My explainers for the last four episodes of the hit K-drama Love Next Door are finally here! To those who’ve been following this series of articles, thanks so much for your patience and for taking the time to read my pieces!
And if you haven’t seen my explainers on the previous episodes, you can check them out here:
As with Episodes 9-12, I found so many references and phrases in Episodes 13-16 that I thought could benefit from additional context, so I once again split the list into two since it was so long. Here’s the link to the explainer for the final two episodes of Love Next Door:
Note: The rest of this intro is a jumble of rambling thoughts I’ve had during this process, so feel free to skip ahead to the Episode 13 subheading if you’d just like to see a breakdown of some of the references and expressions used in the show!
One of the reasons why it’s taken me so long to post these pieces is that there were countless moments when I would add a certain line or scene from the show to my list—only to scrap it later when I realized a more detailed explanation might seem unnecessarily complicated and/or too bizarre for English-speaking audiences. There were even some stretches where I felt like I was pausing an episode every 20 or 30 seconds to jot down notes (no joke!). But in the end, I had to pick only a handful of examples to include in these lists because otherwise I’d never finish this article series, haha.
This whole exercise has reminded me that the Korean language contains a lot of colorful and wonderfully precise expressions that just cannot be properly translated into English. And Love Next Door happens to feature an unusually high number of them, in my opinion.
That also made me wonder if we sense things and process information a bit differently depending on the language we grew up speaking, even though we’re all human. How can an expression that sounds so funny, clever and logical in Korean sound so bizarre or absolutely ridiculous in English? It’s a question I’ve asked myself so many times while working on this series of explainers.
I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about the South Korean author Han Kang and her well-deserved Nobel Prize in literature, as well as the British translator Deborah Smith who translated Han’s books like The Vegetarian into English and introduced them to English-speaking readers. Smith, no doubt, played an enormous role in helping Han earn international recognition for her work. And while most reviews I’ve seen praise Smith’s translation, I’ve also read a few that criticize it for containing inaccuracies and for not staying faithful to the original.
But honestly, I think any attempt to translate Korean into English—whether it involves subtitling a K-drama or translating an entire Korean novel—should be commended, because translating even just one line can be extremely difficult sometimes. Translators also often face the dilemma of opting for a more literal translation that would be closer to the original but might risk falling flat with the target audience, or providing a looser interpretation that would be easier for the audience to grasp but might stray far from the original—either way, something almost inevitably gets lost in translation.
So kudos once again to Han Kang and to her English translator Deborah Smith, without whom Han’s works wouldn’t have reached a global audience.
And if you’ve read this long and digressive intro, I’ll say just one more thing on this: If English translations of Korean novels can receive prestigious literary prizes and subtitled K-dramas are some of the most watched TV shows on the planet, just imagine how wonderful it must feel to experience these works in the original language.
Anyway, back to the show!
Warning: Major spoilers ahead!
Episode 13: “Love”
1. Here Seok-ryu’s mother Mi-sook uses the word “결의” (“gyeo-ree”) to mean “decision” or “resolution,” as in “Hye-sook and I have decided to be matchmakers.” But 결의 can also refer to an “oath of loyalty,” and the example Seok-ryu’s father Geun-sik uses here is the “Oath of the Peach Garden” (도원결의). In the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the warlord Liu Bei and his generals Guan Yu and Zhang Fei swore an oath of brotherhood in a peach orchard. So by playing on the word 결의, Geun-sik is teasing his wife by asking if she and Hye-sook (Seung-hyo’s mother) have taken an oath of sisterhood.
2. The saying “Walk (or wander) alone like a rhinoceros’ horn” (무소의 뿔처럼 혼자서 가라) originates from Buddhist scriptures (as Seung-hyo’s mother rightly points out) and advocates a solitary pursuit of enlightenment away from others and free from any worldly attachments. In a more secular context, the expression can be interpreted to mean that one should follow one’s own path and push forward confidently without worrying about what other people might think.
“Walk alone like a rhinoceros’ horn” was also the title of Gong Ji-young’s 1993 best-selling novel, which helped spark Korea’s national debate on feminism and gender equality.
3. In hopes that her son will pass his civil service exam, In-sook has written “You were born to pass” (“당신은 합격하기 위해 태어난 사람”), a riff on the title of the famous Korean song “You Were Born To Be Loved” (“당신은 사랑받기 위해 태어난 사람”), written in 1997 by Lee Min-seob.
