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[Drama 2015] My Heart Twinkle Twinkle 내 마음 반짝반짝 Thanks for watching...


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The name of the family's restaurant, 진심원조통닭, Jinshim Wonjo Tongda(l)k embodies a pun, and it may also have been originally intended to be part of a socio-economic theme, though that seems to have been somewhat sidelined as the series was fleshed out, for reasons that aren't hard to guess at.

I'll start with the last bit, and get round to the punning in a moment. That last bit is apparently straightforward. 통닭  or tong da(l)k is literally "whole chicken". "Whole" meaning that the chicken served has been cleaned, gutted, then roasted in its entirety. And that's indeed what you get in a traditional 통닭 or "whole chicken restaurant", if you can still track one down.

The term 통닭 was originally used to inform customers that they shouldn't expect to be served 닭발, chicken feet, or 닭똥, marinated chicken gizzards, which is what eating "chicken" generally entailed for the bulk of Korea's impoverished population in the first decade after the end of the Korean War and well into the 1960's, too. The rest of the bird was strictly for the tables of the rich and powerful only in those days.

But in the 1970's "whole chicken restaurants" where the fare was within the reach of ordinary folk (at least when they were willing to spend a bit extra for some special occasion) began to appear, and they became much more numerous in the 1980's, reflecting Korea's movement towards more general prosperity.

On the one hand, the increasing industrialization of poultry farming, fostered by the military dictatorships as part of the program to "modernize" rural Korea, made chicken a much more abundant and hence affordable commodity, and the dramatic improvements in transport infrasructure also ordered by the military (partly to ease rapid troop deployment in case of civil unrest) meant food could be delivered to and within the cities more economically. At the same time, the increase in disposable income among urban workers meant they could afford to treat themselves to something just a little more classy and expensive than the existing popular eateries had to offer, and people who had previously been casual workers or company employees felt emboldened to borrow cash to start up small businesses to meet that demand. Hence the appearance of "whole chicken" eateries, mostly individually-owned and family run.

These were originally places where people of modest means could go for an occasional special meal without breaking the bank, but as the costs of chicken and transport continued to fall, while incomes rose, though not at the same rate, they became more and more affordable and everyday.
 
However, what they served was emphatically 닭, not the food designated by the Konglish word 치킨 which is what most of the younger generations of Korean assume "chicken" to be. You will not find a 치킨 strutting round a farmyard, or imprisoned in a battery cage. A 통닭 only becomes 치킨 after it's been slaughtered, hacked into pieces, crumbed, and deep-fried. That is, the 통닭 didn't serve chicken pieces coated in spiced breadcrumbs and deep-fried. That foodstuff, and the ubiquitous 치킨집 that provide it, has much more to do with Colonel Saunders than ex-General/President Park Chung Hee and his dictatorial successors.
 
Despite the usual nationalistic claims to the contrary, "Korean" fried chicken is no more essentially "Korean" than "Korean" baseball or "Korean" soccer, the latter being more to the point where this particular dish is concerned, since it was a calculated entrepreneurial perception that "Kentucky" style fried chicken would be the ideal finger food for millions tied to TV screens all day during the 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by Korea and Japan, that led to massive investment in fried chicken outlets all over Korea. All the major Korean fried chicken chains trace their origins back to the late 1990s or early 2,000's. Of course, they catered to Korean palates by adding spices to the batter, and tended to adopt twice-fried techniques (the Belgian-invented trick for making fries really crispy) to add an extra crackle to the coating, but their offerings were, and remain, plainly transpacific in origin and ethos.
 
Although some fried chicken outlets in Korea are individually-owned family businesses, including ones that have shifted from serving the old-style oven-roasted whole chickens to the fashionable deep fried chicken pieces, the majority of them are nowadays owned by big businesses, some of them multinationals, which either operate the outlets directly, or franchise the branding and equipment to local stakeholders. As such, these outlets were often resented by the original "whole chicken" restaurant owners, who felt they had been deprived of their livelihood by big capital muscling in on a market they had pioneered.

It appears from the background material SBS initially published that some such clash between old and new business styles (in the shape of the father of the three sisters and the big-time business operator who becomes the target of their "revenge" lies behind the writer's concept for the backstory of this drama, allowing it to be harnessed to the usual weekend drama trope of "Money-grubbing Western Values threatening Honest Korean Folk and their Harmonious Way of Life".

