Tao of K-drama: How DO you handle the truth?

I love K-drama because it teaches me so many things about the life. On November 30th, I posted the revelation of truth in the K-drama She Would Never Know.  Then, on Sunday, December 1st, I read the  Sunday Opinion section of the NY Times, which had a number of pieces on the challenge of facing the truth. At the heart of that problem is Jack Nicholson's famous line in A Few Good Men, "You don't want the truth -- you can't handle the truth." 

The cover story of the Times' section is Sarah Wildman's magnificent, "If my dying daughter could face her mortality, why couldn't we?" Wildman describes the long journey of the family as her daughter died of an incurable cancer. Doctors kept talking of "hope" to the exclusion of time and space to talk about that other thing -- dying -- which shouldn't be but does get conflated with "no hope." It reminded me of the conversation I had with a friend who worked in palliative care. I told her doctors had said there were no more treatments for my nephew's leukemia. She said, "You know that means he's dying, don't you?" I would have to say I didn't know that, and I didn't want to know that -- but it put us in the bind that Wildman is describing, with the dying child left alone with the truth because we don't know how to handle it. 

Nathaniel Rich's "A place that looks death in the face, and keeps living," was almost a counterpoint to Wildman's story of bewilderment and isolation. Rich talked about New Orleans and climate change, arguing that everyone in the city knew that the city might be swallowed by sea. They weren't in denial about this, but rather in active conversation, planning and action. He wrote, "New Orleans has a striking competitive advantage. It knows that every hurricane season poses an existential threat." 

He continues:

I've never met a New Orleanian who feels safe from climate change. Living here, rather, engenders hurricane expertise -- and hurricane fatalism. Yo become your own disaster planner, insurance adjuster, land surveyor and roofer. You know how many feet your neighborhood is above or below sea level, which storm drain on the block must be cleared by hand before the rain starts, which door sill needs to be bolstered with a rolled-up towel and where water is most likely to pool, with what appalling consequences.

The essay arrives at the conclusion that finite lives -- whether of a person or a city -- are not worthless. Learning to live with acceptance of limits -- taking joy in what we have, rather than thinking it has to last forever -- is the great challenge. 

The truth is hard all the time. Even small truths -- we have to floss, eat green leafy vegetables and exercise are truths that many of us (me included) fall flat in accepting. In a way these are stand-ins for the bigger trrouble-makers -- the knowledge that it's all finite. How can it be that this beautiful, wonderful world and the lives we live here won't go on forever? 

Despite our wish to hide or dissemble or steer away the truth, it will come to us. And when that happens we need our communities to hold us close, to talk with us about answers, to go through it together. 

Tao of K-drama: She comes to know

The K-drama, known in English as She Would Never Know, is, of course, about women coming to know. The name in Koran is 선배, 그 립스틱 바르지 마요, which literally means Senior, Don't Put on That Lipstick. The translation is a bit awkward. "Senior" in this context does not mean last year of high school or elderly person -- the word is "seonbae," a title for someone who is ahead of one in school and/or work. It is a term of respect. The command here is uttered by the junior -- hoobae -- to his seonbae, a woman having an affair with a man who, unbeknownst to her, is about to marry someone else. She puts on bright red lipstick to go meet him in the stairwell. The hoobae hates the color on her, and hates what is about to happen when she finds out the truth. 

The show doesn't stop at one of these -- a wife doesn't know her husband is quiet and unexpressive because he is repressing his same-sex desire, and their child doesn't know divorce is looming; a woman doesn't know she can survive without the man of her dreams; a mother doesn't know her daughter was aware of the husband's infidelity, nor does the mother know she can survive the growth in her uterus because she's afraid to find out. All of these secrets will come out in time, and people will weather the storms they create. 

This being K-drama, people come into relationship, and by the time we reach the end, a much larger group is helping to manage the trauma and recovery. One recapper said that this was predictable K-drama and not that interesting. I thought he must have missed the careful way in which the show allowed people to get closer to the truth and closer to other people so they could manage the truth. Because that is the secret of the truth -- things are hidden because they will be hard to digest, they are frightening, they force us to go against the established order. 

This is perhaps clearest in the case of the husband who has to face "who he really is" -- that is, accepting his same-sex attraction. In one scene he goes to tell his parents he wants to divorce his wife. His father surges to his feet and smacks him hard in the face and then does it again and again. "You will not get a divorce," the parents shout. Imaging if he were there on his knees saying, "I am getting a divorce and marrying another man." His wife, who knows the violence of the in-laws, tells him that she will stay by his side until he can accept himself -- that she loves him as he is. He later says that that was the first time anyone had said that to him and it was freeing. 

