When Life Gives You Tangerines, a South Korean television series that juggles the romance and slice-of-life genres at its core, has received universal acclaim for a wide variety of reasons. Not only have the main couple and the rest of the supporting cast stolen the hearts of viewers worldwide, but the series has also been praised for its impressively realistic depiction of Korean lifestyle scattered across decades.
Throughout its 16-episode run, which is divided into four volumes, When Life Gives You Tangerines has a deeply authentic feel about it, which naturally raises the question: Is it all just fiction, or does the series follow a tale from real life?
Is When Life Gives You Tangerines A True Story?
Despite there being plenty of elements that the series takes from the real world to add further layers to its realism, When Life Gives You Tangerines isnot based on a true storyat its core. Which means that the intergenerational journey of Oh Ae-sun and Yang Gwan-sikis a work of fiction, but thesituations that they, along with the rest of the characters in the series, have toface are very real.
For example, since the story primarilyrevolves around Jeju in South Korea, When Life Gives You Tangerinespresents Ae-sun’s mother, Jeon Gwang-rye, as a haenyeo, a job that was common among women in that province. The seriesshowcases the semi-matriarchal system thatthe majority of families follow in Jeju, something that shapes the lives of the three leading ladies in When Life Gives You Tangerines.
Along with that, since the series spans decades, it alsoshowcases the modernization of South Koreaacross various eras, ranging from the Korean War in the 1950s to the country’s first Summer Olympics, held in Seoul in 1988. These important events are by no means the central focus of the series, but they are used to showcasethe repercussionsthey had onthe ordinary people of South Korea, whether in the capital, Seoul, or a rural province like Jeju.
A great example of a real event having a massive impact on the characters in When Life Gives You Tangerines iswhen Geum-myeong has to face challengesin her career due to an economic downturn. Not only does this creative choice makethe series a lot more believable, but it also acts as a wonderful plot device to present character growth and the feeling of years passing by.
When Life Gives You Tangerines also authentically showcases the lives of people in Jeju as it slowly starts to become a tourist destination later on, as they may not be the strongest financially, but they relyon their agriculture and unconventional jobs, like the haenyeo, to survive.
The seriesalso shows the drastic differences betweenthe slow-paced, simple life in Jeju and the much faster, modern world of Seoul. All of these elements work in tandem to keep the series grounded and feel realistic, which means that although the story and characters in When Life Gives You Tangerines arenot strictly based on true accounts, almost everything else that shapes them is as real as television gets.
