[drama 2008] Happiness / Bliss / I Am Happy 행복합니다

[canyayasis]

ay_link - thanks for clearing up the relationship between Yong Jae and Ji Sook.

That makes sense - and doesn't delve into the world of truly bizarre coincidences -

I was curious when Yong jae was cleaning up to go see Ji Sook and Sarang -

and his brother was giving him a hard time - as in - "you're going to see a girl"

and YJ didn't really say much -

so it's not a big dark family secret - at least on YJ's side of the family...

[Guest hjkomo]

Alright, I finally had a chance to watch Ep. 5 and...

Preview Ep 5

갑자기 찾아온 서윤을 보고 준수는 소림 끼쳐 하지만 할머니를 비롯한 가족들은 기뻐 어쩔줄 모른다.

서윤이 몸빼로 갈아 입고 철곤의 밥을 퍼들고 안방에 들어오자 준수는 기막혀 하며 서윤의 겉옷과 가방을 챙겨들고 나오라고 소리친다.

두 사람이 나가고 난 뒤 철곤네 가족은 "키가 엄청 크다. 눈이 엄청 크다.

비율이 죽인다. 손가락이 예쁘다. 향기가 죽인다"는 등 서윤에 대한 얘기로 꽃을 피운다.

한편 세영(이휘향 분)은 '서윤이 선 자리에 나타나지 않았다'며 가족들에게 서윤이 어디 갔는지를 캐묻는데.....

Ahhh....the ?housework? clothes...

I call them the country ajumma pants. Why do they always come in such ugly prints?

Mom says they're really comfortable because they're so loose.

I really felt sorry for Joon Soo in this episode, too, but I was glad to see that he didn't let the Royal Family's snobbery affect his own sense of self-worth.

Actually SW said it himself, when he first visited JS in her apt (well, more like he allowed himself in)

He knew about 'that person' ... referring to Yong Jae. And both Yong Jae and Ji Sook, they grew up together.

That explains why Sarang (JS' son) calls him 'uncle', and the grandma also knows about Ji Sook.

I agree, Yong Jae and Ji Sook are not blood-related. You could tell by the way they were talking to each other (Yong Jae visits Ji Sook and little Sarang even though he has no reason/duty to) and by the way Yong Jae looks at her (longingly, with deep affection/romantic love).

And isn't Sarang just adorable???

I agree she looks sweet enough and she sure has a sweet tooth. And being innocent isn't hard when you haven't yet had much chance to be anything else yet (I suspect the chance is coming her way quite soon, though).

But a truly sweet person? I suspect not. For example: there are various ways of attracting your sister's attention when sitting right next to her at a dinner table. Sticking a fork in her thigh is not exactly at the sweet end of that spectrum of options.

kacanghijau I know I seem to have it in for pretty Ms Ae Da, but maybe that's because she really did look as though a high calorie snack wouldn't melt in her mouth when we first saw her in ep1, and so I'm maybe overreacting to my disappointment in finding out she has a less pleasant side.

.

The reason I called her "silly" in my teasing flit across today's events is that, as canyayasis's comment to your post emphasises, the two sisters (once Ae Da has met Kang Seouk] are in essentially the same boat and so ought to be on the same side. Ae Da needs to realize that soon, othewise she'll be in even hotter water with Mom than SY is. And without the secret Ajushi and Ajumma agents (one of them even sporting shades this week as she goes on an undercover mission) that SY has on her side.

At this point, Ae Da knows that her handsome savior is a poor boxer, but she still tries to one-up her sister in front of her family (When Seo Yoon apologizes to her parents at breakfast the morning after bringing JS home, saying she was too drunk to remember anything she said last night, Ae Da loudly announces that SY is lying. And she happily/triumphantly accepts Mom's offer to take her shopping.) I found it amusing that she kept faltering in her designer high heels while walking up the stairs to the boxing gym. And the way she looks so out of place there:

Okay...now, I'm ready for Ep. 6:

Blanket. *check*

Foot-stool. *sort of - I don't have something suitable yet, but a stack of phone books work pretty well*

Back massager. *not yet - Mom offered to give me Version #2, but I felt guilty, so I reluctantly declined* - how's that for filial duty?

[canyayasis]

I enjoyed ep. 6 - but....

when you start watching a show - and you are entertained by the chemistry between the 2 main leads -

you can get greedy - and want them to have more screen time together...

ep. 6 - we didn't see either of our leads until about 12 minutes into the episode....

