan. The use of the phrase cockroach and its link to Won’s memories of his ‘friend’ from university who had his own theory on the ‘real’ world.
The relationship that represented this for Carrie was the push/pull nature of her relationship with the PD she ended up working with on the basketball drama.
I questioned the scene of the fan wearing Won’s jersey but not recognizing him as Won. I am a baseball fan who follows the Philadelphia Phillies, but I have a fixation on Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani who currently plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I (white) would happily recognize him anywhere.
Agree. That was an overkill and the dead horse was flogged many times over. I sat on the School Comm board for my local town and showed up on TV every week. I have not met anyone since who has confused me with anyone else.
I was fascinated by the explanations of the Korean drama format. I was really surprised Carrie’s first attempt to bring K drama to US was to recommend: For the love of your future self which has a context that could only be made in Korea. Someone seeing ghosts is not an alien concept but this storytelling style and the subject matter is a lot without a frame of reference. I would have gone for something mainstream like her basketball drama. I liked both dramas and would watch them both I think this book would make a great drama or film at the very least.
I thought the way the warm up and actual proposal scenes were written as a sequence of events really did fit with how Won and Carrie’s relationship played out.
I liked the exploration of relationships; Carrie and her sister being like twins, Carrie’s mum’s relationship with each of her children, Won’s childhood friendship with ‘Handsome’, Robert finally getting a friend in Won but not knowing how to maintain it alongside his hyper focus on his romantic relationship.
I thought some of the author’s explanations to Americans viewing/reading Kdramas were interesting. For example a character explains that in Kplots things happen to people because of who they are rather than what they choose. And later a character says that American audiences need to adjust to fate and circumstance being the driving engine of one’s life, instead of free will. (Please note — I know many (most?) dramabeans readers are not Americans, but sometimes characters in the novel specifically referred to Americans.)
Yes, I would watch Kdramatization of all the stories in the novel.
I think the references were connected to the audience the characters were relating to because Carrie was selling her ideas to her boss in the US and Won was facing issues because he was playing for a US team.
I also wondered about the author’s experiences as adoption featured so highly and now I have read up on him I can see a few themes are related to his lived experiences. He wrote the book after his wife died of cancer and he is raising their children alone. He was born in Korea and adopted by a White American couple when he was two, he went to Korea and married a Korean woman. I wonder what it is like to miss your birth mother and country of birth to then have to raise very young children who will also miss their birth mother for reason’s beyond your control and having to raise children unplanned as a single dad and while grieving 😭
Yes! I thought these comments made the book so appropriate for this group to read! I don’t know who suggested which books, but kudos to whomever picked this one! I know a lot of people on here might argue about the analysis and the duality between the two cultures. Obviously there are more than two cultures in the world. But this helped the author gather up the plot elements of his story and keep us with him until the end.
We asked everyone who was interested in setting up a DB book club to list books they wanted us to cover and we then voted on the top 5. We also discussed the frequency of the discussions and how to host. We will need to do the next batch of voting for next year’s books soon. But we may want to check if beanies still want the club as a lot of the beanies who asked to be tagged in last year are rarely on the site these days and those that are have not participated in some of the discussions. It has also been harder to find hosts than we thought it would be.
I thought it really was a great book for this group too and it’s a shame the discussion didn’t happen as planned last week as maybe more people would have participated then.
I thought a lot about who was the main character and who was the POV character. Robert Sung is the main character and Won Lee is the POV character. What about Carrie? Carrie has all the personality and heart, what’s her role? She doesn’t have to make decisions the way that Won does.
I loved Carrie and I think it’s because Matthew Salesses loves Carrie. I love her sister K, and I think that’s because K is standing in for Matthew Salesses’ wife who died of her cancer.
Carrie’s sexuality and the open relationship seemed like an argument that Salesses was making about sexual fidelity and loyalty. No one was more loyal than Carrie, even though the two of them started their relationship with the intent to be ethically non-monogamous. I really wondered how people who met through a love of the highly structured and formal world of Korean romance would take this aspect of things.
Ah, yeah, so, I thought a lot about Won Lee and Carrie, but Won Lee was also in a love triangle with Powerball! and Robert. Powerball! is really just a sketch, even though he’s so important to Robert Sung and to Won Lee himself. He’s admirable, he’s masculine (I almost wrote, “he’s masculinity” which is true too!) but he is also not realized.
I am not sure why we don’t hear that Powerball! is black until well into the book. Is this because the author thinks we’ll assume all great basketball players in the US are black? Eek. The scene where Powerball! revealed to be a great dad is very moving. It seems like his main role is to be “a man”—a guy who is good at leading, who works hard, who will fuck anyone but loves only his wife, and a person who is good at playing with children in a way that helps them grow. I felt like there was a lot in here about what it means to be a man.
Racism is big in this book but it feels incidental to the decisions of the main characters. I made a note to myself that I needed to think about how it functions. It’s almost like a deus ex machina. (I didn’t think about it after I made that note. I just read a bunch of other books instead!)
I am very sure it was quasi-based on Jeremy Lin, the basketball player who has been dubbed ‘Linsanity’ (in the book Wonderkid serves the same purpose). Hence the sport.
I definitely think he was an inspiration as there are a lot of the key plot points covered including the sales of the shirt, 7 games claim to fame and breaking the promise re the contract.
Are we discussing the book here? I have my notes ready. I feel a little bit like I’m auditioning a high school musical and I’m waiting for my cue to start singing. (“Don’t tell me not to live!/
Just sit and putter…”)
Thanks for rounding up @toomuchtv I did cut and paste the tags of everyone who asked to be included, does it not work if we cut and paste tags in to a post?
Little did I know when I made my first comment on 8th May 2022 that I would be posting my 10k comment today.
I am so grateful to all who are devoted to producing the K-dramas that bring the beanies so much joy. A special thanks goes to the DB team who provide the fun recaps and this amazingly safe place for us to dissect K-dramas. To all the beanies who have interacted with me over the years gamsahamnida, small bow
The beanie hive mind is a powerful force and managed to solve a mystery that was bugging me for years. Back in 2022 I even asked our great DB staff to add it to the Name that drama request list. Thank you @ally-le@enriquequierecagar@bebeswtz@seeker@ceciliedk@coffeprince4eva@marcusnyc20 for your support with this. It turns out that the reason my Google searches for K dramas about siblings kept bringing up blanks was because it was the J drama All about my siblings from 2014! Special thanks go to @attiton who found the drama title in record time.
I’m glad you were able to figure it out!! I know the feeling all too well of having a spotty memory about a drama you want to find and Google not always helping 😒 It’s happening less and less for me wherein I’m desperately trying to recall an entire drama that has skipped my mind, but I find that what’s happening more for me is trying to remember what drama a particular scene is from
Please help me find a drama I watched in my early K drama binge watching days unfortunately, I only remember a few scenes. I don’t know how old the drama is.
It was about a family of siblings whose dad had died in a work related accident and the older brother had to leave his studies to work to support the family. (Not sure what happened to the mum) This older sibling worked at the same industrial company the dad had worked at and a senior in the company appeared to be looking out for the older brother but he was actually hiding the fact that he was the one who had covered up the accident to make it look like it was the dad’s fault so the company were not held accountable. This meant the family didn’t get a compensation payment.
The sibling group was 4 or 5 with only one girl I think. They lived in the house where they had grown up with their parents. Two of the brothers shared a room with bunk beds I think. The siblings were always arguing and physically fighting each other when they all came together to eat their meals, but they would all come together if one of them was under attack out in the community.
There was an incident where the youngest had a problem with a rich kid at school and when they went to solve the problem (I think to prevent exclusion from school or a criminal record). They were at the rich person’s house the rich kids parents tried to humiliate the older brother and his siblings. I think the older brother was kneeling to plead but either the younger sibling or another sibling refused to do so as they felt the rich kid had caused the problem.
At the end I think the cover up was discovered and they got some compensation because there was a change that meant they were able to go after their dreams. They sold the house and all moved out to go off into the next phase of their individual lives. The older brother returned to his studies and moved in with his girlfriend.
I remember it because the last shots were the different rooms in the house, the furniture was gone and all that was left were little piles of rubbish in some of the rooms and amongst the rubbish were photos of the siblings some when they were younger. I was haunted by the emptiness of the house because there had been so much drama in that house and I couldn’t believe they would leave those photos behind.
There was a drone shot of them all walking off in different directions across a grass area with the OST playing in the background. It was a real tear jerker ending. It was my first time seeing that kind of scene but now I have seen the same technique used in Reply 1988 and other dramas.
I thought of the Reply 1988 ending, too … and a work accident at a construction site happens in Mad Dog, Revolutionary Love, and My Demon, at least. But they’re not it. This all rings a bell, but maybe it’s just a trope bell?
I will check my list of dramas I have seen. But they are mainly rom coms.
Reply, you may not know the year that the drama was released, but you do know what year you saw it in, so that would be the latest possible year of its release. What was that year?
Wow I can’t believe it was found so easily when it wasn’t even a K drama😮
🫘Beansprout award🌱 for taking up the challenge. Thank you for doing your detective work I looked at the last few minutes and the scenes I was referring to were there so I think the mystery has been solved. It was definitely a short drama so that and the opening scene of them chatting around the table fits too. What’s strange is that I only remember watching one J drama at that time and all the others were Chinese epics, KBS specials or weekenders so I don’t know why I would not have remembered it as a J drama. I am going to watch it now to see if I remembered it correctly or mixed up the content with anther drama.
Oh good! So glad to have helped you find some mental relief!! I enjoy these sorts of puzzles and was aided a great deal not only by your detailed memories, but also by your clarity on where your memory was fuzzy…
The premise sounds super similar but I don’t think i have seen this? It sounds like I should have though. Any idea who the actors are? Even if you don’t know the names do you remember other projects they were involved with. Was it a weekender?
I think the only show I’ve watched that’s a little similar is “Ugly Alert”. But I don’t think you’re talking about that one. If it is a really old drama, I probably won’t remember it anyway. 😭
But I’ll search through my list and see if I remember anything.
Reply, I am glad you put this synopsis out there. The mystery will get solved however,
Until if and when the mystery is solved you should put dibs (as we used to say) on that story line. Who knows if it remains unidentified maybe you can make a pitch to Netflix.
I thought it could be a weekender too because of the volume of the arguments but I think it was probably the Uncontrollably fond style of melodrama because I don’t think it was that many episodes.
I have seen this technique of showing empty rooms in previously occupied houses with occupants now dispersed / dead either with montages of earlier happy or sad scenes (in diffused focus or black and white for added impact) or photographs of scenes / people who lived earlier in the house. It is a well-worn technique but it gets me each time. Because houses may be just brick and mortar but it is the people and their emotions which make it a home.
I always feel nostalgic watching such scenes so I actively avoid them if I can. I may watch Reply 1988 again but I won’t watch that empty street scene again, or else I’ll get too emotional.
Same with airport scenes. I don’t like the airport myself and whenever I visit my parents, I’d rather they would not come to pick me up or see me off. My heart aches knowing there’re our beloved ones left behind longing for us to come back.
I’ve seen this drama, I think. But I have no idea what it is off the top of my head either. The first part about not getting compensation due to an industrial accident which was blamed on the worker seems very familiar though.
Yes it is really hard on the family who are left trying to clear the loved one’s name or fighting for compensation when they have enough issues with grieving and trying to survive when they have lost the main earner.
I hope that those of you who managed to read the second book on the DB book club list found it an interesting experience. Thanks to those who were able to participate in the discussion yesterday🥰. Anyone who wants to add their thoughts at a later date is welcome to come back and add them on The mermaid from Jeju Fanwall post
The next book is: The sense of wonder by Matthew Salesses
The discussion will be held on Sunday 14th July and will be hosted by @lapislazulii on their fanwall. We are looking forward to sharing our thoughts with those who are able to join us on the day.
Advance notice the final book for 2024 is: Almond by Won-pyung Sohn
Date: 13th October 2024
No worries @lapislazulii should have the list of those interested and will be tagging everyone in with the list of questions and for the discussion. Hopefully you have been enjoying the book and even if not you will be joining in the discussion to let us know your views.
Oh, I loved it! I made notes so I wouldn’t forget what I thought. I just saw that the library renewed it one last time, and I wanted to keep it on hand to look at parts other people liked. Also, I wanted to make sure that @wapzy knew about the book group, since they are looking to branch out.
Thanks for bringing in others who may be interested as the tag group may miss beanies who missed the original mention months ago that’s why we try to flag with each new book as a lot can happen between each of the quarterly get togethers. I am excited to read your comments next month! I hope we have a good turn out.
It was really interesting to think about how children can be spiritually connected to a country they have not been to or rarely visit. The author’s experience was so unusual she would not have had a context to put it in without the support of those who lived in Korea and had the knowledge to explain what was going on for her.
