Ae-Sun and Gwan-Sik are taken to the police station in When Life Gives You Tangerines Episode 3. The cop recognizes them that they’re the kids who ran away from Jeju Island. Gye-Ok arrives at the police station after she received the message.
Episodes 3-4
Gye-Ok is told that the luggage was stolen by the motel owner. Evil people should be dealt by evil people. Gye-Ok stays in the motel and she ruins the motel owner’s business. She tells the customer that the family is thief. The motel owner is furious to fight Gye-Ok. The police arrive. They arrest the motel owner. It was her ten times to commit crime.
The luggage is returned to the owner. Ae-Sun and Gwan-Sik are taken back to Jeju Island. Jeju Island isn’t big. Everyone knows what Ae-Sun did. She drops out of the school after the classmates scolded her. There’s no school accepting her. The dream of being a poet turns into ashes. Her crime is enlarged. There’s no factory wanting to get her. There’s no man daring to marry her as well.
The irony is that Gwan-Sik is treated as a hero who paid for love even if he and Ae-Sun eloped together. Ae-Sun is labeled that she has no shame. So Gwan-Sik is stopped by his family even if he insists on marrying Ae-Sun. Gye-Ok visits Ae-Sun. She has a talk with her.
Ae-Sun goes on a date with a man Sang-Gil who’s ten year older than her. The man is a captain and he’s in a second marriage. He’s rich but his speech is vulgar. He promises to send Ae-Sun to college within ten years. He plans to help her publish a collection of poems if she does well.
Ae-Sun’s aunt Yi-Sook persuades Ae-Sun not to have high ambitions. Although the captain has two children, it’s good because he doesn’t have three children. It’s raining hard. Ae-Sun thinks her mother is crying. Sang-Gil plans to give Ae-Sun’s family the present that someone gave him. He decides to decide the marriage from the meeting up.
Ae-Sun kicks the stone on the ground. He listens to Sang-Gil’s complaint. Gwan-Sik shows up. He yells at Sang-Gil and he takes Ae-Sun to the canola field they decided to get together. She doesn’t accept his love and she has a fight with him. It cannot go back since she was labeled as a bad girl.
Gwan-Sik pats his chest and he promises that he will take care of Ae-Sun. But he can do nothing. Running a boat or laying bricks. It’s not what Ae-Sun wants to get. She takes off the ring he gave her. She throws it into the flower field. She’s heartless to push her lover away. But nobody knows that she cries to look for the ring from the canola field after he left. She gets nothing until dawn.
Another spring. Gwan-Sik gets on the ship when the family watches him. He goes to Seoul to take part in a game. He doesn’t know what his mother said to Ae-Sun so that she changed her mind. Ae-Sun was told from Gye-Ok that Gwan-Sik is a good athlete. He’s one of the top four athletes. He almost got a medal. He will lose his shining life if he chooses to marry Ae-Sun now.
Gwan-Sik tries his best to work hard for taking Ae-Sun to leave the island. He only wants to surround her. He actually doesn’t like sports. He’s not interested in medal as well. Sang-Gil accompanies Ae-Sun to choose the wedding dress. She doesn’t want to get married suddenly. She doesn’t want to go to college. There’re many things she wants to get in the world. But there’s nothing being match for the person she cherishes.
She makes the decision and she runs out of the clothing store. The thin and frail body runs in the heavy rain. She cannot stop crying and she cannot speak well. But she calls the guy’s name clearly. The bag Gwan-Sik carries drops without a reason. He tries to pick it up. But he hears a familiar cry.
The ship is going to reach the center of the sea. The captain refuses to turn around no matter how Gwan-Sik begs him. The coach grabs Gwan-Sik’s collar. He scolds him and he asks him if he will die without Ae-Sun. The words make the guy review his heart again. Yes, he will die. Everyone sees a person jumping into the sea. He swims towards the shore as fast as he can.
Gwan-Sik and Ae-Sun hug each other tightly. The fate is capricious but he shouldn’t let the couples not see each other. Gwan-Sik’s family agrees to their marriage in the end. They give birth to a lovely daughter. The daughter delays the dream that Ae-Sun wants to be a poet. She delays the future that Gwan-Sik wants to be a champion. But it’s not important anymore as long as you hugs her in your arms. Because the family becomes each other’s whole world.
Jeju Island becomes a famous travel sight. The girl who comes to enjoy flower digs out a ring from the ground. It’s the proposal ring that Gwan-Sik exchanged with a few rings when he went to Busan with Ae-Sun. He concealed it in his pocket when he walked into the motel.
Gwan-Sik’s grandma Mak-Cheon is a shaman. She often takes the women in the family to the temple for worship. Mak-Cheon catches the chance to torture Ae-Sun. She asks her to worship Buddha 3,000 times for getting a grandson. They’re on the way home. Mak-Cheon is behind Ae-Sun. She throws the red beans at her. She worries that her mother’s soul possesses her.
Ae-Sun is free. She returns her stepfather’s home and she sees her siblings. She’s close to her stepfather’s new wife Min-Ok. She complains about her mother-in-law to her. She helps her child wear diaper. Min-Ok gives Ae-Sun a toy pedicab. She tells her to give it to her daughter.