Though the song was initially sung at Protestant churches in Korea, it became popular throughout the country thanks to its warm melody and positive message and is now a classic song that every Korean is familiar with.
4. In this scene where a drunk Mo-eum mumbles all sorts of random things (though she makes surprisingly logical connections as she jumps from one topic to another), she asks at one point if Dan-ho thinks there’s a monster living in the crater of Mount Baekdu (situated on the border between China and North Korea). Similar to the Scottish legend of the Loch Ness Monster, a gigantic creature is said to inhabit Heaven Lake (called Tianchi in Chinese and Cheonji in Korean), located in a volcanic crater at the top of Mount Baekdu. Descriptions of the Lake Tianchi Monster vary, but multiple sightings of it have been reported over the years.
5. The actual Korean expression that Mo-eum’s mother Jae-sook uses here is 얼굴에 먹칠을 하다—“to smear black ink on one’s (or someone else’s) face”—which means to blacken someone’s name or to tarnish someone’s reputation. A more literal interpretation of what Jae-sook says that still somewhat conveys the intended pun might be: “Mo-eum used to smear glue on her hands as a kid, but now that she’s all grown up, she’s smearing my reputation.”
Episode 14: “Sweet Love”
6. Mo-eum’s mother becomes upset when Mo-eum uses the word “we” to refer to Dan-ho and herself. Many K-drama fans have probably picked up on this by now, but in the Korean language, the casual form of “we” (우리, pronounced like “oo-ri”) is typically reserved for people who are close to us.
7. There seems to be a typo in the subtitles here. Dan-ho actually says, “I guess the work is not tough enough for me yet. I thought it’d take my mind off things.”
8. Myeong-u is shocked when he learns that Seung-hyo’s girlfriend is Seok-ryu. “Holy cow! But how can this happen?” he asks Seung-hyo incredulously, before adding in a hushed voice, “You’re childhood friends.”
The Korean term Myeong-u uses here is 불알친구, which does mean “childhood friends,” but the literal translation would actually be “testicle friends.” Yes, you read that right—testicle friends. It’s a term that’s more commonly used among older men who grew up when South Korea was still a developing country. Back then, young boys who were close friends would often play naked in streams in the countryside, for example. The idea is that two friends have been so close since childhood that they used to run around naked as kids and never felt embarrassed by it.
The word has been mentioned in other K-dramas like Reply 1988 and Reply 1997, though its literal translation was never displayed in the English subtitles. But unless you’re using the term with a very close friend who understands its true meaning, it’s best not to say it in front of others, since it could sound vulgar in some contexts and might even be misinterpreted by people who aren’t aware of the historical context (as in Episode 3 of Reply 1997 when Shi-won tells her classmate Gyung-mi that she and Yoon-jae are “testicle friends,” and Gyung-mi seems shocked, confused and offended by the term).
9. The organization that Seung-hyo and Dan-ho are referring to here (the one that Seung-hyo has volunteered for since college) is Habitat for Humanity, known as simply “Habitat” (해비타트) in Korea. The organization’s name is mentioned by both Seung-hyo and Dan-ho but isn’t shown in the English subtitles.
10. The English subtitles leave out part of what Seok-ryu’s mother says: “지피지기면 백전백승이랬어,” which translates to “If you know your enemy and know yourself, you will win a hundred battles.” This well-known phrase is taken from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Here’s the full translated quote from the original work:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
11. “Falling Blossoms” is a famous poem by Lee Hyeong-gi. While various English versions of the poem exist online, I honestly couldn’t find a decent translation—which is quite understandable because the meaning, emotions and imagery behind its verses simply cannot be adequately conveyed in English. And it only reminded me how there’s so much beautiful poetry in Korean that sadly cannot be translated gracefully into English (and vice versa).
Here Seok-ryu’s mother is reading aloud the opening stanza of the poem:
“가야 할 때가 언제인가를 분명히 알고 가는 이의 뒷모습은 얼마나 아름다운가.”
Below is my attempt at providing a more literal translation of this first part, but it still sounds awful compared to the original:
How beautiful it is to behold from behind a parting person who knows clearly that it’s their time to go.
Check out the explainer for Episodes 15 and 16 here:
Read the full article here