What is the yellow handkerchief?

[Rosetta]

Have I missed something? I've watched every episode of this drama, but still don't know the significance of the title. Can anyone help?

[HumbleStudent]

The answer that has most commonly been given to this question on other boards is that the 'yellow handkerchief' is a Korean borrowing of the 'yellow ribbon' as in the 'yellow ribon tied around the old oak tree'. This story has roots in U.S. oral folk traditions (in some cases it is a white handkerchief). This would make it a symbol of enduring love and perhaps also of forgiveness. (The story usually involves a returning prisoner, but in some versions he is an ordinary criminal, while in other versions he was taken prisoner in the Civil War.)

In another context, someone wrote a post on USENET about a Korean pop musician, including the following:

"Seo Taiji and Boys broke up in 1995. The next year, blaming a lack of inspiration, Seo went on a self-imposed exile to the U.S. During his absence, there have been plenty of musicians trying to imitate Seo's style, but Seo remains Korea's King of Pop."

"Seo finally ended his exile in 2000. In his home coming concert, fans packed Seoul's Olympic Stadium, every one of them holding a yellow handkerchief, a Korean symbol of unwavering love."

I don't know that anyone has seen anything definitive from the producers or writer on this point.



HS

[JadeEyes]

I saw a post on another site from someone who understands Korean who says the KBS website summarizes YH as a series primarily concerning the themes of forgiveness and redemption. (I wouldn't mind seeing Sang-min redeem himself--if that's at all possible, though hard to imagine--but I sure don't want to see Ja-young forgive him--not if it means taking him back!)

I don't know if that counts as anything "official" about the meaning of "yellow handkerchief", but that's all I've heard on the subject. Seems like it's a question everyone asks, though. I posted the same question myself the first time I posted on the Honolulu TV message board and was told the question comes up regularly.

Btw, Humble Student, your posts are always so full of information. I really enjoy reading them. It's obvious you put a lot of time and thought into them. I just hope when you're composing your posts, you're not taking time away from something important or special you're supposed to be doing with someone you love. I bring this up because it happened to me yesterday. Sorry to interject my personal life here--seeing your post today just brought this thing that happened to me yesterday to mind and I guess I just felt like some sympathy. Here's a warning to all of you fellow addicts out there---hope you don't let this delicious addiction of ours beat out time for the people in our life who really matter.

Jade Eyes

[yobo]

Wow, Jade Eyes, maybe we got our own little soap opera going here! You know what they say about truth
being stranger than fiction.
Just in case anyone didn't know, the soundtrack to YH is titled "Yellow Ribbon", which immediately brought to mind the old Dawn song, so I looked up the word in Hangul on the cover and it does mean "handkerchief" not ribbon. I suppose the words are somewhat interchangeable in Korean. But yeah, it made me wonder about all that old sore subject about, will the two real main characters end up together. Oh well, let's comfort ourselves with the realization that, as Conway Twitty once said,"it's only make believe".

[Soju]

This is a BabelFish translation of a segment of KBS's page yellow.kbs.co.kr/about/plan.html

To new one day serial drama of KBS < yellow handkerchief > the yellow handkerchief does not come out. Handkerchief where the subject < is yellow but > the reason which is will be what. 4 years the company internal ' bingo which served time ' sent the letter of headache to the confinement life period wife from the New York jail. To the first letter forget the oneself, it wrote. When and 3 year moving flowing parole decision drops, it wrote the second letter. Forgive the if oneself and when it is a thought which it will accept again the yellow handkerchief, the village entrance in the old oak the every e put... e lun The assimilation for < yellow handkerchief > the last phrase is like this. The tree, that oak all the yellow handkerchief was to be covered with the wave. 20 things and 30 things, it knows in hundreds triumph wind insides E nine it was waving with the flag of illusion.... From here the fact that the yellow handkerchief means waits with is forgiveness. The oak will have like the multi leaf bird me under handkerchief one which is hung Oh I sent alone, it waits they are days, ' old time the watch which it will do to wait really it forgives you ' it is a message of illusion, it does. Waits with the force which is the possibility of raising a forgiveness long comes from a love. And love it waits with to pass by the process of forgiveness, element wire smoke pollution it falls with the rain. The yellow handkerchief does not appear it is not but the new one day drama subject < yellow handkerchief > the reason which is to here is. The one day drama < yellow handkerchief > will lead and with love and betrayal of the youths talk of reconciliation love it will draw to search for in with each other different method and and it puts in the itinerary which is thin and it puts out, it waits with with forgiveness with the rain smallness the interest which is the possibility of thinking over the value true love it is completed lop, it is a impressed drama.