(I kept looking at the timer in the media player -)

and then not together much thereafter -

but i've become comfortable with these 2 families - and feel completely "settled" in for their adventures...

I really like the interaction between the brothers -

and thank goodness they bought the one another guitar -

that was painful to watch that guitar get destroyed - OUCH!

[Guest smiley6yrl]

I enjoyed ep. 6 - but....

when you start watching a show - and you are entertained by the chemistry between the 2 main leads -

you can get greedy - and want them to have more screen time together...

ep. 6 - we didn't see either of our leads until about 12 minutes into the episode....

(I kept looking at the timer in the media player -)

and then not together much thereafter -

but i've become comfortable with these 2 families - and feel completely "settled" in for their adventures...

I really like the interaction between the brothers -

and thank goodness they bought the one another guitar -

that was painful to watch that guitar get destroyed - OUCH!

I would have to disagree with you, Canyayasis about the lack of screen time between the 2 main leads. I actually like the fact that they don't focus too much on the main leads, since we all know that it can get annoying if we see them too much (and its normally the same probs/conflicts). I like the fact that they shift their attention from time to time to the other family members because I feel that all of them have a story to tell and how else would we get to know the other actors/actress and their role if the drama focus too much on the main leads. Ie, Golden Bride I like how they spends a lot of the first few eps on the main leads+ telling their "story", but after so many eps of them together, i got really frustrated watching them and the only reason why I finished that drama was because I enjoy watching the conflicts and interactions between the two families b/c trust me, if the drama main focus was the leads, then I wouldn’t have finished that drama. I just hate unnecessary drama + conflicts,.... anyway, i jsut finished HGD ep 14 (my best episode so far~!), and now im off to watch Happiness , just the title alone make me

.

[baduy]

While we're on the subject of family-relationship titles...

I always called a cousin's cousin (as in, being related through the marriage of the cousin's parents --> a second cousin.

I don't think that's correct, but what exactly is the definition of a second cousin?

And what about a second cousin, once removed...twice removed...etc.?

Anyone care to enlighten me?

This little sub-thread actually throws rather an interesting light on another sort of translation difficulty, illustrating yet again why "finding the right word" is only a tiny part of the problem.

The basic reason we can't hope to match the Sino-Korean kinship terms to anything like exact equivalents in English is that there's nothing in the history of any English-speaking countries that corresponds to the Confucian family system (let alone to the hyper-Confucian ultra male-dominated "Neo-confucianism" that came to prevail in Korea under the Chosun dynasty and which by contrast makes the historical patriarchy of other East Asian peoples look like a utopian sketch by Angela Dworkin). In a culture where absolutely everything about your standing and prospects in life is determined by precisely which males you are related to by blood and in what precise degree, it's inevitable that the language of that culture will possess a highly differentiated and exact way of expressing those relationships in clearly-defined kinship terms.

In most Western countries, kinship terms, being less vital to specifying fundamental life-chances, were not defined or used with anything like that precision. So although they exist, they can't be reliably "paired off" with Korean equivalents, even those that seem equivalent at first glance (the appropriate translation of "oppa" and suchlike is another aspect of this same problem)

Even "parent" came to have its modern English meaning only in relatively recent times on a timescale that shadows the shift towards the nuclear family, which in the West basically began with the rise of London as an economic metropolis, breaking up the complex family units of traditional rural living as individual younger family members and maybe their spouses left the larger family group and set up their own, much smaller households in the distant city where the new source of prosperity was located. Incidentally, that's why there's no equivalent of the annual chuseok return to the "home territory" in England. We urban Brits all have a place somewhere else that our ancestors once called "home"; but after four or five hundred years of city living, the urge to go back regularly kinda wears off. Anyway: back to "parent". The word came in to English with the Norman invaders in 1066. But what the Normans meant by "parent" was what their modern French descendants still mean. In modern French, "parent" can indeed mean just good ol' Mom and Pop, but it can equally be used, especially in the plural, as a general term for "relative". So "parent" in French can be just as tricksy as "cousin" in modern English. Narrowing down the significance of "parent" to its modern English sense happened to the originally French word only in England, and reflected social and economic changes that first emerged in that country.

The first sense the Oxford English Dictionary gives for "cousin" couldn't be vaguer: "A collateral relative more distant than a brother or sister" By the time the OED gets to sense 3b it is able to shed a bit of light on the question raised in the thread:

first, second cousin, etc.: expressing the relationship of persons descended the same number of steps in distinct lines from a common ancestor.