Mak-Cheon sees the toy pedicab. She asks Ae-Sun to throw away the pedicab. She thinks girls should have the looks of girls and riding pedicab is the business of boys. Gye-Ok wants to exchange candies with the pedicab. Mak-Cheon takes her granddaughter to sleep. Sh hints at the couple that they should return to the room to make a baby.
Ae-Sun returns to the room. She lies in the bed because she’s tired. Gwan-Sik feels sorry for his wife. He wants to do something for her. She doesn’t ask for much. She wishes him to keep the toy pedicab for their daughter. She worries that her daughter will be like her to be busy in the kitchen all her life if she doesn’t fight it for her daughter.
Ae-Sun wishes her daughter to do anything she wants to do. She doesn’t have to be the daughter-in-law who serves her in-laws. She can flip the table when she’s not happy. Gwan-Sik looks at the crying Ae-Sun. He lets her flip the table. He promises to clean it. His words make her exhaustion gone. The couple begins to make baby.
The next day, it’s still light. Ae-Sun gets up and she gets the baptism of the red beans. Mak-Cheon prays that Ae-Sun will give birth to a boy. The people are having breakfast. Gwan-Sik brings a good news that he bought his daughter a new toy pedicab. He’s fine with it if his mother wants to exchange with the candies for the same price. He strives for the riding qualification for his daughter.
There’s a tradition in Ae-Sun’s in-laws’ house. Grandma and the men in the family sit at the main table. The rest women sit at the side table. There’re a lot of peas in the bowls of the people who sit at the main table. Gwan-Sik knows his daughter likes peas. He intends to eat with her. Mak-Cheon gets angry. But she can do nothing. He’s going to go to work after the meal. He turns around and he looks at the woman he loves in the kitchen. She smiles when she waves at him. In this small space, Ae-Sun spends her entire twenty.
Mak-Cheon takes action in the end. She sets up an altar at home. She asks Ae-Sun to worship Dragon King. So her daughter will be sea woman very fast and she will shoulder the duty. It’s Ae-Sun’s fist time to resist. She flips the table which is placed tribute.
She yells at the people that Geum-Myeong is her daughter. She can let herself live like a babysitter. But she doesn’t want to send her daughter to the sea who eats humans. Mak-Cheon scolds Ae-Sun and she thinks she’s crazy. She keeps throwing the red beans. Gye-Ok tries to rob Ae-Sun’s daughter. But Ae-Sun resists. Gye-Ok slaps Ae-Sun. She works with Mak-Cheon and they scold Ae-Sun together. They think she’s rude and they believe that she’s possessed by her dead mother.
Gwan-Sik returns home early and he witnesses it. He learns that his mother is so bad. Gye-Ok and Mak-Cheon let Ae-Sun take the blame. Gwan-Sik tells his family that they won’t see Ae-Sun again. He carries his daughter and he holds Ae-Sun’s hand. He leaves the home without turning around.
Gwan-Sik and Ae-Sun don’t have a lot of money. They can only rent a room and a kitchen. They’re poor more and more. The food looks good. It was given by the sea women who care for Ae-Sun’s mother. Gwan-Sik is a month behind on his rent. There was a person paying the rent and he lets the landlord give Gwan-Sik 10,000 won.
Gwan-Sik and Ae-Sun don’t know what happened. Ae-Sun wonders if her mother possessed a rich lady and she gave them the money. Gwan-Sik doesn’t want to listen to the nonsense words. He turns off the light and he’s busy in making baby with his wife. The landlord tries to greet the couple. But they don’t have time.
Ae-Sun gives birth to her second child. Because she’s easy after she left her in-laws. She will have a talk with the sea women when she’s free. She’s told that her husband is working for Sang-Gil. Gwan-Sik returns home. His fingers were hurt. Sang-Gil insisted on asking Gwan-Sik to pull the fishnet. His fingers were almost broken.
Gwan-Sik is very young. He tries his best to be the master of the family. Sang-Gil lost his face in front of Gwan-Sik and Ae-Sun. So he gave Gwan-Sik a hard time. Ae-Sun is pregnant. She prepares a nice dinner for her husband. She goes to see him. He falls asleep because he’s tired.
Ae-Sun is woken by Gwan-Sik’s sleep talk in the evening. She sees the plaster on his back. She lifts his pants and she sees the injuries on his legs. She thinks she should do something for her husband. She visits Sang-Gil’s wife Young-Ran. She’s told that the madam didn’t live well. There’s an injury on her lip. It seems that it was made by Sang-Gil. The man is irritable. Fortunately, Ae-Sun didn’t marry him.
SEE ALSO: When Life Gives You Tangerines: Episodes 1-2 Recap
Young-Ran reveals Sang-Gil always makes things difficult for Gwan-Sik. He would beat him. Gwan-Sik is young and vigorous. He put up with Sang-Gil for his family. So his wife and his daughter don’t have to worry about the food. But Ae-Sun rushes to Gwan-Sik when she yells. She tells Sang-Gil that her husband won’t work for him. She holds Gwan-Sik’s hand and they go home.
Sang-Gil still scolds Ae-Sun behind her. Gwan-Sik tries to get angry. Ae-Sun rushes to Sang-Gil and she kicks him. Other crew members are very happy after Sang-Gil was defeated. Nobody wants to help him. Gwan-Sik gives a title to his wife “Human Meat whistle”. Her voice is sharper than whistle when she’s angry. But Gwan-Sik likes to listen to it.