I was able to reflect back on the story and pick out the different parts of the story where the Grandmother and Mr Moon had elements of the author’s story weaved into their experiences:
Grandmother knowing about the army boys arrival so she made preparations for them before she died.
The grandmother’s reflections of her younger engagement in freedom fighting and the punishment she associated with those actions was her losing her sons and husband.
Mr Moon could only find peace from the ghosts by returning to Korea and having an encounter with a sharman and a monk. The discussion of how faith and spirituality are ways of joining or separating from one’s culture and the past.
The chance encounter with the three men meeting at a place that represented a place of sorrows.
Mr Moon’s friendship with a boy whose mum was a shaman.
Honestly, the author’s note at the end blew my mind. It really lingered with me after I finished the book.
I found the fact that she offered this information interesting in and of itself, since the novel stands strongly on its own. For me, the value of that additional insight is that it made me reflect on the role of fiction. It’s often in fiction that we can explore what may be too difficult to touch in ‘reality’, but the line between fact and fiction can perhaps be thinner than we imagine, so the author’s note had me thinking that whilst the retelling may be fictional, it gave voice to experiences that are very real for people in times of war and conflict.
The author’s note made me think about the portrayal of shamans as con artists and or joke figures in a lot of Korean dramas. In a book I have just finished (The picture bride) they were shunned and belittled in the community. I wondered how they have survived as a profession that often they say came to them and was not necessarily something they wanted to be due to the negative connotations but often it was something that is present in several generations of their family.
This is so true – fortune tellers, psychics, mediums and similar are not unusual in certain cultures/societies (although not everyone consults or believes in them), so I wonder why they’re so rarely portrayed positively. Maybe if they were, it would be considered an endorsement of them in some way, so productions want to avoid that unless it’s a drama with supernatural elements anyway? I liked that recently, See You in My 19th Life (which I dropped) and Perfect Marriage Revenge departed from that portrayal a bit.
Prayers to various gods was an expected ritual for all aspects of life, regardless of status. The author captured this when Junja felt real disappointment when her prayers to put out the fire on the day of the wedding weren’t answered.
I liked that their beliefs in the spiritual and dream realm conferred a kind of collective superpower, but one that could not be controlled or made to do their bidding. It meant that giving thanks and paying respects was embedded into their lives, and that there was a sense that there was/were force(s) bigger than humans at play.
I agree the control element was important here as often the way prayer is portrayed, it is as if it is an instruction for the deity to comply with or they are failing in their duty.
The three women in the family each experience a significant event due to the times they were living in, which of these events stood out for you as a pivotal point in the story?
Grandmother choosing to work with the policeman because she was then in the position to work with him to save Sewol. The second significant benefit was saving the village by encouraging the women to become cooks at the camp so the the villagers could be directed to the caves when the time was right.
The shocking revelation that the mother’s death was because she refused to disclose information. This meant grandmother lost another child in horrific circumstances due to conflict.
Junja’s wedding day was the point where her eyes fully opened to the significance of the events going on around her.
For halmung, learning the consequences of having fought back with violence was what stood out for me. It informed her approach to the survival of her village, and how she lived the rest of her life.
For Junja and her mum, the decision for Junja to travel to the mountain for the first time was an insignificant one, but it became a very pivotal point in the story.
Also, for Junja, her almost drowning and meeting the sea king seemed to mark the point at which she became an adult.
Chance encounters, loss, loyalty, friendships and closure are some of the themes running through this story. What were the themes you connected with and why?
The scene with the three men discussing their horrific experiences which connected them all to the same event. That conversation led to reflections and healing for them all.
This scene stood out because years later the same place is a tourist attraction because of its natural beauty. There are no plaques describing the atrocities that took place there. It made me wonder how many places have I visited that also have untold stories associated with them.
I liked this story’s nuanced exploration of loyalty – loyalty was something that could kill you or save you. It is seen as a virtue, as a demonstration of trust, but it is also how people can be condemned through guilt by association.
I also think loyalty meant sacrifice of the personal for the benefit of society and for some of the characters that was at a significant cost to their own needs and desires. It really highlighted the dilemma’s faced across the country at that time and reminded me of Chicago Typewriter.
Yes, this! I’m still heartbroken for Sewol. Letting go of Junja seemed like the only choice he felt he could make for the people of Jeju, his family and Junja.
Hello
The day has finally arrived for us to discuss this book. I am looking forward to reading your thoughts on this interesting perspective of the life of the Jeju islanders.
Thanks much again to Reply1988 (and to all the care and concern you show)!
The picture of 1940s Jeju village and mountain every-day life were interesting to me, so I was more engaged in that part of the novel set in the time when the occupying Japanese left and the Nationalists and US forces/consultants arrived. I think the focal point of this part of the story for me is about a proud hard-working group of people whose lives dramatically changed for the worst almost overnight by external forces. Yet they maintained their humanity, and their loyalty and love for their island, its people and culture.
I was attracted to the novel primarily because of the title. I had hoped that the haenyeo and their daily lives would be part of the fabric of the story in the way that deaf communication (in particular sign language) were in Tell Me That You Love Me, and professional wrestling was in Flowers in Sand. (I mention these 2 dramas because I became immersed in learning so much about something that I knew so little.) So I was disappointed that I didn’t feel that much wiser about Junja’s life as a haenyeo.
Probably because I do not consider myself religious or spiritual (though I respect those who are), I generally do not connect with stories in which ghosts and shamans are fundamental. And I did not do so for this novel. But I thought @reply1988 and @mellowarmadillo (dramadillo?) remarks about the spiritual were beautifully meaningful.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this story and the aspects that appealed to you. It is interesting that the story was split into two distinct times and locations but unlike Pachinko we didn’t get to travel alongside Junja.
I agree the details about the day to day lives of the haenyeo was limited, I am sure there are other books that cover this element but I am not sure whether any of the authentic ones have been translated into English.
I hope you will join us in future book club discussions and hopefully there will be a story that you feel you can connect to.
@reply1988 Thank you so much Mother Bean! Thanks to you, I am doing a book club after a long time. Your prompts are incredibly insightful.
1) How would you rate this book on a scale of 0-5 stars?
I would place this at a 3.5 (I will explain my ratings at the end.
2) What impact did the author’s note to the reader have on your thoughts about this fictional telling of historical events?
This book has the most poignant author’s note I have ever read. It elevates the book-reading experience and makes you pause at the thin line that separates spiritualism from unquestioning belief in something as is and superstition. The way she describes the voices, it gave me goosebumps. In my lifetime, I have experienced a few unexplained, and I have never been able to comprehend their hows and whys.
3) What are your thoughts on the role spiritual/dream elements played in everyday life for these characters?
I loved the cultural aspect of it. It was grounded in old-school realism of spiritualism in everyday life of men and women. I connected to the halmung almost like I used to with my own grandma. For me, the standout was Sowol’s dream…or was it Junja’s? Does one stop dreaming when dead? It is a stunning piece of writing.
4) The three women in the family each experience a significant event due to the times they were living in, which of these events stood out for you as a pivotal point in the story?
The massacre in the hill shaped the way they lived the rest of Junja’s life, surpassing even the devastation of her wedding day or the loss of her grandmother. Without that event, Junja’s trajectory might have been somewhat different. The guilt experienced by Mr. Moon, Junja, and the monk imbues the book with a lasting depth that is hard to shake. It also is the catalyst for driving Mr. Moon back to SK later.
5)Chance encounters, loss, loyalty, friendships and closure are some of the themes running through this story. What were the themes you connected with and why?
Loss. This book is centred on loss. It starts with the protagonist’s death and never takes a breather. I would not say I connected, though. I am not a fan of tragedies. However, the book also addresses closure, which helps alleviate some of the heavy, melancholic elements that dominate the narrative.
What I loved: The prose. It’s a beautifully written book. Even though the theme was heavy and melancholy, the writing was never cumbersome. It flowed crystal clear, with clarity and depth, and it gave every character a distinct voice.
The young Mr Moon was fascinating. He reminded me of a quintessential K-drama hero—drop-dead gorgeous, shy, falling first and hard, etc – the typical K-drama trope. He is so very sweet and fascinated by this slip of a girl who does not give him the time of the day. I would have loved to know more about him.
The lieutenant – perhaps the most exciting character.
What slipped: The dividing of the book into two parts.
The sudden shift to the modern-day US setting and the sudden focus on Mr. Moon felt jarring, pulling me out of the book. I stopped reading because I couldn’t relate to the character; Nothing pointed to his eventual union with Junja. Of course, everything becomes clear towards the end, and then I felt frustrated that we didn’t get more of their love story. It was evident that Junja fell in love with him. However, their eventual personas in the US were so different from who Junja and Mr. Moon used to be, and they were so cardboard that their narrative felt disjointed to me.
Why did Junja give up everything she had learned and eventually embrace Christianity? What compelled her to approach the church’s door? They still lived by the ocean in the US. How did she never return to diving again? Was she angry at the Ocean King for taking away everything she loved? It was such an integral part of her identity, and if the author had maintained her connection to the ocean, or at least explained the absence of it, the character’s narrative would have had a stronger sense of continuity.
I am so glad you joined the book club for this one, thank you for sharing such an interesting perspective. Now that you have said that about Mr Moon I am picturing this being turned into a great K drama.
The change in focus from one story teller to another at the end of one life and the pull back to Korea was an interesting approach for the author to take. I wonder what it was like to write from the perspectives of characters at two very different developmental stages.
I hope that you will join us for future book club posts.
This was a wonderful breather. I love to read, but it’s been a challenge with trying to juggle everything on my plate currently. So this gave me an opportunity to do so. The last book I did for a book club was ‘The Help’, so it’s been that long, so thank you!
I also think calling Mr Moon by a formal name made the character distant to me, as if I was reading about a neighbour I am not very interested in going about his routine. They lived a fairly long married life, shared two children, and yet I could not feel the bonding, and I missed that. To me, the first half of the book is written better narrative wise, but the last quarter is powerful. The middle is much like a k-drama – stretched, boring with nothing much happening.
@minniegupta1 “The middle is much like a k-drama – stretched, boring with nothing much happening”👈🏾🤣 more evidence this would easily convert to a K-drama.
We chose quarterly discussions via the fanwall rather than more frequently on video to allow for the busy but we know beanies will opt in and out for multiple reasons.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 28, 2024 at 1:15 PM
Dear Hyeri will go down as having some of the best epilogues on a drama. Queen of Tears were equally good but for very different reasons.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 1:12 PM
Beanie level Update
Candy 8th May 2022
Jung Geu rae 20th May 2022
Water maid 24th May 2022
Noble idiot 29th May 2022
Eunuch in drag 7th June 2022
Chaebols poor doppelgänger 20th June 2022
Goblin’s underpants 1st July 2022
Wrongly accused fugitive 9th July 2022
Errand boy 17th July 2022
Rooftop room dweller 17th October 2022
Loan Shark with a heart of Gold 4th May 2023
Entertainer in training 14th October 2023
Fan club President 11th March 2024
Unemployed slacker in a sparkly tracksuit 5th October 2024
tabong
October 5, 2024 at 1:16 PM
Omo! Congrats, buddy! 😎
I hope at least you’re getting the income of some rooftop room, tho. Otherwise things could get hard with time. Fighting!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 1:20 PM
🤣 The interest from the loan shark work and the successful debut have helped too.
tabong
October 5, 2024 at 1:34 PM
Nice! If you need a little bit of help, my office is always open. I offer a lower interest rate to my friends. 😉
HopefulRomantic 🦋 Tigermoth 🦞
October 5, 2024 at 1:22 PM
Whoa!!!! Yayyyy Reply!!!! 🤗🥳🎉🎊✨️ That’s amazing progress!!!! Thanks for being such a bright light here on the site!!!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 1:27 PM
🥰 thank you so sweet. You are part of the chingu crew who show up like the Northern lights🌟
HopefulRomantic 🦋 Tigermoth 🦞
October 5, 2024 at 1:42 PM
Aww thank you!!! 🤗❤️🌠
Nessa (Bebe) 🌹
October 5, 2024 at 1:32 PM
Yay yay yay!!!! 🥳🎉🎊 CONGRATULATIONS!!!
But I will say, simple sparkly suits— versus tracksuits—are more in fashion these days ✨😏
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 2:05 PM
Love it 🥰 thank you for marking the occasion with appropriate pictures
Nessa (Bebe) 🌹
October 5, 2024 at 2:08 PM
✨💖
jillian
October 5, 2024 at 2:51 PM
Whoa! Your promotion to every level is very quick! Congratulations! I hope you will enjoy ur sparkly tracksuits! 🎉🌞😉
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 3:06 PM
🥰 thanks
Cori
October 5, 2024 at 3:35 PM
Congrats Reply 🎉 At least DB throws some jobs in before this level haha. Now is a good time to kick back and enjoy some instant coffee 😄
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 5:59 PM
Instant coffee🤣. Thank you.
