I found K-drama heaven in 2009 and was immediately quite taken with saeguk shows.
I was at times very impressed with the willingness of both noble and peasant women to support their men as they rode off to battle and pretty much inevitable dismemberment and death. I also had many moments of “WHY do they put up with all that crap?”
I wrote a poem about what I think women always feel when their SO gets obsessed with the desire to do something big, make a big impression, take a big risk. Such a desire can be beneficial to a relationship, or it can (in more ways than one) kill it. And both aspects are well-explored in K-dramas.
Aja
Friends passing on the street greet me. “Fighting! Fighting!”
See these bloody, broken hands? When am I not fighting?
What good do these do me? I want only to touch your face.
I don’t want to go out every morning, racing
across the earth, trying to catch and drag down the five horsemen
Falsehood, Pride, Misunderstanding, Ridicule, Indifference.
I don’t want to go out every morning, leaping
into the sky, trying to catch and throw down the
dragon-riding lords Time and Death.
I want only to wake every morning
knowing that today I will be able to touch your face.
You, out there on the bleak and snowy plain, sword in hand.
After the horses have stopped thundering, after the dragons
have stopped sweeping down, when you have been hacked to death
and lie in the snow with a darkening red halo around your head,
Perhaps then I can crawl unnoticed between the piles of bodies
to kiss your ear garlanded by a strand of raven-black hair
before, finally, I lay my numb fingers on your bloodless lips.
01-17-10