Part Two

Since that night about six months ago, I have become an unabashed K-drama fangirl, if that term is remotely appropriate for someone who is a grandmother. I’ve completed entire series in genres I never thought I’d waste five minutes following. Whatever the genre, whether funny or serious, or often some combination, these shows are distinct from our customary fare in their frequent featuring of past lives and loves, atonement, forgiveness, acceptance, and redemption. Even in ostensibly romantic comedies, there is a message, a singular point, to the plot and narrative that is essential to the K-formula. It operates across vastly different genres, even the grim historical sagas based on Korea’s painful history of invasion, brutalization, and colonization.

Like much of what passes for TV programming, many of the programs are silly, implausible, and very similar to each other. They provide escape and some fascinating insight into Korean culture and history, none of which, of course, should be taken as factual, any more than most of ours can be. But even in the fluffiest of romantic-fantasy-comedy, and even in the darkest melodrama and the most amazing historical revisions, a subtle cultural understanding comes through.

As I watched more of these series, many of which seem to be written and directed and even subtitled by the same Korean authors, elements of their main characters’ story and its resolution repeat consistently. Maybe it’s just the way the English subtitles are written, but at times even the language used is nearly the same. Every series discloses an important life lesson that characters must accept before their “happy ending,” which is sometimes not what they wanted but one that brings them personal peace and the knowledge that they did the best that they could do, is earned.

Invariably the lesson to be learned is hinted at throughout the 14 episodes of most series, but, as in real life, the characters to whom it is presented are either not ready to “get it” or get it only to lose it again.

That’s me.

In these K-stories, the “teacher” (often an elder) imparts to the other characters and the viewer—forcefully and in the closing episode—that what brings us despair is too much hope.

I’m sure this is a greatly simplified translation of a very nuanced expression, but even at face value it does reflect Buddhist teachings. Taken this way, hoping, and wishing are the same thing. Hoping/wishing too much fosters unrealistic expectations that can only lead to disappointing outcomes. Repeat “failures” to achieve things that are far beyond our reach can become depression and despair. The body may endure, but the soul will break, and suicide starts to look like the only answer. Even in contemporary Korea, Christianized and secularized by the waves of brutal foreign invasion that suppressed traditional spiritual practices, this central tenet of Buddhism (and K-drama!) holds fast.

I’m not suggesting that everyone should take heart in the notion that hopelessness is the ideal path. The character who has the role of shaman—usually just a regular character who has lived through a lot rather than an anointed spiritual leader—delivers a message that goes something like this, taking into consideration the translation and my translation of it: “you are frequently hopeless because you have not taken care of yourself.”

In other words, your life’s energy, and consequently, opportunities to see the light, literally and figuratively, have gone to “fixing” the lives of others. This is a state that requires perpetual motion of mind and body so as to anticipate their every need and attempt to fill their every want. Such people suffer from an excess of empathy, but, as with an excess of most things, it becomes destructive for both the giver and the recipient. The sheer effort makes the giver ragged. The recipient learns to take the giver for granted. Neither the giver nor the recipient finds growth or satisfaction in the relationship.

I’m also not implying that selfishness and self-absorption are the ways to dispel suffering and renew hope. The other side of this worldview is the unquestioned objective that we each must live as “decent human beings” with care and compassion for all living things. Self-negation in the service of even the most deserving will end in despair because we are duty bound to show kindness to the human form we inhabit. That’s where the “fine balance” rests.

Has K-drama healed me? Of course not. But it has suggested other ways of approaching the great big universal search for meaning and that elusive balance that allows us to cope with despair, learn from it, and brighten dark days with real hope. And it’s surely a more entertaining, less expensive, and less risky method than heavier doses of pharmaceuticals and alcohol!