Articles by mgedwards

Our first Korean wedding

Today we attended our first Korean wedding.  Joey, one of my good friends and fellow University of Washington alumnus, married his sweetheart at a wedding hall in the Jamsil area, not far from the site of the Seoul Summer Olympics.  The wedding ceremony, reception, and photo shoots were fascinating.  I was happy to attend the event, not only to wish my friend and his bride well, but also to experience a side of Korean culture I rarely see.  The wedding ceremony was a western-style affair, although the photo shoot included tradional Korean wedding poses.  The reception was held in a large banquet room.  I was stunned by all the hustle and bustle surrounding the event.  People attending several different weddings simultaneously milled around the reception area at the wedding hall.  We snaked through the crowds and found the check-in counter for my friend, signed in, and gave the attendant our wedding gift.  We gave our friend 100,000 Korean won (about $100) in a decorative envelope.  My coworker told me that guests typically give the happy couple 50,000 won to offset the cost of the wedding; good friends give up to 100,000 won.  Korean weddings are typically very expensive.
 
Joey waited near the check-in counter, and he greeted us warmly when we arrived.  He ushered us into the wedding hall, where Bart, another friend and alumnus, waited.  (I last saw Bart in the COEX Mall at a student emigration fair in March.)  Bart served as our guide for the rest of the event.  We sat to the back of the hall in case we needed to make a quick exit to attend to our son.  Fortunately, he had fallen asleep and slept through the entire ceremony.  I was a shutterbug, taking dozens of photos at the event.  As the ceremony began, I found an ideal location to capture the best moments of the wedding, some of which I will post here soon.  I was struck by how noisy it was during the ceremony.  While the groom, bride, ring bearers, and immediate families marched to the front of the hall and participated in the ceremony, guests sitting at the back of the hall carried on conversations.  The hall doors stayed open, and hallway commotion poured into the hall.  It was an unfamiliar and distracting nuisance to someone like me who is used to sitting through muted American church weddings.  Somehow though, the noise was an appropriate reflection of a Korean culture that values social interaction.  The wedding ceremony was truly gorgeous.  The room was beautiful, and the decor was very tasteful.  A trio of musicians on piano, flute and violin played festive wedding music.  The ceremony was also high-tech, with video of the ceremony projected on two large screens at the front of the room.  The happy couple exchanged vows, and at the end of the ceremony they bowed to their families.  Before exiting the hall, in lieu of a wedding kiss, my friend let out three triumphant yells and stretched out his arms three times.  Although similar to an American-style wedding, my friend’s wedding was uniquely Korean.
 
After the ceremony, we joined the newlywed couple for photos.  Unlike in the U.S., where friends typically pose for individual photos with the bride and groom, a large group gathered around the couple for a single group photo.  I was the only Caucasian in the entire event, and I joked to Bart, "백명 한국사람 하고 한명 백인 있어요!" (Translation–"One white guy and 100 Koreans!"  It’s meant to be a funny wordplay, because the word for "white guy" is similar to the word for 100, and the word for Korean is similar to the Korean word for "one."  Koreans often use Korean wordplays to express humor.)  Bart laughed. 
 
We then went upstairs to the reception hall.  We sat with Bart and Peter, another college friend.  I noticed that the video projected at the reception was a feed from the wedding hall.  Workers in the video were busy preparing the hall for the next wedding.  I thought it interesting that you can watch the next wedding as it happens while you’re at your own reception.  The food was delicious.  We ate galbitang (갈비탕), or short-rib soup.  The table was filled with delicious side dishes, including salmon sashimi and a variety of kimchi.  Partway through the reception, we offered a toast to the newlyweds.  I wish we could have stayed longer to eat and visit, but the reception hall cleared out quickly in anticipation of the next wedding group.  One unfortunate aspect of marrying at a wedding hall is that it can feel rushed and impersonal, almost like an assembly line where you’re herded from one location to the next hurriedly.  Pardon the sports metaphor, but much like golf, a wedding at a wedding hall tees off on time, and the wedding party must move on before the next party tees up.  Still, wedding halls are good at what they do and take care of virtually everything for you.  Imagine not having to plan your wedding beyond your wedding attire.  Wedding halls are professional wedding planners.
 
After the reception, all of my friends gathered for some group photos.  We went to where Joey and his bride and their family gathered to take photos.  They wore hanbok (한복), or traditional Korean clothing.  The newlyweds re-enact excerpts from a traditional Korean wedding and capture the memories in photos.  Following the photo shoot, we joined the bride and groom for a couple of photos.  We were thrilled to be able to participate in something normally reserved for family.
 
On our way home from the wedding, we stopped at Hangang Park along the south bank of the Han River, which runs through Seoul.  We stumbled upon the Seoul International Kite Festival.  The park was filled with people flying all sorts of kites ranging from small butterfly kites to a giant dragon kite and a group of ten kites strung together, one on top of the other.  My family had a great time walking in the park, along the river, and enjoying ice cream.
 
Blog Notes:  I finally decided to post some personal photos of our family in the photos from the wedding.  Enjoy!  Also, my wife says the font I use is too small and hard to read, so I’ll try a different font and make it larger.  Hopefully this size is easier to read.  It will take up a lot more real estate, but I aim to please.

Bathroom humor

We made it home tonight from Pusan.  I’ll tell you about our trip to Pusan and post some photos tomorrow. 
 
