EDIDIONG'S PUBLIC DIARY

Deciding to acquaint herself with the
members of F4, Jan-di and her brother surf
the internet for their bios:
Song Woo-bin (actor Kim Joon ) is heir to a
construction enterprise; his father is a real
estate magnate.
So Yi-jung ( Kim Bum) is a pottery genius
who comes from an artistic lineage; his
grandfather also owns a famous art
museum.
Yoon Ji-hoo (actor-singer Kim Hyun-joong )
is the grandson of a former president, and
the sole surviving descendant, as his parents
died in car crash when he was five. His
family owns a variety of rich-people toys,
like an art center, a European soccer team,
and a major league baseball team.
And then there’s Gu Jun-pyo ( Lee Min-ho ).
The others are famous among rich society,
but Jun-pyo, as the heir to Shinhwa Group,
is known to practically the entire country.
Finding out how privileged F4 is sends Jan-
di into a rage — life’s too unfair. She takes
particular umbrage at Jun-pyo for being such
an asshole, because if he was born so lucky,
he should be thankful and act kindly to
others.
Too late, Jan-di looks down the staircase
and spots a set of legs — someone’s taking
a nap on the landing below. It’s Ji-hoo, who
saunters up to her, telling her in his soft-
spoken way that she’s disrupted his sleep.
He heard the whole tirade, such as her
calling them flies, and tells her the guy’s
name is Jun-pyo, not Jung-pyo — if she’s
going to rail against him, she ought to at
least get the name right.
Lunchtime. The Bimbo Trio make it a point
to hover and comment on Jan-di’s poor-
person lunch. The cafeteria serves gourmet
offerings, but Jan-di ignores them in favor of
her plain lunchbox (rice, egg, Spam), which
they now ridicule.
Unexpectedly, Jan-di receives a friendly
overture from another new girl, Oh Min-ji ,
who is sweet, pretty, and recently
transferred from Germany.
Ga-eul expresses relief that Jan-di made a
friend; she was afraid she’d wind up an
outsider. Jan-di replies glumly, “I am an
outsider.” Still, she figures she can lie low
until graduation, which prompts Ga-eul to
ask what happened to the fearless protector
who used to always stand up for her in
elementary school.
But Jan-di figures she’ll have to stick it out.
Her father’s absurdly proud of her fancy
uniform (as a dry-cleaner, he can appreciate
quality), while her mother pushes her to
work on her looks so she can snag a rich
boy. (Nobody ever said kdramas were
feminist.)
Jan-di’s patience is tried the next day, when
F4 struts in looking cool, as usual, and a shy
student presents Jun-pyo with a homemade
cake and hopes that he’ll “accept her
feelings.” Jun-pyo stares at her in his blank,
haughty way, and takes the cake, as though
accepting — to the girl’s excitement and the
Bimbo Trio’s horror — until he then smashes
the cake into her face.
Jun-pyo walks off, only to find Jan-di in his
path, trying to do her best to tamp down her
fury. She unleashes a diatribe:
Jan-di : “You! Don’t you even have
the barest human courtesy? I
don’t bother hoping you’d have
any humility for your riches. But if
you didn’t want to eat it, you
could have politely refused. Or,
couldn’t you think of the feelings
of the person who made the cake
and accepted?”
Unfortunately, Jan-di’s tirade is only in her
head. When it comes time to say it, she
backs down and mutters, “Never mind.” As
Ji-hoo passes, though, he gives her a smile,
as if knowing what’s running through her
mind.
The next encounter isn’t so easily
dismissed. Min-ji and Jan-di eat ice cream
cones and chat cheerfully, when Min-ji slips
and falls at Jun-pyo’s feet, getting ice cream
all over his shoe. Immediately scared and
apologetic, Min-ji tries to offer to pay for
new shoes, then offers to do “whatever I
can” to rectify the situation. When he tells
her to lick the ice cream off his shoe, Jan-di
steps in, saying he should accept the
apology — it’s not like Min-ji fell on purpose.
So Jun-pyo turns his derision onto Jan-di
instead:
Jun-pyo : “Is it your thing to be
obtuse and interfering? Why butt
into someone else’s business?”
Jan-di : “She’s not just anyone,
she’s a friend. But I guess they
don’t include words like ‘friend’ or
‘friendship’ in rich people’s
dictionaries.”
Jun-pyo : “Friend? Let’s see some
of that great friendship in action.
You lick it.”
Jan-di : “What?”
Jun-pyo : “If you do it for her, I’ll
let this go.”
Resignedly, Jan-di starts to bend over as
Jun-pyo waits expectantly, but stops mid-
bow. Instead, she shoves her ice cream
cone in Jun-pyo’s face, causing him to fall
over.
Jan-di scoffs, “So what, did you earn all that
money yourself?” And no, her “thing” isn’t to
interfere, it’s to stand up to the behavior of
rich punks who rely on their rich parents.
Furthermore, she takes out a couple of bills
(equivalent to a dollar) and throws three at
him, referring to his stained clothing: “Our
business charges 2,500 won, but I calculated
using Kangnam [rich neighborhood]
standards. If it still won’t clean, bring it by.”
That night, Jun-pyo remains in a dark mood,
trying to figure out how to get back at Jan-
di. I’ll admit I burst out laughing when the
song “Never Say Goodbye” came on, since
it’s one of the main themes of PD Jeon’s
previous series, My Girl , and he likes giving
little nods to his previous works. [