When I read stuff like that, I am ever more indebted to Humble Student!

[HumbleStudent]

Leaving aside the element wire smoke pollution factor for the moment, I choose to remain optimistic about JY/YJ despite the ominous implications of the word 'forgiveness'.

(1) In the 'oak tree' song the man is a convicted criminal who has presumably committed many misdeeds and mistakes and who needs to beg the woman's forgiveness. I suppose that might refer to Sang-Min. However, the yellow handkerchief/ribbon tradition also involves a lot of cases whose only common element is that lovers have been kept separated for a long time, possibly through no fault of their own (soldiers in war, for example), and remain faithful to each other and return to each other. Well, doesn't that seem to refer to Ja-Young and Young-Joon more than to anyone else? Aren't they the ones who are being kept separate and have to have faith in each other? JY was talking about waiting "ten years" for YJ an episode or two ago.

If JY and SM got back together, you wouldn't call it 'enduring love', would you?, since for quite some time there has been no real 'love' at all.

(2) Furthermore, there are many episodes ahead of us and during that time Young-Joon might do something that he needs to ask forgiveness for. He does have this way of going out and getting drunk when things get bad. Maybe he'll get busted for drunken driving and write JY a letter from prison or something.

(3) More seriously, Sang-Min and Min-Joo are also 'main characters', so even if the "Yellow Handkerchief" is taken as referring to 'forgiveness', mightn't it refer to their own misdeeds and how they have to forgive each other?

(4) Some people have argued that South Korea is a 'traditional society' and this creates a pressure to get Ja-Young's baby into a family situation with both his/her parents, so that JY and SM have to get back together, and they cite some other shows where something like this happened. I don't have any particular insight into Korean cultural traditions or any previous experience with durama, but doesn't this 'traditionalness' also impose a pressure on SM and MJ to not get a divorce? Is it more 'traditional' if SM divorces MJ and gets remarried to JY? I mean we have been outside the boundaries of pure 'tradition' ever since SM got JY pregnant and then went and got married to someone else, so doesn't it just make matters even more untraditional if we add a divorce to that? In the other shows where the bad guy got forgiven at the end, was he already married to someone else?

Therefore I choose to be optimistic about JY/YJ, although I admit that I am not 100% sure... that element of doubt adds considerably to the suspense of the show, since I am not absolutely certain how it is going to be resolved.

hs

[yobo]

This has been an interesting discussion of YH and the yellow handkerchief/ribbon, one that has been long overdue. Student, you make some good points and you're probably right. However, I believe that we can settle to one major conclusion at this point, especially in light of Sang's recent pangs of conscience: All of us who have been hoping for Sang to be cast into the fiery pit (which probably includes all of us) will have to learn the ultimate lesson of forgiveness, as the drama ends with all the characters in repentance and forgiveness, and friends forever. It may come before too long, as the secrets are coming out and the baby is left to occupy the place of the "juicy" part-- but Ja-young will surely start showing soon.

[Soju]

How much time actually HAS elapsed on this show since the beginning. I remember someone telling me once about a USA soap opera where in six months of audience time only one day had gone by show time. Obviously this is not QUITE the case here, but Jae-young ought to be showing soon. Maybe they'll do a flash-forward, and [glow=red,2,300]there[/glow] will be the baby? That'd be a cop out, but it would save on make-up for KBS