The Competition Still Goes On, Anyway
Estela Young
This Is a Leisure Book In August, I eagerly answered the call from the earlier “Goldman Sachs 101 Lessons” to “Read at least one book per month that has nothing to do with what you...
This Is a Leisure Book
In August, I eagerly answered the call from the earlier “Goldman Sachs 101 Lessons” to “Read at least one book per month that has nothing to do with what you do,” and I read a “leisure book”—Anyway, the Competition Is Still Long (《反正竞赛还很长》), written by Korea’s top variety‑show PD Ro Young‑sik, which has a Douban rating of 8.3.
(Image from Douban)
This book is part travelogue, part confession from PD Ro. One half recounts his solo trip to Iceland to watch the aurora after stepping down from the national variety show Two Days One Night (《两天一夜》); the other half covers his university drama‑club days, his path to becoming a producer, and the history of Two Days One Night.
Travel is a process of re‑examining oneself. Amid the “nurturing” of natural scenery, he tries to answer questions like “Who am I? What kind of person do I want to become? What work should I do? Am I happy?” As a line from the Douban description puts it, the meaning of travel may simply be to leave your usual spot, but by shifting perspective you might rediscover a long‑dusted original intention, rekindle life’s passion, and regain work energy.
In my view, this is a great book: witty, fresh in angle, genuine and charming. More importantly, following PD Ro lets you “play” a round in Iceland while also prompting you to answer those same questions for yourself.
Below are some interesting excerpts and the insights they sparked for me. Hope you enjoy.
Anyway, the Competition Is Still Long
Two Days One Night is a national‑level Korean variety show that achieved a miraculous 50%+ viewership rating. The year Ro left the five‑year run of the show, he was 39.
On middle‑age anxiety at 39, he writes in the book:
“Thirty‑nine… maybe that’s the age. It feels like I’m racing down a highway at 200 km/h; a few more presses of the accelerator and I could take first place in the competition, yet I also feel it’s the age when I have to pull over for a moment, dust myself off. While I’m speeding, I worry I might lose to someone else, and I also worry that I might splash dirty water on an innocent passerby. It’s an age when you have to pretend to be bothered, no matter what.
Anyway, the competition is still long; I have another thirty years to run. Ah, there’s still plenty of time left.”
If life were a competition, 39 is only halfway through (2018 data put China’s average life expectancy at 78 years).
Moreover, life is a marathon, not a sprint; it’s a journey of personal growth, not a contest against others.
So perhaps we should let go of the past, seize the present, and look toward the future. That might be a good antidote to age‑related anxiety.
The Three Soul‑Searching Questions of Life
Ro also wrestles with the classic three questions: “Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are you going?” He never mentions them all at once in the book, but he gradually explores his own answers.
Here are a few passages:
“What exactly is the ‘work’ each of us does? Is work merely a job for earning money, or is it a continually pursued life goal?”
“Fifteen years ago, the answer was clear and simple. My goal was to do work I loved and be with people I loved, so I was happy. Now everything is a bit fuzzy—what I want for my life, what others deem a good life—the boundaries are very blurred.”
“From this value‑based view, work isn’t a means to achieve something; work itself is a goal. The key is where an individual places focus—on the means or the goal? Do we pay off debts, or do we charge forward with debt on our backs? People subconsciously carry these worries into daily life and naturally find a balance—sometimes 5:5, sometimes 7:3, sometimes 6:4. What about me?”
“If I do nothing, I’ll probably just lie around all day—though I’d be lying in a different space than now. After a month or two, maybe I’ll get bored and decide to start doing something. If that happens, that ‘something’ would be what I truly want to do; I just need to figure out what that is.”
What about you? Have you found answers to the three life questions?
The Success of Two Days One Night
The show’s origin was accidental—an idea to rescue low ratings by having celebrities play a “fortune” game that could lead to hunger or outdoor camping penalties, which, after a quick calculation, required a two‑day, one‑night format—hence the title.
During filming, a few events turned it into the evergreen classic (yyds).
First, the original director’s “cut” turned into a 24‑hour continuous shoot, capturing the performers’ genuine, unforced cuteness—funnier and more engaging than staged performances.
Second, in one episode, Kang Ho‑dong provoked the PD, inviting the production crew to join a competition (with penalties for failure). The crew accepted! (They could have declined and edited the segment out, but they didn’t.) This unprecedented move instantly spiked audience interest.
