The lingering impression of <When Life Gives You Tangerines> that continues around the world, and the potential for expansion of K-content proven by human narratives

The Netflix series  <when life gives you tangerines>  ended its month-long journey on the last Friday of March. Even a week after the show ended, the afterglow of the show continues to linger in Korea and around the world.

<When Life Gives You Tangerines> made a splash by breaking from Netflix's unique rule of releasing the entire series at once, instead releasing four episodes per week for each season.
Beginning in the first week of March 2025, four episodes were uploaded every Friday for four weeks, each themed around spring, summer, autumn and winter, with the final episode released on the fourth Friday of March, for a total of 16 episodes over the course of almost a month.
This is a relatively long format compared to existing Netflix series  <Melomovie> (released in February 2025), which consists of 10 episodes, and <The Trauma Code: Heroes on call> (released in January 2025), which gives viewers a more immersive experience over a longer period of time.

As a result, <When Life Gives You Tangerines> ranked number one in Bolivia, Hong Kong, etc. and second in Bangladesh, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, etc. and third in Japan, Pakistan, Vietnam, Paraguay, etc  in the Netflix global TV show category for the month of March.

In Indonesia, in particular, the show proved its popularity by holding the number one spot in the daily Netflix TV show rankings for a total of 26 days, from 8 to 26 March and from 30 March to 5 April. In Vietnam, it also held the top spot for 18 consecutive days from 19 March to 5 April, generating a steady stream of buzz and viewer response in Southeast Asia throughout the month of March.

The lingering impression of <When Life Gives You Tangerines> continues around the world.

The Netflix series <When Life Gives You Tangerines> , which contains the Jeju dialect meaning ‘Thank you for your hard work,’ is a human drama set in Jeju Island, and depicts the 50 years of Korean history from the 1960s to the 2020s.

Therefore, there was also a question as to what kind of response global viewers would have to the production and release of a human drama with a Korean sentiment, which is contrary to the globally popular Korean Netflix original series such as <Kingdom>, <Sweet Home>, and <The Glory> on Netflix.

In fact, director Kim Won-seok, who directed  <When Life Gives You Tangerines> said at the production press conference, "We planned our drama with the intention of having Korean viewers watch it. Thankfully, it was selected for Netflix, but I wondered how foreigners would receive it."

However, contrary to these concerns, <When Life Gives You Tangerines> is also receiving a warm response overseas.

In Brazil, a group viewing event was held at a large supermarket to celebrate the release of the last episode, and viewers from around the world are actively sharing their reviews and reactions via social media.

In addition, various video contents themed around the character ‘Gwansik’ from the play are spreading on TikTok using the keyword ‘My Own Gwansik’. Content created voluntarily by fans, such as videos of people showing off their own Gwansik or videos of people looking for Gwansik, is becoming popular.

'transcendental translation' revealed in the title

The title of <When Life Gives You Tangerines> stands out for its cultural interpretation and linguistic creativity aimed at global audiences. The English title <When Life Gives You Tangerines>  is inspired by the famous phrase ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ by American philosopher Elbert Hubbard. This phrase means ‘Even if life gives you hardships like a bitter lemon, turn it into sweet lemonade’, and it contains a message to overcome adversity positively.

The word ‘lemon’ in the original sentence symbolises ‘bitter fruit’, but the English title wittily changes this to the tangerine, the representative fruit of Jeju Island, reflecting both the regionality and theme of the work.

This cultural sensitivity and linguistic flexibility is also evident in the translation of lines in the play. In the scene about the 'Do Jeong-hee scholarship', the expression 'moral scholarship' is mistakenly delivered to Ae-soon's house as the 'Do Hee-jeong scholarship' due to the hearing loss of Ae-soon's landlord, the grandfather, who wears a hearing aid. This is also a scene that makes use of the pronunciation similarity that is unique to the Korean language, and it has also aroused the viewers' curiosity as to who 'Do Hee-jung' is.

Rather than simply transliterating the dialogue or using explanatory subtitles, Netflix combined the meanings of 'moral' and 'mo-ran' to naturally translate 'moral scholarship' as 'mo-ran scholarship'.

This can be seen as a representative example of 'transcendental translation', which retains the cultural context and humor while reinterpreting it for the English-speaking world.

Different languages, but tears shed together as fellow human beings

<When Life Gives You Tangerines> is a drama that was able to emotionally connect with viewers around the world through a narrative that captured universal human emotions, along with 'translation beyond language' that transcended language barriers. In other words, the language was different, but the reason for laughter and tears was the same.

Despite the fact that it contains the regional characteristics and sentiments of Korea, it has conveyed an emotional resonance that is not limited to a specific country or culture by centering on the universal empathy codes of ‘human’ and ‘family.’ In the end, it has succeeded in winning the empathy of viewers around the world with a narrative that depicts the universal lives of human beings, even though it began as a Korean story.

In fact, a Frenchman who runs the YouTube channel ‘French Hotteok’ called ‘I've been totally fooled’ and said, ‘It's a drama that gives a deep insight into human nature,’ and ‘Even though the culture and history are different, everyone could relate to the message in the work because it was about human nature.’

<When Life Gives You Tangerines> has gone beyond a simple local drama to become content that has resonated with and moved global audiences by crossing the boundaries between universality and particularity, between Korean sentiment, regional characteristics, and universal emotions.

<When Life Gives You Tangerines> began as a story about a single region, Jeju, but has succeeded in sharing a deep resonance with viewers around the world with a universal message about human emotions and life. This is considered an example of proving that content can communicate with the world even if it does not necessarily rely on universal language and formats.

Starting with <When Life Gives You Tangerines>, it is expected that future Netflix Korean original series will lead to more diverse and experimental opportunities to introduce local stories to the world.