Dear Friends and Family,

My friend Peter married today. His wedding was lovely to witness... different than other weddings that I have so far been to in Korea. In fact, other weddings that I've attended here have been... confusing. Please allow me to attempt to explain.

I received my first Korean wedding invite last winter, out of the blue and via cell phone. My friend Cathy called to ask, “Do you want to go the Vice Principal’s daughter’s wedding? Tomorrow?”

Instantly I felt very uncomfortable. “But I haven’t received an invitation.” I protested, picturing the very Western, very necessary paper invitation.

Cathy laughed and merrily told me, “That’s not how it works here – just come.” she said.

As if I could say no. “What about a gift?” I asked.

“30,000 Won is what we usually give. I’ll bring you an envelope.” She replied.

Hmm. Anyway, so that is how I learned that in Korea, paper wedding invitations are superfluous. And a great deal of notice is not necessary. And wedding invites - or a lack of - were only the first of many differences that I marked between Western weddings and Korean weddings.

A delicate snow was falling the next day as us single women teachers, dressed in shiny, ruffled finery, arrived at the appointed “Wedding Hall,” a froofy building specially made for weekend weddings – this particular hall had long faux Greek columns and a large advertisement of a beautiful Korean woman, replete in caked make-up and an amazing concoction of a white dress. We took an elevator to the wedding level and walked into a crowded reception hall, where our Vice Principal stood at random, looking very dignified in his tie that coordinated with his wife’s traditional hanbok while other guests milled around. My friends immediately approached and bowed to him – as did I – but I threw in a hand shake and warm congrats. We then handed our traditional Chinese character wedding envelopes with cash to the appropriate person and received, in return, a dining ticket.

Next we proceeded into a large room with dusty chandeliers and faux plasterwork reminiscent of a hotel conference room. There was a red carpet aisle framed by wilting silk flowers, individual faux Rococo chairs had been set up for guests, and an altar was alight with electric candles and more silk flowers. The guests were not quiet nor settled when the ceremony began with Mendelson’s wedding march. Two women in red faux military uniforms strode up the aisle to form a fake sword arch for the bride to advance through. The groom appeared and next down the aisle came the bride, tightly coiffed in a rented western-style wedding dress, while the guests barely noticed and continued to chat away. A suit-clad officiate talked and talked for what felt like forever while the bride and groom said nothing. The ceremony ended with a flourish: the uniformed ladies raised fake trumpets, pushed some button and out came a bunch of shiny streamers and strange music. The bride and groom turned to the still-chatting audience, for the photographer’s sake, I guessed, and then together walked down the aisle – both taut with nervousness.

We guests then departed from the ceremony hall to the downstairs buffet room. We presented tickets at the entrance, grabbed plates and subsequently enjoyed an all you can eat traditional Korean food buffet with rice, soap, raw fish, chicken, noodles, different types of kimchi, pork and other yummy edibles. And then we left. And that was it.

To say that I was startled and puzzled by this wedding is to say the least. The wedding appeared Western: the clothing, the music, the swords, the room. But the behavior wasn’t western: tangible joy wasn't present, our weddings are planned for months in advance, our weddings are “individualized” by the bride, and we guests daren’t talk through a wedding. And my consternation about the Korean wedding only deepened when I was told that the ceremony I witnessed wasn’t the legal wedding. Huh? Why go through the elaborate charade… dress… music? Where was the meaning behind a wedding ceremony? Was the ceremony for appearances only?

Well, yes, appearances are a key consideration. Because Korean brides and grooms actually go through two, perhaps three ceremonies. The first ceremony is the frothy western-looking one; the ceremony’s basic intent is to gather all the relatives, friends and acquaintances, get them to give gifts of money, and give them something to talk about. After that first ceremony, the bride, groom, and their immediate family change into traditional Korean hanbok and a second ceremony takes place, this time a Confucian ceremony where I’d guess that a great deal of bowing interspersed with a bit of eating and drinking takes place. Frankly, I’m still unclear about when Koreans legally marry – that could be another ceremony because I’ve been told that couples legally marry after they return from their honeymoon – which can present a problem if the bride or groom perishes during the honeymoon. I haven’t verified that tidbit but if it is true, I’m uncharacteristically happy to declare that portion of the process utterly illogical.

