“The Golden Spoon” (금수저)

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
November 27, 2022

☆☆☆☆
Lee Seung-cheon (played by Yook Sung-jae)
Na Joo-hee (played by Jung Chae-yeon)
Oh Yeo-jin (played by Yeonwoo)
Hwang Tae-yong (played by Lee Jong-won)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

If you could change places with a wealthy acquaintance, with the condition that you have to give up your parents to do so, would you? That’s the moral question behind “The Golden Spoon,” which stars BtoB’s Yook Sung-jae (“Goblin,” “Mystic Pop-up Bar“).

I finished watching “The Golden Spoon” right as I started Song Joong-ki’s latest K-drama “Reborn Rich.” Both shows deal with how you would live your life if fate intervened and your life of poverty was traded for one of extreme wealth. As of this writing, the latter series is still ongoing and is very good.

“The Golden Spoon” is also good, though — as I’ve been saying about quite a few K-dramas lately — it could’ve been more effective if some of the filler was cut out and the series was edited to a more taut 12 episodes, instead of 16.

Seung-cheon is a smart scholarship student in his wealthy high school. Because of his family’s low economic and social status (they live in a dingy, cockroach-infested basement apartment), he is mercilessly bullied by the school’s rich brats. Based on who his father is, Tae-yong is the school’s top scion and alpha Golden Spoon. Though Tae-yong seems like he’s a cut above his friends when it comes to kindness, his passive ruthlessness comes out in the way he condescendingly treats Seung-cheon and allows him to be beaten and humiliated by other Golden Spoons.

As luck would have it, there is an elderly woman who sells trinkets in the park. Buy a $30 golden spoon, she says, eat three meals at a Golden Spoon’s house, and Seung-cheon will have the opportunity to trade lives with a Golden Spoon — or an elite member of society  — his age. He will have three opportunities to return to his old life: after one month, one year and 10 years.

Thirty dollars is a do-able sum for most people to pay. But for Seung-cheon, it’s his precious earnings from working part time at a convenient store (and doing homework for his classmates). Like people who are so desperate that they will spend hundreds of dollars on lottery tickets that at least give them a chance to dream about becoming filthy rich, he buys the golden spoon from the vendor.

What happens next is a series of events that change his life forever. His goal was to somehow make money and use that to benefit his parents’ lives. But he’s thwarted by everyone. Because he’s still a minor, all his plans to filter some money to his real parents are stopped by his new tyrant of a father. Then, too, his proud parents don’t help much. They refuse any money he tries to give them and won’t move into an apartment he bought for them. Why? Because while they don’t have much and are struggling to pay their rent, they still have their pride.

OK, this is where I disliked his kindly, but simple-minded parents. Yes, of course earning your own money is ideal. But when you are one step away from being homeless, accepting help that is offered with no-strings attached, isn’t a horrible thing to do. Once you have a safe home, a steady income and some money saved up, you can repay your benefactor.

I also had little respect for Seung-cheon’s father, who put his desires of being a webtoon creator above the needs of his family. Instead of getting a full-time job, his father works on his manhwa. Having a dream and pursuing it is great. But when you have the responsibility of supporting your family, including two teenage children, you need to do everything you can to make sure their needs are met. He could have worked during the days and still done his drawings at night. It’s not impossible. I’m also a firm believer that if you decide to have children, their goals and dreams are more important than yours. As Seung-cheon later points out to his father, why did he come to his senses about working only after his wife and children had already suffered so much?

His mother’s pride is just as bad, though. When Tae-yong’s father gives her a check for $50,000 after a tragedy that his family is responsible for, she returns it to him. Welp. That served absolutely no purpose, since the condolence gift was basically thank you for not suing me money.

There is, of course, a love triangle between Seung-cheon and two other Golden Spoons. Joo-hee is engaged to Tae-yong but wants nothing to do with him. She points out to their parents the absurdity of high school students being bethroed. She falls in love with Seoung-cheon the first day they meet while working at a convenience store. For her, it’s a job she hides from her father, because she wants to feel like a regular member of society. When the two boys change lives, she is confused as to why her feelings for each of them are changing, before eventually figuring out what’s going on.