Isa is always time travelling
October 5, 2024 at 4:49 PM
Congratulations!! 🎉🎉🎉
That sparkly tracksuit is a big prize!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 6:01 PM
Thank you. Yes and it was worth the struggle!
Healer’s
October 5, 2024 at 5:35 PM
Congratulations, Mother Bean!!
Wookie’s singing for you 💐
Healer’s
October 5, 2024 at 5:59 PM
It’s funny because he did a reality show called “I’m a slacker” 😂
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 6:05 PM
Excellent! I will spend my time watching that as I wait for my dream job to land in my lap!
Healer’s
October 5, 2024 at 6:11 PM
But Bogummy’s face in your profile pic is saying “Don’t worry about a job, dear” 🙂
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 9:20 PM
🥰
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 6:02 PM
Love it🥰 Thank you
kiara
October 5, 2024 at 8:25 PM
Yay! Onward, forward and upward.
Congrats! ❤️
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 10:49 PM
Thank you, tracksuit wearing chingu.
RenOIshi
October 5, 2024 at 10:17 PM
Tell me your secret!!! Errand boy for years now!!!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 11:48 PM
I just talk, a lot. It seems there is an approximate number of words needed per level. Checkout Kiara and Kurama both are at the same beanie level as me with a lot less comments than me. Kiara posts informative essays in the comments and on her fan wall and Kurama uses the tortoise approach consistently commenting most days over a range of posts. Some beanies write short comments and post lots of pictures on their fan wall so need a lot more comments to get the necessary word count. Cera has been commenting on the site since September 2023 and is already the next level up from me, Contract girlfriend, so it’s about how quickly you get to the word count. Due to the frequency of their commenting Cera has achieved 3000+ comments every 6-8 weeks and with it comes a level climb. In contrast in the last 6 weeks I wrote 500 comments🫤
We noticed that beanies were getting trapped in Errand Boy because it is the first level where the number of words needed to climb to the next level tripled compared to the previous levels. Those who struggled to level up tend to comment infrequently so it takes a long time to reach the word count. Once Errand boy is achieved all the later stages need an even higher word count but by this point beanies have managed their expectations so don’t expect to change levels any time soon🤣
Because you are commenting more in-depth and frequently due to the What comes after love discussions you may level up soon. It’s hard to tell based on number of comments as the veteran beanies who transferred to the new site in 2017 kept their previous comments but the word count required to climb from Candy started from scratch so even if you had 2k comments when you transferred over only the new comments counted. That’s why some veterans have high comment counts but are at lower levels and other beanies are at high levels with a relatively low comment count.
The levels are a reward for beanies making the site an interesting place to be. The more comments we add to the posts on the main site the longer the lurkers stay and eventually some will decide to join the banter to share their own views. I hope that helps to explain the challenges for the Errand boy beanies.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 6, 2024 at 12:25 AM
Sorry, just checked Kurama’s comments and currently they have more comments than me, but when they levelled up into this level they had 10K comments. So 1400 less comments than me and I had 6000 less comments than Cera when they levelled up into this level.
Some time ago Sic and Lord Cobol did the research into the mystery of the level climbs and with the newbies like Cera it is much easier to test the theories. Although, I speak with certainty it is still just a theory as there is nothing definitive from DB regarding how the levels work.
Nessa (Bebe) 🌹
October 6, 2024 at 6:32 PM
This helps and explains a lot! Word count— versus number of posts— makes sense
korfan
October 5, 2024 at 11:52 PM
Yay! Congratulations!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 6, 2024 at 12:02 AM
Thank you 🥰
Midnight
October 6, 2024 at 5:10 AM
Congratulations! 🎉🎉🎉
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 6, 2024 at 5:15 AM
Thank you 🥰
OldLawyer
October 8, 2024 at 11:57 PM
Congratulations
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 9, 2024 at 12:02 AM
Thank you 😊
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 3:44 PM
Celebrating 2k comments as a Fan club president. I will at some point level up and embarrass myself by living in a dream world thinking my tracksuit is all that 🤣.
Fan clubs are all about friends with common interests and I am using a new tagline to symbolise connections with strangers who make this corner of my life fun. To all my DB chingus old and new, thank you🫰
Healer’s
August 21, 2024 at 3:47 PM
Thank you, Mother Bean 🍻💞
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 3:49 PM
No worries 🥰
HopefulRomantic 🦋 Tigermoth 🦞
August 21, 2024 at 4:01 PM
You’re an awesome fan club president, Mother Bean!!! 🤗❤️ Thank you for always being so welcoming to fan club members new and old!!!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 10:15 PM
🥰 thank you. It really is great we have so many welcoming beanies having rooftop parties or chatting in the comments.
tabong
August 21, 2024 at 4:35 PM
You’re a such a great president you should have your own fan club, Reply.
Thank you so much for always being such a great chingu. 💚
Underpants buddies for life! 😎
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 10:17 PM
Thank you for summing it up so beautifully that I had to use it as a tagline🥰
tabong
August 22, 2024 at 12:47 AM
Anything for my chingu. 😉
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
August 21, 2024 at 7:49 PM
Glad to be a part of your fan club Motherbean! Your fairy dust is precious.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 10:20 PM
Thank you for being one of the positive vibe members🥰
🌸 Seeker 🌸
August 21, 2024 at 8:38 PM
❤️🎉🥰
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 10:22 PM
Thanks for popping in to celebrate with me 🥰
🌸 Seeker 🌸
August 21, 2024 at 10:35 PM
Your taglines are always awesome. 🤩
23new2kdrama🫘🌱 ❤️WDH❤️
August 24, 2024 at 6:19 AM
Best Fan Supporter, friend, listener, encourager, mediator, bean sprout giver ever‼️‼️‼️💗💗💗
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 24, 2024 at 7:46 AM
So sweet🥰 thank you for your kind words.
WEnchanteur
October 5, 2024 at 9:19 AM
I see your profile by chance, and I like your visual from Yumi Cells. So, I just type this friendly message! I’d like to say you “see you soon”. But alas, there is a kind of bug on my computer, and even if I like this website, it’s so slow to display that I can’t comment or read often. 😘
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
October 5, 2024 at 9:23 AM
We all have slow days on the website it’s more a bonus when we can communicate freely without having it freeze on the wheel of doom, refresh while typing or just leave us facing a blank page for ages. However, when we do get to enjoy the comments and fan wall posts there is no place like it in K dramaland fandom.
See you next time you get to chat freely.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 14, 2024 at 8:33 PM
Did anyone else get these cute promos come up on their YouTube home page?
Neolttwigi
August 14, 2024 at 8:58 PM
Oh that was cute! Well done, marketing department. (It makes Dubai look a lot more comfortable than I think it is though- I suspect it was filmed in the early morning. And notice that the only time she is showing her ankles is inside the hospital courtyard? And only bare arms on what must have been a closed beach)
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 14, 2024 at 9:31 PM
I think it’s an excellent marketing approach to have those two as their Dr slump characters. Dubai has a lot of K drama fans so I wonder how they do the Come to Korea equivalent for the Dubai audience?
Neolttwigi
August 14, 2024 at 9:58 PM
Dubai has quite a big marketing/tourism budget. They don’t have a lot of natural attractions, and they also use it to get business for their national airline. Korea probably has more low key marketing, also I suspect the halal food options are a bit limited in Korea.
Kurama
August 14, 2024 at 11:51 PM
I’m surprised how the countries are promoting for Korean people. Myswitzerland is the tourist website and I discovered they had a Korean Insta count to target the Koreans. Lately, it was Steve Sang-Hyun Noh who was promoted Switzerland by visiting the famous places, he was in my region and I didn’t know 😭
23new2kdrama🫘🌱 ❤️WDH❤️
August 15, 2024 at 2:52 PM
Mother Bean- oh keeper of all knowledge – do you know if any other couples have done ads like this after shows? I think it’s brilliant marketing I wasn’t a huge fan of this show but they are so cute in this. Especially our PHS.
Kurama
August 15, 2024 at 11:29 PM
Yeah, for example Kwak Dong-Yeon and Lee Joo-Bin after Queen of Tears made an ad together.
The duo of the Goblin, Gong Yoo and Lee Dong-Wook did too.
23new2kdrama🫘🌱 ❤️WDH❤️
August 16, 2024 at 7:47 AM
Oh true those Goblin Boys have done a couple of things.
I didn’t watch QOT so I wouldn’t have known about them. Thanks!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 20, 2024 at 4:37 AM
@nivar I tried to google the TvN website for the character info you mentioned but could not find it are you able to cut and paste it into a reply here or give more info on the other site that links it? Is it in English as I could only see the Korean site and google translate option didn’t appear as an option.
Procrasti-NationFirstCitizen
August 20, 2024 at 5:22 AM
https://tvn.cjenm.com/ko/lovenextdoor/
My phone translates automatically so I didn’t have an issue. Hope you can open this 🙂
Procrasti-NationFirstCitizen
August 20, 2024 at 5:34 AM
It didn’t translate on my laptop, so I had to go to the Google Translate site, click on “website” tab, and paste the link into the box. Yes… I’m that motivated (for the unimportant suff obvs, not to do my taxes :p)
Procrasti-NationFirstCitizen
August 20, 2024 at 5:55 AM
But on rethinking, I’d suggest not reading the website, because I realised it was actually all spoilers😔
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 10:01 AM
I do equally ridiculous things usually on Bogummy’s YouTube channel as they rarely translate his behind the scenes. So my approach is take a photo then highlight the words click on translate and watch the translate do ridiculous things😬 Apparently the female leads name translates to Pomegranate! So it doesn’t look like it will make sense anyway but thanks it may come in handy for other programmes in the future f I want to check if it’s a straight rom com without murder mystery.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 9:53 AM
@anne18 I will tag you here when I finish watching Unmet so we avoid spoilers for those wanting to watch it.
I am really enjoying it I am half way through and it is really disappointing to see so many dodgy people taking advantage of the most vulnerable person in the room.
Anne18
August 21, 2024 at 10:00 AM
Keep watching 👍
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 10:05 AM
Sorry the tag wasn’t showing up for some reason but after pressing send there it was so sorry for the double message!
Anne18
August 21, 2024 at 10:14 AM
It’s okay 🙂. I wish I could hint at something, but with this drama anything and everything is a spoiler 😂. So just I’d just say that for me the last 3 episodes were like a balm to my soul. So hang in there!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 22, 2024 at 8:20 AM
I am on episode 8 and the two characters that still worry me the most are the grandfather who is ruthless to everyone. The way he talks to his daughter in law is out of order initially I thought she was the housekeeper. The director of the hospital who spends all his time watering his plants is the other one I get we benefit from down time and a calming environment but we rarely see him at work. We saw that he is risk adverse for a reason but with that child cancer case the child was going to be at risk whatever they did and one had a far better outcome. The choice he went for just delayed the inevitable the one that the gung-ho Dr chose was the one with the better outcome and I agreed it was worth the risk.
In the UK hospital and social care work environments there are strict rules about access to staff medical and safeguarding records so only those on a need to know basis can see them. So the female lead should also be giving permission in writing in this instance when colleagues want to have an over of her care she could do this by requesting a second opinion and asking for her records for her own sake is permissible which also has to be done in writing and takes time due to the need to review and redact third part info.
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 9:00 AM
@reply1988
Ugh, the grandfather and the way he eats the frog dish 😂. Really old school villainy!
I had to read twice to figure out which characters you were referring to coz I never saw the grandfather as quite ‘grandfatherly’ 😅. He was always “the shady chairman” for me. Although, “gung ho Dr.” is such an appropriate term for Dr. Sanpei. That’s such good information about access to medical records! Patient’s willingness is both a highlight and an issue with the writing here. I liked how Miyabi (the FL) took that into account with the aneurysm patient (the man with curly hair who kept worrying). She ensured that she got an informed consent (based on the patient’s outlook on life) before his surgery. On the other hand, there are at least two characters here who are too emotional to understand the difference between informed consent and pushiness/ taking things in one’s own hands. At least one of them is better at respecting the feelings of the one with ailment/ disability. Again, If I say more, I’ll be spoiling things!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 22, 2024 at 10:07 AM
Not long now and we can have the full discussion. I always suspected that the arranged marriage was actually a love marriage from the woman’s point of view and her vindictiveness regarding Miyabi was uncalled for and really led me to dislike her. In the last episode I watched you see that they really were friends and I think that makes it even harder for me to forgive her treating her that way even if it was petty jealousy. I am now at the point where she is asking plant man about the real cause of the memory loss. I think the accident was caused by her awareness of something so I have two theories she was worried/concerned at the time of driving and lost concentration or the second theory she was under the influence of a drug or something and lost control of the vehicle.
What made me laugh was the scene where Kaede’s dad was riding his bike in a country lane and then they changed scenes. I immediately thought if this was a K drama this would be the point when a white van would come from no where and take him out. Next scene he at hospital having had an accident with a lorry shedding its load!