And some of that strand may have been retained. We shall have to see as the show airs. But there's one thing that the very first few seconds of that teaser-trailer that cynkdf posted make very clear: the first word we hear spoken in that teaser (by Jin Sam, the girls' father) is 치킨, and sure enough, his voice-over, telling us that 치킨 is a food kids and their moms alike all love to eat, is accompanied by chicken bits being crumbed, deep-fried, served devoured as finger (-lickin'- good) food by his own catering-gloved hands. In other words, despite its name, a 통닭 restaurant this most certainly ain't. And it probably never was one outside the intial concept of the writer, because the flashbacks embedded in the teaser to the past occasion when Jin Sam invented his wondrous recipe which was then villainously stolen by Woon Tak's evil father to become the trade secret behind his fried chicken franchise chain are thmeselves all about fried chicken pieces and dipping sauces too. So if the original intention was to display the wholesome 통닭 being displaced by the upstart 치킨 in the nation's eating habits, that idea was dropped. Look at the number of ads for 치킨 on Korean TV, not to mention the frequent product placement of 치킨 chains in dramas themselves, and it becomes pretty obvious why SBS would't want to bite the hands that dole out the deepfried goodies to a hungry nation and contribute so significantly to its revenue.

The wording of the formal agreement we're shown that Wun Tak forces Jin Sam to sign is also noteworthy. (He signs away his business and betrays an old friend and loyal employee who depends on him for justice, as far as the probably tricksy editing allows us to surmise, so as to be able to afford to buy his middle daughter out of her sordid embroilment with rich men). The business which Jin Sam agrees to hand over in exchange, plus permission to franchise a Wuntak branded eatery on his former premises (we see Sun Jin's suprise and alarm at the consequent change of branding and decor in the store on the official re-opening under the Wun Tak moniker) is referred to as "구 진심원조치킨" = "the former Jinshim Wonjo Fried Chicken", NOT "진심원조통닭"" = "Jinshim Wonjo Whole Chicken Restaurant" which is what it was called in all the prior publicity for the drama, and which is what is says both on the delivery scooter flag and the shop sign.
 
Which brings me to what 진심원조 itself means. As I mentioned at the start, it's a pun, one of the very common type that relies on the fact that Korean words frequently derive from several completely different words of Chinese origin, most of which are distinguished in Chinese by both lexical tone and distinctive characters, whereas in Korean the tones have been dropped centuries ago, and the Hangeul way of writing the words by sounds not meanings makes them all look as well as sound the same. However, the underlying multiple meanings become clear if we try to write the words in Hanja instead of Hangeul.
 
진심원조 can be written in Hanja either as 眞心援助 or 眞心元祖. The first component 眞心, common to both versions, is what every lying Kdrama jerk claims to be to the poor girl he's going to dump sooner or later, and is generally translatable by "sincere / sincerity", derived from the meaning of its two elements: "genuine" and "heart / mind / intention" However, the precise way 眞心 is interpreted is influenced by whether we hear the following two syllables as 援助 or 元祖.  

援助 is a typical doublet, where both parts signify "help" or "support". So 眞心援助 connotes "truly helpful". But 元祖 means (among several other senses, not relevant here) "first ancestor" = "original", giving 眞心元祖 the connotation "honest-to-goodness original". So this "whole chicken restaurant" presents itself as being both run by "truly helpful" people and being the "honest-to-goodness original oven-roasted" sort of chicken eatery, not your "new-fangled Yankee-influenced big-business-operated deep fried" sort of 치킨 place. But of course, the subsequent shift to presenting Jin Sam's enterprise as a fried chicken joint from the very start, despite the obvious misfit with its name, kills the pun stone dead, since it undermines the second meaning.

"Chikin Maynya" and other big chains bring in too much advertising revenue to allow any station to suggest there's something less than totally wholesome, let alone "un-Korean", about their fare, so the emphasis seems to have been shifted more to the "small family business vs ruthlessly profit-oriented conglomerate" rather than on the actual way the birds get cooked and served. And yes, the native conglomerates and the multinationals don't mind in the slightest if dramas make mildly anti-big-business heroes of small entrepreneurs in the interests of encouraging national(istic) feel-good vibes. They know that's just populist rhetoric, and they have the whip hand anyway in Korean politics.

