Part 1 - Relevant Part of the Creative Work
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha Episode 1 Summary
I will be discussing the first episode of the K-drama titled Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (available on Netflix). Specifically, I will be following the female lead’s, Yoon Hye-jin’s, storyline.
In Seoul, Yoon Hye-jin is returning to her apartment after a run and meets an older woman in the apartment building’s elevator who is headed up to the same floor. The older woman is very friendly, but clearly Hye-jin is trying to politely disengage. When Hye-jin gets to her apartment they go their separate ways and Hye-jin gets ready for work. She works as a dentist. Here, she meets the older woman again, this time as her patient. At the end of the appointment the older woman is happy because Hye-jin gave her helpful and inexpensive treatment. As Yeon-ok leaves Hye-jin smiles suggesting that she is now more comfortable with Yeon-ok.
Hye-jin notices a magazine cover with the beautiful and expensive shoes that she has been waiting to buy on sale.
Hye-jin’s boss, Dr. Lee, is unhappy that Hye-jin only recommended that her new patient, now introduced as Kim Yeon-ok, get one implant and three cavity treatments. Dr. Lee would prefer Hye-jin to recommend that Yeon-ok replace all her teeth with implants because she will have to replace them all eventually. Hye-jin wanted to preserve as much of Yeon-ok’s teeth as possible. Hye-jin expresses that is not happy that Dr. Lee is disrespecting her expertise especially when the patient is not Dr. Lee’s but her own.
The next day Hye-jin learns Dr. Lee took over responsibilities for Hye-jin’s patient, Yeon-ok. Offended, Hye-jin enters Dr. Lee’s office without knocking to require that her patient be returned to her. Hye-jin admits that she does not approve of Dr. Lee’s history of overtreating patients and use of non-insured materials to rip them off. Dr. Lee tries to shut her down by telling her to worry about where her paycheck comes from. But Hye-jin that she is the dentist with the most patients at the clinic and is likely the one funding it. She disrespects Dr. Lee as a doctor because she has proven to be a hypocrite after taking the Hippocratic Oath at the beginning of her career. Hye-jin throws her lab coat on the floor and walks out.
At dinner with her friend, she explains that she quit and introduced her patient, Yeon-ok, to another clinic. Her friend remarks that it was unlike Hye-jin to care about Yeon-ok. She also points out that Hye-jin bought the expensive shoes she wanted as soon as she quit. They then drink wine to get wasted.
The next day, Hye-jin receives furious texts from Dr. Lee, and she remembers that she wrote a drunken exposé about Dr. Lee the previous night. Two weeks of job searching later, she still cannot find a clinic that will take her on. She and her friend both think it is because Dr. Lee is spreading rumors.
Hye-jin is reminded that today, a Tuesday, is her late mother’s birthday. She visits the seaside town Gongjin in her mother’s honor. Hye-jin, as a child, her mother, who was already quite sick at the time, and her father all visited the beach there before Hye-jin’s mother passed away.
Hye-jin arrives in Gongjin wearing her new shoes. She then goes to the beach, and takes off her shoes, placing them on the sand. (Foreshadowing: Hong Du-shik is in the water.) She then takes a walk down the beach, lost in thought, remembering her mother. Returning to the spot where she was before, she realizes that the tide came up and her shoes are gone. A surfer, Hong Du-shik, returns one shoe to her. She asks him for help in finding the other one because she has a fear of water. He tells her that he has only returned it to her because it floated onto his board and scared him while he was in the water. But now that she does not have shoes and will have to walk barefoot, she doesn’t know what to do. Du-shik takes some pity on her throws her his rubber shoes, marked Toilet Use Hwa-jeong Raw Fish Restaurant. Hye-jin reluctantly uses them.
As she walks back to her car, she stops to help two children. One of the children has had one of his teeth knocked out. There is no nearby dental clinic so she treats him the best she can and takes him home. The young boy happens to be the son of the Hwa-jeong Raw Fish Restaurant owner. New to town, the owner is curious how Hye-jin acquired the shoes. Hye-jin is invited inside, where she gives the owner her business card, and is offered food. She orders seaweed soup to celebrate her mother’s birthday. The restaurant owner says, “Gongjin Harbor feels like my late mother’s embrace to me. I love everything about Gongjin, except that there’s no dental clinic. That’s the only downside.” The owner offers to help Hye-jin find a good location to start a clinic if she is interested.
