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

[baduy]

(is that really his name cuz I'd hate to be named colleague)

Funny you should ask that, because I did think about asking you about it (for possible onward referral up or across your massively informative [non-virtual] family tree). When I first saw this guy thus labelled (he's been around since the earliest episodes, of course) I assumed it was generic (like 비서 say). But then he began to have rather bigger "bit part" and to develop a character in his own minor right, and such people generally are given personal names in this drama. My problem being that Dong and Ki are both possible name components, though I don't know whether they occur in combination as a name. Whereas 비서 plainly couldn't be someone's name.

I think what tipped the balance in my mind (maybe at the cost of common sense) was when I was spot-translating the restaurant eavesdropping scene last week, where it seemed to me somehow unlikely that the Dong Soek up top could be personal whereas the Dong Ki down below was generic in consecutive lines of script. But that may be a case of relying on a marginal case to decide a general principle. When I cancel Christmas and spend my planned 10 days or so non-stop Happiness end-to-end viewing (maybe interrupted by a little skin-care sleep though I fortunately am too old to be a male earring wearer), I shall keep an unpierced ear open to find out if the guy is ever named, one way or another, by any of the other characters. Anybody out there got an Uncle Dong Ki. Or a thus-named nephew? Hardly likely that any emigrants to an English-speaking country would want to inflict that on a kid of course. Being called "Donkey" is a lot worse than being called "Workmate" (isn't that a Black and Decker TM for one of those foldy-up sawing-stand thingies?)...

But on the more substantial point, yes thanks for pointing out Mr Colleague's (or Mr Classmate's)

"email" giveaway soliloquy: it hadn't occurred to me but I see now that his tipping-off of SY about the garlic plans is maybe meant to be not so much a personal good turn as the iceberg tip of a much larger anti-HK campaign among those of the workforce who've witnessed her capacity for damage-doing and are aiming to influence the succession in favor of JS and SY. Just as we are getting strong hints that Director Choi (left-hand-side-of-the-screen) has a direct leaky pipe to HK as part of his diehard support for SW. My guess is that the planned meetup between HK and the President of the HK group may have something to do with that as well.

Ok, onward we go....

[00:25:13]

The doctor explains that the immediate goal of the surgery was successful -- the haemorrhaged blood has been drained from the cranial cavity, but KS's condition remains grave. Behind it is a congenital weakness of an artery wall which could have burst at any time, though as it happened it was the trauma of the head-blows during the fight which triggered it. But essentially the same calamity could have happened anytime, from any number of outside causes. The coach recalls, as Ae Da did a little earlier, that Kang Soek had suffered from occasional dizziness and headaches, but the coach had put it down to his overdoing the training. The doctor confirms that these are indeed typical symptoms of the condition. Joon Soo and Young Jae want the doctor to reassure them that now the operation has been performed, KS will make a good recovery, but he can't give them any such hope. They have done all they can as neurosurgeons, he says, by draining the blood from his brain cavity, but whether he will even recover consciousness is in God's hands alone. Joon Young, who's been listening at yet another open door, goes back to where Jjong Ah and Ae Da are now sitting. "What did he say? Was the surgery a success", JA wants to know, but all Joon Young can say is "go and listen".

But before she can do so, Joon Soo and Young Jae join them. Joon Soo addresses Ae Da. "Sister-in-law, I just had a session with the doctor. Kang Soek's operation went well. So don't worry. Let's go home now." And now in one of those touches that make this drama so outstandingly special, there's a huge difference between the reactions of Jjong Ah and Ae Da. It's Jjong Ah, the would-be worldly-wise mentor of sheltered little Ae Da, who is completely taken in by Joon Soo's intended kindly big-brotherly deception. "Really?!! Wheeeee! I told you he'd be OK, didn't I?" But as before, Ae Da pays no attention. The coach tries to do his bit for the "all's well that ends well" front by saying "Not much point my hanging around here. I'll go home", and Joon Soo repeats to Ae Da "Let's go home too. They need to stabilize Kang Soek's condition." It's at this point that Young Jae walks out without saying any more, ignoring Joon Soo's attempt to call him back. Now Ae Da speaks, talking to Joon Soo, though her eyes are in that private other world:

- Brother-in-law, I know everything.

- What?!

- Don't lie to me. Kang Soek Oppa ... isn't going to be OK. I know the truth. I'm going to stay here. No: I have to stay here.

- Sister-in-law...

- Please. Don't make me leave Oppa's side here. You understand that? I'll go crazy if you do. If I can't stay here, I'll feel guilty for the rest of my days. I won't be able to face life."

She gets up and starts to walk towards the wards, but then stands still again, helpless and distraught, a lost child. "But where is he?..."