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baduy said: 진심원조 can be written in Hanja either as 眞心援助 or 眞心元祖. The first component 眞心, common to both versions, is what every lying Kdrama jerk claims to be to the poor girl he's going to dump sooner or later, and is generally translatable by "sincere / sincerity", derived from the meaning of its two elements: "genuine" and "heart / mind / intention" However, the precise way 眞心 is interpreted is influenced by whether we hear the following two syllables as 援助 or 元祖.  


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@baduy, thank you for historical lesson and linguistic lesson, and overall explanation of how these relate to the drama we are about to watch...

It reminds me that when I watched the movie,  The Way Home - 집으로 -  I was was so shocked that the little boy was wanting KFC when he had grandma there to cook wholesome Korean food for him...



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Guest ororomunroe

I'm really confused - are BSB and JSY the OTP in this drama or nah? I assumed that all three sisters will get paired off but y'all keep saying BSB is a bad guy. Someone break it down for me?

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There's no law that says there has to be an OTP whose ship sails away into the sunset in every Kdrama. And the further you get from the RomCom genre, the more that's the case.

Despite the "Comedy" designation at the top of the first post here, this drama, whatever else it may turn out to be, isn't a RomCom.  True, the last screen of that promotional video promises us it will "sparkle" (not "shine" or indeed "twinkle") with laughter and tears, apparently in equal measure. But that doesn't mean it's going to keep shippers happy.

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Guest ororomunroe

I see, thanks for the explanation @baduy. I think I'll wait for Legendary Witch to finish before I pick up another weekend drama.

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SBS have now added a text preview for ep 2 as well



Wun Tak, telling Jin Sam to instruct Yeong Pyo with withdraw his lawsuit against him, threatens him with dire consequences unless he complies.

Jin Sam goes to Seoul to attend a friend's wedding. He goes to look for Sun Su at the place where's she's staying, but she refuses all contact with him.



This Yeong Pyo guy who plainly figures a whole lot in the first two episodes never got so much as a mention that I can see in any of the character descriptions etc released so far, though he is seen a lot in the video teaser snippets.

But those snippets are so scrappy and the chronology is so unclear that it's hard go glean much about the character apart from (1) In his younger days he was an associate (?maybe a co-worker at some sort of catering concern??) of Jin Sam and Wun Tak's father. (2) Wun Tak's father seems to have played some sort of dirty tricks on both Yeong Pyo and Jin Sam, which helped him become the founder of a rapidly growing franchise operation while leaving the others with nothing. (3) [EDIT: I guessed the chronology all wrong here Some time after Jin Sam had set up his Jinshim Wonjo restaurant, Yeong Pyo showed up out of nowhere in a sorry state, and Jin Sam took him in. He apparently then worked for, or with, Jin Sam at the restuarant.  It turns out that Yeong Pyo had been a manager at Wuntak for 10 years after Wun Tak's father died, but had then been dismissed, being pensioned off and allowed to run his own Wuntak franchise store. He's been organizing a strike by other Wuntak franchisees and is planning to sue Wuntak, relying on supporting evidence from Jin Sam. Wun Tak has him abducted, but he escapes and takes refuge, quite badly injured, in Jin Sam's house.  At some stage he appears to be instrumental in telling Sun Jeong about her father's past. [EDIT: Again the teaser editing had me confused. The guy who tells Seon Jeong about her father's past isn't Yeong Ypo, but the owner of another neighborhood store. and the wrongdoing of Wun Tak's father.] (4) Jin Sam had stoically accepted whatever it was Wun Tak's father did to them, never himself telling his children about the matter, otherwise Sun Jin would not have been so disconcerted as the clips indicate when she discovers her father's intense disapproval of the man who has apparently been courting her  But Yeong Pyo never let the matter rest, and has remained determined to go to law against Wun Tak to pursue his grievance against his father . Again, when we were shown the origins of Yeong Pyo's grievances against Wun Tak, they turned out to be a bit different from my guesswork here, as explained in my previous edit to this post (5) The franchisees of Wun Tak go on strike and at the same time Yeong Pyo embarks on a hunger strike, presumably to gain attention for his cause. That newspaper headline which causes such consternation at the board meeting says that while the franchisees  are out on strike, Yeong Pyo has been on hunger strike and after two weeks into that hunger strike seems to have disappeared. Whether this is related to him being abducted and beaten up by gangsters, apparently at Wun Tak's instigation, it's impossible to say. EDIT: It was impossible on the basis of what the teasers showed, but the episode made the connection plain, as I've  just indicated (6) Wun Tak strikes some sort of deal with Jin Sam by which in return for help in his financial straits, he abandons his independent business, converts it into a Wun Tak franchise and breaks his promise to Yeong Pyo to give evidence on his behalf.