Although I must say that I found the whole kit and caboodle puzzling. So, like an annoying five year-old, I kept asking why questions. And at some point, I formed the understanding that one hundred years ago, Korea was an agrarian society, living in small villages, and organized into family lines. Brides and grooms were matched by matchmakers and married each other’s families. But there came a point when Korean culture changed abruptly and consequently weddings changed too. Today, South Korea is a modern industrial society, living mostly in large cities and family lines remain only somewhat intact. Brides and grooms often meet and marry at their own volition, although matchmaking still happens. So modern wedding ceremonies appear, and indeed are, a mishmash of traditional reason combined with fashionable western tastes. But the Westernized appearance of Korean weddings just confuses me.

Therefore, counter-intuitively, my friend’s traditional wedding today made much more sense to me than the “modern” weddings I’ve been to. Held at an open air, rather beautiful Confucian Academy that is actually a stop on the Daegu City Tour bus (if curious, refer to 10/11/06), we found the groom was standing near the entrance in a flowered black silk hanbok set, complete with hat and shoes. He greeted guests and stoically endured the indignation of lots of stares punctuated by lots photographs. While the bride was also being photographed, tucked away in her own little side room, clad in an amazing pink hanbok, a beaded headdress, and with a rounded red sticker on each cheek.

Eventually the bride and groom were escorted to platforms in which four strong men would carry them to the ceremony. The groom went first, seated in a wooden chair covered with a silk cushion, that reminded me of the open thrones of old kings of Thailand. He was carried by 4 male friends – 3 of which were Western – and was improperly borne on their shoulders while another friend trailed carrying a carved, silk clad wooden duck. The groom was lowered at the beginning of the aisle leading to the altar and lead through a series of ceremonial movements while the bearers retreated to get the bride. The bride was seated cross-legged in an enclosed square palanquin painted with cranes. The palanquin was open so everyone could see her dazzling smile. Most people watched the bride – but I watched the groom and felt amply rewarded as the most beautiful moment of the ceremony (for me) was the look of awe and happiness on the groom’s face as his beautiful Korean bride was carried to him. The bride emerged from her conveyance, the two bowed to each other and were lead up the aisle to an officiate behind an altar.

The officiate, clad in a traditional white hanbok and a tall black hat, had firm possession of the microphone and began to speak in formal Korean. The bride and groom, once arranged on individual sides of the altar, began with hand washing from brass bowls, included bowing, eating a food that resembled the Korean green onion pancakes (pa jon) with chopsticks, and some alcohol drinking. The officiate carried on for a while before the bride and groom finally retreated back down the aisle together to the applause of their guests. We at the back also clapped and as the groom passed he directed an aside of “I have no clue what just happened!” at me. I laughed and followed the two so I could snap a picture of them together. We stood in the sunshine for sometime while more photographs were taken and even we friends were included in the photographs as the groom’s family could not come from Ecuador and Canada to attend the ceremony.

Afterwards, the bride and groom departed to peel away a few layers from their hanboks while we guests went to enjoy a traditional lunch of soup, rice, kimchi, rice cakes, and numerous other side dishes. After we had consumed our fill, we bid the bride and groom farewell… and that was that. Their wedding was lovely. And satisfying for me as a Western witness because of the palpable love that I saw between the couple – and because of the ceremony’s perfectly comprehendible Confucian Koreanness.

Many happy returns, Peter and Celine!

Love,

Laura

PS: Some interesting Korean wedding tidbits:

• Several times now I’ve heard the criticism that modern Korean weddings lack sentiment and are actually carried through simply to make money for the bride and groom. My experience seems to confirm this; but I think I prefer the supposed Korean profit-making lack of sentiment to the Western sentiment demonstrated by a couple getting into extreme wedding debt.
  
  
• The wooden duck, carried behind the groom at Peter’s wedding, symbolizes a long and happy marriage. While the cranes on the bride’s palanquin are a symbol of long life.
  
  

• Apparently in old-style Korean weddings, the bride and groom would retire to one of the rooms of the house specially decorated for the occasion. Outside the room, relatives would use their fingers to poke small holes in the rice paper covering the windows of the room so they could watch what happened inside. Ostensibly, they did this to ensure that the bride did not run away in frustration as the grooms were often much younger than the brides and they often did not know what to do.But Koreans, as a culture, are what we Westerners would consider more than a mite nosy when it comes to “personal business” – and these actions sound like classic nosiness to me!!!
  