Thus the children of brothers or sisters are first cousins to each other; the children of first cousins are second cousins to each other; and so on. The term second cousin, is also loosely applied to the son or daughter of a first cousin, more exactly called a (first) cousin once removed.

But what dictionaries say and the way words are actually used are often two very different stories. Or as puela already said, it varies. And canyayasis you're right again . Our hjkomo can explain words a lot more clearly than the august authors of the OED, on this evidence at least.

[Guest kacanghijau]

I'm already watching episode 2. SY look so hot and kinky with that white shirt without pants (perv mode). About the young maid, i still don't understand by what her saying: "if we are going by family tree, she's below me so why am i calling her director Lee." and she consider Ae Da her niece? Can anyone explain? Anyway the fireworks is really beautiful...

[Guest hjkomo]

Thanks, puela and baduy for the English lesson.

So, I guess English terminology also does try to distinguish between generations.

A little more on the Korean:

Even though my dad's cousin is technically my o choon, I didn't call him that (I don't think you call someone that when speaking directly to them anyways, just like you don't call your first cousin sa choon, but rather Oppa, Unni, Hyung, Noona or just their name if they're younger than you).

He's my grandfather's older brother's son (on my dad's side) and also older than my dad, so I called him kkeun appa/aboji (older dad/father). And my cousins' children call me Eemo (maternal aunt) or Komo (paternal aunt).

On your father's side, you call his brother sam choon (when he's unmarried) and add a kkeun (older) or jageun (younger) in front of it if you have more than one uncle. When he gets married, you call him kkeun/jageun appa/aboji (older/younger - dad/father). His wife is kkeun/jageun omma/omoni (older/younger - mom/mother).

On your mother's side, you call her brother wae sam choon with a kkeun (older) or jageun (younger) in front if you have more than one, but this stays the same whether he is married or not. His wife is wae soo mo.

[Guest puela]

ok episodes 6 ental and 5 shinhwa HERE

[Guest o-cha]

I'm so friggin behind~~~!!! I didn't go online at all over the weekend....which means I'm still stuck on episode 3...so sorry guys I couldn't join in the conversation yet.

ay_link : thanks for the dialogues on eps 5...it helps satisfy my 'spoiler-ish' curiousity a little bit.

hjkomo : thanks for the detailed information on Korean familial terms

baduy : I really miss your detailed spoilers. I hope you'll do them again for future episodes.

canyayasis : sorry...I tried recruiting a couple of the KA ladies from Robbers to watch this but they're not biting.... Maybe I'll have better luck after Robbers ended. I know for me as long as there is Robbers...Happiness would come in second...hehehe.

[baduy]

I enjoyed ep. 6 - but....

I know what you mean. But I think there's a gear-shift between eps 5 and 6 which is quite deliberate. (All you transatlantic guys who drive around in gas-guzzling automatics on 12 lane freeways probably don't really get the satisfying sense of manually shifting up into fourth or fifth when you judge you've done enough acceleration and its time to cruise a while, because a little computer in your gearbox makes the decision for you, often at the wrong time).

To turn up the dial on my metaphor-mixer, most of the balls are now in the air and our ingenious jugglers can turn to thrilling us with the patterns they make as they fly back and forth. And after the more rapid fire exposition, ep 6 has lit a slow-burning fuse that is sure to lead to some very big bangs in due course now that Ha Kyung KNOWS!! Heck my metaphor-mixer just overheated badly. I'll turn it off for now.

As the drama broadens out, I think some of the great strengths of Kim Jung Soo as a writer of longer TV dramas, superbly abetted by PD and camera crew, are starting to show. For instance: the way she threads things together so that one scene reminds us of others, even though plot and character-wise they are quite unrelated. Take, for example, the recurring motif of feeding a small kid.

What?? you may ask.

Well...

1) Lee senior's farcically terminated blind date, after mother-in-law has set him up at the dentist's. What really scares the living daylights out of the poor guy is when this apparently stir-crazy ajumma who's dragged him to an eatery holds a chopstick-load of food a centimeter from his mouth and says "a-a", which is what you say to a Korean tot when you want it to open its mouth and take the next installment of grub. "That one doesn't have any children", his mother-in-law later reassures him after she fesses up to being behind the encounter: well, no, and it kinda shows.

