I heard there were some grumblings from the peanut gallery because Dosan promised to be Dalmi’s dream while he rejected to be his Dad’s dream.

Do I need to explain this? There’s no contradiction there.

Let’s start with the context:

1. It started with the baseball. Netflix Ep 12 at 44:01.

Dosan and his family met Park Chanho at a fan-signing event. PC tried to chat with the young Dosan.

PC: What grade are you in?
Dosan’s dad: (barging in) He’s supposed to be in middle school, but he’s already in college. He skipped grades.
PC: (addressing Dosan) You skipped grades?!
Dosan’s mom: (answering for him) He won the gold medal at the Math Olympiad.
Dosan’s dad: The youngest winner ever.
PC: (talking to Dosan) Oh my! You must be a genius.
Dosan’s dad: He’s a math genius, and you’re a baseball genius.
PC: (talking to Dosan) Exactly. Fist bump. You’re one smart boy.

It was painfully obvious that Dosan hadn’t uttered a single word during the entire time. His parents, especially his dad, did the talking for him. But Dosan did fist bump Park Chanho. Park Chanho started writing, “Follow the dream.” Note: he wrote *the* dream.

PC: (addressing Dosan again) What’s your dream?
Dosan: (beginning to speak) With my friends, I want to…
Dosan’s dad: (whispering in his ear)
PC: (eyeing the dad)
Dosan: My dream is to win a Fields Medal and a Nobel Prize. (then looking at dad) Father, what’s a Fields Medal, anyway?
PC: (exchanging looks with the dad)
Dosan’s dad: There’s this thing….

Park Chanho put aside the ball he’d just signed and took out a new one. He began scribbling on it. Dosan’s mom asked if they could take a picture.

PC: (talking to Dosan) Hey kid. Look at this. “Follow your dream.” YOUR dream. Okay?
Dosan: (nodding)
PC: Good. All right.

They had their pictures taken. PC said, “Raise your fist. Nam Dosan, fighting!”

2. Later, Dosan shared with Dalmi that he used to be confused about the word “dream” written on his autographed baseball. He said, “That’s why I was lost for a long time. But the moment I first saw you, my dream became clear. Thank you.”

I like that he thanked her.

3. Next, there was the father-and-son conversation. I tried to look at another sub but they were all using Netflix.

From Episode 11 at 51:00.

Dosan: You should go, Dad. Go out there and fight.
Dad: Forget it. I don’t even have energy to go.
Dosan: Do you think you’ll be getting in the way of my future if you fight?
Dad: (sighing)
Dosan: Dad. You’re not my pride.
Dad: Are you ashamed of me?
Dosan: And I don’t want to be your pride. It’s very tiring to live as someone’s pride and joy. You’re afraid of disappointing the person, so you pretend you’re strong and competent. Let’s not be each other’s pride and joy. Let’s just be father and son.

Dosan was saying was that he no longer wanted to live:

a. trying to win his dad’s approval
b. being fearful of disappointing him
c. striving to be his trophy child.

HIS father’s dreams were simply NOT his. And he was tired of pretending that he was fine with it.

That’s the message on the autographed baseball. Park Chanho encouraged him to follow *HIS* dreams after he saw that Dosan’s eager and proud parents could impose their own goals on Dosan.

4. Alex also encouraged Dosan to follow his dreams. But Alex was under the wrong impression that Dosan’s dreams were about success and money. He was deceived by Samsan Tech’s video for CODA.

When Alex exasperatedly asked Dosan whether he had any ambitions and dreams, Dosan answered, “I have dreams, of course.” But he asked Alex, “Does my dream have to be success? Can’t it be a person?”

5. Obviously, he was talking about Dalmi. She was his dream. Since she was his dream, it also followed that her dreams were his, too.

To use his engineering analogy, they had the same objective function. lol.

Because they shared dreams, it didn’t tire him to work hard on them.

Remember when his app failed to detect the forged handwriting and they lost to InJae’s team during the Hackathon? He stayed up all night reworking the algorithm. It didn’t tire him, and he was all excited to show his success to Dalmi the following day.

When Dalmi ran off with his laptop to show off to her sister what he’d done, Dosan gripped his heart and said, “Coding has never been more rewarding.” Then he ran Dalmi gleefully.

There! He was following his dream, literally.

Do you see that? The all-nighter he pulled was all worth it because he made her very proud. Being her pride and joy didn’t tax him.

For this reason, he volunteered to work on the autonomous driving system at 2STO headquarters in San Francisco. He thought Dalmi would be working on it, too, since it was her idea that they brainstormed together. He didn’t mind that he was working on it *just in case* she was building it back in Seoul. To him, it was their dream.

6. To me, it wasn’t a surprise that he offered to be her trophy, her pride, and her dream. Although it sounded cheesy, he was only stating something that he’d been doing all this time.

For instance, he’d been her trophy when he showed up at her side at the networking party. He was her pride when he stood up against Chairman Won and when he developed NoonGil. He was her dream when he showed up out of the blue to help fix the ransomware. He was her comfort when she found out about her Grandma’s blindness. And he was her wings when she didn’t want to take on the smart-car project out of fear of failing her team again.