After a brief view of the despondent Lee family round the table after Joon Young and Young Jae have returned home, we are back to the mansion, where Mom, still in her isolated delusions, is leafing through wedding dress catalogs until she yawns, realizes how late it is and decides to get some sleep. At that moment, Joon Soo and Jjong Ah return and report to SY, soon joined by the President. Jjong Ah pleads in a wail for the President to "do something" for Kang Soek, so loudly that it alerts Mom.

"Jjong Ah, be quiet, you'll wake up Mom!" SY hisses, but the damage is done, and an instant later Mom is on the scene demanding to know "What's going on? What are you all up to?! ... And where's Ae Da? Oh my God, has something happened to Ae Da?!"

The President withdraws to his study, saying nothing, and the scene moves to AD's room, were Mom is confronting SY, JS and Jjong Ah [We might at first think it's rather unlike the President to run for cover and leave the younger generation alone to cope with Mom, but in a moment we'll realize that his first thought has been to contact the hospital and make sure Kang Soek and Ae Da have everything they need. Once that's been seen to, he comes back on the scene]

Mom: So you're telling me that punk got a little injured, and now she's there nursing him even though she's engaged to another man?!

SY: We aren't talking about a "little" injury here, Mom...

JA: Ma'am, it's even likely that Kang Soek Oppa will never come round.

SY: It's really bad, Mom

Mom: So you're saying... he's going to die!?

JS: It would take a miracle for him to recover, mother-in-law

Mom: But the world is full of miracles! Don't you realize that? You never know what can happen. But why is Ae Da staying there with him? Suppose people see her, what then? Why didn't you force her to come back home? Why didn't you, son-in-law?

JS: I'm sorry, mother-in-law. It's just that ... Ae Da is a very determined person.

SY: It wouldn't be easy to fetch AD home, so I'll go and go and keep her company.

Mom: Don't you go there as well. I'll not allow it!

SY: Mom!

Mom: That hospital is owned by the NS group, isn't it? It's run by Mr Kang's aunt! the hospital staff have eyes in their heads and if they get to know...Mr Kang's eyes will be opened, too. Go drag her back here right away!

JA: You're really too much, ma'am! Can't you help Kang Soek Oppa too? Has he any parents? Has he any brothers or sisters? He's really sick, and you're upset that he has Ae Da to be with him?

Mom: What did you say?!

SY: Jjong Ah, please!

JA: For whose sake was it that Kang Soek Oppa was so determined to fight? It was for Ae Da! Because you wouldn't leave her be, because you forbade Ae Da to see him, that's why he threw himself into the championship fight!

SY: Jjong Ah, this is no good. You really ought to get out of here!

Mom: So it's my fault he got hurt. Is that what you're all saying?

JA: You're so right! It's all your massive great fault, it really is!!

At which point all hell breaks loose. SY pleads "Mom, calm down, I'll go talk to Ae Da and try to persuade her" and JS adds "Mother-in-law, it's just for this one night, please try to understand..." but things seem to be about to get a lot worse when Mom proclaims "I don't need any of you. I'll just call driver Kim and go there to fetch her myself!" And she's on her way, until Jjong Ah, from her refuge behind SY's protecting back finally loses all restraint, and all respect: "Ma'am! Are you really capable of doing that to a man who's lying there in hospital on his deathbed? At which point SY realizes she has to get Jjong Ah out of range at any cost. "Go on, get out out of here" she says, and while JS draws Mom's verbal fire with "Mother-in-law, the best thing right now really is to let Ae Da stay with him", Jjong Ah creeps closer to the door for safety's sake, but doesn't go all the way out just yet. This is too good to miss. Beats "dusting" any day.

Once she (wrongly) thinks Jjong Ah is no longer there as a witness, there are fewer restraints on what SY is prepared to say to her mother, and her reproaches, though marginally less s trident, are even more focussed and telling than Jjong Ah's

SY: Mom, if you go over there now and start a riot, you'll only make sure that people who don't know already end up learning all about it. Ah, the wife of the SJ President! Her youngest daughter's involved with that boxer! You'd be shouting it from the housetops!

Unable to answer that, Mom turns on JS.

Mom: You're to blame! Why did you take Ae Da there? What was she doing at a boxing match? Is that your idea of being a responsible brother-in-law?

JS: I'm sorry.

Mom: So that's how it is! You're all in this together. Plotting to deceive me. Why are you all like that?! Eh?!

At this point, the President, drawn by the din, comes in.

Pres: Stop it! That's enough! (That he feels it necessary to talk to his wife in that tone in front of his daughter and son-in-law show to what extremes he's been driven. Then to Seo Yoon:) Seo Yoon! Don't go to see Ae Da either. I've been in touch with the hospital. We aren't going to cause problems for Ae Da. She'll be staying at his bedside tonight.

