The ended Korean drama “Secret Love Affair” became popular again because of the worst 2016 South Korean political scandal in our constitutional history involving President Park Geun-hye and her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil. More specifically, in this drama, people found out the names of Choi’s daughter and father, who are also key figures around this massive scandal, and some scenes similar to her daughter’s entrance and school life at Ewha Womans University. Surely, this drama resembles the recent reality of Korea. In addition to this, in my view, “youth” is an important word in understanding this drama.

Meanwhile, this drama depicts an affair between a boy and a woman. Why did the author choose this kind of relationship? As I mentioned above, “Secret Love Affair” is not just a third-rate drama. This work’s quality has been widely recognized as to even gain an accolade from the leading actress of this drama, Kim Hee-ae, who said, “The drama script is like a literary work.” So, let us proceed like this. First, this month’s Review will follow the storyline of this drama from a view of “youth.” Second, we will look into what this love between two characters means. For hasty readers, let me give a hint on the answer to the second objective. It is implicit in Kim’s quote.

One day, a boy, hidden alone behind the stage, saw a piano and a beautiful woman.
The 20-year-old boy loved the piano from an early age and also had a talent for playing it. Due to his family circumstances, he did not go to college and now earns a living by doing part-time jobs. One day, he came for his delivery service to an art festival hosted by a famous art center, affiliated with a large company. After finishing delivery, he heard piano sounds from somewhere and headed in their direction. He reached backstage. On the stage, pianists were rehearsing for the festival and a woman was listening to piano sounds. The boy felt a stirring in his heart. As the rehearsal ended and they disappeared, he ran to the piano and played the same piece that the pianists had played a moment ago.

The 40-year-old woman whom the boy saw is a superintendent of the festival and also a director of planning at an art foundation, a subsidiary of the same company. Like the boy, she had a gift for the piano and majored in it at college but gave up her dream to be a professional pianist because of tendinitis. Her husband is a professor at an art college, also linked with the same company. These two people got married not for love but as a calculated maneuver of usury.

The news that a strange person played the piano on the stage was known by all staff at the festival and it instantly became a bedlam. All the staff members madly tried to find the boy. By chance, the woman’s husband found the boy. He helped the boy get out of the festival and asked his wife to listen to the boy’s performance, which he had thought great when he heard it. The next day, the boy came to the couple’s home. That was the day when Sun-jae (the boy) and Hye-won (the woman) first met each other.

Sun-jae enters an art college as a scholarship student. Of course his excellent musical talents have a significant part in his admission. But more importantly, many people actually wanted him to become a student at the art college.

Sung-sook, the chief director of the big company-affiliated art foundation where Hye-won works, is the second wife of the company’s CEO. She sets up a slush fund, permitting some students’ special admission after secretly getting money from their parents. She and her people hope to bury suspicions about special admissions, widely publicizing Sun-jae’s entrance news. Hye-won’s husband Joon-hyeong thirsts for his promotion at the college. He wants to have his own protege and become renowned, using his student. Therefore, Joon-hyeong actively pushes ahead with Sun-jae’s admission.

As seen above, Hye-won is surrounded by a world that is called “art,” but is full of perverted lusts. In this world, she is like a middle manager. She is a director of planning and has a salary of 100 million won per year, a fancy car, and a large house. But her main business is to clean up problems caused by the company owner’s family. She tactfully embeds herself among the owner’s family members, responding, “Well...” to difficult questions.

As she meets and falls in love with Sun-jae, however, Hye-won becomes frank with herself. All of what she enjoys now is a price for cooperation in this world. She calls herself “an elegant slave” in front of Sun-jae. In the latter part of the drama, this couple goes on a secret trip together. On the trip, she tells her lover about her youth where she acted as part of the entourage of the CEO’s daughter when she studied at a college in the United States.

Now, we get to know that Hye-won has not changed much from her past. From her youth, she has been a supporter of this distorted world for about 20 years. Hye-won’s life, which has been consistently continued from her youth, becomes seriously unstable after meeting Sun-jae.

The art college, where Sun-jae spends most of his time, is not different from the world where Hye-won belongs. The dean of the department helps promote only those men he likes. One female professor orders her student to buy a violin at a second-hand store which her acquaintance owns. Then, she pockets the difference in the price of the violin, which is much higher than market price. A fortuneteller’s daughter, who got into the college with Sung-sook’s help, is so occupied with hanging out with her friends that her studies are pushed aside. Her mother deals with all the matters regarding her daughter, meeting school authorities.

Sun-jae, however, is not like Hye-won. He has yet to play as an assistant of this world. Nonetheless, we cannot say that he is an outsider of the world because he also feels “pain” while living in this world.

