Okay, don’t ask me how we got on the subject, but a group of us were out last night having some Chinese food, and one of the sisters mentioned how after watching Korean videos she feels dirty because they blatantly use emotional manipulation in those dramas and that though she was a willing participant, afterward she just feels like she was taken for a ride. Then I mentioned about this Korean music video I once saw, which I have been told is quite old, called “Because I’m a Girl” by a group called KISS (and, no, not the heavy metal band from the 70’s that wore all that makeup) which illustrates this perfectly. Here is a link to the actual video – be aware that it takes a few minutes to download and the video itself is about 8 minutes long… and don’t worry if you don’t understand Korean, because though the song is in Korean, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on in this “pantomime of love”…
Case Study in Korean Melodrama..
If you don’t want to sit through the entire thing or just want my smarmy summary of it (and, no, not from memory – watching it now)… basically…
- Cute Korean girl walking down street
- Handsome Korean photographer taking photos of some model
- Cute Korean girl “accidentally” gets in the shot and guy takes snazzy photo of said girl.
- Girl apologizes, guy says “it’s okay” and both go their seperate ways with huge, stupid grins on their faces.
- Guy later develops photo and can’t keep his eyes off it.
- Change scene to hair stylist salon where, wouldn’t you know it, the girl works.
- Then true to form, and Barilla pasta commercials, guy unexpectedly walks into the salon.
- Then there’s about 30 seconds of random hair washing, flirting, longing, recognition… the works.
- Then guy goes back to his normal life… or does he?
- As scene switches to guy taking pictures of a motorcycle in his studio, girl comes in!
- Wouldn’t you know it… he left his hat at the salon and she’s there to return it… (nevermind how in the world she tracked it down to his studio… I’m guessing a two-week long door to door search… SCARY)
- Then another 30 seconds of googly eyes and silly grinning and all that jazz
- Then INSPIRATION! Let’s take photos of cute girl… who is, of course, prohibitively shy at first, but through some encouragement she blossoms out of her shell and comes alive.
- Next cut to, of all things, a motorcycle track where boy and girl zip around gleefully as love is blossoming…
- Then back at the studio, dude is developping dozens of photos of his new-found beauty in the dark room…
- BUT WAIT… look at that bottle of dangerous film developper he leaves hanging precariously over the edge of the shelf while he’s distracted…
- Then a couple minutes of random romantic interludes which include… a moment of umbrella drama, cutting up a photo, spilled tomato juice, changing into one of his shirts, and a second man of ambiguous sexual orientation.
- Then it looks like another session of “let me take your picture” flirting is about to ensue… but hold on… dude ran out of film…
- Girl offers to get some more film from the dark room… but we all know what’s there… the film developper bottle of FATE.
- Long story short… girl spills bottle into eyes, collapeses, rushed to hospital.
- Cut to scenes of guy acting out his guilt… throws naughty bottle to wall, races motorcycle really fast while thinking of her, seems to give away his bike and is giving up riding
- He then even seems to give up photography as he packs up his stuff and has a little spat with previously mentioned ambiguous guy before leaving
- Then show girl getting bandages removed from eyes… she can see… but where is our Romeo? He’s gone…
- Then the obligatory 30 seconds of girl crying, eating a lot of ice cream, watching what seems to be “Stuart Little” on the TV, and imagining seeing him in mirrors.
- Then second dude walks in to show… oh my… dude put her picture on the cover of some magazine… he must have loved her? (am I the only one who noticed the less-than-ideal “date rape” article prominently displayed on the cover?)
- She then goes to the motorcycle track where… GASP… she sees him there sitting with his dog… wearing dark glasses… and playing fetch.
- When all of a sudden… she realizes… HE’S BLIND! (btw, do a lot of blind guys play fetch with their seeing-eye dogs?)
- She also realizes (in a series of flashbacks that she couldn’t have possibly witnessed) that… (oh my, hold me)… he gave both of his eyes to her in apparently the world’s FIRST live donor dual eye transplant. Hippocrates would be rolling in his grave…
- She is overcome and starts to cry in front of this blind man, who in turn, gets up and walks away as she watches him go…. Fade to black… (what? not even a “thank you”?)
My first thought after watching this video was… why couldn’t dude just give her ONE eye. I mean, sure, both of them would have messed up depth perception and a decreased range of peripheral vision, but at least they’d BOTH be able to see. You’d think that in a room full of smart doctors, someone would have said, “wait a minute…”
I mentioned this fact to the sisters at the Chinese restaurant, and they just rolled their eyes… “Then the story wouldn’t be as beautiful,” one of them said, “by sacrificing his sight completely, he’s showing how much he cares about her.”