After discussions in my somewhat polyglot family circle on this vital topic over the weekend, it seems that there isn't a corresponding "open Sesame" infant-feeding word or word-equivalent in either English, German, Polish, French or Danish. (The doctor's "Say aah!", let alone the dentist's "Open wide!" isn't really the same thing). Though I've done this feeding thing a whole lot myself, I can't remember there being any magic word either. I seem to remember that in the western world you just hold the stuff out on a spoon and look hopeful. And if that's not enough, you lightly stroke the infant's chin with the spoon, whereupon the mouth usually goes into action. But of course that wouldn't work with chopsticks.

You certainly don't say "a-a" in German, cos that's the German baby word for what comes out, a bit later you hope, at the other end.

2) Model candidate granddaughter-in-law SY, more successfully feeding granny a titbit via the hold-it- out-and-say "a-a" method. Message: I'm the ideal candidate to make sure your great-grandkids grow up strong and healthy and dutiful to their Elders, so join my side and lean on that stubborn grandson of yours if he doesn't much like this latest ruse of mine (which, predictably enough, he sure doesn't).

3) Sweet little Sarang (eat your heart out Ae Da, you've been totally vanquished in the cuteness stakes, and you deserve it too, you sly but decorative little creep). I can feed myself now, he proudly proclaims, and by golly he can, and does. And he only gets just a teeny bit of gunge on his mouth, which Mommy lovingly wipes off with a tissue without at all belittling his achievement.

4) Contrast Ae Da (OK this doesn't altogether belong here, but she is so repeatedly mean to the fantastically wonderful SY that I can't help getting in a dig at her whenever possible) Caught with a tub of ice-cream in one hand and a loaded spoon in the other, she palms them both off on the Manic Maid and claims innocence. But Ae Da, dear, what's that large chocolatey smudge on your top lip then? Count yourself lucky Mad Mom was only briefly distracted from going ballistic over SY's latest misdeeds, otherwise she might have wiped that goo off your face with the back of her pretty powerful hand.

Now I bet you're all saying "well OK that compulsive-obsessive windbag baduy may spot these things, because he obviously spends his otherwise empty life watching this stuff frame by frame and making copious notes about complete trivia; but he can't really expect us to believe that the saner readers of this thread, who just, you know, like to enjoy dramas now and then, are really taking this kind of stuff in as they watch?".

Ah, but I think you are taking it in. And that this sort of network of references is part of what makes us all feel that this drama, for all its variety of character, scene and pace, somehow hangs wonderfully together. Take those examples I just gave. Leaving aside #4, which was just part of my anti-Ae Ta campaign really, I think it's interesting that two of them were chosen (and not by me) for screen caps, and the first also got a mention as an incident by someone else.

So they do stick out, even in a lot saner minds than mine. My point (or claim) is that they not only stick out, but that they also, at some level in the viewers' awareness, stick together and help bind up the viewing experience. And I'd say that's one of the (many) things that distinguishes fine drama from churned-out soap.

[Guest puela]

Thanks, puela and baduy for the English lesson.

So, I guess English terminology also does try to distinguish between generations.

no english lesson from me hjkomo it is all on baduy.

my perpective of that term is more based on the costa rican view and understanding of it than the english one, and even in the spanish speaking countries it varies.. for example a mexican friend of mine calls what I call a second cousin to me her uncle or aunt.. so confusing

[baduy]

I call them the country ajumma pants. Why do they always come in such ugly prints?

Well, to judge from your cap, clever SY seems to know that an elegantly simple silver engagement ring shows up all the more clearly against the background of those hideous swirling murky tones. A beautiful woman can make a fashion item out of anything.

Rural sartorial tastes aside, this is a major coup for Soompi, putting it in the front rank of Korean lexical research. The compound 몸빼 in that preview defeated all the Korean dictionaries at my disposal, on line or in print (the separate components are of course fully covered, but that doesn't help with that particular pairing). But now Soompi members have an elegant and vivid translation that the best minds in Korean lexicography couldn't furnish: "country ajumma pants".

But while banging my head against the Korean original of that phrase during the long night of ignorance before the sun arose on distant California and hjkomo and her wondrous Mom awoke to put us out of our misery, I noticed something else rather interesting (according to my admittedly rather wacky notion of "interesting" at any rate) just a tiny bit further into that same sentence in the ep5 preview, where we're told that JY dishes up the rice in the 안방. The bi-generational hjkomo team translates that as "dining room", which seems logical enough from the context, and from what I can see by searching various on-line corpora, where 안방 crops us in a wide range of meanings, from its most basic root-sense of "inner room" to the more confucian-domestic-specific "women's quarters" of a house, or simply "living room".

