(Flower boy roughly translate to something like ‘well-groomed pretty boy’.)
Don’t feel too sorry for him… He got a nasty cut on his cheek when he came home from a having a very big Saturday night. We think he tripped coming up the outside stairs that lead to the roof and possibly cut it open on some metal pipes (a situation that was entirely preventable). Right now he has a big bandage on his cheek and he is doing everything he can so it doesn’t leave a scar.
He has aspirations to be a flower boy but is too lazy. When he slicks his hair back he really does look like a gangster because of his strong forehead and features. At our Australian wedding we had a vintage theme and many Korean friends were saying he looked like a certain Korean gangster from last century.
That’s why he is a bit sensitive about having a scar on his cheek. Hopefully it will heal okay.
Hugh and Daniel talk about other couples that are also Korean guys and Western girls.
This question is a bit hard to answer. Our perspective is affected by what we see through the blog. We get lots and lots of emails and comments from other couples like us. So we are personally seeing a lot but compared to the general population it’s still a small amount. It does seem that in the past 5 years there has been a kind of surge in marriages between Koreans and foreigners though. Much more than before. There are other couples like us because more people are going to Korea to work and study and more Koreans are going to other countries. Both Hugh and Daniel went to Australia and started dating Australian girls.
From what I see, most couples like us are somewhat recently married. We get emails from people who married a long time ago occasionally, but they usually mention that they were always very different to everyone around them. We meet many people through the blog, but even without the blog there are many are connections forming. For example, Sophie and Chloe knew each other growing up, and just happened to both end up with Korean men. From my hometown, a predominately white area in the countryside, there are 2 other women who also married Korean men.
As well as people travelling a lot more and meeting people they wouldn’t normally ever get to meet, the interest in Kpop and Kdramas have opened a lot of doors, especially in regards to how Korean men are perceived. If you look at the history of Asian men in movies and western media, it’s a pretty sad story. Asian men are rarely cast as leads, unless it’s an action movie, and never cast as the lead male in romance movies. They get stuck in roles of villains or bumbling side kicks. What Kpop and Kdramas has done is changed many women’s perception of Asian men and shown that they are sexy and masculine and so much more than what western media says. I know some people worry about Korean men being fetishized, but you gotta cut teenage girls some slack. Any one who goes into a relationship with a Korean guy just because he is Korean will find that the relationship does not last very long. The guy will work it out pretty quickly, give him some credit! If someone starts dating a guy because their views were opened up by Kpop, if it turns into a long term and loving relationship, well it’s no one’s business but their own. It’s mean to make judgements about someone else’s relationship, (though people still seem to do it all the time).
Another aspect that comes up a lot is what actually constitutes a Korean guy when we talk about international couples? If my husband had grown up in Australia as a Korean Australian would I have made this blog? Probably not. How many cultural differences would we have? It’s hard to say and would depend so much on what his home life had been. It’s such a blurry line. There are people who identify as Korean but it was their parents or grandparents that were born in Korea, not them. It also means they grew up in western culture so there aren’t as big cultural differences when dating. But I’ve heard from people married to Korean Americans that even though their husband grew up in the US, there are still cultural things he does that Mr Gwon also does. Then there are others have almost no identity with Korean culture. We are always emphasising the culture and cultural differences on this blog. We aren’t interested in just physical aspects. We also shy away from identifying ourselves as an “Asian male/White female” couple and don’t really like those types of tags. It’s not about our looks and within the terms “Asian” and “White” there are a vast amount of differences and cultures. When we share our lives with people we want to talk about our relationship and our cultures and what life is like for us.
That’s why the people we end up being friends with are very similar to us. Usually they are Korean men who grew up in Korea with Australian women. We also have a wider circle of friends who are mostly Korean men with Western women.
One interesting aspect of being married – or even being around – someone from another culture who speaks English as a second language is the way they can say things that kinda sound offensive but it’s meant as a compliment. Sophie and I mentioned it in a video and talked about our husbands saying things like, “I like it when you are a bit chubby”. For us there can be negative connotations to things like that, but it’s not meant in a negative way. The same way the first time Koreans told me that I have a small face, I thought they were insulting me.
It’s also interesting the way standards for beauty often relate to things that are unobtainable for some people. I’m always amazed to see butt padding or “butt bras” in Korean underwear shops for women to make their butts look bigger.
For me, comments about the size of my rear end can carry the remnants of embarrassing moments from teenage years. Although I was always considered to be on the thinner size, I’ve never been flat in that area. One teenage moment that springs to mind was dressing up as the Spice Girls with friends, and I was ‘Posh Spice’ and wearing a tight dress. Another girl rudely commented about how big my butt was in front of everyone… Combine that with reading magazines containing articles about how to make your butt smaller and tighter…
None of that matters now, and I’ve learning to shake off that negativity. Beauty can be so subjective. Whatever shape you are, there will be someone who likes it.
I just still sometimes have that 1 second of thinking something is an insult before realising it’s a compliment.
So we got the box of paints that we ordered just over 12 hours later…. impressive. We’ve mentioned before that Korea has a “bally bally” culture, which means “quickly quickly”. This is great for consumers, but I do sometimes worry about how much effort is put in to get things sent so quickly. Korea is a lot smaller than Australia though, so it does make it easier to send things. So many things are available for quick delivery. Home shopping is much bigger here as well. My mother-in-law orders a lot of things she sees on TV.
The day we both forgot the word “chopsticks”. My whole life I’ve been setting the table with “knives and forks” so that’s my excuse! Even though in recent years I use chopsticks more than knives and forks, it’s still ingrained in me that that’s how you set the table.
Koreans tend to use metal chopsticks and a spoon, so setting the table involves setting out the chopsticks with a spoon for each person.
I think I’ve mentioned mulgwishin before, which are water ghosts, but gwishin (귀신) in general tend to usually be female ghosts wearing the white funeral clothes with long dark hair. When you become more emerged in Korean culture you start to hear the word a lot more and realise how scary they are for people. I was just saying the word “fishing” but my husband thought I had said “gwishin”. Slightly worrying because it was late in the day and where we live is perfect habitat for gwishins! We live in an old village full of old houses and abandoned falling down houses. We also live near a school. Schools feature heavily in gwishin folklore because schools are so creepy at night and are all very similar looking across Korea. If I see a school in a Korean horror movie I know that at some point I need to walk past the school here at night, so it’s probably best not to watch those types of movies.
When we cut through the school grounds I usually salute the statue of Admiral Yi (important figure in Korean history) just to be on his good side. Many schools have a statue of him and it’s said that he gets down from his pedestal and walks around the school grounds at night. We figure that if a gwishin in the school is coming after us, Admiral Yi can come save us. Of course we don’t really have a strong belief in ghosts and all that, but it’s funny how folklore can affect the little things you do day to day.
It’s also time remember that the Korean War never officially ended. We aren’t just commemorating fallen soldiers from long ago wars, but also remembering those who have died recently while protecting their country. Soldiers are still killed in skirmishes with North Korea and in military service accidents.
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