SY and JS, although obviously pleased at the outcome, are visibly embarrassed -- JS especially -- to have witnessed Mom being so decisively and curtly overruled in a matter so dear to her heart.

We cut immediately to the Library, where the President and Mom are seated at a table in the foreground. If we look carefully, we can see there's another figure in the background. It's SY, standing silently over by the book case, initially motionless, with her back turned. It's not JS's place to witness the exchange that's about to follow, but it's a sign of SY's final "coming of age" that she is allowed, and was no doubt invited by her father, to be present. Plainly, in the interim, the President has told Mom of his sponsorship of Kang Soek.

Mom: So you're telling me you actually sponsored that guy!

(The President, looking distinctly uneasy, stays silent. In the background, SY half turns, and we see her looking at her father, wondering whether and how she can help him meet the onslaught he faces. As her mother takes up the verbal assault again, she forms a resolve and begins to walk very slowly towards her parents and the camera. When her father finally begins to speak, she comes to a halt. Her head is slightly bowed, her arms hang down in front of her with her hands loosely joined across her lap, left thumb clasped between thumb and index finger of her right hand. For all the world like a little girl about to recite a party-piece for a parent's birthday. But this is all new territory for her and she's not sure why she's here or what's expected of her. When she asked her father why oh why had he sent JS out to the Busan site (and that unfortunate encounter with DS) without telling her, her father simply replied that one day, when she was a parent herself, she would understand what he'd been hoping to achieve. Maybe he feels she is ready for a further lesson in parenthood now.)

Mom: How could you possibly do such a thing? How? Didn't you know the lengths I'd gone to, how I sweated blood to get rid of that guy for Ae Da's sake?

Pres: I didn't do it for Ae Da's benefit. I just wanted to plant a little seed of hope in the lad.

Mom: Well bless my soul. Our President's a paragon of compassion!

Pres: Honey, please. Try to be a little more understanding...

Mom: Do you enjoy making things more difficult? If President Kang's wife gets wind of this, whatever shall we do? Just a while ago, her son was on the phone telling me about the apartment he's found in Manhattan where he plans to live with Ae Da.

Pres: In a situation like this you still want to make engagement arrangements ?!

Mom: But of course I do! I want to see Ae Da safely protected from situations like this.

Pres: Please make an effort to think straight! Try to see things from your daughter's viewpoint for once.

As that seems to silence Mom for a moment, SY decides to step further forward and speak up, maybe to express on her sister's behalf that viewpoint that Mom can't bring herself to envisage. [This is an exquisitely lit shot, with the light from below and to one side giving SY's face the kind of depth we find in women's faces lit by a single window in some of Vermeer's paintings, contrasted with the much "flatter" lighting in which her parents are caught. The slightly unsure little girl of a moment ago has gone. She radiates dignity, experience, wisdom; and determination]

SY: Mom, Ae Da is grown up now. She's old enough to think for herself and take responsibility for her actions. She'll never just go off again like she once did. But if you go and bring her back by force, you'll drive her away for good.

Mom: I accept that's what you think [There's an honorific there that shows she's addressing the President, as if SY had never spoken]. But I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing it for my daughter. For Ae Da! For all of us. For our family ... First thing in the morning I'll go and bring her back. Don't you go anywhere near the hospital [again this "you" is 당신, addressed only to the President as though SY were not only in shadow but not even present]. Rumors are a terrible thing.

SY: There's a young man lying there dying, and you're so terrified about rumors?!

Mom: Yes indeed. I'm scared of them. Of the power rumors have in this world. That's the sort of person you have for a mother. Did you not realize that?

And she goes our undaunted, leaving father and daughter to console each other as best they can.

I've a lot of work to do tomorrow, but I'll set my alarm clock for an early start and try to cope with the rest of the episode then. Extra Kleenex supplies may be needed by readers of both genders and all ages. As a rough guide, try to recall how many you got through when viewing the last 15 mins or so of the ep without knowing much detail of what the dialog was about. Then multiply by five to get an estimate of how many you'll need when you get to know what they're saying...

[Guest eully]

Where can I find c-sub for ep 53? Can someone please help?

[Guest rainydays]

Where can I find c-sub for ep 53? Can someone please help?

Hi eully. The c-subs for Happiness are only up to ep 50. Hope this helps!

[baduy]

Ok, into the final stretch for this week. Hope you all have those Kleenex at the ready.

[ep 55 00:40:50]

Still the same night, JS and SY in their bedroom at the mansion.

SY: I'll go over there now and be with Ae Da. I'll go into work straight from the hospital tomorrow morning, OK?

JS: Don't go.

SY: But I'm really worried about her.

