I’ve met some of his friends in his home town so I certainly believe this! They are quite big competitive guys who maybe don’t understand romance that well…
It also reminds me of this scene on the TV show Scrubs.
Category: In Korea (Page 22 of 25)
Seoul!
I have a question from a reader:
I will be going for a student exchange programme this march, at a university in jongno-gu, seoul. Is it possible if you could give an advice on how to find an accommodation in seoul? Any advice is also welcomed.
Since we don’t live in Korea yet I can’t give much advice on this BUT I have many lovely readers that I’m sure can help. For those living in Korea right now or have previously lived in Korea and can give advice on this, please leave a comment in the comment section. Thanks ^_^
I recently got some more photos from our traditional Korean wedding so I thought I’d share some.
Two weeks after we had our Australian wedding we flew to Korea for our Korean wedding. Koreans don’t really do big traditional weddings like this anymore, instead most Koreans have a more westernized wedding and may just have a small ceremony after in traditional clothes. We had a wedding company organise our wedding but unfortunately we had no idea what was going on! Also, because this type of wedding is rarely done now, even the older relatives weren’t sure what was supposed to happen!
It ended up being pretty surreal and some points I was terrified. My husband looks so different in these photos as well. They put some horrendous makeup on him and pushed his hair back under the hat. The wedding was in Jinju Castle which is open to the public, so there was a huge crowd of people watching us. The sun was so hot and I remember sitting across from my husband, not being able to move in my hanbok, and worried my makeup was running down my face. My husband looked over me and mouthed, “This is terrible.” I just nodded and tried not to faint. I hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. The wedding seemed to go forever and I had no idea what was going on, but afterwards, especially when I look at the photos I know it was worth it. I can laugh about it now and it was definitely an experience!
Our friends who had to carry us.
They all complained that he was too heavy.
Here we had to pass a jujube or a date to each other using our mouths.
Juno Marie asked me to do a blog post on if we get stared at in Korea or Australia and if we find it awkward.
I was trying to think of a comic to do for this, or at least a picture but all it would consist of is a drawing of people staring at us… so not that interesting. So this blog post will just be an extra one instead and there will still be a normal comic on schedule.
We do get stared at in Korea and Australia. In Korea we get stared at by Koreans and in Australia we get stared at by……….Koreans. Okay, sometimes it’s other people but the majority of stares are from Koreans. I understand why though. In Australia an interracial couple isn’t that unusual, an Asian man with a Western woman is a little bit different but it’s not enough for Australians to blatantly stare (unless it’s a really rural white area).
However, in Korea it’s a very homogenous population so they are just not used to seeing a relationship that is a bit different. I feel more uncomfortable in Korea, because it’s not my home country and I get stared at even without my husband. Sometimes the way people stare feels a bit like being famous without any of the perks of being famous. In Australia, no matter who is doing the staring, I don’t care, because it’s my country.
When we meet Koreans in Australia (and I mean Koreans IN Australia, not Korean Australians) they usually comment on our relationship with something like, “You are an unusual couple!” They can be quite shocked (not necessarily in a bad way) that I’m Australian and married to a Korean man. Australians may find it interesting that my husband is Korean but it’s hardly shocking to them.
Korean guys stare at us the most I think. What they are thinking about, I can only guess at though. Koreans on student visas and working holiday visas tend to just live and work with other Koreans and stay in the Korean community so even while they are here in Australia, it’s unusual for them to see a Korean guy with a non-Korean.
So in conclusion, yes we do get stared at a bit in Australia. In Korea we definitely get stared at, but a lot of my time in Korea has been spent in my husband’s home town which is very rural area with no white people. When we live in Korea for a few years I’ll see what the difference is between the more rural areas and the cities.
I just try to brush it off and ignore it for the most part, especially when I realise most times people aren’t doing it to be rude, but are just a bit curious.
This was something that confused me. South Korea is so technologically advanced and internet savvy, I couldn’t work out why every Korean I knew was using IE. Not only the fact that IE is acknowledged to be the worst browser, but also that Koreans seemed to have no variety when it came to browsers.
I realise why now, thanks to a friend who sent me this article. Internet Explorer becomes Korean election issue by Phil Muncaster.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer market share may soon take a tumble in South Korea if presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo wins looming elections. The hot seat hopeful plans to abolish an anachronistic government crypto standard which has effectively locked users into Internet Explorer for over a decade.
At the tail end of the 1990s, the Korean government decided in its wisdom to develop a home-grown 128-bit SSL encryption standard to increase security around e-commerce.
SEED, as it was known, was then mandated for all online transactions.
The only problem with this new system was that it requires users to install Microsoft ActiveX plug-in to work and therefore needs Internet Explorer.
The result: a decade-long monopoly for IE as banking, shopping and other transactional sites were optimised specifically and exclusively for the Microsoft browser.
Now it makes sense! Koreans have been forced into using IE and because of that, many do not know that there are much better browsers to use when they are outside of Korea. Which is why many Koreans will still use IE even when in places like Australia, because they just haven’t thought about using a different one.
Well you learn something new every day.
(By the way, the first panel in the comic is a lie. Korean boys in internet cafes in Korea never look at me. While I might get stared at a lot walking on the streets, inside the hazy, smokey internet cafes no one even notices the tall blonde Caucasian woman cursing at IE, because they are so focused on gaming).
