Is this a pattern in K dramas?

[Lucy]

Besides OMR, I've only watched "On the Green Prairie" and "Bodyguard," but I've also read a lot about "Yellow Hanky," and except for BG, there are a lot of similarities between them all. These family dramas have one poor family, one rich family, and several ways in which they are interconnected (relationships exist between the families through several different members). The main conflict, of course, is usually that the parents are opposed to their childrens' marriages, and there's always some dark, secret reason why. The children are always torn by the family's disapproval and spend many episodes begging their parents and grandparents for their approval. Plus there are relatively young, single aunts who have failed at love or have put their careers ahead of settling down but are in the process of finding love.

I guess the fact that the plots have these similarities is really nothing remarkable, because they are pretty much the stuff of any romantic drama, but I'm wondering what they mean to Koreans. Are these dramas acting out some kind of classic (or modern) conflict in Korean culture? Are the characters archetypes of some sort?

I'm just kind of thinking out loud here, trying to understand more about what's going on in Korea today. Anyone have any thoughts?

[TheBo]

I would go one further, Lucy, and say that once the marriage problems are sorted out, the drama cannot end until a baby is born or on the way for all the newly married parties. Just not resolved until then (well, there are exceptions--"Love Letter" and "Winter Love Tale" (although I think Yujin's sister ends up with a child on that one).

Anyone else with daruma "precepts"?

Bo

[yugin]

I've watched a lot of Korean Dramas, a lot! And yes, you are right Lucy, they are seem to be set around the same theme: Love, betrayel, Family, etc. But, TheBo is right. They all do end in family loving. One drama, More than Words can say, had this similar theme of Yellow Hankie. but, they don't all have to end the same way, it's tv drama, so they have to.

[Soju]

The "One rich family, one poor family" thing was present but subdued in "Whose My Love". This show was about three brothers and TWO single aunts all getting married within one year's time. The 'rich' family was middle class. They owned an apartment building, but only one apartment was occupied by anyone other than family (and those residents married into the family in the course of the show). The poor family had no dark secrets; they just felt their daughter was marrying above her station is life.

As I understand it, social status is more important in Korea than it is here. Marrying into money and status is a big thing, especially, I think, for some of the older generation. This could create a social divide that a lot of the audience relate to.