PS II: The picture above is of my Vice Principal's lovely daughter and new son-in-law. The following are pics from Peter and Celine's October 28, 2007 wedding.

Handsome, amiable Peter...

The dazzling bride in her palanquin...

Foods to feast on...

And what weddings are all about:
the family portrait session....

Dearest Friends and Family,

(Skipping ahead to what’s actually been on my mind…)

You may be wondering: why did I return to Korea? Actually, the answer to this question was very easy to loose sight of; returning to Daegu in September was an exercise in strength of will.

The story of my difficulty in returning to Korea began on one August night in Daegu, days after leaving Singapore, days before departing for Seattle, when tears began to flow from my eyes that didn’t come from my heart. The tears were followed by a Monday morning in which my right eye turned bright pink. Accustomed as I am to good health, when questioned, I assured everyone that I must have something in my eye – which didn’t truly reassure anyone - least of all my guiding teacher who took one look at my eye and announced that I would go to a doctor. I protested. A lot. Although I eventually subsided when he told me that “the eye is not be messed with,” a statement which I could not refute. Not that that stopped me from again protesting on the way to the doctor – which made my guiding teacher’s lack of gloating when the word “conjunctivitis” was uttered practically angelic. The doctor prescribed me 2 bottles of eye drops to take 20 million times a day plus 5 pills for 3 times a day that were dispensed in neat rows of wax-paper envelopes sans label. I never did find out what those “mystery pills” were – and my post-diagnosis feelings see-sawed between guilt of exposing my students to a nasty virus, pleasure that I missed the usual anti-biotic injection administered to one’s rear end, and finished in disgruntlement after my guiding teacher banned me from wine drinking.

My eye had improved a few days later when I found myself looking out the window at an achingly familiar tarmac. The flight attendant announced, “Welcome to Seattle-Tacoma Airport” while the strangest thing began to happen: my perception of the world turned inside out. It was strange being at Sea-Tac, the airport that used to mean home, with English phrases such as “traffic on I-5,” “Washington Mutual Bank,” or “good chowder at a place called Ivars” coming at me from all directions. And when my father was a bit late in picking me up, I was disconcerted to realize that, savvy traveler I may be, I had arrived in a very familiar world without the tools necessary to deal with it: no working cell phone, no car, no affordable taxis… without even my father’s cell phone number or two quarters in which to make a pay phone call.

As my father returned me to Woodinville, I found everything familiar… I didn’t need to read road signs because I knew what the next curve of the freeway would look like, I knew exactly where we were at any given moment and how long it would take to get “home.” Everything was familiar. But everything felt different. We had just exited the 520 freeway when I was able to put my disorientation into words. I realized first that I had just spent fourteen months comparing every sight I had seen, every city I had been to what I knew: Seattle. And now that I had returned to Seattle after fourteen months, my point of reference had flipped and I had begun comparing Seattle to what I now knew best, Daegu. Everything felt so different! That was when I realized that Seattle hadn’t changed much. But that I had changed a lot.

Returning to the States was sweet. I wanted to eat it all up: the joy and tears of hugging my parents, my sisters, my beloved friends, and my kitties... not to mention the food, of course, as well as a cushy feather bed, a deep bath tub, the ability to drive a car, my beloved Pacific Northwest landscape, the regained knowledge of how to find everything I wanted and the convenience + variety that I no longer take for granted. All so, so sweet.

But a week into my visit, one night tears began to flow from my eyes that were not originating from my heart and by the following morning, my eye was pink and swollen alarmingly. The mystery pills were viewed with amused alarm by my American eye doctor who examined my eyes and prescribed new treatment. But every day, my eye became more and more swollen. And worse, as my eye swelled shut, I began to physically weaken. This necessitated returns – plural - to the doctor. The next days brought lab tests, the infection spreading to the other eye, blurred vision from the original swollen eye… and a daily struggle between wanting enjoy my visit to the fullest while physically miserable.