Which brings us back to the red lipstick -- it is not her color. This show takes place in a cosmetics company and she was working on the color cosmetics team. So wrong color is a big no no. The hoobae wipes it off her lips. By the end, when she wants to win his love (back), she puts on an excellent color. Perhaps the deeper allusion is to the Police song, Roxanne -- "You don't have to put on the red light" -- or to the source of that song. No need for the red light -- you are OK just the way you are. 

Main Street: What bothering a friend reminded me of

My friend Dr. Reggie Shareef lives in Roanoke, VA, and I met him while studying the urban renewal program there. He has looked at that process from the economic perspective and this has given him unique -- even dazzling -- insights. I was bothering him about pulling his pieces together into a book. He said no, he is retired (and maybe tired?) and didn't want to do that. 

This reminded me of Zora Neale Hurston getting to know Cudjo Lewis, a man who arrived in the Americas on the last slave ship. She sat with him and ate watermelon and listened to his extraordinary story. This encounter was published in Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo. Alice Walker wrote the profound introduction, in which she says:

Here is the medicine:

That though the heart is breaking, happiness can exist in a moment, also. And because the moment in which we live is all the time there really is, we can keep going. It may be true, and often is, that every person we hold dear is taken from us. Still. From moment to moment, we watch our beans and our watermelons grow. We plant. We hoe. We harvest. We share with neighbors. If a young anthropologist appears with two hams and gives us one, we look forward to enjoying it.

I was imagining the young anthropologist with two hams who might wander by Dr. Shareef's house and listen intently to his wisdom! Maybe collect the papers into a book? 

Tao of K-drama: Inclusion and Salvation in The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor is a 2013 K-drama about Park Shi-on, a young man with autism who aspires to become a pediatric surgeon. There is widespread resistance to his entering residency in pediatric surgery. He is denied a license by the Korean medical board and ridiculed by many. His problems are exacerbated by his impulsive actions and inability to conform to the requirements of the team. At the same time, a chaebol is engineering a hostile takeover of the hospital to make a for-profit children's hospital. As the story unfolds, it is the inclusion of Park Shi-on that shifts relationships inside the hospital and allows hospital leaders to stave off the takeover. The parallels to our own time are obvious.

In the final episode, Park Shi-on is awarded a medical license. The head of the medical board comes to the hospital to deliver the certificate in person. He says that this is because Park Shi-on's case has shifted the board's approach to inclusion of people with disabilities. Park Shi-on then speaks. He says that he is different and tried to overcome his differences, but couldn't. At that point, it was many people reaching out to him -- from the children on the pediatric surgery ward to the medical director of the hospital -- who enabled him to succeed. 

While Park Shi-on is learning and growing, he inspires others to dare to include. Two other romances prosper because of this. This "love across boundaries" felt very familiar to me, as my parents crossed the divide of race and in my first marriage we crossed the divide of religion. The many little scenes rang true: getting taken aside for a "talking to," the hurtful gossip, the loving defiance. 

But most important in the ultimate outcome of the struggles as that people who opened their hearts to Park Shi-on also began to the work of the hospital in a new light -- less technical and robotic, and more ineffable and loving. People talked about healing medicine that they can't see. Over and over, we realize that this healing medicine is inclusion.

I sometimes think that "inclusion" is the most radical word of our times. It is a word with no boundaries -- that is the working of inclusion we see in The Good Doctor. The show doesn't have all the bells and whistles of K-dramas made now and the soundtrack is so syrupy your feet stick to the floor. The story is so strong and so well acted that it rises above all that, to be moving, fun and instructive. 

Main Street: Out in "Nature"

I went out to dinner last night at Lighthorse, a restaurant in Jersey City. It is a restaurant that is decorated with photos and paintings of the city. I find these photos enchanting -- it's like an "urban appreciation" course. So great! 

Most of my friends know that I get annoyed when people extoll the virtues of being "out in nature," by which they mean "not in the city." This anti-urban bias contributes to a lot of our problems, including suburbanization and sprawl. But that might not be what annoys me most. I just don't think that the "nature/not nature" dichotomy is true. I reason it this way --

We build our homes in myriad ways, among them, cities -- for ten thousand years people all around the world have been building cities, likely arriving at this form of community life without knowing that others were doing it too. To my way of thinking, cities are the equivalent of beaver dams or bee hives -- they are somehow in our DNA as a way to live. 

