A K-Drama’s Narrative on The Circle of Life
What Happens In a Lifetime According to Reply 1988
K-BBQ, K-Pop, K-Drama — the South Korean buzz has achieved a global-scale phenomenon. I was never entirely sold on K-Drama for so long as some scenes in certain shows felt too… “superficial” for me. Don’t worry, that statement has been long thrown outside the window after I stumbled upon Shin Won-ho’s Reply 1988. Every episode is an emotionally-charged life lesson.
It is vibrant, nostalgic, youthful, and everything you can ever miss in life.
A quote from episode 19 of the series goes, “Chrysanthemum has its seasons, and the beauty of a flower will not last ten days.” That short line stuck with me as I feel that it serves as some sort of reality check to its viewers. A flower is not in bloom for all its existence, yet it is not something to detest — it is simply just a fragment of its life.
From being a seed to withering, Reply 1988 explores the unbeknownst parallels of a flower’s life to our own.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
A sprout from the ground
The Ssangmundong squad of Reply 1988 spend an excessive amount of their time eating or watching TV in Taek’s bedroom. While high school students may argue that it falls as a fruitful way to spend most days, the (corrupted) adult vocabulary may feel otherwise. To be young is to be irresponsible. It is a window in life that is open to error and defiance. You can easily refuse to do your homework, complain about life, devote time to unimportant interests, and it will not matter at all in the long run; simply because at the moment, you are just a sprout with nothing to prove and everything to be — including superficial.
Deok-sun plays name games with her girlfriends during class hours, Jung-hwan sneaks alcohol to their school field trip, and Dong-ryong repeatedly disobeys his counselor dad. My high school self would fit just fine in the Reply 1988 Cinematic Universe as I was no different to these rascals. I pretended to be sick during maths; I left all my books in my locker and never studied; I hung out in friends’ houses during school nights; I gossiped with my seatmates in the middle of lectures, and I atrociously copied homework from my classmates.
A person’s teenage years can equally be the best and worst years of their life. If you ever feel like you do not fit in, we are all in the same club! The miscommunication — or lack thereof — between parents and their children can cause mixed signals and missed opportunities. These motivate the emotional detachment, excessive irritability, and insurgence brought by adolescence. As Deok-sun says, misunderstandings are a lot longer than mistakes, so they should be the ones avoided. While teenagers wallow in self-loathe, parents scratch their heads trying to decode the great mystery of what it is that makes up the mind of their teenage child. We see the series exhibit this generational disconnect through different family dynamics. It must be nature’s way of expressing that what the bud sees is not the same as what the full-bloomed flower sees.
Unfortunately, to be young is also to be naïve. If you let your eyes wander through a garden, you would likely only see flowers at their full bloom. This is because sprouts are still too little to be noticed, so the grown flowers make up for their “insignificance.” Children have no sense of responsibility simply because they do not necessarily need to carry the world on their shoulders — their parents do it for them. Towards the end of the first episode, we hear the older Deok-sun say, “It’s family — that covers over the wounds from the world outside the front door.” Sprouts are frequently too dumb to realize the space that a person occupies in their hearts until they figure that they can lose them anytime.
In the end, to be a germinating seed means that there is nowhere to go but up. So, who really cares if you are stupid and impulsive?
A little bud wanting to be more
Sprouts eventually grow into tiny rosettes or leaf buds. You start to recognize their existence as flowers, but not quite. They are not enough — not yet.
To be young is to feel like you are never good enough. We all were once young buds who aspired to be more. In the series, Deok-sun is the neglected middle child of her family. She gets the reused cake, the chicken wing (while her siblings get the legs), and the rice with no egg on top. On top of all that, she is also in a long-standing fight with her older sister. With that, she searches for love outside her home.
In retrospect, the concept of a puppy-love, to me, seemed more like a pursuit of self-love rather than romance. I was not very fond of myself when I was a teenager. It just so happened that hanging out with the boys I thought I liked helped me forget how minuscule I felt in the world — they made me feel seen. Similarly, Deok-sun pursues both Sun-woo and Jung-hwan primarily because her friends are convinced that they like her. As Stephen Chbosky wrote, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” It is simply human nature to gravitate towards those that make us feel enough. This explains why Do-ryong prefers to be anywhere else but home, as his parents make him feel lonely, and why Bo-ra feels the need to achieve academic success, as she believes to be unlikeable next to her sister. People do not only look for validation through romantic connections, as there are other channels that a person can cultivate them from.
When a bud holds its head too high, its field of vision will only consist of those who seem way ahead — it does not really matter if they are on top of a hill or a different breed. Everyone else simply seems better.
Gaining a leaf
Eventually, there comes a point in life when the overwhelming expectations of the world start to creep in.
Once the little bud acquires its first leaf, the other flowers around begin to imagine how beautiful they will be at their full bloom. The confidence can be encouraging. However, the more optimistic they are, the harder it is to make room for missteps.
Choi Taek is an undefeated Baduk player. He has an entire country rooting for his success in every competition. I can only imagine the hell it must feel to have that many people put their faith in you. Luckily, he is surrounded by those who help him stay grounded and remind him that losing is simply a part of the game. Living up to expectations must be like standing on the edge of a cliff; you are at your highest point, but you are also one step to your downfall.