So what? Well something rather odd happens in the transition from ep4 to ep 5 where rooms are concerned. Near the end of ep 4, SY turns up at the house. She's welcomed into the main living room, and it's there that she feeds the goodies to granny. Then we cut to JS and Dad on their way home from drowning their sorrows. As they reach the house they hear sounds of great merriment.

Cut to an inside view again, and this time SY, granny and "the boys" -- not only the 20-year-old "baby" of the family but also the eldest brother have something of the little boy about them -- have moved into the kitchen, where they are drinking tea at the small table. If we freeze frame, raise the video gain and look VERY carefully, we may just see that SY is already in the wondrous pants, but that's only with hindsight. On first viewing we are highly unlikely to see them, because camera holds her in head-and-shoulders view most of the time.

Enter Dad and JS into the main room, where Dad becomes immediately intrigued by the obviously expensive goody basket which is now on the main table. The brothers, then granny, advance out of the kitchen and start calling JS a dark horse for keeping such a beauty under wraps. He wonders what on earth they are talking about, until granny turns and gestures to SY to come out of the kitchen, which she duly does and introduces herself to her intended father-in-law. At which point JS flips and turns on her furiously, yelling first "You!!! Out!!!" then, in case she didn't get the point "Get out of our house!" Roll credits and teasers. End of episode.

Now we might have expected a reprise of that last incident at the start of ep5 (especially since, for the viewers, a week has intervened after that cliffhanger moment) but we don't get one. Instead, we get an intriguing and lingering opening close-up shot of a woman's legs in c.a. pants. A woman who is clearly getting a bad case of cramp and would dearly like to get up and stretch, but who is valiantly restraining herself. And who is wearing, very prominently and proudly displayed against those outlandish leggings, a silver engagement ring.

Cut to head and shoulders view of SY as she keeps up a brave face, despite the discomfort. Than a wide-angle shot, and we see that the location is now Chul Gon's room. We are for the moment looking sideways on, with that wardrobe as the background, Chul Gon himself seated in profile to the left, SY in profile facing him to the right, in between facing the camera granny and the youngest son, who is plainly in seventh heaven over this wondrous creature his adored big brother has brought into his life: much more exciting than that watch from Hong Kong!

No dialog yet, until Chul Gon kicks off with "So you're Joon Soo's boyfriend are you?". Obviously quite a lot has happened in the interim, and SY hasn't followed JS's orders to get out. We'll discover in a moment that JS is in the brothers' room talking to Joon Young and changing out of his work clothes into a sort of Arnie Schwarzenegger I-take-no-nonsense-from-women padded jacket.

So the living room isn't occupied. Why aren't they in there? We know, scenario-wise, why they had to move to the kitchen from the living room near the end of ep4, because otherwise JS would have seen SY the moment he came through the front door, which would have spoiled the scene. But there's no such explanation for why they've left the living room again for this little parley. Or for why, when granny realises Chul Gon would probably like a late-night bite to eat after that booze and SY keenly volunteers to prepare him some (indeed more than "some" as it turns out) rice and soup, they stay in his room and he eats there. Not in the dining/living room, after all.

Now of course that's no criticism of Team Hjkomo Translations inc. Though wondrously gifted and dedicated, they aren't psychic. In fact, we should be grateful to their translation for reminding us that the living/dining room would be the natural location for this scene.

So what's up? I think the next shot gives the PD's and the camera team's little game away. Because there's another camera angle on that set, which now suddenly starts to be used for all the shots of SY as she talks to her intended new family. It's a half-way front-on diagonal. And it puts very plainly into the frame of every shot of SY from this point onwards, just to the right of SY herself, that photo of the departed mother and wife.

With a double significance. The wife is "in on" the family introduction; and SY kneels smiling in dignified and tranquil composure, echoing the posture and aura of the wife so closely that the visual difference between a beautifully crafted hanbok and a sort of nightmare mermaid outfit of fashion top and country ajumma bottom doesn't matter: SY becomes a living reflection, a reincarnation almost, of the woman in the photo behind her, bringing back to this house after twenty years what the cruelty of early death stole away. A little earlier, we saw Chul Gon sitting alone in that room, after his altercation with his mother-in-law about remarrying, and begging his dead wife to at least appear in his dreams or otherwise speak to him and tell him what was right for her sons and him. Well, these shots imply, his wish is being granted, though not quite in the way he imagined (and we should bear in mind that SY's visit is going to be followed soon by another one by someone else who it looks like she is going to turn out to be the complete answer to Chul Gon's entreaties.)

