bideshi

Sure, it's a woman's choice to have fewer complications in her life, to cut anything out of her life that might be a potential complication. But what a boring, bland life that'd be. Yes, life is a complicated mess, but I think the right response to that is to work through it to bring out as much joy and beauty as possible--not to run away from potential complications (especially half the population). And you seem to be blind to two things: 1) any potential positives that a good male partner would bring, and 2) a woman can cause just as many complications as a man. Toxic femininity is real; no K-drama could work without women lying/scheming to sabotage other women.

So by your definition, a woman successful in her career has a perfectly balanced life. And a man would only spoil that. And there's nothing that a man would bring that could enhance her life in any way. I think real-life women would dispute such a simplistically false view of women and of male-female relationships. Of course a man would complicate a woman's life, just as any relationship would. But to think that a (successful) woman's life could remain perfectly balanced and complication-free simply by not having a man in her life seems like a wild feminist fantasy.

I've watched up to episode 41. It's rare to have such an uncharismatic, boring FL character. But worse than that, she's just clueless, unable to put 2 and 2 together most of the time. She can't read anyone's motives/actions or interpret anyone's body language or half-spoken sentences to save her life. Almost none of the secrets being revealed is because of anything she does, so she's doing litte to push the plot. The title is misleading. Rather than Brave Yong Soo Jung, it should be Clueless Yong Soo Jung. I suppose they can't have her catch on to what's going on too fast since there are 120 episodes to fill, but it's very frustrating to watch.

I agree that it'd be smart of her to think of such contingencies, but that'd make her a different type of character, one that I (as an American who thinks that there are way too many lawsuits) wouldn't like as much. It might be smart to always be thinking of how I can protect myself or get justice through lawsuits, but it doesn't mean that such people are liked very much.

At least the other teachers recognized that he was a bit out of his mind in grabbing her shoulder and tried to get him to stop. I liked that it showed that the other teachers were more reasonable, both about his behavior and about the test question. I don't think it'd be realistic to have a hagwon-is-good, schools-are-bad sort of portrayal. I hope they continue to be balanced in portraying the good and bad of both sides.

I can enjoy the weekend makjang dramas, too, but this kind of drama with characters acting in realistic ways and through which I can learn something about an industry I know nothing about is my favorite. The same reason why I liked Misaeng so much.

Agree with you on simple assault. But I think it's meant to say something about the FL that she doesn't file an assault charge, but simply puts on a bandage over the wound. She pushed the boundary by going to the school to ask for a retest, but she knows that filing an assault charge is not going to be good for anyone: herself, her hagwon, or her students.

My reaction is different. I was immediately drawn in by the conflict with the teacher which showed me how smart and fearless the FL is and dramatically portrayed the hagwon versus schools backdrop to the whole show. So for me, it was an effective beginning. Usually character is revealed in stressful situations and that was an extremely stressful situation for the FL.

"sexual" harassment? I think not. Such a lawsuit would cheapen the meaning of sexual harassment.

I agree. She's the only one who hasn't done anything stupid.

The episode calendar suggests that there won't be any episodes aired this week. True?

Going against popular opinion, I've dropped this after episode 3. The ML's inability to simply say "I lke you," and the multiple contrived interruptions when he's about to say it just did't ring true and annoyed me. It made me care for the ML and the show much less.

Re: the doghouse. The writers have absolutely no shame in putting in the most ridiculous object/plot device ever in K-drama--just so that she could overhear a key conversation. I know the show jumped the shark long ago, but now I'm proposing "the show's in the doghouse" as a replacement for "the show jumped the shark."

I guess that's something that doesn't fall under "anything is possible." That's my mistake. I guess it wasn't Siri, but it was something to do speech recognition. I did a quick search and I found this: in November 2008, "Google launches the Voice Search app for the iPhone, bringing speech recognition technology to mobile devices." I apologize for being wrong about the details.

I don't think you're reading my replies carefully. My most recent reply was precisely to explain why I don't think that in South Korea in 2007 it's likely that high school students wouldn't have been aware of a laptop or a smartphone, even in a rural area. I'm not claiming that 100% of Korean kids would have definitely known about such things. Of course it's possible that any particular kid might not have known about such things--in the sense that you can always say anything's possible. (For example, if there was drama about Korean high school kids in 2023 and none of them had ever heard of BTS or Blackpink, would you believe that by saying, "well, anything's possible"?) I'm simply saying that it's possible but not very likely, especially since that we see the girl and the boy interacting fluently with various technology, and that such an amazed reaction to smartphones and laptops would be more believable had they been North Korean kids. I dont think I'm making a particularly controversial argument here, and to reply with "Anything is possible" won't persuade me.

That's part of my point about it being South Korea, not North Korea. Even in 2006, Korea was far more advanced in technology than most of the world. I started using a laptop in 1997 (and I was late compared to many in the States), so by 2006, I imagine that laptop use was quite widespread especially in a country like Korea. And I saw someone talking to Siri on an iPhone around 2003/4 in Bangladesh! If anyone is going to be the first to use new technology like laptops/smartphones, it'd be Korean youth.

And I think you're way overestimating the difference between Seoul and rural areas when it comes to technology. Korea is such a small country with such deep penetration of media that there wouldn't be much that Seoul had that wouldn't quickly be found/known in rural areas. And just because they lived in a rual area/island doesn't mean that they are mostly poor or somehow deprived of most of the things that their Seoul cousins might have had. I might have been wrong about the girl having a PC (though wasn't she looking at the Sugar website on a computer that wasn't at Ki Ho's house?), but she had other things like a guitar and something to play her CDs on. Sure, it's possible that she might have been amazed by the new technology she sees after 15 years--who knows what living alone for 15 years will do to a teenager's psyche--but to explain it as "She was too poor and lived too remotely to have been aware of laptops and smartphones" doesn't seem at all likely to me.

And just out of curiosity, where do you live that even today a lot of kids and adults still don't know what a smartphone is? I ask because I live in Bangladesh--which by any global measurement would be considered poor--but I doubt there are many people (and probably no kids) who don't know what a smartphone is.

Of course there are poor people in South Korea. And yes, I did watch episode one where the girl (despite not being rich) had a mobile phone, CDs, a PC and internet access, and where the boy (despite not being rich) had a phone, a camcorder, a PC, video editing software, internet access, and a bicycle. If they had those things and knew enough about technology to use those things, then it stretches credibility to think that in a Korean high school where presumably there were wealthier kids our protagonists would not have known about laptops and other more advanced technology--or would have at least seen them being advertised on TV (which I assume they would have access to). Did we watch the same episode? Do we have the same kind of understanding of Korean society/culture?

Yes, but it's South Korea we're talking about, not North Korea.

What could the third marriage be referring to? One person's third marriage (e.g. Dajung's mom's) or something else?