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 11:17 AM
Comment was deleted
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 11:35 AM
@reply1988
Where would you get creative methods to cause traumatic road accidents, if not in a medical drama? 😅 And a lot more creative than white trucks actually! And when you mention K-dramas, I was quite in the mood to follow this up with another medical drama, and landed on “Chocolate”. And lo, behold! The first episode had a heart surgery with blood literally gushing on the horrified face of our surgeon hero, and him getting injured in an “explosion”. I retreated to J-dramaland, lest I should need a surgery for my heart as well (for which, I won’t trust a K-drama doc for sure).
PS: Sorry, I gave you some spoilers earlier. I hope you didn’t read them
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 22, 2024 at 12:48 PM
I didn’t see it!
Have you seen Dr Storks? That was a two season medical drama that I enjoyed. Have you seen on A starry night? I didn’t like that one as much due to deaf man having no concept of personal space.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 22, 2024 at 4:47 PM
I finished it. It was lovely to see how Sanpei put her back together again one memory at a time and he never once took advantage of her waiting until she had regained her memories of him. I love that she fell first from the moment she heard him speak she was mesmerised.
I may have missed a bit but I was thinking at some point the matcha powder was going to be something he started because of it was something connected with her taste.
I was also confused why he left her in the bed waiting for medics to arrive before making the trip to hospital when everyone talks about the golden hour with strokes.
I also found it odd that she was so ill yet her family were not visiting the home or hospital.
I was most confused about the incident she overheard that led to the accident as if she was having an affair with the board member they bribed.
What was the subtitlers mistake?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 22, 2024 at 5:00 PM
I have been very impressed with the Japanese dramas this year I think these three will be my standouts:
Tiger with wings
Unmet: Aru Nogikai no Nikki
Umi no Hajimari
Previous favourites were First love, Silent, Brush up life, He’s expecting and Why I dress up for love.
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 8:30 PM
@reply1988 This will be a long reply in parts 😅
“until she had regained her memories of him. I love that she fell first from the moment she heard him speak she was mesmerised.”
I don’t quite follow 😅. Is this your understanding of the last scene? Coz the subtitlers mistake changes it all.. She DID NOT regain her memories.. Infact, she might have LOST MORE as Sanpei fears. The drama kept emphasising that brain injuries/ ailments, and surgeries often leave physiological/ psychological/ intellectual after-effects which CANNOT be completely cured. He knows that as a neurologist. Still he fought against that throughout the drama. In the end however, he had come to a kind of defeated acceptance and focused just on saving her life, never hoping for her to regain her memories, which is pretty much impossible (it would have been odd if the drama showed that).
Her tears are only meant to emphasise that she may not remember him, but she still FEELS something. The emotional core of the drama relies on “the heart remembers” which was also a repeated theme if you noticed (Miyabi experiencing these strong emotions she doesn’t know the source of, and the painter’s story with his wife which I found the most poignant thing in the entire drama).
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 11:18 PM
Ah yes 😅, the mistake actually was translating Sanpei’s last question to Miyabi as “Do you know where you are?”. It was actually meant to be “Can you hear me?”… so Sanpei was just checking her level of consciousness and if her senses worked fine, not hoping that she remembered
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 22, 2024 at 11:47 PM
I meant Senpei didn’t tell her that he was her fiancé for the second time until the last episode when she had regressed again. He never once got in her personal space and at the very end he was never in bed with her or had kissed her.
I thought throughout the drama we saw snippets of things things from Miyabi’s perspective like she was eating meals, walking with Senpei or sitting in the room with him at the end of the day because she enjoyed being with him and we saw flashbacks to conversations they had had in the past. She didn’t always let him know that she had remembered, an example was her remembering the meal in South Africa and discussing that memory with Mai. (I didn’t get Mai’s job as she didn’t appear to be a medic but an administrator and they don’t get to fly out for International conferences with medics).
I also wondered about Miyabi crying in that scene where she touched his face and drew him asleep as if there was something she needed to capture in that moment of clarity. I also wondered if he woke up during that scene maybe when she touched him but pretended to still be asleep for her sake.
I know he was telling her the story of their engagement etc. so she didn’t remember that or that the eating of the sweets was something that she had told him.
I agree that the painter’s story and that of the little girl who was trapped immovable but could hear and understand were the ones that touched me the most. The girl was like the true story of those people trapped inside statue like bodies portrayed in the Robin Williams’ film Awakenings.
In the last episode it looked like they had gone backwards because in the last few episodes all the times we saw her with everyone she was chatting normally but then in that episode we saw that they still needed to introduce themselves to her. The resident made me laugh with his enthusiasm every time he did his intro. It was also funny how they all reacted to them being engaged. I also loved the earlier episode where the nurse friend stayed over to be her Cliffsnotes version of the diary so she could get ready for the first time she was going to take part in an operation. I did wonder how she got through the diary each day as more and more info was added.
Her team were lovely and I loved how they supported each other after the safety officer managed to relax her vice like grip on things and regain her own confidence. It seemed like it was a place of nurturing for everyone there.
At the very end I don’t know if she knew him or not but she felt safe.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 12:20 AM
I wonder if the words are quite similar and are context dependent and it was on reflection they realised their mistake or if someone else pointed it out to them later?
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 8:39 PM
@reply1988 (I’m just tagging to ensure this reaches, I hope I’m not being a bother 😅)
“I was also confused why he left her in the bed waiting for medics to arrive before making the trip to hospital when everyone talks about the golden hour with strokes.”
I don’t quite follow here either 😅. Are you saying he left her and went to the hospital? He didn’t do that. He just went to the fridge to eat something cool to calm his overwhelmed mind which was, hey, yoghurt ppl 😅, but also something relatable and entirely understandable (he knew she was in a coma, and things won’t get dramatically worse in a few moments). The emotional turmoil someone faces during a beloved person’s medical emrgncy (inappropriate word 🙄), is something unimaginable (I have certainly faced that, so I found that scene very realistic). The most important thing that occured in those few moments (it wasn’t actually that long before the medics arrived) was that he got to know her perspective regarding her disability/ ailment, as well as the depth of his feelings for him FOR THE FIRST TIME. As I said earlier, in the end his hopes regarding Miyabi became more realistic (and less selfish). Reading her diary really helped him focus on WHAT SHE WANTED during the surgery (that scene in the surgery where we are shown a “view of his mind”). He had a faint hope that she would remember him throughout the drama, but in the end, he just wanted to keep that “light inside her” (which he had fell in love with) ALIVE.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 22, 2024 at 11:52 PM
I meant he rang the hospital to let them know the stroke had kicked rather than ringing to discuss that while they were waiting for the ambulance. I don’t see the difference having them come in the ambulance or have them waiting at the hospital to greet the ambulance.
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 8:42 PM
@reply1988
Regarding the absence her parents…. I have no explanations and found it odd myself.
The shock that caused her accident might have an explanation. She idealised Prof. Osako (the plant doctor) her entire life, you see. So it might have been shocking to see that he is not “so godly”. But that shock was still quite dramatic, of course.
A lot of things have not been made explicit in the drama, for better or for worse. For the worse, coz it made all the backstories incomplete, and all the “mysteries” anticlimatic in the end. And for the better coz a lot of screen time was saved so that it could be focused on some very well-done patient stories and the main characters’ emotions, while we could exercise our imaginations to fill in the gaps.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 12:01 AM
I agree Prof Osaka went rogue to get the money and power to be able to do the good things he wanted for those vulnerable people who didn’t have access to the best resources.
I guess they were referring to another woman the board member was associating with and Miyabi just happened to be visiting the Professor at the time so overheard the conversation. I agree it was an unnecessary plot device to bring in tension and it was great they didn’t waste time on it.
Did you read the original manga? Or background on the story? It really seems to have gripped you.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 21, 2024 at 10:04 AM
@anne18 I will tag you in here when I am done to avoid spoilers for others in the chain. I am half way through and enjoying it. It is so disappointing to see how many people are happily taking advantage of the most vulnerable person in the room😞
Anne18
August 22, 2024 at 8:50 PM
@reply1988 I had fun revisiting this drama through you. In the end I’ll state my overall opinion on the drama
Here’s what I noted in “my diary” 😅 about Unmet A Neurosurgeon’s Diary
The drama tried to portray different attitudes in the society, as well as in the medical community, towards people with incurable disabilities/ ailments. Sanpei’s and Osako’s opposing approaches towards treating such patients, posed a moral dilemma – what’s the right way to illuminate the worlds of people with these disabilities/ ailments? Should one aim at complete recovery (which thankfully, the drama was realistic enough to show NOT happening), or should one prioritise patients with better prognosis over those with poor chance of recovery? Neither of them were ideal in how they dealt with those questions. (And those dilemmas/ questions might have been based on some kind of reality that the original manga writer faced in his real-life experience as a neurosugeon). The answers lied in understanding the point of view of the patients (or their guardians), their relationship with their disability/ ailment, and that they get to decide how to deal with it (I think a lot of which, we got through Miyabi’s diary, feelings, and her way of practicing medicine). Though clichés, dramatisation and mystification distracted the story from these important points (one has to stay true to the “serialised manga” roots 😆), they also reeled in the audience (like me 😅) and connected them to the characters, most of who I found as relatable (for once, someone humanised doctors by showing how much they FEEL and PRACTICE for surgery, instead of turning them into these tone-deaf “geniuses”) as they were intriguing, even if flawed (whether intentionally or unintentionally 😅).
Other things I liked include the minimal dialogues, small talks (with some amazing improvised dialogues, or dialogue-less scenes by Hana Sugisaki and Ryuya Wakaba), and the visual storytelling (the scenes within people’s “heads”). In the operating room, the casual banter, the relaxed attitude (especially Sanpei’s), as well as the calm tension which was so perceptible even without graphic scenes, were all so realistic and delicately filmed. Also thanks to some really good acting by the rest of the cast. And gosh, I DO NOT regret loving the chemistry as much as I did ❤
PS: I am sorry. You might find my disorganised way of writing difficult to understand 😅
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 12:09 AM
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoyed this discussion with you as I don’t often get to talk in detail about the J dramas I am watching which is a real shame when there are so many elements of interest. I also don’t get to hear about the good slice of life ones like this and only see the light rom coms. But my three favourites for this year were all flagged up by beanies although it meant going on an undercover operation to find them it was definitely worth it.
Anne18
August 23, 2024 at 12:26 AM
I am really grateful for this experience too. This drama “gripped me” is such an appropriate term 😅🙈. I am actually in bed with a fever with nothing else to do.. So please be understanding of my craziness 😂. I hijacked your post with my uneeded enthusiasm 😅.
I talked to the subtitler, who had read the original manga (it’s in Japanese so I can’t, even if I want to). Here’s a bit of a cute addition to their love story from the manga…. While they were caught off in the island due to Covid outbreak, they stayed there for 2 months to treat other patients even after Sanpei recovered. Since they had lied about being engaged, the locals held a surprise wedding ceremony for them as a “thank you” 😃. Later, Sanpei asked her to stay with him forever (real proposal).
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 12:40 AM
Oh wow poor you but what a drama to spend your time with. I hope you feel better soon.
You can’t casually mention that you chatted with the subtitler without giving context as to how that came about🤣. I met someone on here who casually mentioned they were one of the Viki subtitlers when we were criticising Viki for not paying them when they are the reason people prefer Viki over Netflix.
I am glad you confirmed it was Covid as the African context made me wonder about Ebola I just couldn’t remember which country that originated from or the timing.
I wonder what the neurosurgeon’s colleagues thought about the manga. It’s like Daily dose of sunshine was written by a psychiatric nurse.
Anne18
August 23, 2024 at 12:52 AM
There’s no secret about my chat with the subtitler 😂. They are a fan-subber who take initiative to announce their subtitle updates by themselves on MDL (I don’t know if that’s a usual practice, as I am new to fan-subbing). So I asked them on MDL. They said it was Covid too.
The manga writer has stopped their medical practice and is a full time manga writer now. I understand the need for mystification as this manga was one that’s serialised in a periodic magazine. So one has to keep the interest alive even by betraying one’s own former profession 😂
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 1:08 AM
Great news about the surgeon turned manga writer few people get this level of success in two very different careers. I wonder if he was forced to be a doctor and once he had proved himself gave himself permission to leave and follow his true calling or if it was always his plan to make big money so he could retire early to follow his passion? I wonder if he is married has children?
Anne18
August 23, 2024 at 12:37 AM
Regarding how the translater got the context wrong and how they realised their mistake… I quote them
In Japanese, doctors usually just ask a very general “Do you understand/know?” question to check someone’s consciousness/orientation, while in English they usually ask things like “Can you hear me?” / “Do you know where you are?” / “Do you know what happened?” etc.
For most of the drama, I translated it as “Can you hear me?” because it was usually a scene of unclear consciousness or seizures and strokes.
