When Life Gives you Tangerines is a K-Drama about our protagonist, Oh Ae-sun, and her family’s hardships, while her daughter Yang Geum-myeong narrates the story from her point of view. This show is classified as a drama, romance, and slice of life – my favorite combination of genres, by the way. I have loved drama and romance genres since I understood what romantic love was. I spent my days fantasizing that one day, I would have a love story of my own where a man worships the ground I walk on and loves me endlessly. We would go on cute dates, get married, have two kids and live happily ever after. It’s very unrealistic, but I currently have someone that treats me the way I have read in books and watched in shows and movies, so watching When Life Gives You Tangerines, made me think deeply of him and also appreciate more what our loved ones do for us. This review will contain spoilers so please watch before reading!
Ae-sun has struggled a lot in her life, and her daughter realized why her mom acted the way she did later on as she was reflecting. Ae-sun’s mom died when she was only 10 years old, leaving her an orphan since her dad died a couple years before. Ae-sun grew up feeling like a nuisance as her uncle and grandmother acted as if she wasn’t part of the family, and her mother’s boyfriend just seemed like a leech. Ae-sun had to earn money to take care of her younger siblings, as the boyfriend promised he would send her to college if he helped raise them. During this time, Yang Gwan-sik, her future husband, would not leave her side and even helped plant and sell the cabbages that Ae-sun was selling. Ae-sun never made it to a big university to become the big poet she had always aspired to be. Ae-sun was even hated by Gwan-sik’s grandmother, who was a shaman and said that Ae-sun carried the ghost of her mother around. Ae-sun would constantly tell his grandma that she always tells Gwan-sik to go away and he’s around her despite that. It’s nice to see that while Ae-sun went through a lot of emotional turmoil, Gwan-sik was always by her side whether she wanted it or not. In the last couple of episodes, Geum-myeong said that “If I am dad’s number one, then you’re number zero.” Which is a great transition to their love story.
Ae-Sun, since the beginning, is a stubborn girl with big dreams. She would talk about being chief of her village and the president of South Korea, specifically being re-elected five times, with the Haenyeo divers. As the divers worked with both Ae-sun and Gwan-sik’s mothers, they all supported Ae-sun’s big dreams. In this scene, they all ask young Gwan-sik what he will be in the future, to which he said: “be the first gentlemen,” insinuating that he will be married to Ae-sun in the future. Ae-sun would always tell Gwan-sik to go away and that she will never marry him because how could she marry a boy from the island and not the city? She had high standards for herself and the man she would marry, not realizing that Gwan-sik would eventually win her over. Slow and steady indeed wins the race! I find it so endearing how attentive Gwan-sik is to Ae-sun: he brought her family an extra fish so she could eat, remembered the little things, and dealt with all of Ae-sun’s tantrums, as she was an emotional girl. My favorite scene is when they were teenagers and Gwan-sik was on a ship to be a professional runner in the city. He jumped out of the ship and into the sea because he heard Ae-sun calling for him from the island. He swam to her and they embraced each other, and cried together. Gwan-sik’s love for Ae-sun is very pure, my favorite part about their story. It wouldn’t matter what would physically or emotionally hurt him, as long as Ae-sun was smiling, he was happy.
As the show progresses, Ae-sun and Gwan-sik have their three children, one passing away at the age three and extending the couple’s hardships. The story starts to move on to an older version of the couple and focuses on their two children, Eun-myeong and Geum-myeong. I related most to Geum-myeong in this series because she is the eldest daughter, the only one to go to college, the most spoiled, a bookworm, and the one that her parents put the most pressure on because they know she can do anything. Eun-myeong was the one that wasn’t very good at school so their parents compared the two because if Geum-myeong was achieving big things, then at least one child is succeeding. Eventually this led to Eun-myeong resenting his parents, as they clearly showed favoritism towards Geum-myeong.
Geum-myeong’s relationship with her parents made me cry the most. She’s always nagging at her mom about how she needs to stop worrying and needs to stop street vending, because her mom shouldn’t be doing that. It made me both sad and more appreciative of my parents because of how much they have done for me. Ae-sun and Gwan-sik have done everything to send Geum-myeong to college because it was Ae-sun’s dream. In one scene, Geum-myeong is crying in the bus (because she is just as much of a crybaby as her mother, same though) and says “I took their dreams and spread my wings with the seeds of my mom’s dreams in my heart…my mom passed her dreams on to me.”
That scene made me cry so much, as I originally wanted to become a lawyer because it was my mom’s dream. I still do want that as my future, it’s just I made it my own dream because that’s what I want for myself. Geum-myeong is a daddy’s girl, and hates how hard he works just so she can have a future. I think those scenes with her father killed me the most. Gwan-sik did not want things to be difficult for Geum-myeong. Everytime she tried something new, he would say: “if you don’t want to do it, just quit and run back to me. I’ll be here,” while Geum-myeong would reply: “Okay.”
Even when Geum-myeong gets married, she cries down the aisle as Gwan-sik repeats the same thing to her, and as he sits down and has officially given her daughter away, he cries. He sees his little girl walking down the aisle, and can’t believe how much she has grown.
The last episode was bittersweet. Ae-sun finally became a published poet with the help of her husband, and ultimately completed one of the three promises he told her when they were young. Ae-sun didn’t have it all and Gwan-sik constantly told her: “you should have married someone that could give you everything you wanted.” Ae-sun would just reassure him by telling him that if she could do it all over again, it would still be with him. It was better to have someone that loved you and be poor, rather than be with someone who loves you and is rich. That love makes you rich enough where you feel like you don’t need anything else. The title of this show makes sense. The saying usually goes, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” but all life has given Ae-sun is tangerines, and she still has to make something out of it when things aren’t working her way.
A show has never made me cry this much, and it really unlocked all the hidden feelings I had about my parents and my partner. You never appreciate what you have until it’s gone; I related so much to Geum-myeong, with being quick-tempered but also a cry-baby. She adores her parents and knows she’s a brat for not appreciating them enough, everything she has done is for them. I also saw the importance of how you love someone and how that reflects in how your children love. Geum-myeong thought she had found a love like her parents until she had to ask her first love to choose between being a good husband or a good son. He responded with: “how can anyone choose?” To which Geum-myeong responds with: “My father did.”
Even Eun-myeong saw how his parents loved each other and did the same with his wife. Gwan-sik always chose Ae-sun and that is the love I will always want to have. I didn’t include all of the big moments in this series, so if reading this still made you want to watch despite some spoilers, please do!