JS: The two of them want to be together. Kang Soek, even if he's not conscious, he'll sense that she's there. We should let them have their time alone together.

SY: Oppa, what's going to happen to our Ae Da?

JS: I know, I know...

SY: Oppa if you got sick or died before me, I'm sure I'd die too!

JS: Don't be scared. I'm not about to get sick or die!

At the hospital

AD: You've had it really tough, haven't you Oppa. Are you hurting all over? Your whole body got smashed up just because of what a pathetic girl like me wanted? You can hear everything I'm saying, can't you? You aren't just pretending to be sick because that's the only way we can be together? It doesn't matter even if you can't speak to me. I won't go away. From now on. I won't go away, ever.

Driver Kim comes in, bringing some things for her. The coach follows him in to the room, but then senses (no doubt for the same reasons that JS asked SY not to go to keep AD company) that he's not wanted here, and goes to spend the night sitting in the corridor outside instead.

AD: Though I know you'll never ever recover from this state, I won't leave you, Oppa.

Early next morning in the hospital corridor. We see that Mom has been as good as her obstinate word: she's come in person to fetch Ae Da home. She's been too worried about being recognised to ask at the reception desk, so she's wandering around nervously at random, reading signs on doors. Hence her sudden excitement when she spots driver Kim and runs up to him, knowing she's found what she's been looking for. At first he refuses to tell her where Kang Soek's room is, but she ignores his pleas to "stay put" for a moment while he goes on ahead to prepare the ground. When Mom grabs him fiercely by the arm, though not without glances over her shoulder to make sure no-one's watching, and starts dragging him in the wrong direction, he decides that the best form of damage limitation is to escort her to where she wants to go.

Once he's opened the door for her, she pushes him violently aside, almost knocking him off his feet. We view this disruptive and noisy entry from within the room in shots that hold Ae Da's face in full view, allowing us to see that she takes no notice of it whatsoever. This is not the way Mom is used to being received when she "makes an entrance" and for a moment she is taken aback by the sight she sees, especially by the undeniable evidence that she has intruded upon a deathbed. It's characteristic of her strangely mingled strengths and weaknesses that, once over her initial shock, her first thought is that this is no place for the little girl she sees in Ae Da, and her first bewildered words are more those of a mother wanting to to shield a child from things she's too young to cope with. "This isn't right. You shouldn't be here, Ae Da." Then, following the line JS took with her the previous evening, "There are some fine doctors here, he'll come round before long"

Still AD makes no sign of even glancing round at her mother, let alone rising to her feet to greet her [Western viewers maybe need to remind themselves of how significant this is from a Korean cultural perspective]. But she does now respond.

AD: No. He won't come round. The tests show he's brain dead. They say he won't last long. He won't recover consciousness. They say this is how he'll be till the end.

Mom: Come along, quickly now, let's go. This isn't the right place for you!

AD: No.

Mom: Ae Da! Don't you realise this hospital is run by the NS group!

AD: Mom, they don't know when Kang Soek Oppa will pass away. It could be today. It could be tomorrow. I want to stay and look at Kang Soek Oppa's face till the end. I beg you.

Mom: You really think you could cope with something as demanding as that? I sympathise with you, but just think what would happen if the Kang family got to hear of it! What would become of your engagement then?

AD: If I left Oppa here like this I'd regret it for the rest of my life.

Mom: Ae Da!

AD: I love Kang Soek Oppa. If I could only give up my life instead of his, I'd gladly do that.

Mom: I know you're hurting, but how can you say something like that? I thought you were grown up now!

Hearing these words, Ae Da slowly, solemnly almost, stands up and turns round to look at her mother for the first time since she entered the room. We catch the shock on Mom's face as she realises she is looking into the calmly determined eyes of a stranger she's never seen before, though it's a stranger of her own making.

AD: Yes. I've become an adult. I'm not going to live as Mommy's little doll any more. [At this moment we hear how even discreetly self-effacing driver Kim gives an involuntary shocked gasp of "Agashii!!!". I rambled some weeks ago now about the degree of disrespect SY was driven to show her mother by the nonsense over the inheritance renunciation; but that was tame indeed against AD's words here, which hit even harder because unlike SY on that occasion, she isn't in manic top-blowing mode, but is speaking quietly from her composed and determined heart. But in both cases Mom has undermined the respect both her daughters long to give her by her own self-destructive obsessions, her failure to match her husband's insight when he reminded her that he could build a resort in the desert or drive a tunnel under the ocean, but when it comes to children's lives, even the most determined parent has to know their limits. But we are not a shocked as kindly Mr Kim, because we've heard AD say this before, to Kang Soek when he suggested she should go back to the life she was born to: "I won't go back to being Mommy's doll", she told him then. She's just saying to her mother's face something she decided long ago.]

