Why not use the washing machine at home? A 6-year power struggle between a stingy South Korean mo...
A frugal mother-in-law in South Korea, owning a three-story house and earning a substantial monthly rent, insists on hand-washing clothes and is extremely thrifty. She spent nearly 50 million won to marry her son to a Cambodian woman, but due to the departure of her first daughter-in-law, she is wary and suspicious of her current daughter-in-law's every outing. In her eyes, her daughter-in-law is "lazy," neglects her family, and always wants to travel; this transnational marriage seems like a risky investment that could go down the drain.
Meanwhile, the 27-year-old Cambodian daughter-in-law, as the eldest daughter, married far away to support her family. She diligently learns Korean, works hard, and plans for the future, but she can never meet her mother-in-law's traditional expectations of domesticity. Conflicts between the two women over cleaning, laundry, and spending habits are constant.
Until the mother-in-law embarks on her first trip to Cambodia to visit relatives. She witnessed firsthand the environment her daughter-in-law grew up in: no electricity, living off rainwater, the whole family relying on a single car battery for light… She saw the sacrifices her daughter-in-law, as the eldest daughter, made for the family, and tasted the meals her mother-in-law prepared with precious ingredients, yet which were barely edible.
This journey was not just a visit to relatives abroad, but a mutual gaze across a 50-year age gap, two different lifestyles, and life's hardships. When the mother-in-law finally understood that behind her daughter-in-law's "dislike of hand-washing clothes" lay her childhood years of toiling day after day in her hometown; when the daughter-in-law saw that within her mother-in-law's extreme frugality lay her resilience in single-handedly shouldering the burdens of an entire era…