The island becomes the place of the next Olympics in When Life Gives You Tangerines Episode 7. It needs to overturn the stalls of the villagers for maintaining the looks of the city. Sang-Gil never cares for anyone. The Fishermen Association he manages is famous on the island.
Episodes 7-8
Sang-Gil cannot decide the case on his own. Ae-Sun wears the hairpin Gwan-Sik gave her. She walks forward and she uses her body to protest. Sang-Gil lets the villagers down. Everyone thinks Ae-Sun is going to be the next chairman.
The sea women tease that it’s achieving dream for Gwan-Sik. Because Ae-Sun claimed that she’s going to be the first lady when she was a kid. Gwan-Sik wanted to follow her and become the president. The man asks Gwan-Sik if he doesn’t have pride when Ae-Sun becomes chairwoman. Sang-Gil buys the villagers a meal for the votes.
He slanders the lady and he thinks she doesn’t know her position. He thinks Ae-Sun gave her madness to her children. He mentions Eun-Myeong is going to be over even if Geum-Myeong is so smart. Ae-Sun receives the invitation from the school soon.
She elaborately dresses up and she mistakes that she’s going to have a meeting. She sees the teacher and she’s told that her son keyed out the logo of every teacher’s car and he sold it. He caused a big trouble. Geum-Myeong is good at studying and she’s pretty. The girls are jealous of her. They see the man driving the luxury car to pick up Geum-Myeong. They hate her.
Sang-Gil hears the rumor. He tells the villagers that Ae-Sun and her family are bad. Ae-Sun ignores it and she’s silent to work. She’s not like the despicable Sang-Gil. She won’t badmouth Sang-Gil even if she wants to be the chairwoman.
Sang-Gil treats his wife like a babysitter. He won’t be kind to the outsiders. He dates a realtor when his wife is sitting outside. Ae-Sun takes the people to break into the room. Sang-Gil suffers a reversal. Ae-Sun becomes the new chairwoman. She’s moved.
Gye-Ok loves Ae-Sun and hates her after Ae-Sun became the chairwoman. She loves her because she brought the glory to the family. She hates her because she and Gwan-Sik need to work for her. Ae-Sun walks to Gye-Ok. She yells and she wonders if there’s a basic respect in the world. Gye-Ok is proud because she mistakes that Ae-Sun knows to care for her.
Ae-Sun isn’t a good drinker. She dances in front of the people. Gye-Ok cannot stand it. She yells that Mak-Cheon would throw red beans at Ae-Sun if Mak-Cheon is alive. Gwan-Sik smiles like he did before. He thinks it’s fine that his wife is happy.
Ae-Sun hasn’t been happy so much. She’s spent 30 years to be a chairwoman. She regrets that the person she wants to tell is gone. She wants to grab her mother’s hand if she can go back to the past. She wants to hear it from her mother that she’s going to celebrate for her. She will cook the rice cake that she cannot eat. The rice cake will be stack like a mountain. Her mother left the persimmon tree. It’s fruitful in the fall. Every persimmon is shinning under the sunshine.
Geum-Myeong still takes the luxury car. She comes to the school when the girls are envy of her. But the luxury car and the man don’t belong to her. She’s the personal tutor of her classmate Jenny. Geum-Myeong is asked to take the money on her own. Geum-Myeong isn’t greedy. She only takes away the money that belongs to her.
Jenny’s mother Mi-Hyang meets with Geum-Myeong. Although Jenny’s family is rich, she inherits the idiot cell of her parents. She cannot improve her performance no matter how she studies it. Mi-Hyang offers to let Geum-Myeong replace Jenny to take a test. She promises her an apartment in Seoul as long as Jenny can enter a top university.
Geum-Myeong’s boyfriend Yeong-Beom returns to the school. He runs into Gwan-Sik. Gwan-Sik remembers Yeong-Beom was the boy he knows. He’s furious to glare at him. He wants to make an excuse to scold him. Yeong-Beom remembers who Gwan-Sik is. He’s polite to call him uncle.
Geum-Myeong doesn’t want to be a gunwoman. But Mi-Hyang won’t miss the chance. Geum-Myeong tries to leave. But the security guard stops her. He claims that someone reported her for stealing. Geum-Myeong actually took an extra salary before she left. She did it because it was very hard to teach the stupid student Jenny. She thinks she deserves it.
The security guard thinks Geum-Myeong took away a diamond ring. She realizes that she was wronged. She keeps tapping the door of Jenny’s house. She’s treated as a thief and she’s taken to the police station. She’s like Ae-Sun who yells when she’s wronged.
But the looks of her unbending makes the cop think that she did it. He threatens to call her parents if she doesn’t allow him to search her. The housekeeper at Jenny’s home finds the diamond ring which was stolen from the jewelry box. She comes up with an idea and she conceals the diamond ring into her sleeve. She pretends to find it from the living room. She forces Mi-Hyang to inform it to the police. She threatens to throw the ring out of the window after Mi-Hyang rejected.