I'll stay by the side of the man I love. There's nothing else I need. Even if you came along with 15 billion dollars, or 20 billion dollars, or someone who was a perfect match for me, I wouldn't care. If I can just stay with the man I love, that's all I want.

Mom: Why do you keep saying that over and over? Ignoring your own mother! You think that's right? Come home with me this minute!

AD: I'm sorry. The only person who matters to me right now is Oppa. Nobody else. I don't need even you Mom. Not now. [And we can see that although she knows these words will wound her mother deeply, she isn't saying them with any intention to hurt. She's saying them because they are the absolute truth. People who say intentionally hurtful things relish the effects on their victims. AD doesn't. She sees her mother is on the point of collapse, but she knows driver Kim is there to take care of her. She's interrupted her vigil over her Oppa long enough, and she turns back to resume it. For her, Mom simply isn't there any more.]

[00:49:50]

At the company, HK is asking Wicker Man where SW is and being told he's taken the car and gone off on his own. "So he's sneaked away to see Ji Sook! With so many vital things afoot right here! Great move, Sang Wook" But if he's taken his eye of the ball to pursue his love life, she hasn't. How about that meeting with the HK group President? All set, Wicker Man assures her, though he is plainly far from happy about it. "Oh and those people that were concerned with the stock manipulation business?" "What about them?", asks Wicker Man, fearing even more of the worst. "Set me up a phone call with them, please". "Whatever for?" Wicker Man wants to know. "What for?! Don't ask! When it's a matter of survival, reasons don't matter".

[00:50:24]

Close up of Ji Sook's hands (we recognize the ring, of course) as she searches a grassy expanse. [A faint echo here, maybe, of JS in episode one, hunting through the riverside grassland to find the ring the burglar had tossed there]. She's looking for, and finds, a four-leafed clover. [Oh dear, I feel a multi-levelled mega-ramble coming on, but I have to keep it in check, otherwise I'll never finish this. Briefly, this is the first time I have ever seen a reference to a four-leafed clover with its Western associations of good luck in a Korean source. The point being that in Korean culture, four is just about the most unlucky number that there is. There's even a Korean cover of a US pop-song that was originally about finding a four-leaf clover which has been turned into a "three-leaf-clover" in Korean to preserve its up-beat mood. Maybe the fact that you count clover leaves with native Korean numbers, not Chinese ones, helps avoid the "fatal" Sino-Korean "sa" (both 死 and 四 are read as "sa" in Korean). But back to Ji Sook...]

Has she been drinking again? Or is she just benumbed by misery? The script would suggest the former, because there's a scene, cut from production, where she's sitting alone in her Ilsan apartment, looking at the ring, and hitting the soju again, but of course that needn't mean anything within the scenes that went into the final cut. "Mommy found a four-leafed clover, Sarang. Remember how she used to make rings and necklaces out of them. Weren't they pretty?" She carries on her search as SW comes into shot, though she doesn't see him yet. "Are you happy living with your Daddy, Sarang? And are your granny and grandad keeping well? It's OK. When you're bigger... you'll meet Mommy again, won't you?"

She sees SW and we cut to them sitting some distance apart on a roadside bench. SW is explaining how HK had the tracker and knew where Sarang and Ji Sook were all the time, but she kept him completely in the dark, even though he was worried sick about them. All Ji Sook can do in response is to admit she's beaten and has no stomach for further fighting "She's a clever woman... Leave me. Leave me and go take extra special care of our Sarang. For the rest of my life I'll pretend these last few years never happened."

Sang Wook reaches out to touch her hair, but she turns her head away. "If only I knew how to make up to you for all the wrongs you've suffered" he says after a long silence. She turns to half look at him, as if his awareness that that may well be impossible is at least a sign that he's finally realized what it would take, so maybe she still has some faint hope.

At the hospital, AD and KS are talking without speaking.

AD: Kang Soek Oppa, please try to open your eyes. Please just try.

KS: I'm here like this because I didn't listen to you when you told me not to go through with the match

AD: So why didn't you listen to me when I told you that?

KS: I know you told me. But still, it means I can lie here now like this with you beside me. And that makes me happy.

AD: Happy? You really were an idiot, Oppa! If you realize that, don't let go of me.

KS: I am an idiot, aren't I?

At the nursing station, the doctor is telling the coach that the time is approaching when, as the closest KS has to next-of-kin, he has to make a hard decision. How can he possibly do that, the coach protests. The doctor says he understands, and there's no rush. But the coach is the one to whom the responsibility falls.

Back in the room AD senses something is wrong.

AD: What's the matter Oppa? Is something happening that you don't like?

