Twinkling Watermelon: Exploring Love and friendship
An honest review on the show along with some existential crisis that I am dealing with
The story of this K-Drama opened my eyes to the effects that generational trauma can have on the behavior of your parents. And a crazy thought struck my mind after I finished watching this show: maybe if I had the opportunity to time-travel to tweak the course of my parents lives, I would have definitely done so.
The characters of the younger brother in the Viki series, Eun Gyeol (Ryeoun), and the younger daughter in the series, named Eun Yoo, both characters in the show resonated with me on a personal level.
As an elder daughter in an Indian household who is approaching her Masters graduation in December 2024, the crashing load of reinvention and pivoting lands on my head with family and societal expectations of success. I don’t mind the pressure, but when it becomes the only thing that defines your existence, I find that extremely concerning. Why is this generation gap so wide that everything falls through the cracks? There is so much that young adults are content with, especially when it comes to finding a life partner. When you are in high school, you are not allowed to date. Then comes college, where you are supposed to only concentrate on studies and then on getting a job. Even then, there is no guarantee that you will have a job, even if you work day and night. Then what are you supposed to do when you land up at square one?
I recognize that my father works incredibly hard to provide for the family financially and my mother still cooks whatever the family wants, and I want to contribute to the load, but at what cost? Suffering burnout and almost losing strands of hair due to stress (still not better in that department) in January of 2024 made me realize something, and I forgot my vision, which is forever ruined from sitting on the screen for long hours: how can we as humans compete in the hellscape we have created, especially with the rise of AI in job screenings and use of AI-generated content online?
Having an individualistic society with absolutely no support and empathy doesn’t help either, be it when someone is sick in the family due to work stress or someone is going through a job transition. And doesn’t a person deserve a break? Finding a suitable job takes time anyway; my final year exams are in December 2024, and hunting for a job is stressful enough in the age of A.I.
Coming back to Twinkling Watermelon, the “Youth is a twinkling watermelon. I just hope it twinkles.” I don’t know when, as until now it has been filled with stress, anxiety, burnout, existential crises, failed and missed opportunities due to multi-tasking, and remorse for my lost years. Eun-gyeol, blessed with a natural talent for music, embarks on a time-travel journey that brings him face-to-face with his younger father, ultimately leading to the formation of a band called “First Love Memory Fabricators.” Oh, I wish my father still was in touch with his college friends, as scholarship issues and online college robbed me of the experience.
By day, Eun-gyeol, a young CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) boy, is an acclaimed model student consistently claiming the top spot at school with his impeccable personality. I have always come second or third in school but have been the teacher's favourite across all departments. But that is not enough to secure a spot for success in life.
However, by night, he lives a secret life as a band guitarist, unbeknownst to his parents. I hope this was possible to me, as I want to dramatically expand my online presence, speaking straight to the camera, but I don’t know when I will find the time to do it, and the technical equipment alone costs an arm and a leg. Still trying with a tripod and phone camera to make something useful that people enjoy online.
On a night light up by two moons, Eun-gyeol stumbles into a peculiar music store, propelling him back to 1995, where he encounters his father during high school. Yet he soon discovers that his father’s first love wasn’t his mother! I don’t have any idea in this department for my parents, as they are both secretly tight-lipped about their romantic lives before they had me.
The character of Se-kyung (Seol In-a: sending love and healing to her as she recently revealed that she was hospitalized and takes a lot of sleeping pills to deal with insomnia as someone who was recently jarred awake at 3:00 am and couldn’t fall asleep; I know how it feels to experience insomnia and waking up thinking what can I do differently to stand out from a sea of applicants; I am so glad that people in the public eye who have huge platforms are finally opening up to the struggles that everyone faces in their lives) makes an entrance as the first love, who had left for overseas studies.
Oh! I wish I had the chance to study abroad, but its not on the cards. Maybe after I land a high-paying job, I can save enough to do my Ph.D. from abroad, as I need to experience campus life with every fibre of my being.
Se-kyung’s abrupt return to Korea sparks a series of events and time-travel rules, which prompt Yi-chan to form a band in a bid to win Se-kyung’s heart.
Eun-gyeol joins Yi-chan (Choi Hyun-wook) on this journey, driven by a desire to protect his parents. Any good kid has a desire to protect their parents at all costs, as they do time and time again over their lifetimes for their children. I especially recall the time that my parents stood up fiercely for me when people were harassing me for walking our dog, Loki, in the society garden. The situation is much better now, but the situation had to get worse before there was peace. The length a family has to go through to walk their dog in peace.
Eun-gyeol’s mother, Shin Eun-soo ( Chung Ah), has had a tragic past filled with parental neglect and abuse both physically and psychologically. On top of that, Shin Eun-soo’s character is unable to express herself, which makes her retreat to art as a medium to express herself. With her deep troubling emotions, seeing her transformation in the finale was truly validating, as my retreat into a homebody due to circumstances made me choose writing as a medium of expression. Her character arc was forces for a need for mandatory sign language classes for students globally, as someone out there is dying to express themselves but can’t. While my mother is a saint, she grants me whatever I want to eat, and the memories of us cooking together are forever etched in my mind. Most importantly, I haven’t met a more head strong woman that her as she was dealt a heavy hand of toxic people surrounding her in her life but she bravely walked through fire to protect and raise her family.
This fantasy drama offers deep insight into the stories of twinkling youth in 1995, and I honestly feel even though my parents didn’t have much financially or love from their parents, especially my father, who is a coconut, hard on the outside and all mushy inside. I wish I had a better and more emotionally open relationship with my father, as he is so emotionally closed off. I worry about his mental health as he needs to mentally deplug to recharge his batteries as everyone does after sprinting at the marathon of life at full steam with no actual friends other than people he has met over his decade-long career. I would have had a much better time without a phone and the internet and actually lived and experienced life rather than seeing people my age achieve great things online. I cried a great deal watching this show, and it made me appreciate a great deal of what my parents must have gone through before they had me.
For a twinkling emotional roller-coaster of a journey, be sure to check it out: Twinkling Watermelon