Monday Musing
[ Karyir Riba ]
The one thing that has women (and probably some men too) all over the world craving for right now is most definitely the presence of a Gwan-sik in their lives.
Yang Gwan-sik, played by actor Park Bo-gum in the popular Korean drama ‘When Life Gives You Tangerines’ has set the bar so high for the menfolk, it is going to be difficult for them to meet the expectations.
In truth, every girl (in a relationship) does have a Gwan-sik in their life; it’s just that some Gwan-siks do not Gwan-sik properly. Instead of strumming the strings of our hearts, they only know how to get on our nerves.
Take for example, one of my dear friends’ husband. My dear friend and her loving husband were expecting their first baby at that time. After getting her sonography done, she was supposed to send the sonography result to her gynaecologist via WhatsApp. What could go wrong, right? When she received the result from the lab on her phone, she was busy doing something, and so asked her husband to send it to the gynaecologist. He did. After finishing up what she was doing, she went to check her phone to see if there was a message from her gynaecologist. To her horror, her beloved had shared her sonography picture and result, in PDF, to her official WhatsApp group, which had all her colleagues including her top level bosses!
Gathering herself from the whirlwind she had just gone through, my friend knew that she had to delete the mistakenly sent message as soon as possible. She did. My poor friend’s situation went into a spiral as she clicked on the ‘delete for me’ option instead of the ‘delete for everyone’. After losing all her senses and any power left to control the situation, when she turned towards us and shared her freshly incurred trauma with us on our group chat, we had a great laugh out of her misery. We still do.
This happened during the weekend, so she had nothing else left to do but to wait until the next working day to face her colleagues and bosses. Come Monday, she was pleased to receive warm congratulatory wishes from everyone at her office.
We nicknamed her husband Mr Legend after this incident, because what a way to announce your pregnancy to everyone, right?
Here’s another story. This one is about my other dear friend and her beloved husband. So, one morning she was having a heated argument with her husband. Since she did not want to get late, she was getting ready for work while also continuing the argument. When it was time, she headed out and decided to walk to work that day. She remembers a smirk on her husband’s face when she strutted off in her foul mood, her head under her umbrella.
Halfway to her work, when her mood had lightened just a bit and when she had lifted her umbrella to be able to see her surroundings, she realised that the way to her work looked unusually quite and empty. After almost reaching her workplace, it came to her realisation that it was a Sunday. It was a holiday! That explained why it was so quite and empty, unlike weekdays. And that also explained the smirk on her husband’s face. The score was 1-0 at this point. Not to be defeated, my friend aimlessly visited a local store, spent some time there and got herself some treats before heading home. Who said she had left home for work, when she had only gone to get some treats for herself? Score 1-1.
The husband-wife relationship is the most diverse, at the same time most unique. Every couple is different from the other. So, every husband is a Gwan-sik in their own unique way.
You must be wondering: why has she put down only stories of her friends’ husbands? What about her husband?
Well, my husband and I have known each other for 20 years now. In all these years, he has figured out only the buttons that turn on my monjolika mode. He deliberately likes pushing those buttons because, I believe, he doesn’t like peace. In my poor husband’s defence, it can sometimes be extremely difficult living with a person like me. And so I have decided to let him off the hook for the time being. For how long, that I’m not sure because I will keep writing. A gentle warning for him to start putting his Gwan-sik foot forward.
Let me put a stop here because otherwise this will have no end to it. The bottom line is that every girl does have a Gwan-sik; it’s just that the grass always looks greener on the other side. Just try to look for a Gwan-sik in your partner, and you will find it. As the saying goes: beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.
Oh! Who am I fooling here, trying to sound so philosophical and sugar-coating my words? We all do need a Yang Gwan-sik in our lives. Period.