When Life Gives You Tangerines says it is based on a true story, but how much of it is real versus fake is a subject for debate.
The new Netflix K-drama from Monstar's Kim Won-seok follows a slice-of-life romance between a man and a woman who meet in an idyllic island setting.
Despite being in Korean, the show has been celebrated around the globe. It tops streaming charts not just in Asia but abroad as well, joining Weak Hero Class as a recent K-drama hit on Netflix.
Is When Life Gives You Tangerines Based on a True Story?
While When Life Gives You Tangerines is based on a true story, how based in reality it actually is has come up in conversations surrounding the hit series.
The series is set around the love story of two people who meet on the South Korean island of Jeju and fall in love over diving adventures in the ocean. Even though the pair come and go from each other's lives, they keep returning to one another, making the case that true love does, in fact, exist.
The two characters in the Netflix show are named Oh Ae-sun (played by IU) and Yang Gwan-sik (played by Park Bo-gum). While both are technically fictitious creations made for the series, the love story they embark on is a real thing that happened.
IU's Ae-sun is based on the real-life Jeju Island resident Hong Kyung-ja. Hong's name can actually be seen in Episode 1 of the series, appearing on a flotation device on one of the series' central diving boats.
Born in 1950, Hong grew up in Jeju, just like Ae-sun. She, too, had a tough childhood, being forced to serve as a guardian for her siblings from a young age. Speaking about her younger days, Hong told Korean media (via KBizoom), "My childhood was spent looking after my sister:"
"My childhood was spent looking after my sister, diving in the sea to catch octopuses, and selling them at the market so I could buy snacks for her."
One change the series made to Hong's story was that instead of her going to live with her stepfather (like she does in the show), she stayed with her stepmother and her eight siblings.
She previously described her experience living under the rule of her stepmother, revealing she "told me I couldn’t go to middle school" and that when she did go, she was always late as she "had to cook and feed [her] siblings:"
"They told me I couldn’t go to middle school. I cried and fought for the chance. I'd always be late or absent because I had to cook and feed my siblings before going to school. That was my reality."
Just like the show, Hong married her childhood friend, a boy she first met diving into the cold, unforgiving sea off the coast of Jeju Island.
The pair became incredibly supportive of each other, with Hong's husband helping her become a community leader (as shown in the series). They even won an award in 2002 from the Jeju YMCA for "building a harmonious family with love and devotion" and serving as a valuable pillar of the community.
Hong's real-life husband tragically passed away in 2018 but has now been immortalized with their love story in the form of When Life Gives You Tangerines.
Another key detail that the series captured from Hong's real-life story is the details of her love story with her late husband.
In the series, Ae-sun and Gwan-sik are best friends first before falling in love (just like Hong in real life). The two TV characters also date for some time before eventually getting married and having kids (as seen in the show's four-volume run).
Of course, small details like names and places were slightly changed for the hit Netflix series, but for the most part, the K-drama accurately captured Hong Kyung-ja's life and the unlikely love story that defined a large part of it.
Read more about other hit series coming to Netflix in 2025 here.