The thing about growing up is that it is just as terrifying as it is exciting. This is why people are desperate enough to cling to anything that can give them hope. In episode 11, the moms (Mi-ran, Sun-young, Il-hwa) visit a fortune teller to consult on the fates of their children. The readings turn out to be promising, so like Taek, the rest of the Ssangmundong squad are no strangers to the pressures of life. We see the gang work extra hard on their academics in their senior year — even the 999th place Deok-sun and 7-time college applicant Jung-bong finally express their interest in higher education. Unfortunately for them, life is not some sort of templated testament that we simply go over. There are times when we get what we want, and there are times we do not. As mentioned earlier, losing is a part of the game.
Roadmaps are only there as a guide. It is essential to head in the right direction, but we must be mindful to not get caught in the concerns of destination that we forget to appreciate the journey itself.
The blossoming
I especially felt Deok-sun’s despair when she realizes how little her chance is to get into college because of her bad grades. Anyone’s lowest point in life must be where there is nothing left to do but accept defeat. It is when a person momentarily loses himself to pain until he is ready to dust himself off and go on.
Jung-hwan must feel as defeated when Taek gets to Deok-sun in the arena just a few seconds ahead of him. He initially blames all the stoplights on the road for his unfortunate timing. Eventually, he finds it in himself to recognize his shortcomings leading up to his fate. “Fate and timing aren’t just coincidences that find you. They’re moments like miracles, that arise out of choices made because of ardent desire. Surrender and decision, without hesitation — that is what makes timing. He was more ardent, and I should’ve had more courage. It wasn’t the red lights, nor the timing that was bad… but the countless times I hesitated,” Jung-hwan says to himself. His heartbreak gives him an opportunity to grow.
We have a framed “do something today that your future self will thank you for” quote hung at home. It meant nothing to me until I got old enough to realize that the little things do matter, after all. We may not be the same people in 10 years, but who we are right now will definitely play an integral role in that path.
To blossom is to grow; through our lowest times, we learn to be better.
To bloom, at last
Another great thing I learned from Reply 1988 is that before you can give love, you must feel loved, and before you can be enough, you must feel enough. There is a saying that goes, “If you feel beautiful, you look beautiful.” How a flower perceives itself evidently manifests through its petals. That is perhaps why plant moms make sure to put their pots in a nourishing and appropriate environment.
Blooming is not solely equatable to a prosperous professional career. We grow in countless different ways — emotionally, physically, spiritually. Deok-sun and Jung-bong both find true love at a point in their life where they are more self-aware and self-accepting. Bo-ra and Sun-woo eventually find the courage to take their relationship to the next level. Jung-hwan’s bloom, for me, occurred after he finds closure in his confession to Deok-sun. His growth eventually teaches him to be more expressive and appreciative of the significant people in his life — starting with his mom. To be young is to be our own worst critic; to flourish, however, is to be our own best ally.
People are not born with a predetermined purpose in life. Camus would even argue that our lives are meaningless and will continually remain so — I guess that is what makes it rare and beautiful. Once a flower is in its full bloom, I doubt it spends a minute asking the sky why it was even planted at all. At the moment, it probably only cares about dancing with the wind, singing in the rain, and smiling at the sun.
The days of one’s bloom must be the most adventurous — and diverse — one. I think it perfectly mirrors people in their 20’s. Some pursue professional careers, some are onto business ventures, some get married, have kids, and many more. Perhaps to bloom is to relish the beauty of life — completely and without holding back.
The inevitable wither and dwindle
If the bloom is the climax, then the withering is the falling action.
The last few sequences of the series bring the reflective truth of life that we will not get to do the things we love for the rest of our lives. No matter how exceptionally a flower blooms, it will always eventually wither.
In episode 19 of the series, Dong-Il and Mi-ran respectively go through some sort of languishing process as they come to terms with retirement and menopause. One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the series for me is when Il-hwa (Dong-Il’s wife) finds Dong-Il outside their house after he is forced to voluntarily retire. Mi-ran comparably goes through depression and mid-life crisis as she tries to navigate a climacteric point in her aging reality.
It is such a taxing reality of life that no matter how content we are with our dispositions, we will eventually just be left with mere keepsakes. Many of us miss out when “the last one” occurs in our lives. We just look back one day and discover that we no longer do the things we used to do because we grew up and started doing other things. Now that I think about it, I cannot even remember the last time I went out to play with my neighborhood friends. We probably said our goodbyes and went home that afternoon, not realizing that we just concluded our childhood.
Tony Hawk recently posted a video of him doing skateboarding tricks for the last time. Being in his 50’s, he recognizes that his body does not work like it used to anymore. It even took him a couple of tries before getting them right. He expressed that he never had much finality in anything, but perhaps that experience gave him a proper farewell to something he dedicated his entire life to.
Life is meaningless, so to live is a luxury. We do not have a definitive date as to when it all ends. All we know is that the petals of a flower will eventually fall off. The only way to be at peace once the curtains come to a close is to perform the way you want to remember.
A flower’s job is to be, but in time, it will naturally stop being.
I am not sure if this is common knowledge, but a few sources say that Jung-hwan was supposed to die in the series through a plane crash. With Reply 1988’s narrative on the circle of life, I personally think that it would have made sense; and as they say, “Through loss, we grow.”
We grow not once but with every passing day. So, life is really just a continuous journey with no destination. To live is all about making the car ride a little more bearable than the day before. Dong-Il says, “I thought it was all over once the petals fall off. But after the petals fall off, there is another fruit that blooms. I forgot about that. I only got sad because my flower petals weren’t going to bloom again.” So, we never really cease to matter.
As pollination teaches us, a part of a flower lives through another.