KS: Let me go cleanly now, Ae Da. I don't want to live on when there's no point.

AD: No, I won't let you go! Even in the state you're in, you're still breathing, and that's enough for me. Don't leave me. I don't want you to!

KS: When they come to consult you and the coach, tell them to turn off the ventilator.

AD: No! They mustn't ever do that.

At this point the coach comes in, followed by SY and JS. He tells Ae Da to go get some rest while he sits with KS, but she says she's fine. The coach has brought the championship belt, saying that the Boxing Federation has called to say that the belt is Kang Soek's to keep. "He'll be a champion -- for ever". Ae Da snatches it from his grasp and throws it to the ground. "This trash! For the sake of this trashy thing, Oppa..."

Over at the Lee house, Mrs Ahn is making the great Korean panacea, porridge. For an instant we might wonder whether she thinks it will even work on Kang Soek, but no, she has a more realistic and kindly destination in mind. She knows how much of a blow this will have been to Mom, and she's sure she'll be off her food and making herself ill. So some of her favorite porridge is called for. Granny offers to supplement it with some of her special persimmon punch. So (family) life goes on... But it's time for a death.

We cut to a shot of the birdbox in the morning sunlight with birdsong in the background. But the door is half open. We realize that means someone will soon take flight.

To the hospital, same time of morning. From a remark of granny's to Mrs Ahn, we realize it's now been several days since Kang Soek's operation. Ae Da comes into shot, now in comfortable clothes and house slippers, relaxed and cheerful, and no longer addressing Kang Soek in hushed bedside tones, but talking to him as if he were a lazy husband having a lie-in while she was already up and about, getting on with the chores. If it hadn't been for the medical apparatus left and right foreground we might think they were back at their country hideaway, except that Ae Da now has the shower room she so missed back then. "Time for your hand-wash", Oppa, she says, "you're getting better by the day, aren't you?"

Then she suddenly realises something is different. Kang Soek is lying completely motionless, but then he abruptly opens his eyes. "Oppa, are you coming round? Are you awake again?" She moves to fetch help, but he keeps hold of her hand, and she realizes that this isn't the miraculous recovery that for an instant she thought was about to happen. "I thought you would never ever wake up again like this!", she says, but she's whistling in the dark. He mouths "I love you" and she replies that she loves him too, and we notice that with those words she has dropped into panmal (because of their age difference she had always used polite speech to him previously) and she stays in the intimate speech form from here onwards. "Oppa, from now on we won't worry about what other people think. Don't leave me. You won't leave me like this, will you? But he closes his eyes again, turns his head slowly away from her and his hand goes limp before the monitor alarms all start to sound. After the medical staff have declared him dead and left the room again, she whispers "Depart in peace, Oppa. Goodbye. I love you."

Whew!!! Now I really do need a nice cup of tea. Even though it's not yet quite four o'clock over here.

[Guest bluemoon1st]

Thank you very much for the summary.

[Auntie Mame]

As I was reading Baduy's summary, I was actually doing quite well with not needing the Kleenex ... until I got to the last line. Then, the dam burst and I couldn't stop crying. It was really sad to see their affection/love, which was totally pure and innocent, not fulfilled. Besides, AD & KS are the only characters without fault and/or craziness in this drama.

Thank you so much for the summary.

[Guest reKaddict]

Anyone know what the schedule of episodes is going to be this weekend? Maybe they'll just show one episode like last weekend and continue with two next week?

[baduy]

Anyone know what the schedule of episodes is going to be this weekend? Maybe they'll just show one episode like last weekend and continue with two next week?

May not mean anything, but by this time the SBS site usually has two previews, but this week there's one only, with tomorrrow's date, ep 56. My guess is that they'll just show the one episode if they can find a slot. Doesn't look promising that e.g. all the Taekwando finals are in a sequence of slots starting at the same time as tomorrow's episode. And Sunday the closing ceremonies will be hogging the airwaves.

Poor KS. So we don't even know when his funeral will be.

As for the preview "summary" of ep 56 on the site. Not very informative, as ever. And in a sort of telegrammatic style that is pretty difficult to translate. But here's my best shot:

HK meets the president of the HK group and makes some secret proposals.

Sun Min laquers the inside of a kitchen knife, hands over her savings book so Joon Ki can make a solo album, and makes Seo Yoon wash the dishes.

[Well, my horrible old French teacher in High School used to always shout: IF IT'S DAFT IT'S WRONG!!! so I guess that even though he knew no Korean (I realised after I went to college that he didn't know much French either) he wouldn't be convinced by my "translation" of the first of Sun Min's prophesied deeds. The other two make some kind of sense, though.. Ok hjkomo, go dig up the dirt about ancient Korean knife interior laquering practices....]