I piled jetlag onto physical exhaustion when I made the long journey from Woodinville to Daegu with ophthalmologist warnings of permanent corneal scarring still ringing in my ears. In fact, as I prepared to return to Daegu, my ophthalmologist asked, “what would it take for you to get fired and not have to return to Korea?”

My heart and jaw dropped several inches before I replied with unwavering conviction that “My job and my life are currently in Korea.”

These words came back to me as I locked the door of my small apartment and dropped onto my hard bed. Depleted, alone, with blurred vision and itchy eyes, I was sad. I didn’t want to be back in Korea.

So, why return to Korea?

My ophthalmologist’s skepticism about my return to Korea returned to me... vivid and real… the tone of his voice telling me that he pictured Korea unappealing, primitive. And I felt my apartment walls begin to close around me as I recalled a moment from last spring that would confirm his assumptions:

Slinging a cloth market bag onto my shoulder, I exited my apartment, placed a call to my friend on my Samsung hand phone, rounded one garbage strewn corner, bowed to a teaching peer speeding away from work for the day, and continued past the florescent convenience mart. I then the rounded the next dusty corner, passed the little neighborhood dog who was peeing on the curtain of a restaurant fish tank. I went past a stooped grandmother with a baby tied with a sling to her back, past a group of chatty, uniformed middle school students waiting for their afternoon bus, past a few old men squatting on the sidewalk roasting oysters on a grill over a small fire. As I chatted and walked, a careening motorcycle on the sidewalk, driven by a man wearing a chicken costume almost knocked me over. And while I waited to cross the street, I could feel the eyes of a little girl and her mother staring directly at the strange foreigner – me - while another slightly older kid caught my attention and shouted, “hi!”

This is the Korea that I imagine that my ophthalmologist imagines that I live in. This is the Korea that I imagine you all suspect that that I live in. Strange. Comparatively primitive. A country beneath your notice, inhabited by people that look and behave incomprehensibly different. And, as this all actually happened on my way to the nearby fresh food market where I proceeded to buy rice cakes boiled in chili sauce, noodle sausage, kimchi, and rice + ham + egg + rice wrapped in seaweed, I cannot deny that where I live is very different than where I come from.

And well, of course, I find Korea strange. I never forget that I am a stranger here and that that will never change. I could speak the language fluently, I could master Confucian logic, I could learn to make pajon and pork cakes, I could marry a Korean and have children, I could live a 100 years here – and I would still find Korea strange and I would still be a stranger to Koreans.

But here’s the thing. Korea is also familiar. Koreans are passionate about their loved ones, passionate about their culture, passionate about their mountains, passionate about wanting to have comfortable lives, passionate about health – they are passionate about education, passionate about success, and passionate about food. And these passions are very familiar.

But are these reasons to return for another year in Korea? Really, why return to Korea?

That night, just after my return to Daegu from Seattle, I reminded myself of the logical reasons to return to Korea: two years teaching experience would be good for the resume, my summer travels had depleted my savings, and I didn’t know where I wanted to go next.

But that night logical reasoning didn’t help. Nor did lounging in bed with Jon Stewart for company while recovering from jetlag help. I was sad.

Yet on Monday morning, I slipped into my usual routine: I slung my bag across my chest, picked up my cuppa of coffee, and strode down the neighborhood block to work. I opened the door to the teachers’ room – and immediately there exclamations of welcome. I smiled and bowed and hugged and showed off my swollen eye. There was genuine happiness to see me back in Daegu and on my way to health. And I was really happy to see my beloved peers.

But why return to Korea?

Doubtlessly, I returned to Korea for the logical reasons that I named before – but why had I really returned to Korea? The day I returned to Taegu Foreign Language High School, I discovered that if the teachers were happy to see me, the students were thrilled. And my heart leapt at the very sight of each class. In the days that followed many students stopped me in person to ask about my health, inspected my eye, and told me that they were happy to see me. I returned because I love my students. And I believe that they love me.

I don’t know how I could’ve lost sight of this. Really, I don’t. I love my job. I love my school. I love my students. And even with an eye still slightly swollen by pink eye, Korea is where I’m meant to be. For now.

Love,
Laura

Admittedly, it wasn't ALL about the students. It was also very nice to return to new adventures with my friends... this pic makes me laugh! My Kiwi friend Lyndon and I are... uh, imitating an animated statue at the Andong Mask Festival.