Yeo-jin is a lower-level Golden Spoon, because her father doesn’t make chaebol kind of money. But she’s still considered an elite. She harbors a secret that many will figure out early on. But her plans are to marry Tae-yong so that she can become a true elite. At one point, when Seung-cheon needs $100,000, Joo-hee sells her designer purses to give him the money. But when she sees Yeo-jin offering that same amount to Seung-cheon as a loan, she timidly backs off, instead of fighting for the right to be the one to help her man.

There are many plots twists and subplots going on throughout this series. Some will come as a surprise, while others will make viewers go, “I knew it!” The ending includes a plot twist within a plot twist that some will find disappointing. But in its own way, it showed hope for a character that was trapped by his own choices.

As for me, would I have switched with a richer friend? No, because most of my real-life wealthy friends were messed up and their family lives were chaotic. I also didn’t grow up in poverty. I think that if I had grown up very poor and there was a guarantee that my switching lives would ensure my birth family a better, more stable life, I would make the sacrifice and do it — but only if it was a matter of life or death. (e.g. surgery they wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise etc.).

Airdates: Sixteen 75-minute episodes aired on MBC from September 23 to November 12, 2022.

Spoiler Alert: Tae-yong doesn’t realize at first what’s going on. But after he eventually learns that he and Seung-cheon have traded lives, he chooses to remain as Seung-cheon, primarily because he loves the family he never had as a chaebol’s son.

When Tae-yong and his uncle, Jun-tae, studied overseas in the United States, there was a mass shooting at school. Uncle Jun-tae framed him for the murders. Jun-tae also stabbed and killed Seung-cheon’s father.

And though Tae-yong’s stepmother refers to Jun-tae as her baby brother, he’s actually … her child!

Hang on a moment while you wrap your head around this: Seung-cheon isn’t the only one to have purchased a golden spoon. Decades earlier, Tae-yong’s father’s best friend also bought one, killed the real Hwang Hyeon-do and proceeded to live his life as the chaebol. The Hyeon-do (played maliciously by Choi Won-young, who’s such a sweetheart in “Under the Queen’s Umbrella“) we see throughout the series is actually the best friend. Also, he doesn’t learn until after he has killed Jun-tae that … dun dun dun! … he’s Jun-tae’s biological father!!!

Yeo-jin also had a golden spoon and took over the life of a rich girl. The rich girl then had to live with the other girl’s abusive father and shortly thereafter died of leukemia (I think that’s what she died of).

All of this made me wonder: how many golden spoons did that Granny sell and what was her criteria for selling them? She’s not visible to everyone — only those who are most in need. She says that what she’s doing is equalizing everyone’s chances in an unfair world. But what she’s really doing is manipulating fate.

Going back to Uncle Jun-tae for a bit. Played by Chang Ryul (who I loved to hate in “My Name“), I’m not sure what exactly the writers had in mind for him. Yes, he was a pitiful character who was lied to his entire life about who his parents were. Yes, he was wrongly accused of murdering Joo-hee’s father (when it was actually Hyeon-do who killed him in cold blood). But… What. About. The. School. Shootings? Why are they trying to make him into a somewhat sympathetic character?! (Also, if I missed it and he didn’t actually commit the school shootings, let me know, PLEASE.)

In the final episode, Seung-cheon is poisoned and kinda sorta dies. We learn that the family gardener somehow had his own golden spoon and used it to trade places with Seung-cheon. So, Seung-cheon lives, but doesn’t know what had happened. Later, Joo-hee is assigned to interview the gardener. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that after her father died, her half brothers left her with only $500,000, which was stolen from her, so she becomes a journalist — lmao OK whatever. When she realizes that the gardener is really Seung-cheon, we are left to assume they will have a happily ever after.

And, finally, Tae-yong (living as Seung-cheon) becomes a successful webtoon writer whose bestselling book centers around a golden spoon. I’m assuming he bought Seung-cheon’s mother and sister the beautiful apartment they’re living in. And his sister is married to Tae-yong’s former bodyguard, Mun-ki (played by Son Woo-hyun).

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