Every year there's one or two drama that really gets into me. Everything revolves around it - work, recreation and life. This drama keeps me awake until the wee hours of the morning. It will also get a big chunk of my internet surfing time. Last and most important, it gives me that light feeling - I look forward to the airing date, when the English subbed version will come out and somehow, I see and hear myself discussing or interjecting just simply anything about the drama - plot, characters and even small details during conversations with friends. This year, it's Sungkyunkwan Scandal (SKKS). I really wished that my drama for the year is Japanese (lesser episodes); romantic comedy (for the light feeling) and with veteran actors (assurance of decent acting). Well, SKKS is not all these. It's a saeguk kdrama that stars a TVXQ idol turned actor and all those 20 something stars. A complete opposite of what I want my drama of the year to be. I can't remember what made me watch this as I only know Super Junior as Kpop idols. But somehow, I got to watch the first episode and was drawn towards the characters (university students in Korea's Joseon period), the setting (Sungkyunkwan is Korea's oldest university established in 1398) and the plot (poor girl forced to cross dress and fell in love with the son of a political heavy weight, whew!). More than these and in the course of its 20 episode run, the drama raised some issues that made me think and re-think some issues:
1. State run universities are funded through the blood and sweat of its citizens and when the country is made up mostly of people living in poverty - that gives these students not just the privilege of getting a degree from such prestigious university but the obligation to SERVE this people that put them through school. There was one scene when a professor told one of the main character to finish a meal as each student meal in the university can provide for a week of a family of 4 in Joseon. As a state university student, I heard two or three professor give a lecture within the same lines.
2. What a university education entails - not so much as getting good grades and job prospects but really learning from the different people that makes up a university. It's a microcosm of the world. More importantly, you get to learn things when you start to question the establishment. Never be complacent - universities thrive on new ideas and theories.
3. Get to know yourself. This is the time when you start to question your beliefs, even your sexual preference! Be open and embrace who you may become.
4. Excel, excel, excel. Here, we have Lee Sun Jun, the brightest and most promising Confucian Student at SKSS. He entered SKKS at the King's command but is constantly toiling and reading at the library. Surpassing yourself means work, work, work.
5. Do things that are outside your comfort zones. Being young means trying crazy things like drinking till you pass out, being late for curfews and getting to know women (as SKK is an all male establishment).
6. Look for mentors and coaches. All the characters look up to their fathers or siblings. It's continuing the family heritage of being civil servants and maintaining the prestige. But along the way, they get to meet the King and their professors.
7. Don't forget the people who helped you become where you are - for Lee Sun Jun, it's his manservant Sondool, for Kim Yoon Shik, it's the bookshop owner. They were there when you started, chances are they're helping you now and you'll also see them at the end.
I can probably think of a lot of issues. There's the class issues between Norons, Sorons and Namins. There's gender - Kim Yoon Shik has to cross dress to enter SKK as women are forbidden to learn and be educated in Joseon. There's the family issue - of fathers constantly struggling to make this world a better place for their sons. But more than anything, SKKS is really about four young people falling in and out of love and losing and finding themselves. Totally cliches but enough to keep me wanting for more.