There is another, equally important way to think about this -- whatever we mean by "nature" is no longer in its "natural" state, but all touched by the hands of people. The forests of North American, for example, were managed by Native people when Europeans arrived, and this is true of other places as well. That is why Australians are looking to the Aborigines for advice about wildfire. The difference, then, between what we call "nature" and what is "not-nature" is not all that great. 

And then there is the third way to think about this, which is that city-as-not-nature misses the "nature" of the city. And that is what the "urban appreciation" course at Lighthorse offers with its photos of homes and businesses, its historic aerial photos of the port, and its images of play and celebration. As someone who grew up across from an Olmsted Brothers park -- Orange Park in Orange, NJ -- I had a hard time appreciating cities. I was lucky to get expert teaching from Michel Cantal-Dupart. He would literally stand me in a spot and direct my eyes so that I could learn to see. Spending a lot of time in Paris helped, too, I have to add.

Finally, it's important to include the city because it's all one world. We're all cousins, as my colleague Dr. Margaux Simmons teaches us. 

Main Street: May I add something?

I'd like to add something to what the pundits are saying. They all agree that the nation is polarized and angry. Some leaders are happy for this because they can use the inter-group distrust/hatred to gain power. Some leaders recognize that this is not good, although they seem like old-fashioned snake-oil salesmen in proposing remedies. 

Here's what nobody is saying, and I'd like to add: We are polarized because of seven decades of policies that sundered the physical integrity of our environment and altered our social connections. Through McCarthyism, urban renewal, deindustrialization, mismanaged epidemics, gentrification and other disruptive policies, we have destroyed the "weak ties" -- the social bonds that connect us across differences -- pushing us to solidify into groups defined by our "strong ties." Such groups are driven by "self-centered fear" -- fear of losing something they have or not getting something they want -- rather than broad solidarity with all living beings. Such solidarity requires the connections of weak ties. 

Seventy years.

Destruction of weak ties.

Crystallizing into strong-tie groups built on self-centered fear and radiating anger and resentment. 

This leaves us in a dire state. Most important, in this new state of social organization, the groups are not even thinking along the same lines. The psychologist Dr, Wade Nobles illuminated this process in the 1980s, during the start of the crack cocaine epidemic, as what he called a "drug culture" emerged within the Black community. The "drug culture" did not share the values of the traditional African American culture. For example, the "drug culture" focused on "I," while the traditional culture focused on "we." 

An example that my colleagues in public health find astounding is the rejection of vaccines. These have wiped out many infectious diseases that killed people in the past. The vaccine skepticism of people who will be leading health agencies in the Trump administration shocks us. 

If, however, we think of this line of reasoning as the emergence of a new culture that differs in values and has, at the core of its operation, managing self-centered fear, then we can follow the conversation and we can understand that disputes between groups crystallized around strong ties are very, very difficult to resolve. The terms of engagement don't exist.

This leads us to the urgency of rebuilding connection and the profound question of "How?" 

This may seem like a non-sequitor, but bear with me for a moment. I've been watching K-drama for almost four years. I have noticed that a daily dose of those stories has given me a new way of being in the world -- new patience, new interest in people, new calm. At first it seemed to me that each story was unique, differentiating K-drama from US soap operas. But having seen 60+ K-dramas, I realize that there is a way in which the K-dramas flow from one to another, creating a form of continuity. From that point of view, I've been watching K-drama for a bit more than 1001 nights. Like King Shahryar, my Scheherazade has tamed me -- aprivoiser in the sense of the Little Prince -- and I don't want to wake up mad. I just want to hear another story. We know that the King was driven to murder his wives by the self-centered fear of being betrayed again. But the fascination of "Wait, what happens next?" -- that is, curiosity -- opened his eyes and eventually permitted him to make a new relationship with the wonderful Scheherazade, who, by the way, was faithful to him through all those 1001 nights, even though her neck was potentially on the chopping block every night. I believe much the same thing has happened to me. K-drama made me curious and therefore re-invested in the world. 

What in the world, you might be asking, has either K-drama or 1001 Arabian Nights to do with the US polarization crisis?