And an unnamed company purchases shares in the SJ foodstuffs division, causing a stir at SJ. Seo Yoon, getting wind of something, searches Ha Kyoung's desk in her room and finds a revealing memo..

[canyayasis]

whoa.... back up a minute....

laquering a the inside of a knife ...

have I missed out on something critical.... or just missed out on a joke?

but I do like what your teacher said, Oppa...

IF IT"S DAFT, IT'S WRONG>>>>

I can use that a few times today!

[baduy]

whoa.... back up a minute....

laquering a the inside of a knife ...

have I missed out on something critical.... or just missed out on a joke?

No, the joke was me daring to "translate" that phrase at all. I haven't the foggiest idea what it means. But then similar things could be said of some people who charge large fees from "professional" translations from this elusive language.

If anyone wants to inspect the original, its 순미는 **식도 안올리고** 모은 돈으로 준기의 앨범을 내주고...

Another thing that guy once said. When I telephoned him to say I'd passed the entrance exams for a certain prestigious institution (to study French according to my application, though I had plans to jump ship into Mandarin, thwarted by my inability to learn the characters fast enough) he said. "Ah well, they do make mistakes sometimes."

He was also the last teacher to cane me. I got four strokes for not knowing what preposition "décider" took before an infinitive. And blow me, I still don't know. Or care, much. Never really did see the point of French.

[Guest eully]

Where can I find c-sub for ep 53? Can someone please help?

Oh.. thanks rainydays

[Guest hjkomo]

No, the joke was me daring to "translate" that phrase at all. I haven't the foggiest idea what it means. But then similar things could be said of some people who charge large fees from "professional" translations from this elusive language.

Hear, hear! (Did I spell it correctly this time, Oppa?)

~ laquering the inside of a kitchen knife??? Mr. Google's been at it again...

**식도 안올리고**

The key is the 안, or "not" (rather than "inside")

so,.....not laquering a kitchen knife???

Actually, I assumed it had something to do with matters of the kitchen and food (음식) - as in, not cooking or being suited to cooking, or something of that sort,

but I was reminded (by dear Appa) that the "shik" (식), in this case, actually refers to a wedding (결혼식).

In other words, Sun Mi and Joon Gi did not have a (formal) wedding ceremony/reception.

In last week's episode, Sun Mi thought a wedding would be a waste of money, so they asked to be given the money (that would have been spent on the wedding), instead.

[baduy]

In other words, Sun Mi and Joon Gi did not have a (formal) wedding ceremony/reception.

In last week's episode, Sun Mi thought a wedding would be a waste of money, so they asked to be given the money (that would have been spent on the wedding), instead.

Transatlantic inter-sibling telepathy kicked in to alert me that the mystery had been solved, so I'm risking being hit with a kitchen implement come breakfast time for having 4am laptop chats with strange women (oops that sounds like an offence rather worse than the one I'm actually committing) to say thanks a million yet again.

Actually, looks like Mom missed a trick here. One detail of her spats with HK that I passed over so far is that one of the things Mom decided when setting up the wedding hall branch of the business some four years earlier was that there would always be a monthly quota of free weddings for couples who couldn't have afforded the fees. She discovered that HK had ended that practice without consulting her,saying she had assumed it was just a loss-leading business ploy that could and should be dropped now that there are more than enough paying customers. Mom angrily explains that it was nothing of the sort, and orders HK to get the free weddings reinstated and not to make such changes on her own initiative in future. But in a later episode, we see HK tearing the unfortunate Ji Sook replacement off a strip yet again, since simply doing what she was told and putting back some free weddings into the schedule has meant that the date of a VIP wedding has had to be shifted.

I bet Mom would have relished charitably bestowing a freebie on the "poor" in-laws; but then in view of the earful Joon Ki gave her with that rock number encore at SY's wedding, she might not have regarded helping him finance an album as in any sense a charitable action...

OK, back to sleep again...

[baduy]

In case anyone's wondering, the entire slot has been taken up by the Korea vs Cuba baseball gold medal finals. They're on the 9th now, so it's touch and go once the game is over and the medals handed out whether they will drop Happiness altogether and move straight on to FWC like last Saturday, or do what they did last Sunday and show both dramas late....

EDIT

Hmmm "8 o'clock news" coming up next, 2hr and 40 mins late...

EDIT

WAKEY WAKEY!!! Coming up right now after the ads!!! Yipee.

[Guest puela]

ok so the episode was just delayed about 3hrs OMG .. DARN IT.. i could've slept more arrrgghhh

oh well.. thanks for the info BADUY ^^V

[baduy]

ok so the episode was just delayed about 3hrs OMG .. DARN IT.. i could've slept more arrrgghhh

oh well.. thanks for the info BADUY ^^V

Thanks as usual for putting up with all the disruption the current schedules are causing.