Of course, some, or all, of this may be quite wrong [EDIT: Well, I gues it turned out around 80% right, more or less...], but it's the best I can do on the available evidence to reconstruct a profile for a character whose role seems to be rather important, but whom for one reason or another we've been told nothing at all about that I can see.

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haymochi said: wow, a weekend drama that i'm looking forward to with such an amazing castsi really like lee pil mo , hope that he will get lots of screen time  and get the girl this time. i see future cute couple with Nam Bo Ra here 
As for Bae Soo Bin, i'm just sad that he has to be the evil jerk again. I've seen him in all drama esp  Secret Love , he sure  is such an underrated amazing actor  but i wish he is the kind male lead this time.

*sigh* maybe through this role he will get another break through then gain another recognition because these days if you do the crazy evil acts.you will def get more attention than the goody guy  ;;)
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Haven't been able to watch the first episode but a quick note on Soon Jung's loveline:

Lee Pil Mo's articles from the press conference hinted at his being a one sided love. This makes sense within the context of the story because Lee Tae Im will have a loveline with the man that his ex-wife is currently is married to and that marriage falling apart would pave the way for a reunion between him and his ex-wife. So I think the main pairing for Nam Bora is with Oh Chang Suk.

Also, call me a hopeless romantic, but I still think that Bae Soo Bin and Jang Shin Young will end up together. There's going to be some sort of catch, of course, but reunion stories have been hot for the past year.



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aemi said:

Haven't been able to watch the first episode but a quick note on Soon Jung's loveline:

Lee Pil Mo's articles from the press conference hinted at his being a one sided love. This makes sense within the context of the story because Lee Tae Im will have a loveline with the man that his ex-wife is currently is married to and that marriage falling apart would pave the way for a reunion between him and his ex-wife. So I think the main pairing for Nam Bora is with Oh Chang Suk.

Also, call me a hopeless romantic, but I still think that Bae Soo Bin and Jang Shin Young will end up together. There's going to be some sort of catch, of course, but reunion stories have been hot for the past year.



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Hmm, does the father's death happen three years into the marriage? Or does eldest daughter only find out that hubby was responsible three years into the marriage? If it's the first scenario, then yes, I don't think that relationship is salvageable.

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The answers to those questions are already in this thread. Please consult my translations of the character profiles.

Today, we see Wun Tak catching sight of Sun Jin for the first time when they are both summoned to the police station in their capacity as guardians. As they both sign the formal acknowledgments of the police caution and the undertaking to supervise the youngsters better in future, Wun Tak looks across and sees Sun Jin's full name.

She of course knows full well who he is the moment she sees him, hence her consternation on encountering him on the way in. That contrasts with the duty officer, to whom  Wun Tak's name initially means nothing as he rejects the meaningfully proferred handshake. But then Wun Tak phones his crony the Chief of Police and puts the officer on the line, meaning things are sorted out instantly and all the girls escape with a caution.

As they all leave the station, Wun Tak warns his sister's buddies that if they ever do anything like this again, he won't be there to bail them out, then he coldly  tells his sister to so straight home with his assistant and out of his sight.

But then he turns to Sun Jin and courteously offers her and her sister a ride home. She politely but coolly declines, but since he's initiated a conversation, she decides to tell him before he leaves, and in no uncertain terms,  that his behavior in there was way out of line. As an adult used to the ways of the world, she knows that people with his wealth and power have the police wrapped round their little finger, but he should at least refrain from demonstrating that in the presence of impressionable young people. The matter could have been settled just as well between him, her and the officer in charge, without such blatant abuse of privilege, and the bad example it set the children.

Wun Tak is obviously not used to people facing up to him like that, and he cuts her off and asks with a mixture of amusement and indignation whether she's delivering a formal rebuke  [the word he uses, 공소 [公訴]is the term used for a criminal indictment or charge]. She hesitates a moment, but then replies with a steady voice and gaze: "Yes, that's exactly what it was". 