I didn’t feel that this line was appropriate for the last scene, but I couldn’t think of a better question that wouldn’t normally have an embedded question in English, whereas in Japanese they just leave out the embedded question, so yeah, the result is a slightly more specific question and answer than the original script intended.
Also, they realised after
I was afraid of this, but when I read another interview with the producer of Unmet, the last line in the drama was really meant to be as ambiguous as possible. I made a conscious decision to be more specific in the translation
Anne18
August 23, 2024 at 12:45 AM
So a purportedly ambiguous ending… but the director also pretty much made it clear that they had tried to stay true to the fact that sequalae (after-effects) remain uncurable. And… they also said there would be a second season.. I don’t know how I feel about that though. This was enough for me. A special might do to satisfy my curiosity about their backstory which was piqued by her sleep-talking about “my wallet is missing” and “stay” 😃
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 12:57 AM
A second season might be like Dr Storks with more info on the lovely team and the case examples. I loved that drama for showing the multiple things that happen when mothers or babies have issues during pregnancy or birth. I wonder how the manga ended or if they will add their own continuation?
I have worked with psychologists who support families managing their children’s new personalities after an acquired brain injury and it really is devastating for siblings and parents.
Anne18
August 23, 2024 at 1:21 AM
The manga’s last part was actually published AFTER the drama ended (but the ending was already decided). It had explored the side characters with greater deatail, so there might be scope for season two, but no menacing grandpas please!
Wow, now I am really curious how an insider like you perceives medical dramas? Do you find the “creative liberties” laughable or offensive 😅
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 1:39 AM
I always see dramas whatever the setting as just that and sometimes they add ridiculous elements just to make a story work.
I am a family therapist so love dealing with family relationships and that’s why I love slice of life and found family dramas like Reply 1988 and Be melodramatic, and why I could handle the awfulness of the family stories in The good bad mother and Strangers again. However, I can’t take even the mildest tension like stalkers and other ‘abnormal’ elements in what I assumed was a rom com as I did not sign up for that after an emotionally draining day at work.
Anne18
August 23, 2024 at 2:54 AM
I am pretty forgiving about most tropes and family issues too. And I loved Reply 1988 too! I found the middle class neighbourhood very well portrayed. My no-goes include severe depression, death and terminal illnesses. I also avoid “too much realism” 🤭
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 3:40 AM
Oh you wouldn’t like Umi No Hajimari then as it starts with a death of a parent and then tells the story of what happens next and Tiger with wings covers World War Two and the aftermath although it is really uplifting for the most part. Did you watch Brush up life as that was more about the comedy as she kept getting reincarnated.
Anne18
August 23, 2024 at 7:18 AM
No I haven’t watched it, yet. I really like female POVs. Though, time loop stories are a hit or miss with me and I have never tried that set-up in a drama. So, let’s see!
Meanwhile, I just read that Unmet has won 6 Japanese drama academy awards (including Best Drama)! Here are interviews of the winners that you can translate and read (they reveal how much of the drama was just brilliant improvisation born out of the team’s passion for their work):
Best Director-
https://thetv.jp/news/detail/1214050/
Best Actress- Hana Sugisaki (Miyabi)
https://thetv.jp/news/detail/1213861/
Best Supporting Actor- Ryuya Wakaba (Sanpei)
https://thetv.jp/news/detail/1214014/
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 23, 2024 at 8:37 AM
Oh thank you so much for sharing.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 26, 2024 at 11:39 PM
@zgs1994 my email if you are interested in being included in the meet up list: [email protected]
The Watch and Discuss K Drama club meets monthly on Zoom to discuss an agreed drama this month is My holo love. We are a small group of Beanies from diverse cultural backgrounds based in different countries and meet even if we have not watched the drama as it is such a friendly group, we modelled it on the Book club from I will come to you when the weather is fine.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 22, 2024 at 5:53 AM
Thanks to all the beanies who joined the discussion on The sense of wonder. I really enjoyed the book and the points raised by those able to join the discussion.
We are now getting ready for the DB book club Autumn read: Almond by Wonpyung Sohn.
Please note this is a Young Adult novel that covers some triggering material which may cause offence or be upsetting in terms of violence, bullying, trauma and depictions of neurodivergent conditions.
Our host will be: @too_much_tv
Please look out for their fanwall posts with the questions which will be available in advance of the discussion.
Date for discussion: 10th November 2024
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 22, 2024 at 5:55 AM
@indyfan @mellowarmadillo @attiton @elinor @ahjummaaa @toomuchtv @wonhwa @jls943 @cayong03 @babylilo @ruhi0101 @petrolia @acacia @dramaforever @zindigo @linarrick @ndlessjoie @sonai @kdramajoy
I hope the tags work
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 22, 2024 at 9:02 PM
I was just thinking the book club has been running for a while now and some of you may have decided you no longer want to be in the tag list please let me know as I have just realised I have two lists so we can update the list to only include those who remain interested going forward.
@indyfan @mellowarmadillo @attiton @elinor @ahjummaaa @toomuchtv @wonhwa @jls943 @lapislazulii @cayong03 @babylilo @ruhi0101 @petrolia @acacia @dramaforever
@zindigo @linarrick @ndlessjoie @sonai @kdramajoy @jorobertson
Linarrick
July 23, 2024 at 12:16 AM
Still happy to be a part of the book club😊
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 23, 2024 at 1:04 PM
Thanks for confirming☺️
wonhwa
July 23, 2024 at 12:58 PM
I’ve been dealing with family crises all summer so I haven’t been keeping up with things too well, but I would love to stay on the list and hopefully read the book for fall.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 23, 2024 at 1:04 PM
I hope things settle down for you soon. Take care
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
August 4, 2024 at 6:46 PM
Motherbean, I do not think I am in the tag.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 4, 2024 at 10:58 PM
Sorry I don’t know how that happened I will update that now
sirena
July 22, 2024 at 12:27 PM
I read Almond by Wonpyung Sohn a few years ago.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 22, 2024 at 2:02 PM
Did you enjoy it?
sirena
July 24, 2024 at 5:25 AM
I cannot say that I did. I believe it was due to the tough subject matter.
KDramaJoy
July 23, 2024 at 6:33 AM
I will pass on the Young Adult one — but please keep me on lists for others that may come up.
I got a lot out of all the readers comments here for Sense of Wonder , so thanks to all — especially to Reply1988 (who started us off wonderfully!).
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 23, 2024 at 1:04 PM
We will thanks for confirming.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 1, 2024 at 11:58 AM
@toomuchtv The DB book club revised membership for the invite to discuss Almond on 13th October 2024.
When you post the questions on your fan wall please tag in these beanies. When I post there are usually a few beanies who decide to join the DB book club because they are interested in that particular book and they will let you know if they want to be tagged in.
@mellowarmadillo @toomuchtv @wonhwa @petrolia @dramaforever @zindigo @linarrick @kdramajoy @reply1988
too_much_tv
August 1, 2024 at 1:56 PM
Thanks! I’m still waiting for the book to come in at the library.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 1, 2024 at 1:58 PM
We have plenty of time and it’s a short book, heavy material so hopefully that will make it easier to manage.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
August 4, 2024 at 10:59 PM
Please add @minniegupta1 to the tag list for Almond. Thanks
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 5:00 PM
The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses DB Book club Summer read
@indyfan @mellowarmadillo @attiton @elinor @ahjummaaa @toomuchtv @wonhwa @jls943 @cayong03 @babylilo @ruhi0101 @petrolia @acacia @dramaforever @zindigo @linarrick @ndlessjoie @sonai @kdramajoy @minniegupta1
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 5:00 PM
How would you rate this book on a scale of 0-5 stars?
Babylilo
July 20, 2024 at 10:10 PM
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 8:48 AM
Thanks so much for adding your rating🥰
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 11:27 PM
4 stars because I came out of the story a couple of times. I really liked it otherwise and listened to it several times to see if I could catch the relevance of the several mentions of the ‘frame of reference’.
Linarrick
July 21, 2024 at 3:32 AM
3 Stars
I’m not sure if I was the audience for this. I don’t care for sport (unless it’s in a Kdrama :P) and this specifically was about American Basketball / the NBA. Plus everything mentioned about Kdramas I already knew, tho I do remember reading an article where the author said the Kdramas in the novel were ideas he thought for actual Kdramas! Which honestly I’d watch, especially the one about the fortune-teller and the woman who sees ghosts. Anyway a lot of the context went over my head particularly about the basketball references. For example, I didn’t know who Jeremy Lin was or “Linsanity” and that this novel was somewhat inspired by his story.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 4:13 AM
Yes, I wondered if the use of the two industries with sexism and racism being the focus of each meant the author was trying to widen the appeal to a wider audience than sports fan.
I felt it could be read without having an awareness of the real person it related to because there are plenty of other examples of racism in other areas of life and for me I was very aware of the experiences of Black players in British football over the years.
Linarrick
July 21, 2024 at 8:10 AM
Yes good point! I think that could also tie back it into the frame of reference. We all have different experiences, from the countries we live in, our various cultures, beliefs and the media we consume. Our frame of reference is all different. I might not have much knowledge about sport but I have experienced and seen racism in other fields and particularly the media
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 8:48 AM
Thanks so much for participating 🥰
KDramaJoy
July 21, 2024 at 8:22 AM
Reply1988 — thank you so much for hosting! Your moderator qustions above are great, to which I plan to add my thoughts.
I give Sense of Wonder 4* (out of 5*). I was pleased to read a novel by and about Korean Americans. I bonded with the characters enough to be saddened by (what seemed to me) their unhappiness and resentment resulting from being taken from the culture of their birth yet not being able to feel completely part of the culture of the country of their upbringing.
For the past few years I have followed US basketball, so I appreciated the sports aspects (though I did not understand all the jargon used). I enjoyed the interplay between the story and Kdrama references/observations.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 8:47 AM
Thanks so much for participating🥰.
too_much_tv
July 21, 2024 at 2:50 PM
I guess I do that rating thing a lot since I frequently record my reading on GoodReads. On there, I see I gave it 5 stars when I finished the book back in May. Here’s the thing: I love to read novels. I am always so pleased right when I finish a book. This one had great pacing and intelligible structure, so I felt great when I read it.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 21, 2024 at 3:12 PM
I would place this at ⭐️⭐️⭐️
While I enjoyed the book thoroughly in parts, there were some that went above my head. I bought this book twice – one in hardcover, and then in Kindle just because it was easier to revisit on Kindle. I never mind investing in books but this is an overkill because it’s not a book I would revisit once the book club is over, much like a K-drama you finish because you want to be a part of the community discussing it.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 4:32 PM
I think we can be like the book club on When the weather is fine and have interesting discussions
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 5:01 PM
What do you think the author was referring to with the final comments directing us to re read the book in terms of the story’s ‘Frame of reference’?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 11:35 PM
I wondered if it was referencing what Carrie had called the love triangle bromance between Robert, Paul and Won or if it was the friendship being renewed between Robert and Won. I even wondered about whether Britt and Paul re established their relationship without basketball and her having her own career again.
I also wondered if the frame of reference in the wider context could refer to the normalising of Asian American basketball players or the explosion of K-dramas on the global market and how readily available they now are on platforms like Netflix.
I really don’t know though and I hope someone in the book club has been able to work it out.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 21, 2024 at 3:41 PM
To be very honest, the ‘Frame of reference’ remark felt more like grandstanding than a meaningful insight. The book is littered with how each individual has been stereotyped into behaving a certain way in every situation.
In India, kids born in US are often referred to as ‘ABCD’ – American Born Confused Desis (Desi being the term applied to all Indians).
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 21, 2024 at 3:47 PM
I submitted before finishing 🙁
What I meant to say is that if we do take a frame of reference, with frame being a tangible object within which the book has been written, I think it would be racism, societal projections, cultural limitations and glass ceiling.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 4:01 PM
Thanks so much for sharing these thoughts🥰
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 5:02 PM
The intergenerational trauma of the overseas adoption of Korean children and the impact of immigration for the parents who chose to leave South Korea to give their children opportunities in the US were shown from multiple angles throughout the book. What are your thoughts on these themes of adults making decisions that changed their child’s experiences of ‘being Korean’?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 11:37 PM
I was impressed with the range of different adoption experiences weaved into the story from Carrie’s mum reclaiming her identity, to Robert staying away from the country. The fan who contacted Carrie with her own story was like something out of a documentary.
It was interesting that it was the two dad’s wanting to protect their adult children from the consequences of returning to Korea. I wondered if the dad’s had returned to Korea for trips or had maintained contact with friends/family who could keep them up to speed so the Korea of their day was not still frozen in their minds.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 5:03 PM
I listened to the book on Audible which used a male and a female actor to read the story. The story included a a number of female characters and yet I felt very conscious of the male voice throughout the story. As a reader did any elements stand out for you as being male or female focused elements of the story?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 11:42 PM
The elements that took me out of the story into thinking this is written by a man were: the karaoke sex scene, opening with the locker room joke and description of Britt’s bottom as one that ‘looked like it had a daily workout’.
