When Life Gives You Tangerines

 

No matter how good the intentions are, things don't always work out the way we wish them to work out.

That seems to be the running  message in the 2024 K-drama - When life Gives you Tangerines.

Every episode is filled with equal measures of heartbreak coupled with elation.

In the beginning, we are introduced to very strong characters, each one holding their roles and executing it to a fault.

I watched this drama in two weeks, I was down with an infection and it gave me an excuse to cry for my troubles.

Life is not easy, but you have to keep going, you have to keep giving it your best shot you have to continue taking risks, big and small.

And sometimes it will be great and you can celebrate in the summer, so that when winter comes, memories of happier times can keep you warm.

But there is also love in this drama, the complicated love of family, and the sweet love of young hearts that have decided to be each other's soul mates. Not in the inexperienced passion filled sort of attraction. This has to do with knowledge.

When  Gwan Sick asks Ae Sun  to marry him, she says : No I cannot , you have seen me in my worst. 

But he insists, that he can love her  and provide for her more than anybody.

And he tries to. 

In the end, when Gwan Sick is dying, Oh Ae Sun says to him that -  Because of you I have never been lonely for a single day in my life - 

The viewer is confronted with his own decision making capabilities. 

When do you ask for an epidural?

Should I borrow money to rescue my family?

I loved the ending, it gave so much hope. Even thought (Ae Sun) was not able to attend college to become a poet, through the publication of her poetry books, she  becomes a poetry coordinator teacher at 60 years old in an old people's home.