[Guest smiley6yrl]

so i finished watching ep 2-3 of Happiness, and Im half way done with ep 4. Yes, indeed, the fireworks were fantastic... It's unique and I havent seen any like it. But I have a few questions regarding to ep2. When the Grandma was talking to the dad about him treating his other son better than his oldest son, does that mean that the son that works in the shop with him isnt his real son, maybe adopted son or son from another woman? Although I don't know who he is and how he is related to the family, but I feel really bad for him. I mean, he always wake up early n delicated all his time on the shop, but it was a bit harsh of what the grandma said. I also like how the whole family welcome in Kang Seok and they didnt look down on him like most people would b/c he's poor. But I think it would be nice if he was rich instead. I mean the whole rich girl liking poor guy or vice versa thing is getting a bit old, so it would be pretty interesting if he was also rich, that way she wouldnt be going the same path as her sis and it might be interesting how it all play out, but thats just me. As far as the husband cheating thing, I feel really bad for his wife of all people. I mean she trust her husband and very loyal+devoted to him and his family and this is the thanks that she gets. I would go crazy if it happens to me so its understandable if she goes ballistic. As usual, thanks Puela+Rainydays for the mega upload links and Withs2 for the subs!

[Guest h3rl1n4]

Hi..

Does any one know how long this drama will be???

[canyayasis]

Hi..

Does any one know how long this drama will be???

supposedly 50 episodes - 2 a week.

[canyayasis]

RE: the end scene of ep. 6 -

what is it that JS says to SY's brother that makes him haul off and hit him?

JS is shouting somethin' that makes him angry!

[Guest hjkomo]

Funny you should mention it...

But while banging my head against the Korean original of that phrase during the long night of ignorance before the sun arose on distant California and hjkomo and her wondrous Mom awoke to put us out of our misery, I noticed something else rather interesting (according to my admittedly rather wacky notion of "interesting" at any rate) just a tiny bit further into that same sentence in the ep5 preview, where we're told that JY dishes up the rice in the 안방. The bi-generational hjkomo team translates that as "dining room", which seems logical enough from the context, and from what I can see by searching various on-line corpora, where 안방 crops us in a wide range of meanings, from its most basic root-sense of "inner room" to the more confucian-domestic-specific "women's quarters" of a house, or simply "living room".

So what? Well something rather odd happens in the transition from ep4 to ep 5 where rooms are concerned. Near the end of ep 4, SY turns up at the house. She's welcomed into the main living room, and it's there that she feeds the goodies to granny. Then we cut to JS and Dad on their way home from drowning their sorrows. As they reach the house they hear sounds of great merriment.

Cut to an inside view again, and this time SY, granny and "the boys" -- not only the 20-year-old "baby" of the family but also the eldest brother have something of the little boy about them -- have moved into the kitchen, where they are drinking tea at the small table. If we freeze frame, raise the video gain and look VERY carefully, we may just see that SY is already in the wondrous pants, but that's only with hindsight. On first viewing we are highly unlikely to see them, because camera holds her in head-and-shoulders view most of the time.

Enter Dad and JS into the main room, where Dad becomes immediately intrigued by the obviously expensive goody basket which is now on the main table. The brothers, then granny, advance out of the kitchen and start calling JS a dark horse for keeping such a beauty under wraps. He wonders what on earth they are talking about, until granny turns and gestures to SY to come out of the kitchen, which she duly does and introduces herself to her intended father-in-law. At which point JS flips and turns on her furiously, yelling first "You!!! Out!!!" then, in case she didn't get the point "Get out of our house!" Roll credits and teasers. End of episode.

Now we might have expected a reprise of that last incident at the start of ep5 (especially since, for the viewers, a week has intervened after that cliffhanger moment) but we don't get one. Instead, we get an intriguing and lingering opening close-up shot of a woman's legs in c.a. pants. A woman who is clearly getting a bad case of cramp and would dearly like to get up and stretch, but who is valiantly restraining herself. And who is wearing, very prominently and proudly displayed against those outlandish leggings, a silver engagement ring.

Cut to head and shoulders view of SY as she keeps up a brave face, despite the discomfort. Than a wide-angle shot, and we see that the location is now Chul Gon's room. We are for the moment looking sideways on, with that wardrobe as the background, Chul Gon himself seated in profile to the left, SY in profile facing him to the right, in between facing the camera granny and the youngest son, who is plainly in seventh heaven over this wondrous creature his adored big brother has brought into his life: much more exciting than that watch from Hong Kong!