Carrie’s entrapment scene with the executive in Korea just seemed out of character and pointless it didn’t feel like something a woman would write especially for a character like Carrie. I also didn’t understand the scene with the good looking assistant director who Carrie ‘forced’ to have sex with her, I didn’t get how that could happen even bearing in mind the power dynamics that she had reminded him of in the car.
Linarrick
July 21, 2024 at 2:55 AM
Yes the scene with Carrie and the assistant was a big red flag for me, at best it was dubious consent and I was baffled that it didn’t come up later in the story. Sadly I think those situations are quite common with such emphasis on hierarchy and employees feeling like they’d lose their jobs if they don’t comply with their bosses demands. These type of scenarios are portrayed often in Kdramas tho usually through the opposite gender dynamics. I even remember in the novel KIM JIYOUNG, BORN 1982, one of the interview questions was how would the prospective (women) employees handle sexual harassment.
I’m curious why the author chose to the write that scene, was he trying to say that regardless of gender, when someone holds so much power and authority it can easily be abused? Still it felt nonchalant, as there seemed to be no further discussion or consequence for Carrie. Which yes is realistic but left a bad taste in my mouth.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 4:19 AM
I agree that we tend to see it with the female being the victim but I literally could not understand how it is possible to physically coerce a man even if he was smaller if it was something he did not want to do. It felt like the term open relationship was short hand for Carrie having a lack of boundaries and forceful nature so men would fall into line if she wanted them to.
KDramaJoy
July 21, 2024 at 9:14 AM
I appreciated the spectrum of the female characters: Duckey (whose life seemed to be built around a man), Brit (the cool beautiful female, whom every male would desire, and Carrie (strong, self-made).
I am ok if the author is saying that authority and power can always be abused — even by a woman. However, to me, the Carrie/assistant sex episode seemed carelessly dropped into the story, and not sufficiently explained or resolved.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 21, 2024 at 4:01 PM
It was totally, totally male voice through and through. Carrie’s voice was particularly masculine, even though she is supposed to be sensitive and thoughtful. Everything that’s typically important to women is left out completely. She never checks her reflection, adjusts her skirt, becomes self conscious of the male gaze, and treats sex like it’s a bodily need (which it is, but not in the way women generally see it when they are in a relationship, even an open one. It’s odd to say the least). Not that dominance and sexual abuse is not handed down by women, but to me, it felt even more stereotypic of how an “American’ woman would behave with regards to sex – casual and a tool for dominance. It was jarring and not in character. I struggled with Carrie’s character all through the book.
Recently, I enquired of a high school girl what she has been reading. She sputtered before she said, almost embarrassed, that she read romance. To encourage her, I told her there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. To give her company, I bought her favourite author – Ana Huang. She writes racy love stories of troubled characters, many of whom are Asian.
What took me by surprise was her voice for both men and women, but more than that how seamlessly she has woven characters of all races to blend into one rich sheet of diversity, even though she does not shy away from the stereotypical problems Asians and people of mix heritage face. Even though it’s all peppy and sugary and comes with the high of predictability, it’s also a voice that one can’t ignore.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 5:06 PM
Won and Carrie worked in two very different industries, what are your thoughts on the messages regarding the importance of ‘being seen’ that came through in the exploration of their experiences? (Please note my spelling may be incorrect as I did not see their names written down)
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 11:47 PM
The standout scene for me was Won meeting with the fan wearing Won’s number who did not recognise it was the actual Won and not a random Asian American fan. The use of the phrase cockroach and its link to Won’s memories of his ‘friend’ from university who had his own theory on the ‘real’ world.
The relationship that represented this for Carrie was the push/pull nature of her relationship with the PD she ended up working with on the basketball drama.
KDramaJoy
July 21, 2024 at 9:48 AM
I questioned the scene of the fan wearing Won’s jersey but not recognizing him as Won. I am a baseball fan who follows the Philadelphia Phillies, but I have a fixation on Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani who currently plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I (white) would happily recognize him anywhere.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 21, 2024 at 4:13 PM
Agree. That was an overkill and the dead horse was flogged many times over. I sat on the School Comm board for my local town and showed up on TV every week. I have not met anyone since who has confused me with anyone else.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 5:06 PM
Any other comments that you would like to share about the story?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 11:53 PM
I was fascinated by the explanations of the Korean drama format. I was really surprised Carrie’s first attempt to bring K drama to US was to recommend: For the love of your future self which has a context that could only be made in Korea. Someone seeing ghosts is not an alien concept but this storytelling style and the subject matter is a lot without a frame of reference. I would have gone for something mainstream like her basketball drama. I liked both dramas and would watch them both I think this book would make a great drama or film at the very least.
I thought the way the warm up and actual proposal scenes were written as a sequence of events really did fit with how Won and Carrie’s relationship played out.
I liked the exploration of relationships; Carrie and her sister being like twins, Carrie’s mum’s relationship with each of her children, Won’s childhood friendship with ‘Handsome’, Robert finally getting a friend in Won but not knowing how to maintain it alongside his hyper focus on his romantic relationship.
KDramaJoy
July 21, 2024 at 10:16 AM
I thought some of the author’s explanations to Americans viewing/reading Kdramas were interesting. For example a character explains that in Kplots things happen to people because of who they are rather than what they choose. And later a character says that American audiences need to adjust to fate and circumstance being the driving engine of one’s life, instead of free will. (Please note — I know many (most?) dramabeans readers are not Americans, but sometimes characters in the novel specifically referred to Americans.)
Yes, I would watch Kdramatization of all the stories in the novel.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 11:36 AM
I think the references were connected to the audience the characters were relating to because Carrie was selling her ideas to her boss in the US and Won was facing issues because he was playing for a US team.
I also wondered about the author’s experiences as adoption featured so highly and now I have read up on him I can see a few themes are related to his lived experiences. He wrote the book after his wife died of cancer and he is raising their children alone. He was born in Korea and adopted by a White American couple when he was two, he went to Korea and married a Korean woman. I wonder what it is like to miss your birth mother and country of birth to then have to raise very young children who will also miss their birth mother for reason’s beyond your control and having to raise children unplanned as a single dad and while grieving 😭
too_much_tv
July 21, 2024 at 3:16 PM
Yes! I thought these comments made the book so appropriate for this group to read! I don’t know who suggested which books, but kudos to whomever picked this one! I know a lot of people on here might argue about the analysis and the duality between the two cultures. Obviously there are more than two cultures in the world. But this helped the author gather up the plot elements of his story and keep us with him until the end.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 3:54 PM
We asked everyone who was interested in setting up a DB book club to list books they wanted us to cover and we then voted on the top 5. We also discussed the frequency of the discussions and how to host. We will need to do the next batch of voting for next year’s books soon. But we may want to check if beanies still want the club as a lot of the beanies who asked to be tagged in last year are rarely on the site these days and those that are have not participated in some of the discussions. It has also been harder to find hosts than we thought it would be.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 3:56 PM
I thought it really was a great book for this group too and it’s a shame the discussion didn’t happen as planned last week as maybe more people would have participated then.
too_much_tv
July 21, 2024 at 2:59 PM
I thought a lot about who was the main character and who was the POV character. Robert Sung is the main character and Won Lee is the POV character. What about Carrie? Carrie has all the personality and heart, what’s her role? She doesn’t have to make decisions the way that Won does.
I loved Carrie and I think it’s because Matthew Salesses loves Carrie. I love her sister K, and I think that’s because K is standing in for Matthew Salesses’ wife who died of her cancer.
Carrie’s sexuality and the open relationship seemed like an argument that Salesses was making about sexual fidelity and loyalty. No one was more loyal than Carrie, even though the two of them started their relationship with the intent to be ethically non-monogamous. I really wondered how people who met through a love of the highly structured and formal world of Korean romance would take this aspect of things.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 3:59 PM
I wondered if the comment about Robert being a sub plot in his own story was the hint that it was actually his story.
too_much_tv
July 21, 2024 at 6:33 PM
It is his story, arguably! I find it super interesting when the POV character is not the one resolving the main conflict.
too_much_tv
July 21, 2024 at 3:05 PM
Ah, yeah, so, I thought a lot about Won Lee and Carrie, but Won Lee was also in a love triangle with Powerball! and Robert. Powerball! is really just a sketch, even though he’s so important to Robert Sung and to Won Lee himself. He’s admirable, he’s masculine (I almost wrote, “he’s masculinity” which is true too!) but he is also not realized.
I am not sure why we don’t hear that Powerball! is black until well into the book. Is this because the author thinks we’ll assume all great basketball players in the US are black? Eek. The scene where Powerball! revealed to be a great dad is very moving. It seems like his main role is to be “a man”—a guy who is good at leading, who works hard, who will fuck anyone but loves only his wife, and a person who is good at playing with children in a way that helps them grow. I felt like there was a lot in here about what it means to be a man.
Racism is big in this book but it feels incidental to the decisions of the main characters. I made a note to myself that I needed to think about how it functions. It’s almost like a deus ex machina. (I didn’t think about it after I made that note. I just read a bunch of other books instead!)
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 3:57 PM
Thanks so much for joining the discussion today you have made some fascinating
points 🥰
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 19, 2024 at 11:12 AM
The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses DB Book club Summer read
Discussion on 21st July. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
@indyfan @mellowarmadillo @attiton @elinor @ahjummaaa @toomuchtv @wonhwa @jls943 @cayong03 @babylilo @ruhi0101 @petrolia @acacia @dramaforever @zindigo @linarrick @ndlessjoie @sonai @kdramajoy @minniegupta1
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 19, 2024 at 8:20 PM
Thanks Motherbean!
It is a lovely little read, though I didn’t understand a zilch about the game haha!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 19, 2024 at 11:31 PM
That’s interesting because I wondered about the choice of that sport too.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 20, 2024 at 4:49 AM
I am very sure it was quasi-based on Jeremy Lin, the basketball player who has been dubbed ‘Linsanity’ (in the book Wonderkid serves the same purpose). Hence the sport.
Here is the wiki on Lin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Lin
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 20, 2024 at 9:28 AM
I definitely think he was an inspiration as there are a lot of the key plot points covered including the sales of the shirt, 7 games claim to fame and breaking the promise re the contract.
too_much_tv
July 21, 2024 at 2:42 PM
Are we discussing the book here? I have my notes ready. I feel a little bit like I’m auditioning a high school musical and I’m waiting for my cue to start singing. (“Don’t tell me not to live!/
Just sit and putter…”)
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 21, 2024 at 3:02 PM
😂 Me too 😂😂😂
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
July 21, 2024 at 3:05 PM
The discussion board is here:
https://www.dramabeans.com/members/Reply1988/activity/1607510/?nid=5155011&nidwpc=1607510
too_much_tv
July 21, 2024 at 3:18 PM
Thanks! I did manage to find it and left many comments.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
July 21, 2024 at 3:44 PM
Thanks for rounding up @toomuchtv I did cut and paste the tags of everyone who asked to be included, does it not work if we cut and paste tags in to a post?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
June 16, 2024 at 3:57 AM
Hoping that all beanies are doing well and have the resources they need for today.
HopefulRomantic 🦋 Tigermoth 🦞
June 16, 2024 at 4:25 AM
🤗♥️ And sending the same well-wishes to you too, Reply!!
Healer’s
June 16, 2024 at 4:43 AM
Thank you, Mother Bean.
Happy birthday, Bogummy 🎂🥠
jillian
June 16, 2024 at 5:00 AM
Happy Birthday Bogummy! 🎉🥳🎂
Well wishes to you and Hope u are doing well, Reply! 😁😁😁
Isa is always time travelling
June 16, 2024 at 9:35 AM
Thank you! 😊
And Happy Birthday, Bogummy! 🎂
🌸 Seeker 🌸
June 16, 2024 at 12:19 PM
What a beautiful wish. Thank you and wish you the same! 🫰
Happy Birthday Bogummy.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
June 16, 2024 at 1:42 PM
This is so cute 🥰
🌸 Seeker 🌸
June 16, 2024 at 5:31 PM
Molang and Piu Piu are the best partners to celebrate any occasion!! 😊❤
DK-Drama 🫘 Giffing n Space Cadetting🍉🌱
June 24, 2024 at 1:24 PM
I wish the same for you.
Kitsune Moon
July 22, 2024 at 7:35 AM
PBG <3
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 18, 2024 at 12:39 AM
Little did I know when I made my first comment on 8th May 2022 that I would be posting my 10k comment today.