Hye-jin leaves the restaurant and notices that it is much cheaper to lease space in Gongjin than in Seoul. She could afford to start a clinic in Gongjin. But she expresses reservations because she is not keen on opening a business in the countryside. Finally, she makes it back to her car and realizes it won’t start. Worse yet, the cell towers are down for the day, so she can’t make calls or pay for things, and, later, she notices that her tire is flat. She is forced to spend the night in Gongjin. She stays in a sauna and goes to the roof after being scared by a cricket. Looking over the ocean she wishes her mother a happy birthday.
When the cell towers are repaired, she receives a call from her previous patient, Kim Yeon-ok, who introduces herself as Hye-jin’s neighbor, thanking Hye-jin for the treatment that wasn’t unnecessarily expensive. Yeon-ok’s daughter paid for the treatment and so she was grateful that she didn’t have to spend too much of her daughter’s money.
As Hye-jin gets her car repaired, the two children she stopped to help before come by and thank her for her help and invite her to visit Gongjin again.
After Hye-jin’s car has been repaired, she starts driving back to Seoul and receives a call from her previous boss, Dr. Lee. Hye-jin realizes her job-search situation is worse than she thought. The problem is not Dr. Lee sabotaging her, but rather, as Dr. Lee says, “who would want to hire a whistleblower who bad mouthed their chief doctor while brazenly disclosing their name?” Dr. Lee takes the opportunity to make Hye-jin a job offer, but only if Hye-jin kneels down and begs for forgiveness. That sets Hye-jin off. Infuriated, Hye-jin shouts that she’ll start her own clinic then rips the car around and speeds back to Gongjin.
She returns to Gongjin and takes the restaurant owner up on the offer to help her start a dental clinic started there. Excited, the restaurant owner exclaims, “What? Really?” Hye-jin replies with a smile, “Yes, I’ve made up my mind.”
Part 2 - Relevant Philosophical Position
Descartes's Conception of Freedom from his Fourth Mediation
I would like to explore Descartes’s conception of freedom that he outlines in his Fourth Meditation.
Free will exists when an agent has whatever necessary capacity in order to be morally responsible for their actions or choices (Jayasekera 531). In the Fourth Meditation Descartes defines the grades of freedom by clarity of perception before judgment (Descartes 46). Descartes states, “For in order to be free, there is no need for me to be capable of going in each of two directions; on the contrary, the more I incline in one direction - either because I clearly understand that reasons of truth and goodness point that way, or because of divinely produced disposition of my inmost thoughts - the freer is my choice” (Descartes 46). We have different degrees of freedom depending on how obscure our perception is and, thereby, how indifferent our will is.
When we do not have access to clear and distinct perception, “the intellect does not have sufficiently clear knowledge at the time when the will deliberates,” (Descartes 47) we are indifferent between two judgments. Often, we think of freedom as the ability to choose between two or more options available to us. However, according to Descartes, “our ability to do or not do something (that is, to affirm or deny, to pursue or avoid),” when the will is not impelled one way rather than another, we are experiencing the lowest grade of freedom (Descartes 45-46, Jayasekera 531). We are not infinite in every faculty, namely the faculties of knowledge and judgment (Descartes 43). Therefore, we are capable of indifference, obscure perception, and subsequent faulty judgment, and this is when we are least free. In fact, in order to avoid making mistakes, which occur when we make any decision without clear and distinct perception, we should withhold judgment.
Instead, we are wholly free when we experience clear and distinct perception and “never have to deliberate about the right judgment or choice,” that we are wholly free” (Descartes 46). The highest grade of freedom does not entail an ability to choose among alternatives, “it consists simply in the fact that when the intellect puts something forward for affirmation or denial or pursuit or avoidance, our inclinations are such that we feel we are determined by no external force” (Jayasekera 531, Descartes 46). If our perceptions are so clear and distinct that there is only one obvious judgment that follows, then that is when we are most free.
Descartes’s definition of freedom is consistent with determinism. Causal determinism is when every event is necessitated by antecedent events (Jayasekera 530). Intellectual determinism, the enlightenment, or lack thereof, of the intellect that determines the will, often follows causal determinism. According to Descartes, in cases of clear and distinct perception, determinism does not interfere with freedom; determinism is compatible with freedom. This is a compatibilist stance. He thinks, “we are most free when clear and distinct perception determines us to judge accordingly, and even if we were determined by God to never make a mistake, we would still be free” (Jayasekera 532). Our freedom is not dependent on whether our judgments are determined either by God or the intellect. Even when our perception is not clear and distinct and is in a state of indifference, the lowest grade of freedom is still consistent with compatibilism. Our state of indifference is also determined by our intellect and there is low, not absent, freedom. The freedom is low because we don’t have all our reasonings pointing one way and creating an obvious judgment within us. There is a debate about how indifference works with compatibilism, especially in cases where God enlightens our intellect, because God cannot cause us to make mistakes.