The answer is this: there is a process by which groups diverge and adopt new cultural norms that drive their thinking. We can't fix the divergence by simply saying, "Don't you get that you're wrong?" And we certainly don't fix the divergence by claiming that one group has a mandate to impose its ideas on the other group. 

We can fix the polarization by taking a page from K-drama and the Arabian Nights:

• It is a slow process -- it takes time to re-form a shared understanding and shared trust.
• The process has to acknowledge the betrayals, neglect and harms of the past which created the splits. 
• The process has to set something in the middle that is shared -- something curious, something we'd all like to know. 

The "something in the middle" is the most complex part of this. An analogy might be that we have to wear protective glasses to look at the sun during an eclipse. Our two eyes can see the eclipse but might get hurt. We need the glasses to permit us to see. 

Friends and family watching the total solar eclipse 8.21.17 in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ

The thing in the middle can't be a cultural product, as cultural products arise from the strong-tie groups and are part of the divergence. The thing in the middle can't be my most treasured thing or your most treasured thing -- universal vaccination vs. universal abortion bans. 

The thing in the middle can be an exploration of our neighborhoods and wondering if we have -- in the words of the ancient Chinese philosopher Xunzi -- put a good pattern on the world? A walk to see what's actually there -- many walks to see what's actually in a lot of places -- this is a thing in the middle that can lead us to a different understanding. There may be a fight that follows that, but it might be a fight that has a greater probability of saving our species and all that evolved with us. 

Main Street: Election Day

There is nothing more Main Street than Election Day. 

When I was young, I used to go with my mother Maggie Thompson when she voted. It was a very friendly place and they had a "voting machine" that kids could use. When I first started voting, it was on machines much like that one. Practice makes perfect. 

I have voted for some wonderful people and on some fascinating issues. My favorite vote was YES on keeping the Guardian Statue where the sculptor had placed it, in a park by the Bay in Berkeley, California. The statue's purpose is to protect the city. The referendum passed and the Guardian is there, keeping the city safe.                                                                                   

Berkeley Guardian Statue by Fredric Fierstein

Today a friend in Canada forwarded a message from his friend in Erie, PA.

My dad Ernie Thompson is depicted in a mural about international labor solidarity for women workers. He believed deeply in that cause and it occasioned some of his best work. It is a gorgeous mural and I love the idea that my dad is watching over Election Day there. 

I was up early to vote -- actually I was up at 3am surely because I caught the national anxiety disorder -- and it was fun to go early and see the polling place busy and bright. I chatted with people I know only because it's where I vote and I try to vote in all the elections. We were all glad for democracy. I got a sticker -- I do adore stickers! -- which I will proudly put in my notebook as a reminder of this day's voting. 

I voted Kamala Harris for President, and I'm praying for our country. She wants to be a uniter, and we badly need uniting. As Tiny Tim says in A Christmas Carol, "God bless us, every one!"

Tao of K-drama: Resolving the "When"

I just finished watching "When the Weather is Fine" for the third time. While some shows might lose their charm on re-watching, so far, every time I've seen this show, I've liked it better than the last time. This time, in addition to appreciating the implications of the "when" in the title, I thoroughly enjoyed the subtleties of the soundtrack. Kwak Jin-eon's "Like a Winter Dream" is so profoundly tender and haunting, it works to set the tone for this show about people carrying unexpressed troubles and longings. 

K-dramas move from unadulterated trauma to restoration of relationships. In this show it is quite clear that Im Eun-seop is the Taoist whose non-coercion permits others to find themselves. And as they find themselves, he grows into himself, pushing himself to say what needs to be said -- for example, to tell his adoptive mother that he loves her. This "non-coercion" is quite extraordinary. I tell people what to do all the time, so I found it remarkable to watch someone not impose on others. Similarly, it is instructive to watch the ways in which non-coercion wins the day. A favorite quote from the Tao on leadership says:

When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists.

This is the path of Im Eun-seop. Of course, his non-coercion is joined by his love and his intelligence. The show teaches us this by taking us to his bookstore/coffee shop, a place we'd all like to have in our neighborhoods. There, a group a friends meet regularly for their book group. The grandfather of the youngest member grills food for them. The others read quite arcane works on various themes. It is never Im Eun-seop who is driving the reading, but it is his place -- the place he has created -- that offers time and space for such an encounter. 