I am so grateful to all who are devoted to producing the K-dramas that bring the beanies so much joy. A special thanks goes to the DB team who provide the fun recaps and this amazingly safe place for us to dissect K-dramas. To all the beanies who have interacted with me over the years gamsahamnida, small bow
Healer’s
May 18, 2024 at 1:07 AM
That’s an impressive record, Mother Bean!!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 18, 2024 at 1:10 AM
🤣🥰thank you for presenting my flowers so beautifully☺️
Healer’s
May 18, 2024 at 1:11 AM
“It’s my pleasure” (In Bogummy’s voice) 😍
🌸 Seeker 🌸
May 19, 2024 at 8:39 AM
Cool milestone. Many congratulations. 👏👏👏
Perfect flower bearer Claire. 😍
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 19, 2024 at 11:16 AM
Thank you, I love this☺️
🌸 Seeker 🌸
May 19, 2024 at 11:39 AM
🫰
korfan
May 18, 2024 at 1:21 AM
🙂
jillian
May 18, 2024 at 1:27 AM
Comment was deleted
jillian
May 18, 2024 at 1:30 AM
A little celebratory dance for you ☺️
https://youtu.be/1JDvi8E0EKY?si=_6YE-4TKxiPQy-yg
10K comment in 2 years. Wow!🎉
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 18, 2024 at 2:35 AM
🤣 thank you for sharing I love this and think it was a great promo for that drama🥰
jillian
May 18, 2024 at 2:42 AM
It was! Its still my favorite kdrama promo. ☺️
PBG smiling and dancing can never go wrong 😄
🌸 Seeker 🌸
May 19, 2024 at 9:22 AM
💯👌
HopefulRomantic 🦋 Tigermoth 🦞
May 18, 2024 at 4:06 AM
Yayy!! What a cool milestone!! You’re a ray of sunshine on DB! 🤗❤️
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 18, 2024 at 4:23 AM
🥰Thank you, so sweet of you to say so.
Isa is always time travelling
May 18, 2024 at 5:33 AM
Congratulations, Mother Bean! 🎉🎉🎉
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 18, 2024 at 5:53 AM
Thank you ☺️
leeboo
May 18, 2024 at 12:21 PM
That’s amazing!! DB is really a safe space
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 18, 2024 at 2:58 PM
🥰 it really is.
zindigo
May 18, 2024 at 1:39 PM
That’s quite remarkable ! I always enjoy reading your comments Mother Bean!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 18, 2024 at 2:59 PM
Thank you🥰
ttmarls
May 19, 2024 at 9:10 AM
Congrats Mother Bean! 🙌🏾🥳 You are part of what makes DB a safe space. 💖💫
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
May 19, 2024 at 11:14 AM
🥰Thank you
DK-Drama 🫘 Giffing n Space Cadetting🍉🌱
June 24, 2024 at 1:25 PM
Gamsahamnida to you, too!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 8:30 PM
The beanie hive mind is a powerful force and managed to solve a mystery that was bugging me for years. Back in 2022 I even asked our great DB staff to add it to the Name that drama request list. Thank you @ally-le @enriquequierecagar @bebeswtz @seeker @ceciliedk @coffeprince4eva @marcusnyc20 for your support with this. It turns out that the reason my Google searches for K dramas about siblings kept bringing up blanks was because it was the J drama All about my siblings from 2014! Special thanks go to @attiton who found the drama title in record time.
So tagged in beanies @kurama @claire2009 @sicarius @minniegupta1 You can all stand down.
Nessa (Bebe) 🌹
April 28, 2024 at 9:04 PM
I’m glad you were able to figure it out!! I know the feeling all too well of having a spotty memory about a drama you want to find and Google not always helping 😒 It’s happening less and less for me wherein I’m desperately trying to recall an entire drama that has skipped my mind, but I find that what’s happening more for me is trying to remember what drama a particular scene is from
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 10:40 PM
I know, it is a sign we have watched a lot of dramas☺️
Healer’s
April 29, 2024 at 12:32 AM
I’m glad you got the answer you needed from Seon-ha, Mother Bean. I was impressed that you could recall the plot that clearly.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 2:11 PM
Please help me find a drama I watched in my early K drama binge watching days unfortunately, I only remember a few scenes. I don’t know how old the drama is.
It was about a family of siblings whose dad had died in a work related accident and the older brother had to leave his studies to work to support the family. (Not sure what happened to the mum) This older sibling worked at the same industrial company the dad had worked at and a senior in the company appeared to be looking out for the older brother but he was actually hiding the fact that he was the one who had covered up the accident to make it look like it was the dad’s fault so the company were not held accountable. This meant the family didn’t get a compensation payment.
The sibling group was 4 or 5 with only one girl I think. They lived in the house where they had grown up with their parents. Two of the brothers shared a room with bunk beds I think. The siblings were always arguing and physically fighting each other when they all came together to eat their meals, but they would all come together if one of them was under attack out in the community.
There was an incident where the youngest had a problem with a rich kid at school and when they went to solve the problem (I think to prevent exclusion from school or a criminal record). They were at the rich person’s house the rich kids parents tried to humiliate the older brother and his siblings. I think the older brother was kneeling to plead but either the younger sibling or another sibling refused to do so as they felt the rich kid had caused the problem.
At the end I think the cover up was discovered and they got some compensation because there was a change that meant they were able to go after their dreams. They sold the house and all moved out to go off into the next phase of their individual lives. The older brother returned to his studies and moved in with his girlfriend.
I remember it because the last shots were the different rooms in the house, the furniture was gone and all that was left were little piles of rubbish in some of the rooms and amongst the rubbish were photos of the siblings some when they were younger. I was haunted by the emptiness of the house because there had been so much drama in that house and I couldn’t believe they would leave those photos behind.
There was a drone shot of them all walking off in different directions across a grass area with the OST playing in the background. It was a real tear jerker ending. It was my first time seeing that kind of scene but now I have seen the same technique used in Reply 1988 and other dramas.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 2:22 PM
@attiton @kurama @seeker @bebeswtz @claire2009 @enriquequierecagar @ceciliedk @sicarius @ally-le @minniegupta1
I have tagged in those who may be able to identify this drama or know a beanie who might be able to help.
DK-Drama 🫘 Giffing n Space Cadetting🍉🌱
April 28, 2024 at 2:51 PM
I thought of the Reply 1988 ending, too … and a work accident at a construction site happens in Mad Dog, Revolutionary Love, and My Demon, at least. But they’re not it. This all rings a bell, but maybe it’s just a trope bell?
I will check my list of dramas I have seen. But they are mainly rom coms.
Nessa (Bebe) 🌹
April 28, 2024 at 5:14 PM
Maybe the weekender drama, “Golden Rainbow” with Uee??
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 7:22 PM
Thank you, just reading the synopsis of that drama shouts out weekender vibes! It definitely wasn’t that one.
Seon-ha
April 28, 2024 at 3:16 PM
Reply, you may not know the year that the drama was released, but you do know what year you saw it in, so that would be the latest possible year of its release. What was that year?
Seon-ha
April 28, 2024 at 3:35 PM
Any chance that the issue is that it was a J-drama? This seems a bit unlikely, but the reviews here seem very close to what you’re describing, Reply
https://mydramalist.com/9491-wakamono-tachi/reviews
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 8:01 PM
Wow I can’t believe it was found so easily when it wasn’t even a K drama😮
🫘Beansprout award🌱 for taking up the challenge. Thank you for doing your detective work I looked at the last few minutes and the scenes I was referring to were there so I think the mystery has been solved. It was definitely a short drama so that and the opening scene of them chatting around the table fits too. What’s strange is that I only remember watching one J drama at that time and all the others were Chinese epics, KBS specials or weekenders so I don’t know why I would not have remembered it as a J drama. I am going to watch it now to see if I remembered it correctly or mixed up the content with anther drama.
Seon-ha
April 29, 2024 at 4:19 AM
Oh good! So glad to have helped you find some mental relief!! I enjoy these sorts of puzzles and was aided a great deal not only by your detailed memories, but also by your clarity on where your memory was fuzzy…
RenOIshi
April 28, 2024 at 3:17 PM
The premise sounds super similar but I don’t think i have seen this? It sounds like I should have though. Any idea who the actors are? Even if you don’t know the names do you remember other projects they were involved with. Was it a weekender?
tabong
April 28, 2024 at 4:06 PM
Do you remember any actors in it?
I think the only show I’ve watched that’s a little similar is “Ugly Alert”. But I don’t think you’re talking about that one. If it is a really old drama, I probably won’t remember it anyway. 😭
But I’ll search through my list and see if I remember anything.
tabong
April 28, 2024 at 4:21 PM
Nope. It definitely isn’t Ugly Alert or any other show I’ve watched.
Maybe some of the names in this list (https://www.dramabeans.com/2019/03/siblings-of-dramaland/) rings a bell?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 7:06 PM
Thank you for the siblings post🥰 I don’t remember any of the actors which means I can’t do an Asian wiki search for their other dramas.
tabong
April 28, 2024 at 8:00 PM
I hope you find it soon!
bong-soo
April 28, 2024 at 4:53 PM
Reply, I am glad you put this synopsis out there. The mystery will get solved however,
Until if and when the mystery is solved you should put dibs (as we used to say) on that story line. Who knows if it remains unidentified maybe you can make a pitch to Netflix.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 6:58 PM
‘Who knows if it remains unidentified maybe you can make a pitch to Netflix’ 👈🏾 🤣 I love that.
🌸 Seeker 🌸
April 28, 2024 at 6:41 PM
Waaa …. how is this “few scenes”! 🤣🤣🤣
Sounds like a weekender. Perhaps @Oldawyer can help us please!?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 6:55 PM
I thought it could be a weekender too because of the volume of the arguments but I think it was probably the Uncontrollably fond style of melodrama because I don’t think it was that many episodes.
🌸 Seeker 🌸
April 28, 2024 at 7:03 PM
No worries. The Detective Beanies will rescue you!! ♥️💃
🌸 Seeker 🌸
April 28, 2024 at 6:59 PM
I have seen this technique of showing empty rooms in previously occupied houses with occupants now dispersed / dead either with montages of earlier happy or sad scenes (in diffused focus or black and white for added impact) or photographs of scenes / people who lived earlier in the house. It is a well-worn technique but it gets me each time. Because houses may be just brick and mortar but it is the people and their emotions which make it a home.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 8:36 PM
It gets me every time too especially because I have moved a lot for work so I see empty rooms whenever I move out and go back to clean it.
Healer’s
April 29, 2024 at 12:51 AM
I always feel nostalgic watching such scenes so I actively avoid them if I can. I may watch Reply 1988 again but I won’t watch that empty street scene again, or else I’ll get too emotional.
Same with airport scenes. I don’t like the airport myself and whenever I visit my parents, I’d rather they would not come to pick me up or see me off. My heart aches knowing there’re our beloved ones left behind longing for us to come back.
Ally
April 28, 2024 at 7:21 PM
I’ve seen this drama, I think. But I have no idea what it is off the top of my head either. The first part about not getting compensation due to an industrial accident which was blamed on the worker seems very familiar though.
🌸 Seeker 🌸
April 28, 2024 at 7:25 PM
Sadly an oft-used trope.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 28, 2024 at 8:41 PM
Yes it is really hard on the family who are left trying to clear the loved one’s name or fighting for compensation when they have enough issues with grieving and trying to survive when they have lost the main earner.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 15, 2024 at 6:11 AM
DB Book club Summer read
I hope that those of you who managed to read the second book on the DB book club list found it an interesting experience. Thanks to those who were able to participate in the discussion yesterday🥰. Anyone who wants to add their thoughts at a later date is welcome to come back and add them on The mermaid from Jeju Fanwall post
The next book is: The sense of wonder by Matthew Salesses
The discussion will be held on Sunday 14th July and will be hosted by @lapislazulii on their fanwall. We are looking forward to sharing our thoughts with those who are able to join us on the day.
Advance notice the final book for 2024 is: Almond by Won-pyung Sohn
Date: 13th October 2024
@indyfan @mellowarmadillo @attiton @elinor @ahjummaaa @toomuchtv @wonhwa @jls943 @cayong03 @babylilo @ruhi0101 @petrolia @acacia @dramaforever @zindigo @linarrick @ndlessjoie @sonai @kdramajoy
KDramaJoy
April 15, 2024 at 7:46 AM
Yes, @lapislazulii — count me in for The Sense of Wonder reading group. I like basketball, so sounds good for me. Thanks you for hosting.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
April 15, 2024 at 10:31 AM
I looked up sense of wonder and it sounds like my kind of book. Count me in too please!
too_much_tv
June 10, 2024 at 6:25 AM
I couldn’t remember when the discussion was! I came back to look. Thanks for the coordination!