“Wait a minute… so you’re saying that if he only gave her one eye, it would mean less?” I asked.
“Absolutely! Because it would be like he was holding something back for himself,” she replied.
I’m sorry, I didn’t know preserving one’s eyesight would be such a selfish act…
So it got me thinking… does the cost of the sacrificial act determine the quality of love behind it? Or is it that it isn’t a gift unless you give completely? And does love always entail some sort of sacrifice?
I remember a story that my father once told me about my grandmother. He was the youngest of 7 (or 8?) children in a very poor family. He told me that during the Korean War a part of their sustainance was clover that they would pick and eat. Very often they went hungry. He said that when he was still quite young, his mother would tell him that she thought the most delicious part of the fish were the bones and to save that part just for her, which he obliged her in doing. It wasn’t until years later that he realized that she was just saying this so that he wouldn’t feel guilty for eating fish while his mother had none.
Then it makes me think of how God’s love is so much bigger than that. And, yes, there is sacrifice attached to that love… in fact, the greatest sacrifice. The God of the Universe humbled himself to become one of us… born in a feeding trough… subjected to rejection and humiliation… tortured and mocked… and killed in a such a gruesome manner only reserved for the most debase of society at the time… just so that we can be with Him. He took the punishment for our crimes… crimes we committed against HIM. This is true love. Just the act of leaving His throne and taking on flesh was in itself a greater sacrifice than any of us could possibly imagine. God not only gave, He gave completely. He could have very easily just changed the rules and not have to sacrifice anything, much less his only begotten Son, to be with us. But I believe He wanted to demonstrate His love for us. It’s not that the sacrifice was given to prove the love. The love was there and it showed itself in sacrifice. The greatest love… the greatest sacrifice… but there are still those of us who just don’t want to see it. Maybe we feel that if we do, it will manifest itself in us as guilt, or we’re under the delusion that such a sacrifice was folly because we’re not all that bad. If our response to such a wonderful gift is rejection… how crazy are we?
For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son…
as you promised, you indeed posted it on your xanga. but how come you didn’t say all these things yesterday when we were talking about it????? geez…woulda saved me a lot of grief. but it’s like, if you were stranded somewhere and you were starving, but your spouse finds a piece of bread, but because (s)he sees your hungry and cares about you MORE than her/himself, so she WANTS you to have all of it. if it’s about self-preservation, then yes, the logical, or FAIR, or PRAGMATIC thing would be to just split it in half. but it wasn’t about being fair or splitting 50/50. it’s like your mother/child/fish bones story…(you know, i’ve heard other korean adults tell that EXACT same story about the fish bones. are you sure its not one of those “walk five miles in the snow” type of stories?”)
one eye would already be above and beyond…but to give both means a full sacrifice on the part of one person for the other. it’s the attitude and heart of that person that is expressed in the sacrifice.
plus, it’s a stupid korean music video.
the comment above is me. i didn’t mean to do NonMemberComment.
when you love someone, you are willing to make any kind of sacrifice. I agree with joannkim that it’s not a matter of splitting. you want the other person to have everything. it doesn’t matter what you are left with. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems stupid and illogical when you can simply share… but according to the person giving, if you share then the one you love will not get enough.your last paragraph about God’s love and sacrifice was very well put!
nate, you really think she’s cute? you crazy! she’s freakin HOT! i love her.
question.. do you always have to give some sort of an extreme sacrifice to show your love? what if that guy was me and i didn’t give her any eyes, but instead i took care of her and made her as comfortable as she can be. is that somehow not showing as much love than pulling out my eyes and giving it to her?
oh, man, i had seen the last portion of that video a couple of months ago. (someone had to explain what happened in the first half.) what i didn’t get is why he just left like that. was that his way of saying “i love you but i can’t be with you b/c i’m blind now”?? i would think she would be so overcome with gratitude that she would want to be with him even though he was blind. a really silly video, in any case.
God’s love is so much greater than that. His love makes no sense and makes all the sense in the world at the same time.
Nice comments everyone.
Joann, a lot of the times when I say stuff, it’s just to further the discussion. The whole time last night, I knew exactly what you were talking about, but I wanted to promote discussion. Sorry if it frustrated you.
Sarah, thanks for the encouragement. Then shouldn’t she give him his eyes BACK? HAHA! Maybe they can alternate months on who has the eyes.
Kwang… oh yeah! If I were that guy, I’d keep one eye just to have something to look at her with! HAHAHAHAHA… I’m kidding…. maybe… hahahaha
Sae, AH, yes, but some would say that if you look at it as a burden, then it’s truly not motivated by love but rather a sense of duty. In fact, you would want to give her your nose, ears and tongue just so that she has spares… but that’s silly… whoever heard of a tongue transplant…
Joo, I don’t think he knew it was her standing there…. I don’t know… it’s kind of funny that there are probably huge cultural nuances that we are not getting – EVEN THOUGH we are, in fact, Korean – HAHAHAHA.
