Korean Soap Opera (Daughter-in-Law)

Let me start off by saying I am not Korean and do not understand Hangul at all, but I am officially a Korean Soap Opera addict. I am addicted to one particular soap opera called Daughter-in-Law. Although I have found all of the Korean soap's equally entertaining, I had to choose one to put my heart into and Daughter-in-Law was the winner. In Honolulu, which has a huge Korean population, they air these shows during the afternoons when stay at home mom's like me are folding laundry and doing dishes. They conveniently put subtitles; which after watching a few times you forget that you're actually reading the story that is going on. What got me so addicted, was how interesting the South Korean culture is. It's starts out with Lee Soon- Jung as a young housewife who by tradition after marrying her husband, Ma Kang -san, moves in with the Ma family to take care of her husband's parents (I know what was she thinking, right?). The Ma family matriarch is a rotten, miserable, selfish, money hungry woman. The thing that I find funny, is the actress that plays the mother is extremely good at the roll. I didn't even have to read the subtitles to know she was a mean woman. The Ma Patriarch is a very strict and traditional man, the Ma family are lower class (by Korean standard, but not by American standards). This man is full of pride and has instilled strong values into his children. To give you an idea of the kind of control this man has, in one episode he took his two grown up sons and grown up daughter and spanked them with a wooden rod for fighting with each other and causing drama in the family. Which brings me to the next son, Ma Kang -min, he is the eldest son. They have put all of the hopes and dreams into him. He went to college and became a judge and married an extremely wealthy woman named Kim joo-ri. She is the epitome of spoiled rotten, although by American standard she is just an average girl. Coincidentally, the live in daughter-in-law, Lee Soon-jun grew up extremely poor and as a teenager her father took a job as a handy man at Kim Joo-ri's mansion. Now the two women are sister-in-laws, but Kim joo-ri treats her as though she were the servant. Actually, the whole Ma family except the father treats her as a servant. Lee Soon-jun cooks, cleans and does everything for the family including the Ma's grown married daughter (who is just as evil as her mother). When the eldest son married Kim joo-ri, traditionally they were the ones that were supposed to take care of his parents, but Kim joo-ri wasn't having any of that. Which kills Lee Soon- jun. Kim joo-ri sticks her nose in the air at her in laws and their way of life. She buys off her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, but the father-in-law sees right through her and calls her out on her crap. Kim joo-ri lived in America and France and is very Westernized (if that's a word?). She has a secret past that is slowly creeping up on her, but is laughable by American standards. One secret, is that while in France she had a serious boyfriend and they "lived like husband and wife". Well, when her husband found out he was disgusted and quit his job as a judge because one of his co-workers found out about his wife's past. The other secret is a little more serious (but still isn't as extreme as it is in their culture). Kim joo-ri lived in the U.S. with a man she stole from Lee-soon Jun when they were teenagers (that is another reason the sister-in laws hate each other). She became pregnant by this man when the were in the states and had a baby that was born with disabilities. She believed that the baby died but he didn't and the father and baby are back in Korea (and the baby's father in now a billionaire and is still in love with the live in daughter-in-law, Lee Soon- jun). I can't help but wait for 12:25 every afternoon. The story keeps getting more twisted everyday, and for a show that is only 30 minutes it sucks you into their world and culture. I will keep adding as the story gets more interesting. Also, when the show goes online (which it is supposed to) I will add a link to it.