Crash Landing in Quarantine
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“Crash Landing on You” stars Son Ye-jin and Hyun Bin
This guilty feeling affected my productivity, and made me think, “What’s the point of writing an article when there are people dying?” “What’s the point of thinking about future plans or making a schedule if there are families who don’t know if their loved ones will be alive the next day?” It really got me down and made me feel lost and confused. My passions, like music and film, felt meaningless. Is a good song or my favorite movie really important right now? And yet, for comfort, I turned to watching and re-watching “Crash Landing on You.”
“Crash Landing on You” (CLOY) is a Korean TV series about a South Korean woman who gets into a freak hang-gliding accident and crash lands on the North Korean side of the border, finding herself face to face with a North Korean captain and his troops. CLOY was my first experience watching a Korean drama, and thanks to one of my best friends who made me watch it, I enjoyed it more than any other TV show I’ve ever seen. It’s surprisingly very, very funny, and it explores so many different themes and topics. It shows how two people can naturally grow to respect and care for each other under extraordinary circumstances, and the ways they show that respect and care. It shows how a group of people not related by blood can care for each other and form a bond even better and stronger than with their actual families. It shows the differences between the two Koreas, and their overwhelming similarities that transcend the border between them. It shows how our actions can affect those around us, and that we are more interconnected than we think. And above all, it shows that “fortune and misfortune are like a twisted rope, so they come in turns. Everything will be fine soon.”
“Crash Landing on You” Promotional Poster
This show, with all its funny, meaningful and heartwarming moments, has comforted me. It focuses on the kindness of strangers, and humanizes the people we think of as “the enemy.” It shows that there are people who do bad things, in government or within our own families. But, it also shows that good people and things exist, sometimes in the most unlikely or unfamiliar places.
When I was in the middle of re-watching the show, we started receiving good news. Private individuals were banding together to donate masks, alcohol, food, and medical suits to front liners and low-income families. Government officials started showing their true colors, and the truly exceptional civil servants and their initiatives were in the spotlight. People I had lost touch with were reaching out, bringing back friendships I thought had already faded. And to top it all off, the two fantastic leads of “Crash Landing on You,” Hyun Bin and Son Yejin, reportedly donated millions for Covid-19 aid in South Korea, the first country that is successfully combating the virus and has started offering aid to other nations. Things were getting brighter, much like how, in the show, a candle brings light and comfort to a place of confusion and fear.
In light of all the good news, I also realized that it wasn’t fair to my family to be gloomy and unmotivated. Of all people, they deserve my care, attention and positivity during this time of unease. It’ll just be the four of us together for the foreseeable future, and I need to do my part in caring for them.
In “Crash Landing on You,” the leads, Seri and Jeong Hyeok, are stuck together. Along with Jeong Hyeok’s band of troops, they form an unlikely family and risk their lives, fabricate increasingly elaborate plans, and spin risky cover-ups in attempts to send Seri back home to South Korea. And yet, no matter how tense and stressful the situation is, there are many moments when they lift each other up and care for each other. Jeong Hyeok makes sure that Seri is comfortable while being in a strange and scary country. He buys her contraband South Korean products to remind her of home and makes her comforting meals. He makes sure that she never feels lost or alone, by being a reliable and reassuring presence during nerve-wracking situations. Seri bonds with Jeong Hyeok and the men trying to send her home by asking them questions, listening to their stories and making them laugh. She makes her presence more of a pleasure than an inconvenience by helping as much as she can with their tasks, giving them tokens of appreciation, becoming a sort of mother hen for the younger soldiers, fussing over them and putting them at ease with friendly bickering.
“My passions, like music and film, felt meaningless. Is a good song or my favorite movie really important right now? And yet, for comfort, I turned to watching and re-watching “Crash Landing on You.””
In my family, my mom brings us comfort by making sure we eat well. No matter how simple the ingredients, she makes sure the food she makes tastes good, that it’s healthy, and that we are full. She is the one who makes the scary journey to the grocery or the market to make sure that we have food on the table. My dad brings us comfort by making sure we are safe and snug in our home. He fixes the broken electric fans so that we will stay cool in the hot weather and that our vacuum cleaner works so that our house and car will stay clean and neat. He makes sure we have gas for our stove, clean sheets for our beds, and that we are fully stocked with ketchup, vinegar and all the other essential condiments.
As for me and my brother, we play music while we clean, wash, sweep, scrub, chop and do all our other chores, singing along. We learn the proper way to clean the bathroom and wash clothes. As a family, we prepare and eat all three meals together, and pray together at night before going to bed. We try our best to make our presence in this family felt, by being of service and staying positive.
In times of crises, the best thing we can do is to be of service, whether it be for victims and those directly affected, or for our families and the people in our own communities. Wherever we are, wherever we find ourselves, we are there for a reason: to do good. Seri has a quote from the show: “Sometimes the wrong train takes you to the right station.” Seri was definitely on the wrong train when she landed in North Korea, and so was Jeong Hyeok after his brother was killed. But they found and changed each other and those around them, for the better, by experiencing the value of being needed and caring for others instead of just themselves, no matter how crazy and scary the journey.
I am not saying that this virus has been good for us as a society. But it is hard to deny that it is making us realize how much more care is needed in our world, whether it be for our own families or for more effective health care systems. Let’s make the most of this wrong train ride — stay indoors, wash our hands, keep calm and CLOY on.
Reprinted with permission from the author’s column “iSpeak” in Palawan News: https://palawan-news.com/crash-landing-in-quarantine/?fbclid=IwAR1iA7jH5l266R6pB68rMkOvXbJWSn9yTsgzU_bVxouzorGxwjPdVY_XIOU
Elise Suarez
Elise Suarez is a homeschooled teenager living in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, and is a columnist for Palawan News. She writes about a young person’s hopes, dreams, and musings about life in her community, and loves being a big sister, camp counselor, and active participant in socio-civic activities.