Of course, I don’t think those two points are the core—some domestic shows copy them but never quite land. The real keys are the “Two Days One Night team” and “restraint, restraint, and more restraint.”
Our Two Days One Night Team
The team is a warm place.
It isn’t a cold, efficiency‑driven machine where highly specialized experts maximize output, actors try their hardest to be funny, staff capture the humor, and everything is measured by a ruler labeled “efficiency and ratings.”
Instead, it’s a space where “camera in front or behind, staff or performer, your job or my job”—none of those distinctions matter. When anyone needs help, everyone does their best to assist.
It’s a place where team members can “simply enjoy the trip and fully relish the work process,” fulfilling Ro’s youthful dream of “the process being fun, the result being right.”
Restraint, Restraint, and More Restraint
In the Changbai Mountain special, the script had the celebrities overcome hardships to reach the lake at the summit and pour water from all over Korea into it. The final product fell short of expectations.
From that experience the crew realized they had been too greedy—trying to make the episode more spectacular, showing more to the audience, hoping for greater emotional impact. Their greed led them to drown the natural flavor of good ingredients with too much sauce, ruining the original taste.
They learned that simply saying “We’ve arrived at Changbai’s lake” would have been enough; the rest could be left blank for the audience to savor the lingering afterglow.
The lesson: sometimes subtraction works better than addition. Adding is easy—just spend time and effort. Subtracting, however, takes courage.
Thus the crew discovered a method for achieving “the right result”: never predict the outcome in advance, and never try to force a story onto the footage. Focus on the core, throw a straight pitch at that core, and let the rest unfold. This is the trick we’ve learned after countless mistakes over five years.
I, too, wish for such a team and strive for that level of restraint. But it’s really hard.
Your Life’s Aurora
Aurora, from Latin, means “dawn.” Charged particles from solar eruptions travel through space; when they meet Earth’s magnetic field and collide with atmospheric oxygen at 100–500 km altitude near the poles, the aurora forms.
On his last day in Iceland, after several setbacks, Ro finally saw the aurora. He was profoundly moved; the money spent on the ticket suddenly seemed trivial.
“I stood at the border between myth and reality. The scene was not only dreamy but breathtakingly beautiful. Just watching it, I felt my heart melt into that light; I seemed to drift alone through the universe, while the once‑dark space around me was now wrapped in aurora, and I floated within it. Strangely, I felt a sudden loneliness—as I faced nature’s mystery, I fully realized how tiny an individual is.”
When I read that, I wondered, “What is my life’s aurora? What makes my heart race?” The answer came during a dinner between Ro and Two Days One Night writer Lee Yoo‑jyoung.
After returning to Korea, Ro and Lee ate together. Lee mentioned she was writing a drama script. Ro cautioned her to be careful—what if it fails?
Lee’s reply struck me:
“When do we ever count success or failure in our work? Usually we join because it’s fun. When we started Two Days One Night, did we know it would succeed? No, we just enjoyed making it. This time, it’s my first serial drama; it’s unexpectedly fun, and if it flops, so be it.”
By the way, the script she was working on became Reply 1997, which later spawned Reply 1994 and Reply 1998. The later Intelligence series—Intelligence 1 and Intelligence 2 (the doctor version currently in its second season)—are also great.
The Very End
This “leisure book” made me feel less alone— even the famous, highly paid Korean variety PD “Old Ro” has faced the same worries. It’s reassuring.
Joking aside, I’ve recently been seriously pondering the meaning of life, the purpose of work, and why I don’t feel as happy as I imagined.
After reading this book, I seem to have a vague sense of something. I can’t quite articulate it, but that’s okay—time will tell.
Maybe I need an aurora trip too (the Youthful Iceland episode moved me to tears even through the screen).
Finally, I’ll share a passage from the book for you, the reader, and for myself:
“There will be good days and bad days in life. What matters is whether our hearts can always hold hope for tomorrow; a life without hope is a dead life.
Whether a day is good or bad, I don’t want to live a dead day. After gaining some life experience, I realized I must keep my heart fluttering, stay hopeful, and retain courage.”
May we all keep our hearts fluttering, stay hopeful, and remain courageous.
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Originally written by Estela Young and published in Chinese on 一只产品汪的自白. Translated and edited for DriftSeas with permission.
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- [1]一只产品汪的自白