Hankies in the creative arts

So let's start with Korean drama. Only because I am trying to write an article (or two) about "kdrama" and I see handkerchiefs popping up everywhere, to my great delight.

Mum of male protagonist passes over a stack of handkerchiefs to the future daughter-in-law.

Should daughter/-in-law appease her mum or her future mother-in-law? "Lots of people still use handkerchiefs."

Her in-law-to-be expresses a sceptical "ooh! do people still use handkerchiefs nowadays?"

I was pleasantly surprised that her further response was, "It's much better than using tissues." Woman after my own heart.

A closer analysis: To follow. ~~(Watch this space!)~~

"All about my mom" is Korean TV drama about a woman who expressed her love for her children in rather strange ways, and certainly in a way that most viewers would find difficult to understand, and perhaps to the point of being irritating.

For a start, she appears to have a "favourite" child, her eldest, a son and a lawyer. He was rude and arrogant at the start of the series, mellowed a little when he met the love of his life, and was then struck dumb when he realised how much he had hurt his mum with his cruel, cutting words.

For years the mother had been ironing and giving him a fresh, folded hankie just before he leaves for work. When he decided to move into an apartment where his fiance lived with her mum and son from a previous marriage, his mother showed she finally approved of that decision, and took the hankies over to the fiance so that she could make sure that he continues to get a fresh, ironed hankie before going to work every day.

Those ironed and folded hankies represent her love for her son.

From the various crime thrillers I read.