WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Netflix’s slice-of-life masterpiece When Life Gives You Tangerines (starring IU, Park Bo-gum) broke records by becoming the highest-rated K-drama on IMDb and swept top viewership rankings in the region and beyond.

More than just another love story, When Life Gives You Tangerines tells a heartfelt story of life and love threading through generations. The drama follows the lives of Ae-soon and Gwan-sik, portrayed through four seasons of life – from 1960 on Jeju Island, to 2025 in Seoul.

It even sparked off a social media trend where people were filming themselves crying uncontrollably after watching the drama. I, too, was not spared from the waterworks…

As a young Ae-soon and an older Geum-myeong (Ae-soon and Gwan-sik’s daughter) narrated a poetic reflection on life through the episodes, I was once again reminded of my own shortcomings as a daughter and reflected on my own relationship with my parents.

We often hurt the ones who love us the most

“When I spoke to others, it was as if I were writing a love letter. I would choose my words carefully, one by one. When others treat you well, even just once, they become your saviour. But I treated the saviour to whom I’m a million times grateful like scrap paper. I wasn’t careful with my words or feelings.”

We definitely can all relate to Geum-myeong and her tendency to speak carelessly to her parents. She snaps at them impatiently, and any lighthearted conversation can turn sour pretty quickly. She gets frustrated with her parents for giving their all to the family, and the guilt she feels from being the recipient of her parents’ unconditional love trips her up further.

Watching Geum-myeong get annoyed with herself time and again after unintentionally hurting her parents was like looking into the mirror for myself. I, like Geum-myeong, have had far too many moments where I lost it with my parents.

Sometimes they ask too many questions, at the wrong time. Sometimes they worry about the strangest, smallest, most inconsequential things. Sometimes they just don’t understand, no matter how many times I have tried to explain it. Sometimes, honestly, I am just not in the mood for a conversation.

The ones who love me the most… I treated carelessly and tossed aside whenever I found better company.

Know your worth

“I do love you deeply, but I love myself deeply too.”

In the days leading up to the wedding, Geum-myeong makes the painful decision to call off the engagement with her fiance Yeong-beom.

Through the course of their relationship, Geum-myeong had repeatedly been subjected to her prospective mother-in-law’s judgement and criticism, with the elder going as far as to materialistically point out that Geum-myeong and her son come from very different worlds in terms of status.

The older woman is relentless with her attempts to belittle Geum-myeong, who has always been viewed as the apple of her parents’ eyes.

My heart broke as I watched Geum-myeong, who had always been a confident go-getter, cower in front of her prospective in-laws who ordered her around like she was their helper. In their eyes, her achievements were worthless if she didn’t know how to ladle soup or serve them food properly.

Meanwhile, Yeong-beom only watched on helplessly. Time after time, his silence and inaction left Geum-myeong to fend for herself. Yeong-beom is a good guy – he is nice and kind to everyone – but he’s unable to stand up for Geum-myeong.

I knew that feeling all too well. But unlike Geum-myeong, I did not have the courage to speak up for myself nor walk away.

My mother’s heart broke repeatedly as she watched me bend over backwards for someone who didn’t see me as endearing and as lovely as she did.

“Everyone is frustrated and unhappy while you keep acting nice,” Geum-myeong says to Yeong-beom in one of their parting conversations, as she wonders why she has “to be treated like crap by (his) family”.

In this age of self-love and self-preservation, some might say Geum-myeong made a selfish but smart decision. But as I thought about it more, I believe Geum-myeong made a choice that was much bigger than herself.

It was a choice she made out of the assurance and security of her own identity and her parents’ love for her. She believed in herself and knew what she was capable of. She trusted that her parents would always be there for her as her safe refuge.

In her parents’ eyes, Geum-myeong was never lacking and always endearing. And she knew better than to entrust her life to a family who refused to see that in her.

The sun will rise again – and so will you

“For their heartbroken daughter, they once again focused on doing just one thing. Against all odds, they raised me yet again. They made sure not a pound of me disappeared from the world. In the fortress that was both comforting and unsettling, I slept well and recharged, just like a bear hibernating for winter.”

In the aftermath of Geum-myeong’s breakup, she lost the ability to keep going. She had cut off contact with the world and isolated herself at home in her rented apartment. Even her fridge was completely frosted over because she was just in bed all the time.

And when she finally mustered up the courage to return to her parents’ home, they welcomed her back wholeheartedly with open arms. No resentment, no shaming, no blaming, no I-told-you-sos.

Ae-soon and Gwan-sik trusted and waited for their daughter to make the right decision, and gave her enough time and space until she was ready to return home.

When I was dealing with the failure of my relationship, my parents never once let me out of their sight.

My mother surrounded me with her constant presence, watching over me every night as I cried myself to sleep and picking me up at the bus stop when I came home after work every day. She said she had to make sure her daughter came home.

Even my father, who was always stoic and emotionally distant, became unusually caring towards me. He would follow me around at home and try to strike up conversations with the most random things.

But one night, he came into my room and said, “You don’t deserve this. You shouldn’t want a man like that.” My father, who had never intervened in his daughter’s life choices or involved himself much in her life, spoke up for the first and only time.

As Geum-myeong spent her days resting and recovering with her parents, she once again realised the magnitude of her parents’ relentless love for her.

“Only after my sun, the first to light up the lonely ocean, had set forever… did I realise how warm it was to be by my dad’s side.”

Like Ae-soon and Gwan-sik, my parents held my broken heart in their worn out but sturdy hands despite their own heartbreak. Ae-soon had told Geum-myeong, “Even a small scratch on your heart deeply bruises mine and your dad’s.”

My parents grieved my loss with me. In the safety of my parents’ embrace, I cried well, ate well, slept well. Day by day, little by little, I gained strength to be back on my feet again.

The older I get, the more I see that despite my parents’ own shortcomings and flaws, it was the many decisions and sacrifices they had made that allowed me to live the life I’m able to have today.

My father tucked away his own pride and ambitions to become a taxi driver when the business he had built with his own hard work collapsed overnight. In order for the family to survive, he let go of his own dreams and aspirations for good.

My mother spent her entire life paving the way for me to succeed, giving up a burgeoning career to become a housewife. She paid no care to her own fatigue and callused hands, she was not interested in dolling herself up or pampering herself with things she wanted. She only wanted to give me the best.

“I swallowed their dreams and spread my wings, embracing my mum’s dream like a seed in my heart.”

Like Geum-myeong who came to the full realisation of her parents’ love for her, I have felt the weight of unconditional love.

In my parents’ eyes, I am the most precious and the most endearing. I was worth every sacrifice, and I knew without a doubt that they would still make the same choices they made given a second chance.

I can only pray that I learn to honour my parents better. I must do better.