But I like that he told her that he could do all these things as long as he was NOT pretending to be somebody else…like the fake Dosan of the old letters. When he was being himself, he wasn’t afraid of disappointing her. He knew his strengths and weaknesses so he had no fear. He didn’t have to pretend to be strong and competent when he was already aware of his own capabilities.

Thus, there was NO CONTRADICTION between what he said to his father and what he said to Dalmi. His father’s dreams and ambitions weren’t aligned with his. But Dalmi’s dreams and aspirations mirrored his.

But what about Dalmi? 

Her tag read, “I want to take the upper-floor elevator.” She explained to Dosan, “I quit my job to start a business with you. I have to say, that was very gutsy of me.”

She wasn’t lying.

According to Grandma, Dalmi felt that the day she met Dosan was like God’s gift to her. Even when she turned 100 years old, she’d remember every second of every minute. It felt like a dream, she said.

There! Grandma broached the topic of Dalmi being in a make-believe world.

But back at home, Dalmi was opening her music box (finally!) to listen to it. Remember, I told you that Dosan’s first gift to her that night wasn’t the business card or the baseball card. Rather, he gave her courage to open the music box. After seeing him in person, her little insecurities didn’t matter anymore.

What if I opened the pretty music box and I didn’t like the melody? What if it doesn’t play any melody at all? Because of stupid worries like that I never opened it.

She opened her music box because she met Dosan. Her childhood penpal had turned out “unbelievably…wonderful,” so why not her music box as well?  

Meanwhile, at the corndog stand again, Grandma was telling JP that she intended to tell Dalmi the truth about the letters soon. “It was a good dream, and she seems to have slept well. It’s time to wake her up.”

Grandma didn’t know that there was actually no need to wake Dalmi up because Dalmi had woken up. She woke up, ironically enough, to begin following her dream.

She overheard a porter asking how to get to the CEO’s office. The porter was directed to take a different elevator to go to the 32nd floor. She took this as a sign (and we know how she loved signs!) that she needed to get out of her rut and start living her dream.

She immediately quit her job. Her excuse? She wanted to go to the 32nd floor.

It’s easy to mistake her motive for resigning as her desire to be fast-tracked to corporate leadership. She resigned because there’s no path in her job to become a CEO.

In reality, however, she was dreaming of following Dosan’s footsteps. It was Dosan who first put the idea in her head when he introduced himself to InJae as “Nam Dosan, the CEO of Samsan Tech, and then told InJae that he wanted Dalmi to join his company as their CEO.

To me, she realized that if she wanted to meet this guy Dosan again, she would have to meet him at his own level (or the 32nd floor, lol) because he was already a CEO of his own company and she was just a temporary worker.

So she asked for the money tree from her colleague. The money tree was her excuse to see Dosan again and tell him of her future plans.

She didn’t expect to see Dosan’s team and JP.

Dalmi: I have something to tell you.
Dosan: What is it?
Dalmi: To tell you the truth, I thought I’d be no match for my sister. But now, I actually think I can go up against her. Well, I was a lot prettier to begin with anyway. As for boyfriends, I’m sure mine will be a better catch. The problem is my status. I fall behind on that front. I blamed my age and the world for that, but it’s my own fault. I’m embarrassed and I feel lost.

JP, Chulsan and Youngsan were all cringing at her declaration. Dosan was the only one listening.

Dosan: Gosh, no. I feel lost, too.
Dalmi: Don’t. There’s an answer. You’re the answer to all my problems.

Note: From the start, she’d been preconditioned to like Dosan because she believed him to be the letter-writer. But I honestly think that if she had met JP at the party, instead of Dosan, then they wouldn’t have hit it off. JP was abrasive and ill-tempered guy.

Take for instance his reaction when he found out that Dalmi was dropping by. He slammed the steering wheel, and complained, “Damn it. I’ve to say that she’s so weird. What’s with her? She’s awfully unpredictable!” To me, JP’s short fuse was antithetical to the image of Dosan that Dalmi had fantasized about for 15 years.

She praised Dosan to her Grandma for his impeccable manners, and humility.

It wasn’t so much the networking party that showed Dosan in a favorable light, but their impromptu evening date. She liked the way he rested her hand on his arm, ate ramen with her while patiently explaining about Tarzan (she called it romantic), and handed her his calling card and “Follow your dream” baseball.

Dalmi: You’re younger than my sister, but you’re so competent.

JP’s reaction was funny.

Dalmi: So I’m following in your footsteps.
Dosan: My footsteps?
Dalmi: Yes. I quit my job today. I’m going to start a company, like you did.
Dosan: Like I did?
Dalmi: Yes.

Note: Most viewers were cringing at the scene because they knew that Dalmi setting herself for a big shock when she discovered that Dosan was no hotshot CEO. But not many viewers realized how courageous Dalmi had been to declare her goal (and dream) in full view of the guys.

Which brings me to this point…

We’ve always seen Dosan’s feet making the first steps toward her. But I think in this instance, it was Dalmi who actually made the big leap: she quit her job to follow Dosan. Methinks she decided not to pass up the chance to be with this guy she’d been dreaming about for ages.

Following in his footstep = Following her dream = Following her dream guy