At the end of the show, two things happen. First, Muk Hae-won returns to the village and sees Im Eun-seop. He asks her how long she is staying -- that is to say, "when" she is leaving. She laughs with joy, obviously not leaving again. And Muk Hae-won is able to write to the friend who had betrayed her trust in high school -- the one she pushed away in the opening scenes with the line "when the weather is fine" -- and say, "The weather is fine." 

We know, then, that we have reached the point of restoration. People have said what needed to be said, made decisions about next steps, and gotten on with the business of living. And no one says, "Wow, Im Eun-eop did a great job helping us all." That is the point, the Tao says. 

 

Tao of K-drama: The Meaning of "When"

I play The New York Times' game Connections almost every day. I'm not that good at it. I like to think that this is because the connections require cultural knowledge that I don't have, like the names of music magazines. But I know that I'm not that quick at making connections, which is why my various research projects -- and certainly my study of K-drama -- have each taken so long. This is a long introduction to the simple fact that I'm watching When the Weather is Fine for the third time and just got the importance of "when." 

The first "when" is spoken by Muk Hae-won to a friend who abused her trust when they were in high school. She says she can't talk to her then but will "when the weather is fine." It is a curious statement. Later, her lover, Im Eun-seop, says to her, "You will be leaving in the spring," ie, "when the weather is fine." Shortly after that, her aunt asks, "Aren't you leaving in the spring?" 

Im Eun-seop, his adoptive family fears, might also leave, but when? His little sister screams at him in fury at the threat of his leaving. When did you start to love me so much, he asks her. "When I was born!" she shouts through her tears. 

The "when" is a marker of uncertainty, the possibility of loss, that one loves from that position of uncertainty. Muk Hae-won thinks to herself, "I wish you [Eun-seop] would say 'stay by my side.'" Im Eun-seop wants to say to his little sister, "I'm not leaving," but can't let the words go. And so the unspoken words come to stand for what might happen "when the weather is fine" or some other fearful moment that hovers in the future. 

"When the Weather is Fine" is not meant to imply "we'll see daffodils," but rather, "When the weather is fine, I will lose you." It is this spoken/unspoken terror that is at the heart of the show. 

Tao of K-drama: Building as Cousin

My colleague Margaux Simmons and I share a belief that EVERYTHING on Earth is related, including the soil and the bricks and the toxic waste dumps and bluejays. Everything -- we're all cousins. I wouldn't have thought that a K-drama about a Mafioso would have so much to say about this topic. In fact, I watched because of the fascinating analysis of the building and the show done by Professor Eunju Hwang of Sogang University. I have just finished watching that drama -- Vincenzo -- and there is so much to say about this story of a Korean adoptee who grows up in Italy and, following the murder of his Italian parents, joins the Mafia and rises to consigliere. 

At the top of the list is the building, Geumga, which is a vulnerable and lovable presence throughout the show and a place I had the opportunity to visit with Professor Hwang. It is a real building known as the Sewoon Cheonggye Shopping Center, built in the 1960s as an electronics center. Vincenzo helped a Chinese gangster hide money under the building. Because the gangster has died, Vincenzo wants to get the money as well as a file of incriminating evidence on top business and political leaders, which is also hidden there. The valuables are protected by an elaborate security system and much of the show is about getting around the obstacles for its retrieval. But in that process, what is valuable shifts from gold to cousins, among them, Geumga, which ceases to be seen as a disposable building and is recognized as a treasure. 

The transformation of the inhabitants follows closely on the heels of the transformation in the understanding of the building. The people who live and work there also understood themselves to disposable, easily pushed around, barely making a living in a building that was not meant to endure. Vincenzo -- the gangster with a heart of gold -- impresses them with his ingenuity, fighting skills and unflappable demeanor. They quickly come to count on him to show up at the right moment and change the outcome of events. But this also inspires their own fighting spirit. Over the course of the show, the motley crew emerges as a powerful fighting force, capable of protecting their beloved Vincenzo and their beloved building. A corrupt politician wants to know who stands in his way and they shout, "The Geumga Cassano Family!" Of course, once they identified as part of his family, Vincenzo, who seemingly has an unlimited supply of money, sends them shopping for designer suits, worthy of the Cassano name and image. 

K-drama in general, I have argued, features an arc of restoration. What is the restoration for Vincenzo, who starts out murdering people and ends up murdering people? This is third of many astounding features of this show. Recapper Ren Buenviaje describes a scene in the last episode in which Vincenze seeks the advice of Jeokha, Buddhist monk,who is part of the Geumga Cassano, to think about his future. The monk notes that Vincenzo can't be a Buddha because he has sinned too much. But, he says there is another character in the Buddhist cosmology.  

