Episode 18 & 19:

By Bonyo Lee

Episode 18 : Should I Tell You Again That I Love You?

Haitai finally returns from the military and surprises Najeong at school. Dongil invests in the citi-phone but because that failed, they become in-dept. The IMF crisis hits Korea causing many people to lose their jobs, but Najeong gets lucky and lands a job that requires her to work in Australia for two years. The result of Najeong moving to Austrailia for work eventually takes a toll in her relationship with Sseuregi. Two years later, both Najeong and Chilbong is back to reunite with everyone. Haitai gets courage from Najeong and successfully gets back with his ex, confirming that he’s not Najeong’s husband.

Episode 19 : Do You Believe in Fate?

In this episode, we find out that Samcheonpo failed to get into grad school, and ended up with a bottom level corporate job. Najeong decides to get her driver license, influencing Chilbong to also get it, but Chilbong fails even after multiple times while Najeong passes the first time. Another relationship conflict arises between Samcheonpo and Yoonjin when Samcheonpo says he’s not thinking about marriage, angering Yoonjin. Najeong’s dad reaches out to Sseuregi and reveals that he didn’t like Najeong and Sseuregi being together because he thinks of Sseuregi as a son and couldn’t bear to lose him if they break up. Samcheonpo mends his relationship with Yoonjin by telling her that he plans to marry her when he’s more financially stable. Chilbong stays with Najeong when her dad is doing surgery and confesses his feelings for her.

The IMF crisis hit Korea in 1997 “when most of the country’s key macroeconomic indicators—growth, inflation, and the public sector deficit—pointed to an economy in robust health.” (Barnes et al 2003: 16). Since the economy seemed to have been doing well, the sudden economic crash paralyzed the Korean society and has taken a lot of Korean citizens by surprise. I will be talking about how some of the consequences that the IMF crisis gave people in Korea, and how well it was portrayed in episode 18 and 19.

Before Korea declared for bankruptcy and announced they’re going to officially get assistance from IMF, Dongil didn’t believe that the Korean’s economy was affected even after numerous news reports of companies going bankrupt and the drop of the stock market. He represents how a lot of Koreans felts before news broke out. In an issue written by Janice Jia Yoon, she interviews Mr. Chang, someone who received top-tier education, worked in a law firm for more than 20 years and claimed to know Korean society inside out. Even someone like him still received shock from this sudden crisis (2001: 25). The article also mentions that “Korean people were shocked as they had believed it was impossible for such a monolithic fixture of the economy” (Ibid.) to occur. Since “South Korea have many times been upheld as the poster child of successful and amazing economic development” (Ibid.), people had to refer the situation as “embarrassing” and “shameful” in both the article and in the drama.

After announcing Korea was going to be receiving assistance from the IMF, the IMF crises affected the economy in such a negative way, many people were forced to become unemployed. “In particular, unemployment among young adults and youth became pronounced because of the constrained job markets that ensued from the bankrupted and downsized corporations (Song 2017: 333). Two of the many consequences that is portrayed in episode 18 is when Najeong was forced to move to another country in order to get a job, and when Yoonjin gets to keep her job but her income gets decreased drastically. In fact, many people had to change their paths in life by moving to another country because of the IMF crisis.

In episode 19, we find out that Dongil leaves his job as a coach and helps his friend’s business. For the People who were affected by the IMF crisis and who were underemployed, they were exposed to media such as the Internet. By creating new businesses and markets, self-sufficiency was aimed at managing and building oneself as being self-employable (Song 2007: 336). Although Dongil goes back to coaching later on with a 50% decrease in salary, we know that he did help his friend’s business due to the crises, since the IMF crises did push a lot more individuals start businesses and startups.

In these two episodes, IMF crisis is portrayed realistically, with the help of putting characters in the drama to experience events that people actually faced during the IMF crises in Korea, and the aftermath.

Word Count: 510

Questions:

What are some of the things that wasn’t mentioned in the drama related to/happened in the IMF crises in Korea? In other words, other than the things that were mentioned in the drama, how else did the IMF crises impact Korea?
How does showing this IMF crises in Reply 1994 affect its’ viewers (consider both international and domestic viewers)?

Bibliograpy:

Barnes, Kevin, Ali Mansoor, Benjamin Cohen, and Shinji Takagi. The IMF and Recent Capital Account Crises: Indonesia, Korea, Brazil. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 2003.

Song, Jesook. “‘Venture Companies,’ ‘Flexible Labor,’ and the ‘New Intellectual’: The Neoliberal Construction of Underemployed Youth in South Korea.” Journal of Youth Studies 10, no.3 (2007): 331-351.

Yoon, Janice Jia. “IMF Family Portraits: How the 1997 Asia Economic Crisis changed families in South Korea” Harvard YISEI (2001): 24-35. https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~yisei/issues/fall_01/yoon.pdf