Geum-Myeong calls Ae-Sun after she was released. She wants to cry like a baby. But she cannot speak out the complaint after knowing her mother is worrying about her. But she’s still in anger. She gets angry because her parents have been so poor. She thinks they’re poor because of her. She’s told that her father came to Seoul to see her.
She takes the last bus and she returns to the school. Gwan-Sik is sitting at the bus stop. She tries to speak. But her worry turns into complaint. Her father isn’t good at talking. But his back is like a mountain. He’s the same as before. He picks out the squid from his soup and he gives it to her. The child grows up and her words are with thorn.
But he can pick out the words that his daughter wants to say. She wants to go abroad to study and she wants to be the dragon who soars into the sky. But what she needs to sacrifice is her parents. She doesn’t want to do that. She thinks something is holding her back when she flies. She wants to cry when she talks with her father. She actually wants to say sorry to him. But it turns into the sharp thorn when she blurts out.
It’s same as her childhood. Her father is never absent. I think what Geum-Myeong wants to say is thanks. Gwan-Sik gets on the bus and he plans to return to the island. She takes out her stiff hand and she says goodbye to her father.
Geum-Myeong goes back in time to the summer when she’s a kid. She and her mother see her father off when her father is going to go fishing. She’s still the child who needs her father to care. Mi-Hyang still has resentment because of the diamond ring. But the housekeeper tells her that she knows Geum-Myeong.
Ae-Sun and Gwan-Sik reminded the customer who lived in the motel many years ago. The customer asked Ae-Sun why she wanted to help a stranger. Ae-Sun said that it will be miserable if her stuff is stolen. She thought anyone shouldn’t encounter such a thing. The housekeeper kept the stuff that her mother left to her because of Ae-Sun. She thought she should do something because Geum-Myeong is like Ae-Sun. Ae-Sun planted a seed of kindness. It sprouts today.
Ae-Sun dreamed of becoming the first place at the literary contest when she was young. She still remembers the dream after many years. Gyeong-Ja persuades Ae-Sun to write a poem and take part in the game. But Ae-Sun just smiles. We don’t know if she heard Gyeong-Ja’s words.
The old classmate comes to buy seafood with her child. She intends to mention that Ae-Sun was dropped out. Ae-Sun lowers her head. She doesn’t dare to look at the boy. Gwan-Sik misses his son as well. He thinks Dong-Myeong will be like the boys if he’s alive. He buys the boys a lot of snacks.
The chance that Geum-Myeong goes abroad to study is robbed by the girl who has better family. She claims that she left the chance to the girl. Her looks is like Ae-Sun when she was young. Ae-Sun got 37 voted. But she lost to the general’s son. Because the general gave custard pie to the school.
Ae-Sun got angry in the beginning. But she ignored it later. She wrote an article that the general’s son cannot get full mark even if his father can send a hundred loaves of bread to the school. Ae-Sun buys the coffee shop where she went on a blind date with Sang-Gil. She holds the hand of her old self. She takes her to walk out of the hard time.
Ae-Sun manages the store with the three sea women aunts. She owns three mothers after her real mother passed away. The professor is a good person. She wants to sponsor Geum-Myeong to go abroad to study. Geum-Myeong is happy to thank the professor. She treats her words as a love letter when she faces the person who’s not her family.
Geum-Myeong tells the good news to her mother. But Ae-Sun minds it because she thinks her daughter isn’t a beggar. She thinks Geum-Myeong doesn’t have to borrow money from someone else. The mother and the daughter have a fight. Ae-Sun feels guilty that she cannot help her daughter. Gwan-Sik keeps drinking. He thinks he didn’t give a good life to the mother and the daughter.
It’s Ae-Sun and Gwan-Sik’s last time to pick persimmons. They plan not to give it to anyone. They sell the old house then. They leave the good memories and Dong-Myeong there. Gwang-Rye goes into Ae-Sun’s dream again. She’s still busy and she never stops. Ae-Sun thinks her mother doesn’t wish her to leave. She’s sad because she has a lot to say to her mother. Especially Dong-Myeong. She writes down the address of the new home. She worries that her son will fear if he cannot find the home. But Gwang-Rye persuades Ae-Sun to have a talk with Gwan-Sik. She thinks time cannot drown out sorrow. She pats her back and she leaves until dawn.
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Geum-Myeong is on the plane. She looks at the money her mother prepared for her. She cries because of sadness. She wonders why she didn’t tell her mother that she doesn’t want to leave her. Ae-Sun had a dream of schooling before. She puts her trust in Geum-Myeong completely. Would she get a different ending if she didn’t elope with Gwan-Sik?
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Gyeong-Ja submits Ae-Sun’s poem secretly. The principal throws a fit after the literary contest. He wonders why he couldn’t find the first place. Where is the champion who’s called Oh Ae-Sun? Ae-Sun would have a bright future if she didn’t give up. But she thinks it’s enough that she’s very happy.