[Opinion] Loyal Love Stories

According to the Buddhist belief in Karma, enemies from a previous life are reborn as a wife and husband, and loving couples in previous lives come into this life as parents and offspring. This belief sounds plausible when we see couples quarreling all the time or a father and a daughter or a mother and a son having a close relationship. It seems there is nothing we can do about Karma. One lesson reserved for us is that simply we should be good to our enemies, who will be reborn as our spouses, as well as to loved ones, who will be our parents or children in our next lives.

The elder poet Chojeong (penname), Kim Sang-ok, recently passed away after he visited his wife’s tomb not long after her funeral. It is reported that he denied eating food in deep sorrow ever since his wife perished. He died at the age of 84, exactly five days after his wife’s death. His wife had taken care of him for 15 years with all her heart since he became injured from a fall. His touching monologue to his wife lying in the hospital struck a chord with people: “I think I saw you in my previous life. Our lives now seem to be approaching an end.”

The main character Ahn Bin in the novel “Love” written by Chunwon Lee Kwang-soo was created modeling a real figure, Doctor Jang Gi-rye (1911-1995), who had lived alone for 40 years in South Korea, reminiscing about his wife left behind in North Korea. There are more loyal love stories; a single man who marries his ex-girlfriend who already married a different man and became a widow, and a widow who annually visits her ex-husband’s tomb holding a bundle of flowers on the anniversary of her ex-husband’s death with a new husband. Moreover, one famous celebrity left a famous saying concerning his wife’s affair: “I understand my wife. Look at her and how attractive she is.” These love stories are not limited to the world of human beings. Lately, a series of pictures showing a swallow in grief wriggling near his partner that died in a car accident broke plenty of netizens’ hearts.

It is reported that in Japan, goods or services that contain “loyal love stories” topped first and second place in research of the most popular goods consumed by people in the early half of the year. The Japanese movie “Shouting Love at the Center of the World” and the Korean TV drama “Winter Sonata,” both dealing with loyal love, took first and second place, respectively. Experts in culture and art explain that “loyal love stories” have a cycle of appearing once a decade. They interpret this phenomenon as a reaction to a society overflowing with sex and affairs. The fact that we all feel heartbroken on Poet’s Day with the news of the poet’s loyal love, who had a refined life like the crane’s, might be related to our longing for loyal love.

Oh Myung-chul, Editorial Writer, oscar@donga.com