And what’s the deal with the effeminate random studio helper dude? why is he even in the thing? can anyone explain?
alternate?….hmmmm…that would be really expensive to keep up!the helper dude had to let the girl back into the studio after the surgery. (but strangely, he seemed a little jealous of the two)
don’t you know? “effeminate random studio helper dude” is also a recurring role on ALL korean dramas. it usually breaks down like this…
1. good-looking, strong, hyper-masculine male lead (i.e. the “sa-jang” of a ginormous company who doesn’t really want to be sa-jang but pursue his true passion such as piano or photography, a rebel artsy-fartsy type, or a tortured, morally-conflicted gangster aka “kkang-pae” who is merely the product of his negative upbringing/environment)
2. beautiful, soft-spoken…no…stupidly PASSIVE, usu. poor and/or orphaned (despite ALWAYS appearing in designer clothes), hard-working, sometimes terminally ill (not discovered until she and the male have overcome great odds to be together) female lead
3. male sidekick to male lead – of these sidekicks there are 3 types:- the human in place of a dog. this sidekick is his best buddy/old college friend who at times works as a mediator between the female lead and the male lead. often times, this sidekick makes sacrifices for the male lead (but not vice versa). he also will reveal secrets to the lead characters that he has sworn not to but knows he should b/c its the right thing to do (i.e. “he’s really leaving you b/c he’s been disowned by his family and doesn’t have a penny to his name and he’s ashamed”, “she’s really leaving you b/c she’s dying from a brain tumor”.) often times, he’s the comic relief.- the creepy effeminate sidekick. is he gay or not? before, he was similar to the “dog” sidekick (see above) but these days, there seems to be more direct references to his homosexuality (korea’s increasing westernization). he’s loud, usually dresses in loud colors, wears lip gloss, has the gay hand movements…basically all the stereotypes of gay guys. sometimes, it seems that he’s in love with the male lead which is why he’s following him around. i think he’s just there to hypermasculinize the male lead.- the young kid who idolizes the male lead. he’s basically like “robin” to “batman”. the spunky orphan kid who wants to be just like the male lead. similar to the “dog” sidekick (see above).
4. female sidekick to female lead – typically 2 types:- the funny, fat girl. she’s usually unattractive (under korean standards) and chubby/overweight. she provides comic relief by being really loud and unlady-like, usually via physical comedy. she’s the confidante of the female lead, and she also discloses sworn secrets to the leads at convenient plot points. she’s also there to make the female lead seem more lady-like and beautiful (duh), sometimes by blatantly saying that she wishes she were as pretty as her (sigh).- the somewhat attractive and sassy friend. this friend is pretty but not beautiful, and tries to make up for the incredibly passive female lead. she says everything that you wish the female lead would. often times, this sidekick has a love-hate relationship with the “dog” male sidekick and they often end up together at the end of the drama.
*there are always slight variations to these, esp. b/c they want to try to be different and unique and innovative. but in the end, it always ends up the same. =P
all korean dramas/videos/movies are all the same. highly predictable. it’s usually like some underdog working in a huge corporation fighting off a evil boss, the girl is “too nice” to stand up for herself, and it wouldn’t be a korean drama if someone isn’t dying of cancer.
HAHAHAHAHA! That was awesome Joann! You are a true connaisseur… or would that be connaisseuresse?
wouldn’t that be connaiseusse? hmmm.like masseur, masseuse?
anyways, those who are proponents of the giving of two eyes as being indicative of more love/devotion, i’d like you to tell that to someone who donated one of their kidneys to someone they loved. are you trying to say that donating two would have shown more love and devotion?hmm….
one of the funniest conversations i’d heard in a long time. thanks for coming out to dinner and spicing things up. hahaha… so funny. the whole kidney thing came up, and it was expressed that it wasn’t the same because you really do need at least one functioning kidney to live (though i suppose you can live off of dialysis for a little while).
i see the women’s point from the night before that the complete sacrifice of something one doesn’t necessarily need to give to someone they love so that they can enjoy sight without any handicap or to share the two eyes is “mushi suh”…. i suppose it’s like the poor woman who gives all that she has as opposed to the rich person who tithes but only a portion of what they have. Complete sacrifice vs. partial sacrifice? but does it mean i love someone less to just give them a partial sacrifice vs a total sacfrifice? hmmm… i dunno. it just goes back to how all of our motives are tainted… even our love.