The monk likens Vincenzo to Vaisravana, who he describes as the scary face at the front of temples that protects Buddha’s ways and all ways human. Vincenzo might not find enlightenment, but he’ll get compliments from Buddha from time to time.

This allows Vincenzo to have a different vision of what he is doing with his life: fighting evil while protecting the innocent. Part of what has been so helpful to the Geumga Cassano family is Vincenzo's explicit naming of evit throughout the show. He names his own actions as evil, and is careful to get consent from the growing team for participating. The naming has helped to solidify their own sense of harms and perfidies of the opposition, pharmaceutical chaebols, loosely modeled on the Sackler family and its promotion of oxycontin. At one point, an intelligence agent who is undercover at Geumga to see what Vincenzo is up to, says in adoration, "He is not Mafia -- he is Che Guevara!" For all those of us who grew up admiring the feats of the Commandante, that is just a perfect moment. 

I think we shy away from naming Evil -- Vincenzo calls us to task. The last word of the show is that evil is vehement and vast. 

But we have also learned that we have the capacity to fight back -- and win -- protecting all who are considerable "disposable,." In these challenging times, that is an important message. And we have learned much about our cousins -- buildings, evil companies, poisons promoted as medicines, designer clothes, people who can stand up to injustice, people who love each other and one another. The list of cousins is, to riff on the closing of Vincenzo, encyclopedic and precious. 

Tao of K-drama: The Wisdom of Daisub Byunjeong's Garden

I am trained as a psychiatrist, and, as you might expect, "cities" where not in the curriculum of my residency program. When I realized I needed to understand the urban, I had to go back to school. I did this in two ways: studying with renowned architect/urbanist Michel Cantal-Dupart in France and getting a certificate in landscape design from the New York Botanical Garden. The two paths of study were interrelated, as Cantal fostered my love of gardens by sending me to gardens during our travels in France and explaining his own work in gardens, like Square Bir Hakeim in Perpignan. Under Cantal's tutelage I visited Givenchy, the wonderful garden created by Claude Monet and immortalized in many of his paintings. Thanks to other urbanists I have visited gardens in other parts of the world, of which I particularly treasure that I had the opportunity on two occasions to visit  Ryoang-ji, the Zen garden in Kyoto. 

I mention Givenchy and Ryoang-ji because I wish to place Daisub Byunjeong's garden in the constellation of those two.

Givenchy and Ryoan-ji taught me about the powerful emotional response I have when I enter such a unique place, one that calls on all my senses and emotions. These are unique experiences. The Zen of Ryoan-ji contrasts with the eye candy of Givenchy and I am asked to make sense of the place in a very particular way. Because I have been to so many gardens -- and I putter in my own garden at home -- I have some experience of the encounter that comes with meeting a new garden. I'm sure, however, that there is no "been-there-done-that" when it comes to gardens. And none of my previous experiences prepared me for what I felt on meeting Daisub Byunjeong and spending an afternoon in his garden. 

Like Monet, Daisub Byunjeong is a painter and his garden reflects that profound sensitivity to light, color and texture. Givenchy is expansive, and Monet created the effect in lush expanses of land and water. Daisub's garden is small and the power lies in intricate layers, each delicately and carefully curated so that the eye can is always interested and never satisfied. In a way, this effect is similar to Ryoan-ji, which cannot be taken in at a glance and demands that one sit quietly trying to understand the whole from its parts, which is, I think, the heart of all meditation and the true source of Wisdom. 

As I sat in Daisub's garden, I tried to take in the parts, but each was so profoundly complicated that it eluded my intention of grasping it. And there were so many! Daisub is a master of the gardener's art of mixing plants by color and texture and season of bloom. He adds to that his works of art, settled amongst the foliage as if it is natural to have a statue or some bells everywhere you look. 

Daisub is not only a remarkable gardener, but also a wonderful and nurturing host. He would disappear into his house and come out with food as beautiful as it was delicious. I loved the way in which he tended his garden from time to time, sniping a leaf or adjusting a pot. 

I was visiting with friends and from time to time someone would suggest that we should go somewhere else. I am so grateful that these calls to move could be resisted, and I could bask in that space for hours. I tried to photograph every inch of the garden. Daisub kept saying that I would love it even more if I could see it in full bloom, but I did not agree that would be better -- only different. It was clear to me as the sun passed over head that his garden was a place that eluded time, that made every second count because it would never come again. While gardens teach us different lessons, Daisub's garden taught that lesson of being in the utter splendor of the moment.

