Day 335

KOREAN WEDDINGS

A few weeks ago a coworker of mine got married, and I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding.  Despite three of my closest friends getting married in the past two years, I haven't been to an American wedding since I was little.  (Sorry, guys!  I just love to travel!)  What I know about American weddings is that they're generally long, expensive for everyone involved, and it's about making the parents happy, not the bride and groom.

Korean weddings, on the other hand, can be summed up in three words: shiny and efficient.

Not that I'm complaining!  The entire ceremony was about 15 minutes long, followed by another 15 minutes of photo-taking.  I missed my train due to a stupid subway error--I've been here for 11 months and I'm still confusing Yongsan with Yongmun, rookie mistake--and ended up running the entire way from the subway station to the wedding hall.  Good thing I did, or I might have missed the whole ceremony!

Blurry, but sparkly and the lighting is good.  Also shows how reflective the catwalk/aisle is.

I'm not sure how these weddings normally go, but my coworker asked our boss (the not-Asian guy on the stage) to deliver the wedding speech.  It was beautiful and heartfelt, and I understood the whole thing because spoke in English.  His Korean wife translated for the rest of the wedding party.

While she translated, I was paying attention to the wedding hall.  The wedding halls in Korea are specially-designed large soundproof rooms that run on a very tight schedule.  The rooms are very sparkly and shiny.  This particular room is on the 18th floor of a large building.  The flowers are all fake, which I was happy about because real ones make me sneezy.  The 'aisle' is actually a raised white catwalk.  Most brides rent their dresses from the wedding venue.

Look how shiny everything is!

I may have been young when I went to those American weddings, but I remember a few things.  People were silent during the ceremony.  They were very dressed up.  People cried.

At this wedding, most of the guests were talking during the speech.  It didn't seem particularly rude or unusual.  People came and left during the ceremony as well, coming and going to the 'reception,' which is basically a large buffet.  Most people weren't particularly dressed up.  Nobody seemed especially emotional except the bride, who was crying adorably through most of the ceremony.  (But don't worry, the wedding hall plans for this--they've got a special attendant whose job is to wipe the bride's face dry without mussing her makeup!  Seriously, the wedding hall takes care of everything.)

I read in a book that it was bad luck for a Korean bride to smile during her wedding.  But that book had a lot of other weird, outdated, and straight-up wrong information, so who knows?

After the speech, the bride and groom bow to both sets of parents, who are sitting on opposite sides of the stage in traditional Korean dress (for the moms) and suits (for the dads).

About to bow.

The bride stays standing, but the groom gets on the floor and bows.  This is also how Koreans bow to the dead, I believe.   If you look on the left side of the photo, you'll also see the parents bowing back.

Bowing.

Can't find the groom?  Let me help you.

There he is!  See his hair?

The bride and groom say "I do" and kiss...

Smoochie smoochie.

...and then things get a little weird for a few minutes.  Karaoke is really popular in Korea, so when two random people got on stage and started singing a love duet, I figured they were friends of the groom.  They seemed like normal people, a bit underdressed to be at a wedding, but excellent singers.  I learned later that they were actually employees of the wedding hall, strangers to the bride and groom, whose job was to sing such a love duet to newlywed couples.  They sang one song and left.

There are some cultural differences that I will never understand.

With the strange love-duet over, the bride and groom walked together down the aisle/catwalk as trumpets showered them with confetti.

A very handsome couple.

Sadly, I missed the confetti moment.

No really, they used trumpets.  Check out the ladies on the left.

With the Kodak moment captured forever, the bride and groom hustle back up to the stage for copious photographs.

Now you can see all the confetti stuff.  The staff began cleaning it up immediately, they were clearly not wasting time.

Just like at an American wedding, lots of photographs were taken.  I think photographs are extremely important--after all, memories may fade, but photos are forever.

The bride and groom with their parents.  I think hanboks are gorgeous.

I'm not 100% sure how the bouquet-throwing thing works in America, but I was always under the impression that all the women try to catch it and the one gets the bouquet is supposed to get married next.  Here the tossing of the bouquet is just a photo opportunity.  The bride's friend (just one) stands behind her, and the bride tosses the flowers back.  This is repeated as many times as necessary to get the perfect bouquet-tossing shot.

Big family photo!  Love the hanboks!

After the ceremony and photos are done--which, like I said, took about 30 minutes total, is that efficient or what?--I went down to the reception/buffet with a few other coworkers.  There are several wedding rooms in the building, and all of them go to the same buffet.  Unfortunately I had eaten before coming--a horrible bulgogi burger, why do I make such bad choices when it comes to bulgogi?--but I did get my fair share of 'cake.'  There wasn't a wedding cake, per se, but there was an assortment of Korean sweets.  Here is a photo of my 'sampler plate,' in which I tried everything on the dessert table:

Oh yessss watermelon.  