First of all, let us see what Hye-won means to Sun-jae. He explains why he kissed Hye-won through the following. “When I had the hardest times, you (Hye-won) suggested that I play the piano again read my mind.” Sun-jae did not fall in love with Hye-won owing to physical pleasure. In Sun-jae’s love, gratitude for a person who realizes his pain is embedded.

Consequently, the scenes in which the owner’s family walks over Hye-won are enough to make Sun-jae feel helpless. There is nothing he can do for her. Furthermore, he also cannot bear the fact that his school life has been possible thanks to the dark interest in him. This is not just a unique story of Sun-jae. The youths in Korean society already feel frustration, for they cannot do anything. That is why the newly-coined term “Hell Joseon” has been made. Also, the young cannot help feeling indignation once they know that where they live actually exists for only a few people’s benefits. That is why many youngsters including college students are staging protests about this political scandal.

In this situation, what kind of choice will Sun-jae make? Let us see what Sun-jae chooses and also Hye-won’s choice, too.

As he finds all about Hye-won, Sun-jae says to her, “Get out of your situation right away!” At that time, she is placed in a situation where she will be falsely accused of every crime by the CEO’s family and examined by the prosecution. But Hye-won says, “Not yet.” Hye-won still resists being away from where she belongs. Rather, she plans for more success. She tells Sun-jae as below.

“I do not want to lose what I have now, what I am going to have, and you. So hide yourself well, holding your breath until I finally win.”

What makes Hye-won change is the “piano.” Not much later, almost everybody in Hye-won’s field including Joon-hyeong notices the relationship between Hye-won and Sun-jae. Joon-hyeong invites his acquaintances, Hye-won’s colleagues, and even Sun-jae to his house. To still use Hye-won, he seemingly shows that he is friendly with his wife in front of spectators. Sun-jae is pained, watching that scene. Ignoring this, Joon-hyeong orders him to play the piano. Sun-jae plays magnificently, but Hye-won cries out. Then, she finds out how abusive her world is to Sun-jae.

Later, Sun-jae finally decides to drop out of college and hosts a small music concert with those feeling alienated in school life, including the one who bought an expensive violin, as mentioned before. Hye-won cries again, secretly observing Sun-jae’s happy face while playing the piano at the concert. She is assured by how lighthearted he is after he decided to “escape” from the college. Through Sun-jae’s piano performance, Hye-won finally makes a critical choice.

In the situation where she will put all the blame on herself, Hye-won finds a solution to turn all these charges on the chairman’s family. However, she does not use this option. Hye-won admits her own illegal acts and is sent to prison. Sun-jae fully supports her decision. After quitting the school, he leaves his home for an overseas piano competition. Sun-jae and Hye-won promise each other that they will live together after her release. The final scene of this drama shows that Sun-jae leaves home and Hye-won, wearing a prison uniform, looks outside with a lighthearted face. Her face at this moment is what I like the most out of all scenes in the drama.

Now, it is time to answer the second point. Why did the writer depict an affair between Hye-won and Sun-jae? To answer this question, literary critic Shin Hyeong-chul’s words below will be of a great help if you substitute Sun-jae and Hye-won for “they.”
“I have always been fascinated by the fallen. They just did not lose everything. To keep one, which is everything for them, they gave up everything except the one.

Therefore, their faces after their fall were noble. The fall is a failure but the choice to fall is not the failure. Thanks to them, the world will be in confusion for some time. At this moment, our lives shake, and the coordinates of our values change. And we get to ask the question: What kind of life is true, right, and beautiful? This question originates from ethics. That is why every fall gives birth to a question one by one, and in addition to the question, new ethics are created. What is literature? It is ethics of the fall. When a whole world talks about success, literature puts up the fallen and demands that we change our lives and the world must be different.”

Hye-won “chose” to admit her crime and Sun-jae “chose” to drop out of college. How could they make those decisions if they were just in a normal relationship, which would not shake their entire lives and their world? Thus, the scene in which the festival became a bedlam actually implies that Sun-jae’s emergence will make this world confused.

Also, Hye-won’s decision was not possible without Sun-jae and vice versa. Thanks to Sun-jae, Hye-won realized that she should “escape” from her world which has been sustained from her youth. Hye-won’s life showed Sun-jae that his youth is now being exploited like hers.

After watching “Secret Love Affair,” we learn that this world should change, as we currently sense in our reality. This drama is “literary.” Even in jail, Hye-won looks noble. She lost everything, but she also kept everything. Now, we have a new question. For youth, what kind of life is true, right, and beautiful?

Editor of Culture Section