K drama of the week

The miniseries Saimdang, is now on youtube.

....

the series is a bit confusing, because it tries to put too many plots and issues into the series, which shifts back and forth from the past to the present.

Sin Saimdang, is celebrated in Korean History for both her art, and for being the mother of one of Korea's most famous Confucian scholars.

Geese among the Reeds: https://alchetron.com

In the drama, which is very fictionalized, she is left to raise her family because her husband is still studying to try to pass the equivalent of the civil service exam.

In the fictional story, she is in love with a minor prince, but if she marries him her life and the life of her family will be in danger, so her father married her to another man who will allow her to do her art etc.

Much of the family's inheritance is lost, but her father leaves her a wasteland plot that is full of mulberry trees.

She discovers the formula for the durable Korean paper using the bark of these trees and is able to support her family. 

The second story is of a modern art teacher/ student whose PhD is on a famous painting, that she discovers is a fake, and she loses her job at the time her huband loses his job also. A bit of a confusing plot here about her visit to a conference in Italy where she find a painting of a Korean woman (fictional, but inspired by Ruben's sketch of a man in traditional Korean dress in one of his paintings)

the series stars luminous actress Lee Young-ae.

you might know her from the classic K drama Jewel in the Palace, now available on Amazon Prime.

Stuff I learned from K Dramas

in the evening, we have been watching K dramas, which often are mini series going on for 15 or more episodes.

Right now, we watched the first episode of Doctor Kim season 2, which seems more about romance between doctors than medicine,



I warned Kuya and Joy that I would probably be yelling at the TV, since often TV dramas get medicine wrong (uh, after a year, the hero/heroine in two different dramas work up and was normal. Uh, it doesn't work that way)...

and sure enough: In the chaotic first ER scene I diagnosed the dissecting aortic aneurism, Yelled to give the guy with DT's a shot of valium before Master Kim told the overworked intern to do this... but I must say that in the laporoscopic surgery scene I couldn't figure out how he diagnosed a tension pneumothorax and I couldn't figure out why it happened.. did someone put the endotrach tube in wrong or overventillate? Oh well.

I suspect I won't manage to get through the drama, since it's about an understaffed rural hospital where Dr Kim is trying to recruit doctors to work there (been there, done that)... which is why I rarely watch medical dramas.


In Jewel in the Palace,about a medieval female doctor at the Korean King's court, I loved the cooking scenes (she begins by being a cook) but wondered about how acupuncture cured the head of the invading Japanese of appendicitis, or how taking a pulse diagnosed a retained twin after a miscarriage. Huh? On the other hand, she did diagnose and treat her friend with pre eclampsia correctly.



Some of it is based on Chinese medical theory, of which I have only a basic knowledge... and don't tell the crazies refusing to wear masks in the US epidemic, but they wore masks when a flu like epidemic hit in the drama.

the medicine of the World of the Married was not part of the plot, and what upset me the most is how the ladydoc at the end reconciled with her manipulative narcissistic ex husband. But for most of the drama, she is the ex wife from hell, meaning a lot of women will cheer.



from King, Eternal monarch, I learned that North Korea has a treasure trove of rare metals that made the King rich.



This series was great, positing two alternative Koreas existing that needed to fix the magic flute to unite...until it sort of fell apart for the last 3 segments into a lot of different Koreas due to the multiuniverse theory, and the protagonists didn't marry but just spent weekends traveling into alternative universes of Korean history. Hmm.. wonder if they hit the one where Truman wasn't president so Mac Arthur nuked Korea to stop the Chinese army... 

The level of electronic surveillence in both Koreas in this drama is mind boggling... Nope, I wouldn't want to live in the King's kingdom. Is it this bad in the US? Just wondering.

Crash landing on you is a drama about the culture clashes between lovers from the two modern Koreas and is such a wonderful romance




finally, we just finished Kingmaker,



based on a novel on the last king/emperor of Korea/ This filled in a few blanks that usually don't get noticed, like the persecution of the Catholics and the peasant revolts, in this case with the background of the Donghak movement.

So now I guess I'll have to read up on Korean history. I did know about the persecution of the Christians since a friend of mine lost her grandfather in one of the later persecutions that happened under the Japanese rule of Korea. because Christians tended to be better educated and more involved in the anti Japanese movement.

in one of Professor Bulliet's lectures (history professor Columbia Univ whose lectures are on youtube), he mentioned talking to one of his Korean students years ago, and the student said he planned to go into film so that he could tell the world about Korean history. So there might be a reason for the K drama being so popular here, especially those about history.