Tonight I want to share with you something that you might find a little unsettling.  The subject is Korean public restrooms.  I know it’s an intimate subject.  However, since Korean restrooms do their best to strip away any semblance of privacy, I might as well write about them in my blog.  If you’re squeamish about frank, honest bathroom talk, please skip this blog entry.  This topic first came up a few months ago.  I was sitting in a Starbucks in Gangnam with a friend, lounging on one of their couches, enjoying a Frappuccino and good conversation.  While we were talking, I looked up and stared right into the women’s restroom in the building next door.  I could see nothing from waist down or inside the stalls, but other than that, I had full view of the women’s restroom and the women who loitered there.  I’m not a peeping tom; I’m just a guy who enjoys coffee at Starbucks who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.   I haven’t seen anything like that since watching those unrealistic, unisex bathroom dialogues on the TV show "Ally McBeal."  At that time, I thought, "Nah, that’s too personal to write in a blog."  Today changed my mind.  I went into a men’s restroom at the Pusan Train Station, and an ajuma (older woman) was cleaning the stalls while the men mingled in the bathroom.  I hid elsewhere while she cleaned. 
 
So, without further adieu, here are my adages from Korean public restrooms.  Well, the men’s restrooms, anyway.
  1. If you want any privacy at all, use a stall.  At least a restroom stall has a door and three walls.  Well, most of the time anyway.
  2. You don’t have to worry about squat pots.  Most Korean public restrooms are equipped with western-style toilets.  No worries about learning how to do as the Asians do!
  3. Don’t forget to say "cheese."  When you’re in a public restroom, you’re probably going to be exposed to either a wide, open entrance, or a big window that inconveniently faces a busy location.  Either way, unless you use a stall with a door, there is a good chance someone–male or female–will see you in the restroom doing who knows what. 
  4. Pull the faucet handle down.  In the U.S., one usually pulls the faucet handle up to run water in a public restroom.  In Korea, pull the handle down.  This simple fact can save you a lot of heartache trying to figure out why the faucet won’t budge.
  5. Don’t worry about the ajumas.  Apparently the restroom cleaners, if they are of the opposite sex, do not wait for restrooms to empty before cleaning them.  I haven’t tested this theory in women’s bathrooms, although I suspect that male janitors will not enter women’s restrooms in Korea when women are present.  Men’s restrooms are fair game for ajumas, however.  Don’t worry though–most are moms and have seen it all before anyway.
  6. It can get a little breezy at times.  For some reason, when you approach a urinal, it automatically flushes.  Then, afterwards, it doesn’t seem to flush at all.  This seems very counter-intuitive and the opposite of what happens with urinals in the U.S.  This one is still a mystery to me.
  7. Good luck finding a working automatic hand dryer.  You might want to bring some paper towels or a hand towel with you just in case.  I find that many Korean restrooms do not have paper towels, and the automatic dryers only work about 50%-60% of the time.  This statistic is completely unverified.  However, many a time I’ve had to resort to hand wringing to dry off my hands.
  8. Check to make sure the restroom has toilet paper before you need it.  Sometimes the toilet paper is on a roll outside the stall, and sometimes restrooms don’t have toilet paper at all.
  9. Most restrooms don’t have sanitary seat covers, so bring your own.  If you are concerned about germs on toilet seats, be sure to have an ample supply of paper seat covers.  I have yet to find any in Korea.
  10. If you’re on the go and you can’t find a restroom, just go.  Although there are periodic rest areas on highways throughout Korea, it is OK to stop on the highway shoulder and find a place to do what you have to do.  It doesn’t matter if the highway is busy or whether the person can easily be seen.

Note to AngelineTay:  Thanks for your recent posts.  Yes, I’ll be kind to the rude customer when I see them in Seoul.  I try to live by the Golden Rule, because I really do want to be treated the wait I treat other people. 

Be kind to the person behind the counter

I only had 30 minutes for lunch today. I went to "Lotteria" on the Pusan waterfront, mistakenly thinking I could grab an unnutritious, bland, cheap, quick fast food lunch. I waited 25 minutes for my meal and had to take it to go. I brought it back to the hotel and didn’t have a chance to eat it until 2:30 p.m., long after lunchtime. The cashier behind the counter took an excrutiating long time to fill my order. I was really hungry while I helped customers myself.

Did I yell at her? Nope. Did I chastise her for taking so long? No, I didn’t. I told her I needed to change my order to go. She knew what I meant and apologized. I told her I under stood because many years ago I also worked in fast food. I remember what it was like dealing with irate customers. This poor girl had to run the entire store while 200 or more Korean schoolchildren milled around, waiting to go to the aquarium. She was cook and cashier. I watched how fast she had to work keeping up with customers, making and filling their order. She literally ran to the back area to make the food. I could have ranted at her for being slow in filling my order, but instead, I empathized. I felt sorry for her and was mad at her management for scheduling so few people to run the store. At the very least, the store manager should have been there to help out if the restaurant was short staffed. Instead, this girl had to work her heart out filling orders for impatient, disgruntled customers. I have been in her shoes myself. I know how frustrating it can feel. I did learn one thing from years of working in "hamburger hell"–be kind to the person working behind the counter, serving you. They’re people too, and you never know when they will pay your kindness forward or take your anger out on someone else.

Most of the Americans I helped in Pusan this week were nice and understanding, even when they waited awhile. However, one person in particular was not so kind. They cut in line to ask me a question, and they got angry because they did not wait to get all of the information they needed and were consequently inconvenienced when they found out they needed to provide me with additional information. Their response was very curt and abrasive, and they stated with irritation in their voice, "Fine, I’ll go to Seoul." They refused to wait patiently and finish in Pusan, instead opting to be even more inconvenienced by taking a train all the way up to Seoul. Guess who will be waiting for them in Seoul? Yours truly. Will they receive good service from me up there? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on whether I want to take my irritation out on them or repay them with kindness. I haven’t decided yet.