The classics

As the story always goes…
Boy and Girl are childhood sweethearts.
Boy/Girl loses his/her memory, and finds him/herself in another relationship.
In the meantime, the mother/stepmother/sister/stepsister steps in to prevent the two love-birds from meeting.
Boy/Girl regains his/her memory, and fights, against all odds, to be reunited.
Once reunited, Girl is diagnosed with cancer..
Girl finally dies in Boy’s arms..

*cue sad music, lotsa tissue paper and lotsa tears*

I am not a Korean drama fanatic..
But i watch it anyway because it reminds me of how fortunate I am:
1) Not having to grapple with lost memories, newly regained memory, and whatsoever-memory
2) Not having evil stepsisters or stepmothers who pretend to be angels in front of others but bare their fangs at me when we are alone
3) Not having to choose between stepbrothers/desperate-men-who-are-desperately-in-love-with-me-and-cannot-live-without-me and oh, my childhood sweetheart and first love
4) That I am so smart that I can develop the plot the same way the scriptwriter did
5) That I can sit back comfortably and laugh at sympathize with the silliness sadness of it all…

But there are exceptions..
Sometimes, wonder of wonders, it is the Boy who gets diagnosed with cancer.
Sometimes, it is really not cancer, but some other strange illness (that kills one of them off anyway).
Sometimes, erm.. sometimes.. you just can’t find any exceptions.

The classic scene..
Girl regains memory but refuses to admit it to her childhood sweetheart. Instead she chooses to run away with the stepbrother who loves her oh-so deeply.
Suddenly the stepbrother wakes up from his reverie and decides to return Girl to her first, true love. He abandons Girl and his van (?!!) on the road and runs away (and then returns to the scene, somehow, to watch the classic reunion of Boy and Girl, and to erm.. weep in joy/grief?!)

And the classic reunion..
That somewhat resembles that of the gungfu shows – where secret codes and secret gadgets are involved:
You’ll have to continue the sentences correctly, or else you’d not be taken as the childhood lover, or part of the clan/gang/whatever..
Once you continue the sentences correctly, you’ll have to produce the matching accessories to further ascertain your identity: for the wu-lin-bang-pais it is usually matching jade/pendants/swords; for korean dramas it is usually a heart-shaped chain that fits into another roundish chain.

Here goes..
Boy: Two people in love..
Girl: Will always come together..
Boy: No matter how far apart they are..
Girl: They will always meet again.

Boy takes out roundish chain; Girl takes out heart-shaped chain; both chains fit together..
Then, as if it isn’t enough to prove their identities, they end by shouting each other’s names repeatedly..
“Han Jingshu..”
“Chengjun-ge..”
“Han Jingshu!”
“Chengjun-ge!”
“Han Jingshu!!!”
“Chengjun-ge!!!”

Meanwhile Stepbrother watches and weeps silently as the two ill-fated love birds embrace..
*Audience bengz is touched, takes out tissue box and pukes weeps.*

It amazes me, how smart it is, of the characters to be able to remember such long secret codes of identification, where, in the instance of the gungfu shows, it’d probably go:
Assassin A: Chuang qian ming yue guang..
Assassin B: Yi shi di shang shuang..
Assassin A: Ju tou wang ming yue!
Assassin B: Di tou si gu xiang!!
They bring out their matching jade pendants and realise that they are actually tong men shi xiong meis, who was separated since their shifu got killed..

What can I say.
I am utterly amused.

Get in touch with your laughter emotions.
Escape into the world of Korean dramas today.
Forget all your troubles, have a good laugh cry.