No dialog yet, until Chul Gon kicks off with "So you're Joon Soo's boyfriend are you?". Obviously quite a lot has happened in the interim, and SY hasn't followed JS's orders to get out. We'll discover in a moment that JS is in the brothers' room talking to Joon Young and changing out of his work clothes into a sort of Arnie Schwarzenegger I-take-no-nonsense-from-women padded jacket.

So the living room isn't occupied. Why aren't they in there? We know, scenario-wise, why they had to move to the kitchen from the living room near the end of ep4, because otherwise JS would have seen SY the moment he came through the front door, which would have spoiled the scene. But there's no such explanation for why they've left the living room again for this little parley. Or for why, when granny realises Chul Gon would probably like a late-night bite to eat after that booze and SY keenly volunteers to prepare him some (indeed more than "some" as it turns out) rice and soup, they stay in his room and he eats there. Not in the dining/living room, after all.

Now of course that's no criticism of Team Hjkomo Translations inc. Though wondrously gifted and dedicated, they aren't psychic. In fact, we should be grateful to their translation for reminding us that the living/dining room would be the natural location for this scene.

While Mom was so generously making up the more significant half of Team Hjkomo Translations, Inc., she said that 안방 most closely translates to "master bedroom." Basically, it was the main room of the house back in Ye Olden Days where family life centered around. I have also seen it loosely coined as "living room" in modern settings. But, since we were only given the short preview (without stage directions, mind you!), and it mentioned SY serving food there, I, with my modern and incorrect sensibilities, decided to write "dining room" because I thought it wouldn't have made sense to say that they were eating Chul Gon's room. Dang, baduy!! You don't let anything slip past you, do you???

[Guest kacanghijau]

so i finished watching ep 2-3 of Happiness, and Im half way done with ep 4. Yes, indeed, the fireworks were fantastic... It's unique and I havent seen any like it. But I have a few questions regarding to ep2. When the Grandma was talking to the dad about him treating his other son better than his oldest son, does that mean that the son that works in the shop with him isnt his real son, maybe adopted son or son from another woman? Although I don't know who he is and how he is related to the family, but I feel really bad for him. I mean, he always wake up early n delicated all his time on the shop, but it was a bit harsh of what the grandma said. I also like how the whole family welcome in Kang Seok and they didnt look down on him like most people would b/c he's poor. But I think it would be nice if he was rich instead. I mean the whole rich girl liking poor guy or vice versa thing is getting a bit old, so it would be pretty interesting if he was also rich, that way she wouldnt be going the same path as her sis and it might be interesting how it all play out, but thats just me. As far as the husband cheating thing, I feel really bad for his wife of all people. I mean she trust her husband and very loyal+devoted to him and his family and this is the thanks that she gets. I would go crazy if it happens to me so its understandable if she goes ballistic. As usual, thanks Puela+Rainydays for the mega upload links and Withs2 for the subs!

Yes, he is the adopted son if i'm not mistake. And I don't agree with you about Kang Seok. If he's rich, Ae Da will become more like her mother and she will not be in her sister side which is the main lead. I don't want that to happen haha... and for the cheating husband, to think of it, it's not entirely on SW fault. There are pushing factors as well (his wife is infertile and cannot have baby and there are high probability Ji Sook's baby is also his)

[Guest haezi]

Okay, I'm officially hooked!!! Someone on dramabeans suggested this series...so I watched all 6 episodes in one sitting!!! It's been a while since I've watched a Sat/Sun drama and I first got hooked to the Park jung geum drama this weekend (I cautiously recommend--its dramatic, shocking storyline is reminiscent of the early 90s soap operas like The Season of Waterfalls--ah, the memories; my first kdrama addiction!!!--or The Trap of Youth BUT it manages to surprise/appeal to me despite the obvious cliches, and han go eun's acting has greatly improved) and now this!

I'm a busy student but can't resist a great drama like this one. It's so different from the typical family dramas because it's actually smart and doesn't sacrifice realism for funny. At the end of each episode, I found myself falling more in love with kim hyo jin, an actress I had never particularly liked before!!! Her mannerisms and expressions are just too cute. The kiss at the end of epi 2 was especially hilarious, "eng...open your mouth." Plus, her scene in the lobby of her father's company in epi 6 is AWESOME!!! And the actress who plays her younger sister is as pretty as ever, although she is one of those rare and unique girls who has consistently come out with strong projects since her debut in S#arp.

