dangermousie | Hello My Teacher ep 6

Hello My Teacher is such an easy watch, even for someone like me, with a very short attention span. I have just finished ep 6 and the feeling is ‘What, I am on ep 6 already?’ I sort of don’t want it to end. Of the (admittedly small) subset of teacher-student stories, this is shaping to be my favorite. It manages to achieve a perfect balance between hilarity (even some very OTT hilarity) and angst, a potential love story and various friendships. Bori is a much more ‘real’ Yankumi (as HMT itself is more grounded in real world than Gokusen) and someone I would absolutely love to hang out with in real life, but she isn’t perfect at all. And I’ve gotten to the unreasonable state of care about Tae-In that whenever he is upset, I get upset too.

I have to say, got to admire kdramas for wearing their Freudian implications on their sleeves. Not that most, or even a lot of them, have Freudian undertones, but when there is one, the story-telling doesn’t shie from it, or treat it as anything else but another reason in that complex puzzle that explains someone’s attraction to another person.

Because clearly, for Tae-In, whose mother abandoned him through dying when he was eight (and before that, she was the only adult around, and also always sick), and who ended up never filling up that hole because living with his Evil Father and icy Stepmom wasn’t going to fix his family issues, the choice/thought of a girlfriend would always be tied up with his Mom somehow. Not that I am saying he will want a lady twenty years younger who will call him son or what not (yikes), but he does want someone who could combine caring and maternal qualities with the usual girlfriend stuff. He is totally the guy to go for a woman who is a nurse or a teacher or is in some other nurturing profession. Enter Bori. Who is basically perfect for his criterias/issues. She is a teacher, and she does take care of him (well, I can’t say ‘mother,’ as it’s ‘older sister’ at most, but she does take care of him and concerns himself over him). But she is also pretty, only six years older, and they have an awesome time together: I mean, she is the girl who can say exactly the right thing in front of his dead mom at the memorial and also kick in the heads of six goons. That’s perfect for a troublemaker with family issues.

I think he is, in general, desperate to be loved by someone (really love, not cling, the way Jem Ma does, ugh) and so the fact that ‘Biscuit’ (heeeee) cares for him, that she comes to fetch him out of scrapes, that she makes him feel better, that she brought over food, and that she teases him etc, is very very important. No wonder he looks like a rock hit him, at the end of ep 6, when Jem Ma tells him that the reason Bori has been following him around is because she has a contract to do so. Poor guy.

But yeah, mother issues. I love how the drama makes the connection explicit. He gets a job at his Dad’s hospital in order to earn money to buy Bori a dress. I love the contrast with the beginning, where he had no problem using his stepmom’s credit card, to buy a dress for his dead Mom (issues much?) and here, where he wants to do it with the money he earns (God, I hate his father. The kid nerves himself to ask and Daddy Dearest snarls that it would interfere with his studies. Shouldn’t you be happy your kid is becoming responsible?) And he is talking to Yu-Jin (his best friend, the one with the sick niece. Btw, Gong Yoo playing with a baby? EEEE. They know how to please a fangirl). And he says how for ages, before she died, only thing his Mom would wear would be hospital gowns and he yearned to see her in pretty dresses, so he thought the first thing he’d buy for a gf would be a pretty dress. And Yu-Jin is (very common-sensically) ‘does she know you want her to be your gf?’ and Tae-In says he plans to ask when he gives the dress.

The scenes of his practicing ‘Will you be my girlfriend…please?’ over and over are totally adorable. Puddles of goo territory.

But Bori is, of course, oblivious. Or not precisely oblivious, but preocuppied with her interest in dating arts teacher (who is nice, but incredibly bland) and her fight with said teacher and I think while she might realize Tae-In likes her, she views it as a usual teen crush so nothing to bother about. And when Tae-In sends her the dress (the scene where he picks it out made me want to squish him so HARD) she comes home after huge fight with arts teacher so she pays no attention to it at all and just grumps about it. And his note asked her to wear it tomorrow and to stay after school in the homeroom because he has something to tell her, but of course she ignores it (I don’t think she read the note) and the way Tae-In’s face falls when he sees her not wear it. Ooooooh.

And then she and Arts Teacher end up in homeroom and AT tells her he likes her and they kiss and all, but that is the room Tae-In was waiting in and the look on his face. Because not only is it the girl he likes himself, but he thinks she read his note and di it on purpose. Yikes.

So of course, he goes home in the worst mood, and this bully kid is there to pick a fight (long story) and Tae-In hits him a couple of times but since the kid was worked over by gangsters before, he goes down like a sack of potatoes and Tae-In is in jail!

Did I mention my hate for his awful family? Because his father is trying to hit him in the police station. WTF? And he is yelling that ‘this bastard is not part of our family any more’ (personally, I’d think this is a gain) and telling the cops to throw the book at him. Ugh. But the thing that gets me the most are Tae-In’s hands. With his father there, they are literally shaking and he has to put them together to try to stop it. HATE.

And they did basically ditch him. And I love that it’s Bori who shows up and is actually putting salve on the cut on his lip (seriously, he has the worst family ever) and asks him why he did it, but he won’t talk to her and she tells him if he is worried about the kid, he is going to be OK and repeats her question and he looks at her and says ‘Because you abandoned me.’ OMG.

Anyway, Bori does her awesome thing and finds out truth about gangsters and Tae-In is cleared but what I love is not that but Bori thinking Tae-In’s statement over and over and then she finally reads the note and I love that while she isn’t in love with Tae-In (not yet, heeeee), she does love him, and more importantly, she understands how much it would hurt, and so when he comes to his place (let out of jail), she is waiting for him, wearing the dress he bought her (his face!!!!) and with tons of food for a picnic because she got her first paycheck and drags him off and they have such an awesome day. And I love that she never plays games. She tells him that she loves Arts Teacher but love isn’t finite quantity so she still can give love to him (of course, she doesn’t mean of romantic kind) and then jokes and says it took her 6 years to get Arts Teacher’s heart, did he really think he could do it in a few months :P

Which is so the right thing to do, because I think at this stage, he needs to have someone care for him, and believe in him, and not abandon him, much more than romantic love and gf.

But of course, he comes home to Jem Ma and her revelation about Bori being hired. Why do secondary girls always do these awful things? This stuff has never worked for anyone in rl or fiction, why try? All that would happen is that the object of your affection will indentify you with trouble and misery and pull away.

And a few pics