Starting at the top and moving clockwise, I'll try to describe the sweets.

1) Green-orange thing: a rice cake with sesame seeds.  Not sweet.  Sadface.
2) Yellow muffin thing: it had a wee tiny drop of cream cheese inside.  Dry.
3) Creamy delicious thing: no idea, possibly coconut?  Delicious, I ate like 10 of these.
4) Watermelon, delicious.  Seedless watermelon is apparently not available in this country though?
5) Ham-and-cheese sandwich.  This was a mistake.  No idea why it was on the dessert table, but once you grab something you can't just put it back.
6) Pink macaron?  Not sure what it's called, but delicious.  Ate several, in different colors!
7) Pink cupcake-thing with a cherry: again, no clue, but delicious.  There were a few left on the plate and one woman took them all, and an involuntary noise of sadness popped out of my mouth.  The woman noticed and gave me one!  Thank you, strange stomach noises!
8) Taco-looking thing: thought it would be chocolate.  It was actually meh-flavor with a filling of meh.
9) Tan-colored ball: this was a rice cake.  It was not sweet.  I cannot understand how this is considered a dessert.  The tan stuff is a powder of some kind, it tastes healthy.  Yick.
10) Yellow cake roll thing: yum!  Moist and flavorful, unlike most Korean baked goods.  I ate a lot of this.
11) Yellow ball: when will I learn that 'dessert' rice cakes are awful?  When?  Seriously, it's been 11 months and I still haven't learned?

I also ate a lot of shrimp.  Yummmy shrimp.  They don't devein the shrimpies in Korea, which is a bit disconcerting for someone not used to eating poop.  I feel like a snobby cretin if I devein them, and I feel like a poop-eating cretin if I don't.

And now for a gratuitous picture of a little old lady in a hanbok, just because she looks awesome:

I'm so jealous.  I don't have any cool culture or heritage with sweet clothes.

There's one more wedding tradition that's worth mentioning: the hahm.  I think this is the best pre-wedding tradition I've ever heard of.

Here's how the hahm works: the groom's family sends a box full of gifts to the bride's family.  How do they send it?  They get the groom's friends drunk and make them take the box.  They then 'negotiate' with the bride and her friends, who tease the groom's friends from the balcony and eventually give them money in exchange for the gift.  There's apparently much singing, yelling, and drunken revelry involved.  Also, squid masks.

Now, when my coworker first told me about the hahm tradition of squid masks, this is what I imagined:

Cute!
From google.

Or...

Also cute!
From google.

Or maybe...

That is adorable.
From piikeastreet.com.

I was so very wrong.  Here's what a 'squid mask' really is:

Ewwww.
From seoulsisters.com.

It's a dried up squid.  A real dehydrated sea creature.  It's considered a food, although it smells kinda bad.

Seriously, ewwwww.  Poor squiddie.
Also from seoulsisters.com.

The hahm seems like a fun tradition, although apparently not many people do it anymore.  Now that many people live in high-rise apartments, it's harder to practice.  After all, you can't really negotiate from the 22nd story of your apartment building with drunk people on the ground.  That'd certainly be noisy.

But Korean weddings aren't all fun and games.  They're also insanely expensive.  It's gotten so bad that the government has stepped in and started to introduce laws limiting certain financial aspects of weddings.  According to some sources, the cost of the average Korean wedding is nearing $175,000 (that's not a typo), although this figure apparently also covers the cost of an apartment and all the furnishings and appliances, as well as the honeymoon.  So maybe it's not that crazy?  I don't know.  When I get married (someday, many years from now) expect a backyard barbecue affair.

Going to a Korean wedding was an awesome experience, and I'm so thankful that I was invited.  I've now been to a Korean wedding, funeral, and baby shower, so I think I've hit all three big life events! One day I'll write about the funeral, because it was very different from a Western funeral, but today is not that day.  Until next time!

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 329

(I HATE) THE RAINY SEASON

I grew up in Michigan, a state that doesn't get much rain--let alone a rainy season.  I got my first taste of the rainy season in Australia, and I can't say that I enjoyed it.  Everything was muddy and smelled like wet dog.  Sometimes I couldn't walk the normal way to class because my normal walkway had become a rapidly-flowing river.  My hair looked like crap every day.  My cheap umbrellas broke while I was walking to class.  On day my umbrella broke and became entangled in my bun, forcing me to walk home holding it awkwardly while also getting soaked.  Another I left my window open a crack and flooded my room.

My point is, some people just aren't made for the rain.

Now that I'm in Korea, I was just getting used to the warm weather when the rainy season started.  Apparently it's worse than normal (everyone said that about winter too) and I haven't seen the sun in weeks.  I hate the rainy season.

In the past 48 hours the rain went from dreary to flash flooding.  I'd say this is worse than the rainy season I experienced in Australia.  My entire running route is destroyed.  And since I don't go outside when it rains, I only caught a glimpse of the aftermath.

