A Brit marries a Korean – at the beginning
of the month, a student who is marrying a gentleman
from England, invited us to her traditional Korean wedding.
Many Koreans have never been to a traditional wedding.
Reminds me of when I lived in Finland, when I did the
thing where you get into the ice water and dunk whole
body under the ice water. It was only afterwards that
I found out that the most Finnish people haven't even
done that. (Nowadays in Korea, weddings are usually
held in wedding halls, with Western style dress. After
the western style ceremony, they also usually hold a
short private ceremony. Only the bride, the groom and
their parents take part).We were fortunate to have the
chance to see a real tradtional wedding.
We went to the main ceremony in the courtyard of a traditional
styled and appropriately named place called 'Korea House'.
The picture below is kind of unusual. Half Koreans.
Half English. An Englishman dressed in the Korean traditional
dress, a Hanbok. As it turns out, a few of them are
also from Plymouth, my home city, in England.
All
photos by Valeria Lo Iacono & Paul Symonds
Below left, check out the bride at the beginning of
the ceremony, as she walks and holds her arms aloft
to protect her face until she takes the vows.Her hands
need to be in this position for about 30 minutes which
is a killer. Try it at home. In the photo on the right,
an Englishman goes through the bowing process, which
also looks painful. A certain amount of flexibility
is required as one must bow numerous times. In the picture
he is receiving a wooden duck. The husband and wife
will both have a wooden duck at home when they are married
and the ducks should always face each other. If one
of them is upset they turn their wooden duck around
to face the other way.
Below left: some members of the Korean family
and, on the right, the beginning of the ceremony.
In the picture below on the left, you can see the
wedding table. Underneath there are two real chickens.
We don’t know their purpose and any Korean
we ask, also has no idea. They are not slaughtered
during the ceremony.Just in case though, we didn't
eat the chicken at the buffet afterwards.
You can see also two little tables with teapots
and plates. Drinking tea is part of the ceremony
and no Englishman will ever reject a cup of tea,
just as no Italian will turn away an espresso at
breakfast time. The dress code is unusual. Most
people were very well dressed but some adults and
kids were in t-shirts and jeans. Koreans get invited
to so many weddings as at un-traditional weddings,
everyone is automatically invited. Everyone you
ever went to school with, everyone who you work
with etc is welcome to your wedding. In excess of
100 often attend for the short ceremony.
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Below there is another picture of the bride
and the groom with some Korean friends or relatives.
Below you can see Valeria and I, with
the bride and the groom, during the buffet, which was
in the same building. Thirty minutes after starting
the buffet, the staff were clearing the tables for the
next wedding crowd. In England people hang around together
for hours on end and often drink a lot and in Italy,
a wedding banquet can last for 5 hours.
After the ceremony and after the reception
we were invited to join them in a bar, which is run
by the bride’s brother. We (Valeria, our friend
Stuart from Scotland and myself), were invited to the
brides after-party.This is always a small and private
party, usually only for the brides close friends.
The bride's brother had the newly weds do some games
that, we were told, are traditional. The couple had
to put the yoke of a raw egg, into one of their mouth's,
and then the couple had to pass the raw egg between
their mouths, as many times as they could. After about
20 times the bridegroom then spat the egg back into
the glass. Next, the bride had to roll a hard boiled
egg up into one leg of his trousers and then down through
the other side. Finally, the bridegroom had to hold
a banana near his trousers and she had to eat it.
Usually Koreans like to force people to
perform during parties, and this was no exception. First,
they picked three Korean friends, who sang. Then, since
we were the only foreigners, they picked us. None of
us wanted to sing, but fortunately the groom saved the
situation improvising a sort of can can dance, so we
got away with it.
For westerners this kind of situation
is usually vary annoying. In Korean culture though,
it’s normal to pick somebody and ask them to sing
and expect it. When they do sing it is usually always
a ballad as Koreans just love to sing love songs non-stop.
Final picture below, these two guys turned up at the
wedding, opened up a newspaper which they read for 15
minutes and then left.
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