I've been trying to find out what will happen tomorrow (= re scheduling, not in the plot!) but I can find nothing directly relevant. The "next episode" timeslot caption at the end of today's episode means nothing, as we discovered last week. They seem to hardcode it with the originally scheduled time then leave it in place. However, on the SBS site there is still no preview for ep 57, nor indeed any mention of it. Given that the closing ceremonies will probably swamp the schedules tomorrow, my guess remains that they will postpone 57 till next week, especially since there are plainly going to be a lot of big developments unfolding and I expect they will want to run 57 and 58 on successive days.

EDIT: Thanks too for Aigoo-ing today's episode with your usual speed. Anyone who hasn't spotted it yet, it's there for the grabbing now.

BTW SBS has now updated the program page with the links for the various VOD links of the episode, but they haven't added anything about the showing date or content of ep 57, so it continues to look quite unlikely we'll get another ep tomorrow.

I must say I think today's ep would have been even more effective it first seen the following day after ep 55. Which of course gives me a great excuse to re-watch all of ep 55 tomorrow followed immediately by 56 to test my theory. It's not just that

KS death got rather split, impact-wise, from today's funeral scene and AD's grief, which was eased in a memorable and touching way I won't spoil - not even within a marked spoiler - for all the people who haven't had the chance to see it yet. Beyond that: the closure of the Ae Da - Kang Soek strand overlaps impressively with the long-due emergence of the downfall of HK, with SY shaping up to play a leading role (more vigorously than JS looks likely to be happy with, since SW is going to be in the firing line too if he continues to toe HK's line as he was still doing in today's ep), but I think the unscheduled one week gap rather weakened the impact of that change in dramatic phase and pace.

[Guest reKaddict]

Do you think that AD is going to go along with her mom's plans and marry the NS guy? (who really doesn't seem like a bad guy, but rather a guy who came at bad timing.)

[baduy]

Do you think that AD is going to go along with her mom's plans and marry the NS guy? (who really doesn't seem like a bad guy, but rather a guy who came at bad timing.)

My personal take on this is that with only two weeks to go they wouldn't want to

bounce Ae Da into an engagement, let alone a marriage

. Of course, they might resort to that maddening "One Year Later" trick that even the otherwise impeccably judged MSS stooped to. (A variant on the Fat Lady Singing theme for KDramas might be "It ain't over till the 'One Year Later' caption shows")

As for indications more internal to the drama: in the opening shot of ep 56,

that call that Jjong Ah is fielding in the anxious presence of a Mom who allegedly "isn't there right now" and where the caller hangs up on her in annoyance is from young Kang, who has still had no feedback from Ae Da about his Stateside house-hunting activities and is understandably wondering what's been going on in the several days that have elapsed since the fight, during which Ae Da has been incommunicado at the hospital and Mom has been fobbing him off.

We need to remember that (despite the Olympic hiatus) this scene is taking place more or less

at the moment of KS's death at the end of the previous episode. In a moment, Mrs Ahn will come in with the thermos of porridge we saw her preparing in the kitchen in the penultimate scene of ep 55, and while she and Mom are talking, the call about KS's death comes through from the hospital -- mom at first thinks it must be Kang trying to call her again, but alas she's very wrong.

But of course, though he is understandably angry at AD apparently blackholing him for no reason whatever when he's

devoting all his time to finding them a home she will like,

he will surely feel different (and on past form genuinely sympathetic) when he learns the truth.

There's another possible clue from last week's script where it differs from an actual scene as shot (though as ever I think it's important not to imply that things left out in production are "still there" simply because at one time they were scripted).

At the hospital. when Mom reminded Ae Da the that hospital was owned by the Kang family and asked what will become of her engagement if word leaks out, Ae Da simply replies, in the scene as shot, "If I left Oppa here like this I'd regret it for the rest of my life." She makes no reference to the engagement at all. In the script, she adds "I'm not going through with the engagement. I won't get engaged to anyone, ever, for as long as I live". It would be idle to speculate whether this line was cut simply with the intention of conveying that Ae Da is now so distant from the world in which she agreed to marry Kang that she isn't even going to mention the matter,

or whether the intention was to leave her future a bit more open.

[baduy]

As seemed likely all along, the schedules were normal till after the 8 oclock evening news, but then in the slot where Happiness would have been it's now total Olympic stuff, with recaps, interviews, and presumably the closing ceremonies live in due course. Ah well it will soon be over for another four years.

[baduy]

Removed a duplicate post. I fear Soompi may need piggy-backing to hospital to be put on the magic drip. It's looking very poorly to me today. I'd diagnose a flakey back-end database connection if it were my kiddie....