More amazingly, this is the first time I haven't been annoyed with lee hoon since his character doesn't seem testosterone overloaded. While I can't say I like lee jong won's character or his opposite (I never understand girls who pass up a decent guy for a selfish, arrogant jack*ss), the drama makes him LESS neukki (greasy)--a marvelous feat since even dramas like Sunny Place of the Young couldn't accomplish this.

I love witty dialogue and this drama has plenty. Plus, the way they depict chaebol's, especially the mother, is too funny AND realistic. In other dramas they always have the ultra-cold, poised mother who will stop at nothing for worldly advancement. Here, the mother is just as ambitious but not quite as poised, which makes for hilarious lines ("ahhh, these tortuous blobs of cellulite," "what will Harvard do for a girl who looks like that mom," "for now, just wangddahae her") and great dynamics, especially with her loose and defiant first daughter. Her obsession with image is something that resonates with me and any Korean whose parents have emphasized the vital link between one's public image/manners and his/her parent's facial hygiene (specifically, fecal facials :P :P ).

They seem to touch on many important issues such as social hierarchy while delivering quality entertainment...they even touch on depression with the father!

Also, it usually takes a while for a drama's characters to find their places and respective colors but this drama has been a "rainbow" of layered characterizations (thanks to the awesome cast and crew) from the beginning! I am happy that Korea has churned out a quality drama like this...my faith in SBS has been restored! I only wish I had a greater discipline to resist such a drama for the sake of my grades...

[Guest dopeyR12]

Just sharing my opinions...

okay i'm now totally off this show.

i've seen and sampled the first four shows and i don't like it.

it puts me to sleep.

the dialogue bores me.

the characters bore me.

and the stupid weak assistant lady, Ji Sook, annoys me as well.

this is my rant on class structures in Kdramas:

First off, I really think the show's theme is too shallow for my taste.

I'm not Korean so I don't know how class systems work in Korea, however, can the structure really be as segregated as it is portrayed on the show.

I mean I know that there are differences and etcetera (I'm not an ignorant and insipid fool), but, do people really oppose integration that much?

Is it a big deal if the person you fall in love with doesn't share the same bank balance as you do?

And are rich people really concerned with staying rich or elevating there status?

I think the thinking should go that if you're already rich, then there's no point in trying to elevate your status. However, if you're poor, then you're constantly trying to elevate your title.

Also, what is it with the trend in Kdramas that affluent people are always snobs? Is it too good to be true that there are nice people with money in the world? (Okay...I'm an optimist...but life really does suck if you think pessimistically) Then there's also the whole deal that the poor people will alway remain poor. What ever happened to capitalism and education?!

this is my conclusion to my rant about class structures:

I'm just noticing the social concepts that Kdramas present to me about Korean culture. But really, are all rich Koreans really concerned with just making mroe money?!

okay here's my rant that has a dose of huge feministic values seeping through the spaces:

Then there's the whole damsel in distress plot line. I really hate damsels in distress. I mean has anyone heard of Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory?! People will model behaviours they see in the media. It's a proven scientific theory. Just watch Barney and Sesame Street and Real World (although the latter is an example of what not to do...). The image of the damsel in distress (in this series it's almost every single young female character) sends a signal to all of these young girls that it's okay to be saved and not do anything but pout. Seriously?! Instead of advancing female ranks in society, these Kdramas are helping those who want to stop it! It's mostly those girly, chick-dramas. Can't the stations come up with an empowering drama that does not involve the guy becoming her knight in shining armor? Can't stations send a better image to young girls out there that they should be their own knight.

Here are my counter claims to my rant about lack of girl power in Kdramas:

Teenage girls love romance. Poor, average girl + Hot, rich guy = LOTS OF MOOLAH FOR THE COMPANIES! OH YEAH BABY!!! THEY'RE ROLLING IN THE DOUGH! Basically, these companies cater to what a young girl wants: a love story with an ending that makes you want to watch a sequel.

Okay.

I'm done ranting.

These feelings have been building up inside of me ever since I began to watch Kdramas which was about 1 year to this day. I've seen 59 dramas (yes, I keep count and yes, I am obsessed) and they all have these annoying issues that I've ranted about above. Sorry if none of this even made sense and I'm even more sorry that you had to read through all of this just to find out I had nothing else to say about "Happiness" other than that it bores me.

Oh well. Good Night!