I heard reports that we were getting around 200mm of rain per hour.  That's more than most of Antarctica gets all year.  Here's some photos posted today on Facebook from other people in Chuncheon:

Those cars are underwater.
Photo taken by Dae Gyu Kang.

This is on my running route.  Yikes.
Photo by Garrett Rabinak.

UPDATE:  I got a few more videos from facebook.  This one is of a bridge like this one, the water is at least 15 feet deep.  The water is normally about a foot deep and well below the level of the walking path.  The walking path is waaaay below the surface today.

And another video, showing the swan boats and boat restaurants that normally float near my house.  They've been carried away and destroyed in the downstream dam.

In a stroke of luck, I got the urge to go take photos of the route exactly one week ago.  You know, to remember in the future.  The flood waters are receding, but even a day later the flooding is clear.

The river, one week ago:

One week ago, there was almost no water in the river.

The river, today:

Those white specks are herons.  They can't stand in the water because it's moving too quickly.

The tube over on the right was carried away from a construction site about 250m upstream.  I doubt it was the only one.  I think homeless people sometimes sleep under bridges, so I hope no bodies turn up.  :(

Walking bridge, one week ago:

There's some bridge construction being done, so this temporary walking bridge was erected.  Notice the big pile of dirt under the bridge.

 Walking bridge, today:

The bridge is closed.  That dirt pile is gone.  The construction site looks... waterlogged.

Did you notice the difference in the vegetation growing along the river?  The river was so high and fast that all the plants have been bowled over.  The next photo makes it even clearer how high the flood waters were:

On the left side of the photo, that bank was completely submerged yesterday.

Before and after of the new fake-river path that ends with a fake-waterfall, taken one week apart:

One week ago.

Today it's partially underwater.

And you can't really access it, because the walkway has been washed away:

This was less than a month old!  Shame.

Oh, and what's behind there?  That'd be the remains of a footbridge.

That is a lot of detritus.

Not really sure what those long black things are.  Possibly downed lines?

It's the only crossing that survived, so people were still using it.  (Myself included.)
Many were walking precariously on the edge, which would have been disastrous if they fell in.

I've been working on my pull-ups lately, and unfortunately my nearby pull-up bars are gone.

Lots of mud on the path.  You can see how high the water came on this side!
There used to be a workout area on the left.

The waterlogged remains of some benches, three pull-up bars, and two sit-up benches.

There are seats under those grassy balls.  The flood waters have dragged them out, concrete bases and all.

All that's left of my favorite pull-ups spot.  RIP, metal bars.  :(

What's left of the grass.

I walked a little further and was happy to see that the next-closest workout area was dirty but looking structurally sound:

Phew!  At least one still looks usable.

I was quite surprised when I walked under the overpass and discovered grass on the ceiling.  This thing is 3m/9ft high, at least.  Which means that's how high the floodwaters were.  Daaaaaang.

The floor is covered in a 1-inch thick layer of mud.

That's right, there's grass stuck on the lights.

Some rather serious-looking damage.  Not sure what these lines are for, but it doesn't look very safe.

More detritus hanging off the top.  Daaaang I'm glad I wasn't around when that water hit.

The river itself is man-made, and much of the city sewer system drains into it.  It's all about 15-20 feet below the rest of the city, and I imagine it saved a lot of the city from more damage.  I've never seen so much mud in my life.

A little bridge next to a city sewer outlet.  That fence has been ripped off toward the back.  Look at all that detritus!

A week ago it looked like this.  The little inlet on the right is where the bridge/sewer outlet are.

Peaceful, calm, and clear water last week.

If you look in the middle of the photo, just below the bridge there's a line in the water; that's a rock pathway for people to cross on.  In the photo below, the water is moving so quickly that it's hitting the rock path and churning violently.

This is normally a peaceful, slow-moving, and shallow area.  The raging waters are being made by a rock walkway
that's currently underwater.

The only good thing about all this mess is that it's turned up quite the assortment of fish, bugs, and crustaceans.  I found tons of new and exciting creatures on the path in little puddles today!  Sadly my camera died before I could get photos of most of them.

It's blue!  An older Korean gentleman helpfully told me that it was a "Korean lobster."  Awwww.

This looks like a cross between an earwig and a prawn.  MUST COLLECT A SAMPLE.

I'm not entirely sure this guy was supposed to be in the water?  Weird though.  About the size of my thumb.

Extra bonus?  Because the water is shallow, warm, and stagnant, there's not much oxygen for the little guys!  That means they're slow and easy to catch!

My mother will be so proud that her daughter can catch a fish without a net.

I might have to go collect samples--you can take the marine biologist away from the ocean, but you can't make her stop bringing home weird bugs, flatworms, and mystery crustaceans.

If I do end up collecting some samples (and finally putting those bug-boxes to good use) I'll be sure to post the photos soon!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton