Drama reveals demise of families in Korea
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A promotional photo for KBS weekend family drama "My Golden Life" / Courtesy of KBS
By Park Jin-hai
Popular KBS family drama “My Golden Life” is an atypical family drama. In the drama, which airs on weekend evenings targeting a wide audience, the family is not depicted as a warm haven.
Seo Tae-su, the father of three children, was once a trusted breadwinner owning a company. But since his company went bankrupt 10 years ago, he has been moving around construction sites finding temporary laboring jobs.
Although he has sacrificed his whole life for his family, all he has got in return is an estranged daughter who cold-heartedly says, “You think families should always be together? Leave me alone,” and a married son who blames his father and refuses to have a child for economic reasons.
Seo, after waking up from three days of sleep, uncharacteristically shows his anger abruptly and says to his son, “Since when did you care?” His son then advises him to go to a hospital.
Unlike previous family dramas, where after a conflict family members sit together around the dining table and forgive each other, in “My Golden Life” there is no family _ either Seo’s family with economic difficulties or a chaebol family _ depicted as a warm haven.
The chaebol family is more like a business with no warmth. They act and speak without emotions and look at marriage strictly as an object of convenience.
Yet this atypical family drama, which premiered in September, has been enjoying a strong audience, with ratings reaching near 40 percent.
This is an outstanding feat compared with other TV weekend dramas that are losing viewers due to diversified media channels.
The drama’s popularity in many ways stems from its smart depiction of modern Korean society, where old family values that had sustained a blood-related patriarchal society for so long, are crumbling.
Because of high unemployment and poor prospects of climbing the social ladder, young people postpone marriage or even if they do get married, they choose not to have a child.
Coupled with a quickly aging population, it is estimated that the number of single households will outnumber parent-child households in 2019, according to Statistics Korea data in April.
For the generation where “honbab,” meaning eating alone, and “honsul,” meaning drinking alone, have become common, the traditional concept of family _ where the needs of the family group were deemed more important than those of any individual family member _ has changed.
In “My Golden Life,” Seo Ji-ahn (Shin Hye-sun) is a smart and hardworking contract worker, whose life changes after she turns out to be the lost daughter of a rich family.
But the life of a woman born with an “earth spoon,” the lowest social class, well below those born with “golden” or “silver spoons,” takes another turn when she learns that her parents made her the rich family’s lost daughter to give her a more promising future, instead of her younger sister who is the real daughter.
“Although it is a weekend drama, it breaks from the typical weekend family drama storyline, which used to have a warm and light tone,” says culture clinic Kim Sun-young.
”Although it has some dramatic elements of a soap opera to draw viewers’ attention, its social reflection and the message it delivers make the drama noteworthy.”
Jung Duk-hyun, another culture critic, says that although the two extreme families depicted cannot be viewed as normal, and appear to be in sharp contrast, the reasons that make these seem abnormal come from a common place.
“It is money. In either case, when they have too much money or no money in the family, the family’s life is devastated due to money,” he says.
“Blood-related family relations become burdens and shackles. Can we call it a true family and should we then have to hold on to a family system such as this?”
Jung says the drama reveals all the problems of being in a family.
“The drama is about breaking up the family, which had been deemed to have unchanging values,” he says.
“It says the connections that once held family members tight can become sources of great agony that inflict pain on each family.
“In so doing, it suggests new family values, where each member’s individual life doesn’t get sacrificed in pursuit of keeping the family together, yet goes toward making a new form of a happy family.”