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
June 10, 2024 at 8:15 AM
No worries @lapislazulii should have the list of those interested and will be tagging everyone in with the list of questions and for the discussion. Hopefully you have been enjoying the book and even if not you will be joining in the discussion to let us know your views.
too_much_tv
June 10, 2024 at 8:31 AM
Oh, I loved it! I made notes so I wouldn’t forget what I thought. I just saw that the library renewed it one last time, and I wanted to keep it on hand to look at parts other people liked. Also, I wanted to make sure that @wapzy knew about the book group, since they are looking to branch out.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
June 10, 2024 at 8:38 AM
Thanks for bringing in others who may be interested as the tag group may miss beanies who missed the original mention months ago that’s why we try to flag with each new book as a lot can happen between each of the quarterly get togethers. I am excited to read your comments next month! I hope we have a good turn out.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:05 PM
DB book club discussion: The mermaid of Jeju by Sumi Hahn
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:05 PM
How would you rate this book on a scale of 0-5 stars?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:56 PM
I gave this book 5 stars.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 3:51 AM
I would rate this book 4.5 stars, and it’s definitely one I would recommend to others.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:06 PM
What impact did the author’s note to the reader have on your thoughts about this fictional telling of historical events?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:57 PM
It was really interesting to think about how children can be spiritually connected to a country they have not been to or rarely visit. The author’s experience was so unusual she would not have had a context to put it in without the support of those who lived in Korea and had the knowledge to explain what was going on for her.
I was able to reflect back on the story and pick out the different parts of the story where the Grandmother and Mr Moon had elements of the author’s story weaved into their experiences:
Grandmother knowing about the army boys arrival so she made preparations for them before she died.
The grandmother’s reflections of her younger engagement in freedom fighting and the punishment she associated with those actions was her losing her sons and husband.
Mr Moon could only find peace from the ghosts by returning to Korea and having an encounter with a sharman and a monk. The discussion of how faith and spirituality are ways of joining or separating from one’s culture and the past.
The chance encounter with the three men meeting at a place that represented a place of sorrows.
Mr Moon’s friendship with a boy whose mum was a shaman.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 5:22 AM
I really like the expression, “spiritually connected to a country”, and thank you for highlighting these parts of the story.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 4:21 AM
Honestly, the author’s note at the end blew my mind. It really lingered with me after I finished the book.
I found the fact that she offered this information interesting in and of itself, since the novel stands strongly on its own. For me, the value of that additional insight is that it made me reflect on the role of fiction. It’s often in fiction that we can explore what may be too difficult to touch in ‘reality’, but the line between fact and fiction can perhaps be thinner than we imagine, so the author’s note had me thinking that whilst the retelling may be fictional, it gave voice to experiences that are very real for people in times of war and conflict.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 6:50 AM
The author’s note made me think about the portrayal of shamans as con artists and or joke figures in a lot of Korean dramas. In a book I have just finished (The picture bride) they were shunned and belittled in the community. I wondered how they have survived as a profession that often they say came to them and was not necessarily something they wanted to be due to the negative connotations but often it was something that is present in several generations of their family.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 9:09 AM
This is so true – fortune tellers, psychics, mediums and similar are not unusual in certain cultures/societies (although not everyone consults or believes in them), so I wonder why they’re so rarely portrayed positively. Maybe if they were, it would be considered an endorsement of them in some way, so productions want to avoid that unless it’s a drama with supernatural elements anyway? I liked that recently, See You in My 19th Life (which I dropped) and Perfect Marriage Revenge departed from that portrayal a bit.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:06 PM
What are your thoughts on the role spiritual/dream elements played in everyday life for these characters?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:58 PM
Prayers to various gods was an expected ritual for all aspects of life, regardless of status. The author captured this when Junja felt real disappointment when her prayers to put out the fire on the day of the wedding weren’t answered.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 4:54 AM
I liked that their beliefs in the spiritual and dream realm conferred a kind of collective superpower, but one that could not be controlled or made to do their bidding. It meant that giving thanks and paying respects was embedded into their lives, and that there was a sense that there was/were force(s) bigger than humans at play.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 6:52 AM
I agree the control element was important here as often the way prayer is portrayed, it is as if it is an instruction for the deity to comply with or they are failing in their duty.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:07 PM
The three women in the family each experience a significant event due to the times they were living in, which of these events stood out for you as a pivotal point in the story?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 11:02 PM
Grandmother choosing to work with the policeman because she was then in the position to work with him to save Sewol. The second significant benefit was saving the village by encouraging the women to become cooks at the camp so the the villagers could be directed to the caves when the time was right.
The shocking revelation that the mother’s death was because she refused to disclose information. This meant grandmother lost another child in horrific circumstances due to conflict.
Junja’s wedding day was the point where her eyes fully opened to the significance of the events going on around her.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 5:05 AM
For halmung, learning the consequences of having fought back with violence was what stood out for me. It informed her approach to the survival of her village, and how she lived the rest of her life.
For Junja and her mum, the decision for Junja to travel to the mountain for the first time was an insignificant one, but it became a very pivotal point in the story.
Also, for Junja, her almost drowning and meeting the sea king seemed to mark the point at which she became an adult.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:08 PM
Chance encounters, loss, loyalty, friendships and closure are some of the themes running through this story. What were the themes you connected with and why?
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 11:03 PM
The scene with the three men discussing their horrific experiences which connected them all to the same event. That conversation led to reflections and healing for them all.
This scene stood out because years later the same place is a tourist attraction because of its natural beauty. There are no plaques describing the atrocities that took place there. It made me wonder how many places have I visited that also have untold stories associated with them.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 5:17 AM
I liked this story’s nuanced exploration of loyalty – loyalty was something that could kill you or save you. It is seen as a virtue, as a demonstration of trust, but it is also how people can be condemned through guilt by association.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 6:58 AM
I also think loyalty meant sacrifice of the personal for the benefit of society and for some of the characters that was at a significant cost to their own needs and desires. It really highlighted the dilemma’s faced across the country at that time and reminded me of Chicago Typewriter.
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 9:23 AM
Yes, this! I’m still heartbroken for Sewol. Letting go of Junja seemed like the only choice he felt he could make for the people of Jeju, his family and Junja.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 13, 2024 at 10:13 PM
Hello
The day has finally arrived for us to discuss this book. I am looking forward to reading your thoughts on this interesting perspective of the life of the Jeju islanders.
@indyfan @mellowarmadillo @attiton @elinor @ahjummaaa @toomuchtv @wonhwa @jls943 @lapislazulii @cayong03 @babylilo @ruhi0101 @petrolia @acacia @dramaforever
@zindigo @linarrick @ndlessjoie @sonai @kdramajoy
dramadillo
April 14, 2024 at 3:49 AM
Thank you so much for hosting, Mother Bean!❤️
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 7:01 AM
Thank you for sharing your insights on this thought provoking story.
KDramaJoy
April 14, 2024 at 11:18 AM
Thanks much again to Reply1988 (and to all the care and concern you show)!
The picture of 1940s Jeju village and mountain every-day life were interesting to me, so I was more engaged in that part of the novel set in the time when the occupying Japanese left and the Nationalists and US forces/consultants arrived. I think the focal point of this part of the story for me is about a proud hard-working group of people whose lives dramatically changed for the worst almost overnight by external forces. Yet they maintained their humanity, and their loyalty and love for their island, its people and culture.
I was attracted to the novel primarily because of the title. I had hoped that the haenyeo and their daily lives would be part of the fabric of the story in the way that deaf communication (in particular sign language) were in Tell Me That You Love Me, and professional wrestling was in Flowers in Sand. (I mention these 2 dramas because I became immersed in learning so much about something that I knew so little.) So I was disappointed that I didn’t feel that much wiser about Junja’s life as a haenyeo.
Probably because I do not consider myself religious or spiritual (though I respect those who are), I generally do not connect with stories in which ghosts and shamans are fundamental. And I did not do so for this novel. But I thought @reply1988 and @mellowarmadillo (dramadillo?) remarks about the spiritual were beautifully meaningful.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 12:34 PM
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this story and the aspects that appealed to you. It is interesting that the story was split into two distinct times and locations but unlike Pachinko we didn’t get to travel alongside Junja.
I agree the details about the day to day lives of the haenyeo was limited, I am sure there are other books that cover this element but I am not sure whether any of the authentic ones have been translated into English.
I hope you will join us in future book club discussions and hopefully there will be a story that you feel you can connect to.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 12:36 PM
Thanks for your sweet comments they are appreciated 🥰
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
April 14, 2024 at 2:31 PM
@reply1988 Thank you so much Mother Bean! Thanks to you, I am doing a book club after a long time. Your prompts are incredibly insightful.
1) How would you rate this book on a scale of 0-5 stars?
I would place this at a 3.5 (I will explain my ratings at the end.
2) What impact did the author’s note to the reader have on your thoughts about this fictional telling of historical events?
This book has the most poignant author’s note I have ever read. It elevates the book-reading experience and makes you pause at the thin line that separates spiritualism from unquestioning belief in something as is and superstition. The way she describes the voices, it gave me goosebumps. In my lifetime, I have experienced a few unexplained, and I have never been able to comprehend their hows and whys.
3) What are your thoughts on the role spiritual/dream elements played in everyday life for these characters?
I loved the cultural aspect of it. It was grounded in old-school realism of spiritualism in everyday life of men and women. I connected to the halmung almost like I used to with my own grandma. For me, the standout was Sowol’s dream…or was it Junja’s? Does one stop dreaming when dead? It is a stunning piece of writing.
4) The three women in the family each experience a significant event due to the times they were living in, which of these events stood out for you as a pivotal point in the story?
The massacre in the hill shaped the way they lived the rest of Junja’s life, surpassing even the devastation of her wedding day or the loss of her grandmother. Without that event, Junja’s trajectory might have been somewhat different. The guilt experienced by Mr. Moon, Junja, and the monk imbues the book with a lasting depth that is hard to shake. It also is the catalyst for driving Mr. Moon back to SK later.
5)Chance encounters, loss, loyalty, friendships and closure are some of the themes running through this story. What were the themes you connected with and why?
Loss. This book is centred on loss. It starts with the protagonist’s death and never takes a breather. I would not say I connected, though. I am not a fan of tragedies. However, the book also addresses closure, which helps alleviate some of the heavy, melancholic elements that dominate the narrative.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
April 14, 2024 at 2:33 PM
Comment was deleted
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
April 14, 2024 at 2:34 PM
Now for my rating: 3.5
What I loved: The prose. It’s a beautifully written book. Even though the theme was heavy and melancholy, the writing was never cumbersome. It flowed crystal clear, with clarity and depth, and it gave every character a distinct voice.
The young Mr Moon was fascinating. He reminded me of a quintessential K-drama hero—drop-dead gorgeous, shy, falling first and hard, etc – the typical K-drama trope. He is so very sweet and fascinated by this slip of a girl who does not give him the time of the day. I would have loved to know more about him.
The lieutenant – perhaps the most exciting character.
What slipped: The dividing of the book into two parts.
The sudden shift to the modern-day US setting and the sudden focus on Mr. Moon felt jarring, pulling me out of the book. I stopped reading because I couldn’t relate to the character; Nothing pointed to his eventual union with Junja. Of course, everything becomes clear towards the end, and then I felt frustrated that we didn’t get more of their love story. It was evident that Junja fell in love with him. However, their eventual personas in the US were so different from who Junja and Mr. Moon used to be, and they were so cardboard that their narrative felt disjointed to me.
Why did Junja give up everything she had learned and eventually embrace Christianity? What compelled her to approach the church’s door? They still lived by the ocean in the US. How did she never return to diving again? Was she angry at the Ocean King for taking away everything she loved? It was such an integral part of her identity, and if the author had maintained her connection to the ocean, or at least explained the absence of it, the character’s narrative would have had a stronger sense of continuity.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 3:13 PM
I am so glad you joined the book club for this one, thank you for sharing such an interesting perspective. Now that you have said that about Mr Moon I am picturing this being turned into a great K drama.
The change in focus from one story teller to another at the end of one life and the pull back to Korea was an interesting approach for the author to take. I wonder what it was like to write from the perspectives of characters at two very different developmental stages.
I hope that you will join us for future book club posts.
Minnie🫘👩🏻🚀Pioneer and Teacher 👩🏻🏫🌱🏹
April 14, 2024 at 3:26 PM
This was a wonderful breather. I love to read, but it’s been a challenge with trying to juggle everything on my plate currently. So this gave me an opportunity to do so. The last book I did for a book club was ‘The Help’, so it’s been that long, so thank you!
I also think calling Mr Moon by a formal name made the character distant to me, as if I was reading about a neighbour I am not very interested in going about his routine. They lived a fairly long married life, shared two children, and yet I could not feel the bonding, and I missed that. To me, the first half of the book is written better narrative wise, but the last quarter is powerful. The middle is much like a k-drama – stretched, boring with nothing much happening.
Reply1988 -❣️Mother Bean❣️
April 14, 2024 at 5:35 PM
@minniegupta1 “The middle is much like a k-drama – stretched, boring with nothing much happening”👈🏾🤣 more evidence this would easily convert to a K-drama.
We chose quarterly discussions via the fanwall rather than more frequently on video to allow for the busy but we know beanies will opt in and out for multiple reasons.
zindigo
April 14, 2024 at 4:24 PM