Wun Tak is briefly at a loss for words, but then gives a little laugh which for an instant looks contemptuous towards her, but in fact turns out to express his amused recognition that he' s rather impressed by her forthrightness and that he's willing to back down (something we have already gathered is very rarely does). "If I've merited a formal rebuke, then the least  I can do is give you a formal apology."  And he lowers his eyes and bows in a way that has no hint of irony. It's now Sun Jin's turn to be a little wrong-footed by his unexpected concession, and she returns his bow in the spirit it's given, not quite sure what's going on.

The camera is looking over Wun Tak's shoulder at this moment and we can see that Sun Su, standing in full view alongside and slightly behind Sun Jin, is equally surprised at the sudden turn the exchange has taken, and involuntarily follows her sister's lead and bows herself. [This fine touch gives me a certain amount of hope for the rest of the drama: I have to say, though, that overall the first episode, though watchable enough, seemed to me to suggest that the cast and director hadn't yet settled into a coherent rhythm which would have given the episode the kind of dynamic flow across the various scenes and characters and tones that the the best Kdrama productions achieve.]

Wun Tak has another surprise in store for both sisters when he reveals that he's identified Sun Jin as the eldest daughter of "Lee Jin Sam ajusshi", and he perplexes Sun Jin still further by saying he regrets the events of a few years ago which brought him and her father into such conflict, that he's pleased their paths have crossed, and he hopes they can meet again some time.

What he doesn't know (though we do, if we're in the habit of reading what's on screen as well as listening to what's said) is that he is about to be drawn into even fiercer conflict with Jin Sam. On the drive to the police station to retrieve Eun Bi, Wun Tak's assistant told him that he'd established that Yeong Pyo was planning to subpoena a key witness to support his his lawsuit against Wontak, but that he'd not yet been able to discover the identity of that key witness. Won Tak ordered him to find out who that witness was pronto. And, having seen that subpoena delivered to Jin Sam, we know who that witness is going to be, and that Won Tok's hopes to meet Sun Jin again will soon be fostered in a way neither of them would have wanted.

We find out later that evening what he's alluding to when he talks of those earlier unfortunate events. Auntie decides it's safer to stay in the jimjilbang, while Sun Jeong hangs out with the owner of another neighborhood store and complains about her father's absolute refusal to contemplate the idea of her going into the business, whereupon she learns about the events that made her father decide that the chicken business is not something he wants his daughters to take up.

The operator of a  Wuntak Chicken franchise next door complained to HW about the way that Lee Jin Sam's store was attracting all her potential customers, and Wun Tak intervened, first to offer Jin Sam financial compensation if he sacrificed some custom by making his own offerings less superior to the Wuntak version, then when that suggestion was contemptuously refused, by cutting off Jin Sam's supply of chicken by threatening and bribing the farmers who supplied him.

However, Jin Sam responded by setting up his own chicken farm (which looks ominously like the place where he is going to meet his death). When Wun Tak's next move was to take over the shop on the other side of Jin Sam's premises and set up yet another rival chicken place (not under the Wuntak brand, but actually another Wuntak outlet despite its branding as "Yum Yum Chicken", as the name of the owning group "Monachus" on the shopfront, revealed) Jin Sam was unfazed, confident that the quality of his food would win out provided his customers could actually get it, a belief that has been apparently amply borne out in the succeeding years.

Sun Jeong's kindly informant manages to convince her that the "Game of Chicken" as invoked by Game Theorists, [meaning a conflict model in which neither party is prepared to yield and where the worst possible outcome for both occurs when both stand by this determination irrespective of the consequences] derives its name from the behaviour of Korean fried chicken places, where rivals allegedly prefer to fight to the death rather than give way. This is a potentially deadly conflict Lee Jin Sam is prepared to wage for himself rather than abandon his livelihood. But there's no way he will ever allow his daughters to enter such a risky and cutthroat business, hence his absolute refusal to endorse Sun Jeong's enthusiastic wish to follow in his footsteps.

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it seems Woon Tak is obsessed with the eldest daughter...she does not feel the same...I don't think their  relationship(marriage)will be a happy one,i feel she will be forced to become his wife...their familly is a mess!!!i already dislike Woon Tak so much!Anybody knows who will be the main otp?

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