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Cartesian Compatibilism |
Determinism |
Grade of Freedom |
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Perception of the intellect |
State of the will |
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Clear and distinct perception |
Obvious judgment |
Highest grade of freedom |
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Obscure perception |
Indifference; no obvious judgment; faulty judgment |
Lowest grade of freedom |
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Part 3 - My Analysis
How the creative work illuminates or takes a stand on the philosophical position
The relevant events I will explore from the first episode of Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (Hometown) are Hye-jin quitting her job and her decision to start a dental clinic in Gongjin. I will explain how these events illuminate Descartes’s stance on compatibilism in the Fourth Meditation. Before I begin, it is important to note that Descartes’s Fourth Meditation is in the context of how determinism and freedom affect the will’s judgment, not necessarily resulting actions. This is the case even though he does imply that the will can also be related to action when he includes “to pursue or avoid” in his list of examples of the will’s capabilities in cases of clear and distinct perception (Descartes 45). I will be applying Descartes’s conception of compatibilism to actions, which presumably follow the judgments he discussed.
Hye-jin’s decision to quit her job is consistent with causal and intellectual determinism. Hometown’s writers have made every antecedent event relevant to, and snowball into, her decision. If Hye-jin had not gotten back from her run when she did, she would not have met Yeon-ok in the elevator for the first time. Yeon-ok, although not a major character, plays a vital role in cracking Hye-jin’s self-preserving shell. This causes Hye-jin to argue with her boss, Dr. Lee, about appropriate treatment for her patient, and then to try to recover Yeon-ok as her patient the next day. If she had not stood up to her boss either of these times, she would have not been intellectually determined to tell Dr. Lee that she is a hypocrite and fiercely walk out of her office.
Hye-jin’s decision to quit is made without deliberation, indicating that her action was preceded by clear and distinct perception, which makes it consistent with the Cartesian highest grade of freedom. It became obvious to Hye-jin that she could not work for a clinic where the chief doctor attempts to maximize how much the clinic can swindle its patients. The scene, consistent with both determinism and Cartesian freedom, is, therefore, consistent with Cartesian compatibilism.
Without Hometown’s antecedent events, before and after Hye-jin’s decision to quit her job, her intellect would not have determined her decision to open a dental clinic in Gongjin. It is easier to work backwards in this case. The call Hye-jin receives from her boss makes it abundantly clear to her that she is unlikely to work in Seoul as a dentist again and will not beg for her job back. Opening her own dental clinic in Gongjin becomes her best option. Hye-jin would not have perceived this decision so clearly if she had neither been thanked for her care by the two children she helped nor Yeon-ok right before she was finally able to leave Gongjin. Nor if she had noticed how affordable it is to lease space in Gongjin. Nor if Hye-jin hadn’t met the Hwa-jeong restaurant owner who offered to help her, which would not have happened without her going to the beach, losing her shoes, meeting Du-shik, and then helping the owner’s son with a dental accident. And she would not have even gone to the beach at Gongjin on a Tuesday had she not been unemployed and her late mother’s birthday. Although, Hye-jin losing her expensive shoes, which would not have been bought if she had not quit her job, is essential to meeting the Hwa-jeong restaurant owner, the loss of those shoes only has a role in the determination of Hye-jin falling in love with Du-shik in later episodes - which I do not cover in this project.
Hye-jin turns her car around so quickly after receiving a call from Dr. Lee because it was obvious opening a clinic in Gongjin was now the best decision she could make for her career. Her decision was made with the highest Cartesian freedom. This scene is also consistent with both determinism and Cartesian freedom, and, therefore, consistent with Cartesian compatibilism.
An example of the lowest Cartesian freedom in this episode is Hye-jin’s initial deliberation about opening a dental clinic in Gongjin after seeing their low lease prices. The judgment of her will was obscured by her intellect’s lack of access to clear and distinct perception. In a state of indifference, Hye-jin talked herself out of the idea before she was able to perceive her situation clearly. The antecedent events of Hye-jin’s life as a successful Seoul-lite determined her state of indifference. This scene is also consistent with Cartesian compatibilism.
Works Cited
Descartes, René. Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Replies. Edited by John Cottingham, translated by John Cottingham, Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Jayasekera, Marie. “Descartes on Human Freedom.” Philosophy Compass, vol. 9, no. 8, 2014, pp. 527-539.
Kim, Je-hyeon (tvN), creator. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. Studio Dragon, 2021. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com.
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