Thank you for the lovely recap! because of the awesome-ness of your recaps i’m now an avid follower of Smile, and i love it!

Thanks once again to you and soyjoy! be sure to see me hovering around your recaps! hehe

Thanks! I’m still a relative newbie to the dramas; my college aged daughter turned me onto them a couple of years back. But, it’s fun to chat about them, here, and to gain different perspectives from other fans and the contributors.

When Min-jung’s character popped up in Boys Before Flowers, it was hard not to fall in love with her. Her looks, and feisty but warm and engaging spirit, won me over completely. I’m not an anti of Gu Hye Sun at all; I absolutely loved her in Hearts of Nineteen. But, I didn’t think she was the best fit for the role of Jan-di, and I never felt any serious chemistry between her and Min-ho. In contrast, I definitely could feel chemistry between Min-Jung’s character and Min-ho’s,..and felt almost like a traitor, quietly cheering them on instead of Jun-Pyo and Jan-di. LOL

I forgot to thank you for the excellent recap(s), dw4p. You do an amazing job, as do the other contributors to Drama beans. These recaps are superb companions to the episodes being watched, and really enhance the overall experience…so a huge, huge thanks to you! =)

I take back what I said about it not being a lot! But I guess that makes sense since the guy’s family is so rich.

But I’m now surprised that Hyun-soo could expect to pay that off in a reasonable amount of time…

And I think most Asian numbers go in sets of 4

So you have

1
10
100
1000

then,
10 000 = 1 won
100 000 = 10 won
1 000 000 = 100 won
10 000 000 = 1000 won = 10 million

then the next set (in Chinese at least is)
100 000 000 = 1 “yi”
1 000 000 000 = 10 “yi” = 1 billion
10 000 000 000 = 100 “yi”
100 000 000 000 = 1000 “yi”

and so on…

And yes it’s ridiculous but it’s possible that the $83K is just for ring and not the other jewelry… I’m pretty sure that a 3 carat Cartier diamond ring would be in that range. And I’m assuming that Jung-in’s ring is from somewhere fancy. (I almost fainted from sticker price shock while ring shopping…)

ooo, I’m with you now dw4p. That was the one piece of the puzzle that wasn’t fitting together for me. I was thinking, Hyun-soo saved like mad to repay two years of grad school tuition, and so why would he be short on $8,600… so maybe it’s the $83,000 figure? But surely a diamond ring can’t be $83K??? In any case, thanks for explaining! At least now I know how to count… Never was my strong suit hehehe.

@Soyjoy : You are correct, she says 1 억, but it’s actually is 100,000,000. Korean numbers confuse me also but it’s chun, man, ship man, bak man, chun man, uk.

@semi-fly: Jung-in would have received quite a bit more than a ring from Han-se’s family based on Korean culture. And based on the earlier episodes, she definitely received quite a bit more than just a ring. (I think they even showed some of the jewelry.) So it is very likely that she received $85K worth of jewelry. (And a good quality 3 carat ring actually can cost quite a bit more than $20K… I wish it was cheaper or I would ask my husband for a new ring… hahaha)

As for Hyun-soo pulling together the money, he’s already saved up quite a bit of money to pay Grandpa Man-bok back for his 2 years of overseas tuition. (If you think about grad school prices in the US, it could have easily been $70K for the 2 years.) So Man-bok probably only had to lend him a bit more for him to come up with the full amount. (I think this may be a SPOILER ALERT as well…)

So what did we learn here?
1. Korean numbers are confusing to all hell.
2. Diamonds are expensive as all hell. (If you can do without, I have a friend who got a grand piano as an “engagement” ring instead of a diamond. Not a bad idea…)

I know in the beginning Han Se’s mother sent back all of the gifts the Seo’s had sent them. Likewise we see Joo Hee showing Jung In a lot of jewelry (in preparation to either flee the country or bail out Jung Kil) in episodes 4 or 5 so it’s entirely possible that all of that jewelry and her ring would equate to some astronomical amount but again it really hasn’t been mentioned specifically only the ring.

@ 67 semi-fly & 63 dw4p

I do think it’s W10,000,000. If you recall, in episode… 14ish?… Hyun-soo says he’ll do her any favor she asks, so she says, “Then lend me 1 억.” I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of how Koreans count because it really confuses the heck out of me, so anyone feel free to correct me here. But I’m pretty sure they go from counting “100 mahn won” (i.e. 1,000,000) to “억,” so “억” would be one more zero, 10,000,000. I also can’t imagine Jung-in saying, “Give me $83,000″ off the cuff like that… haha.

SPOILER ALERT >> I also think she doesn’t actually know how much the ring costs and approximates that number. In episode 17, when Hyun-soo gives the money to Han-se, he says that he’s not sure if it’s the right amount, and that he’s pulled together the amount based on something that Jung-in said in passing.