Daisub sends me photos from time to time and these teach me new lessons. In classical Chinese landscape painting, the smallness of people is placed in conversation with the majesty of mountains. Daisub achieves this effect by borrowing the mountains near his house. But he doesn't allow the hugeness of the mountains and our feelings of humility to dominate the photo. Rather, he adds a bit of his red umbrella in the foreground to remind us "Enter, rejoice and come in!" to quote a UU hymn I love. 

Daisub Byunjeong's garden is truly one of the great wonders of the world. And here's that photo:

Tao of K-drama: It takes a village to raise a dragon

The Flexner lectures that I gave at Bryn Mawr College in fall 2023 are over, The Tao of K-drama (the book) is drafted, retirement nears, and time opens up before me like the light at the end of a tunnel. I can watch K-drama without Serious Thoughts. In the past few weeks I watched Mr. Queen, See You in My 19th Life, and Welcome to Samdal-ri. They have in common being pretty light and starring the wonderful Shin Hye-sun. I just finished the last of this trio and the wonderful 15th episode -- "It takes a village to raise a dragon" -- lingers. 

The story centers around a old tragedy that has shaped village life in Samdal-ri, a village in Jeju, and especially the families of two young people, Cho Sam-dal and Cho Yong-pil, who would like to be together. This is intertwined with the massive setback experienced by Cho Sam-dal. As a young girl, she says that she heard that dragons rise from small streams and she wants to be a dragon. The variety show host who is listening to this wish says, "Oh, you want to go to Seoul?" 

She gets to Seoul, works hard to succeed, and then is betrayed by an employee. She returns home to regroup. My dad has a similar experience and he described it as, "Retreat to the ghetto and come back strong." The analogy really worked for me. Her community gathers around her, ready to protect her from further harm and wanting to support her talents. In the Episode 15, they put their intentions into action on several fronts, breaking out of the paralysis of the tragedy and launching Sam-dal back to the sky of her dreams.  

There is a brown-skinned man, Kim Man-su (played by Sazal Mahamud), working in the village convenience store. He suddenly leaves, giving the village a billion won gift. We later see him walking with his entourage. "Your Highness," one says, "where have you been?" 

"In a place with a warm heart," he replies, "Samdal-ri." 

What is so remarkable about the show is the careful manner in which the writers have shown has HOW the villagers worked out the set of problems they faced. It is not a process of grand gestures, but of the daily grind of two-steps forward, one-step back, trying to live in a good way.  

Understanding "the good way" of K-drama has been on my mind since I first saw Live Up to Your Name, Dr. Heo in 2020. At first I thought of it as a set of actions that could be defined, with saying "I'm sorry and chopping vegetables high on that list. I couldn't squeeze the process any of these three Shin Hye-sun K-dramas into a list. We might think of it as a tennis match, with our task to follow the bouncing ball as it goes forward and back, forward and back. Any metaphor will do, as long as we watch what I've come to call the "micro-process" of the action. Not the swoops, but the tiny discourse. 

An old woman with dementia has a moment of clarity. She puts her hand on that of her son-in-law, wrapped in mourning for his lost wife. She says, "Don't have resentment." He slowly gets what she's saying and is stunned. She is just one of the people pulling him out of his grief by sharing that they too are tormented by the loss. It is the repetition -- I too am suffering -- that gets through to him. He suddenly asks one of them, "When do you miss her most?" The woman he asked promptly says, "When I dive into the sea or see her son." He walks away without a word, but the challenges are accumulating until he see that he is not alone. His prison of grief breaks open. 

At the heart of this forward-back is Shin Hye-sun, holding it all together with her intensity and capacity for connection. She really looks at people, leaning into them to understand. She really feels hurts and slights, shriveling up with despair. And she is really liberated, raised to fly again by her village. As that is happening she says in a voiceover how good it was that she had a hometown at her back. My dad thought so, and my own turn came to need a place to regroup, I  knew where to go. 

The metaphor in the show is that haenyeos are taught not to be greedy and to return to the surface when they can't hold their breath any more. The headline of the trailer is "The big fish returns to catch her breath." How good to know this -- it is the other level of teaching in a K-drama -- the "big picture" message that we can keep close to our hearts.