Human Theater follows Dangjin couple who funded 12 wells in Africa and face a tractor dispute

KBS1's human-interest program Human Theater is turning its attention to the daily life of Son Yeong-nam, 70, and her husband Lee Hae-sun, 73, a couple living in a 100-year-old traditional home in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province. Part 2 of "We Live in a Hundred-Year Flower Palace," airing at 7:50 a.m. on July 7, continues the story of a couple who filled a childhood home with flowers and spent their lives practicing generosity, including funding the digging of 12 wells in Africa.

In a quiet rural village in Dangjin, there is an old house without a signboard or even a front gate, yet it stops passersby in every season because flowers bloom there throughout the year. The owners of the house are Son Yeong-nam, the head of the village women's association, and her husband, Lee Hae-sun.

For Son, the house is far more than a place to live. It is the childhood home she repaired over two years with her husband's help so she could care for her mother, who had dementia. After Son completed the restoration with great devotion, her mother died just 15 days later.

Son began planting flowers in the yard because she wanted to make her mother happy. Those flowers gradually gathered into what is now known as the couple's "flower palace," turning the old family home into a place defined by memory, care and color.

The couple's habit of sharing did not stop inside their own yard. Beginning four years ago, Son started planting flowers throughout the village, bringing new life to a rural neighborhood that had once felt quiet and desolate. As the flowers spread, villagers naturally began visiting the old house as if it were a communal gathering place.

Lee has also become a dependable helper in the village, personally repairing farming tools for elderly neighbors and offering practical support where it is needed. The couple's most striking act of giving came from their only source of income: they saved money earned from selling plums and used it to help dig 12 wells in Africa, choosing a life centered more on sharing than possession.

The second episode airing on July 7 also follows the couple as they spend their days alone together for the first time after many years of working only for their family. Their late-in-life newlywed-like routine is warm, but the episode centers on a small conflict that enters their peaceful daily life: Lee has been looking at tractors without telling his wife.

Unable to shake the guilt weighing on his own heart, Lee eventually confesses the truth to Son. As expected, Son reacts coolly and strongly opposes the idea of buying a tractor. The couple's second story, showing how they continue to comfort each other, endure physical hardship without even an insurance policy for themselves, and keep moving toward their neighbors, airs at 7:50 a.m. on KBS1's Human Theater.