Ally asks:
“What is “fat” in Korea? Do you have stories about any shopping experiences when you went there (regarding the size or clothes they offer, culture shock, etc)? From what I’ve heard, they have clothing sizes that are quite different from US/UK sizes which my friend tells me is due to there being a little amount of “fat” people in Korea.”
Since I’ve only visited Korea and not lived there for longer than 1 month I’m opening up this question to those who are from other countries and living in Korea right now. Please share your experiences of shopping in Korea in the comment section and people can discuss it and vote up good answers.
There is a different idea of what is fat in Korea. As with most first world countries: skinny is in. But Koreans in general are smaller than Western people so when they are trying to achieve an even smaller size it is really small for us. Korean society is also very focused on looks so there is even more pressure to be skinny. Whereas Western societies tend to embrace differences more, Korea has a mono culture so those that are different can have a difficult time.
When Korean girls in particular come to Australia they often feel like they can relax a lot more here, they’ll eat more and not worry so much about being skinny. Australia has a lot more delicious sweet food and they’ll often take a liking to it (especially Tim Tams). But, as their working holiday or student visas comes to a close they will start to panic about their weight. Of course to Australians it’s not like they even look fat, but they start to worry about what everyone will say when they get back to Korea about their weight gain.
One of my friends had her mother say to her “If you are fat, don’t come home.” The things that are said, and the high standard can be quite shocking to me. If I stacked on the weight while overseas my friends wouldn’t even really mention it, but for Korean girls they know when they go back to Korea their friends and family will say directly to them “You are fat.” So much more pressure.
Okay, so what about shopping? I haven’t done much clothes shopping in Korea but I remember going shopping in Busan where there were lots of tiny and crowded clothes shops.
I felt overwhelmed and awkward. Luckily I can fit into Korean sizes mostly, which is good because sizes seem to be something like ‘Small’ and ‘Even Smaller’. And there is something called ‘Free size’ which I think is supposed to be one size fits all? In these type of clothes shops you pick out what you want and when you are at the counter they go get a plastic sealed one for you. Mostly here in Australia we will pick something from the racks, try it on and buy that exact item.
Once we live in Korea for a few years I’m sure I’ll have more stories about shopping in Korea.
Speaking of being overweight or a bigger size again, don’t think that every single person is really skinny. There are people who are overweight, there are people who are just naturally very big, just not as much as somewhere like Australia. I asked my husband where bigger people buy their clothes from, and he said, “The internet. You can buy everything on the internet.”
So there you go…
(This post is more serious than usual and about a sensitive topic).
Okay this needs some explanation. My husband is from a very rural area and his parents still live there. This woman who also lives there asked my mother-in-law this question because she assumed that because my husband married a foreign woman that he must have paid for me (and sends money to my family every month).
As you can see my mother-in-law was like…. what? She had to explain that her son had met an Australian woman and fell in love and got married and that Australia was not somewhere you buy wives from.
There are two reasons why this woman thought this: the first is that she is pretty ignorant about other countries (not unusual in very rural areas anywhere) and the second reason is because this actually happens in Korea – men paying for foreign wives – so it’s not that unusual. Also this woman had actually organised a wife for her own son!
So why does this happen? There are many factors why and it’s not exactly black and white. Each situation is different. But basically there are some men in Korea who can’t find anyone to marry and there are women in poorer Asian countries looking for a better life. So there are agencies that organise these marriages. In theory this arrangement should benefit both families.
I can understand the reasoning behind it for women from poor areas in other countries. If they stay where they are, they know they will be disadvantaged and poor for the rest of the their life, but if they marry a man from Korea (or Taiwan is the other place they go) they get a chance at a new life, as well as money sent to their family. However, there are obviously many risks.
What sort of Korean men need to pay for a wife? This can really vary, for example the woman in my husband’s home town, her son was only 29 and perhaps he is just socially awkward. We don’t know much except that he’d never had a girlfriend and his parents thought it important for him to marry. There is more pressure in Korea to marry by a certain age and they obviously thought the best solution was to get a foreign bride for him.
However, not every guy is going to just be some nice but socially awkward guy. There are other reasons for why a man may be unable to find a wife in Korea. His character could be questionable, he could be abusive, he wants a wife to do everything for him… these are the type of men that cause problems for the foreign women that come to Korea and there are a lot of sad stories. There are more incidents of violence and abuse in these type of marriages not only in Korea, but for example in cases where men in the U.S.A get a foreign bride from poorer European countries. This is because of the type of man who is going to these agencies for a wife. There is obviously a higher percentage of abusive men, which is why this can be so risky for women.
Some men may just be old, others may just be living in a rural area where younger women don’t want to live anymore. It really varies. Some women find a better life (one such woman has even become a politician I’ve heard), others may find something only slightly better than in their own country, others face discrimination and abuse. Some women will leave the man as soon as they get their Korean citizenship and go to Seoul, never to be seen again. This happened to a cousin of my husband’s actually. Every situation is different.
I know some governments of the countries where these wives come from have warned against these type of marriages because of the risks involved, also the social implications, for example the men left in the poorer areas of these countries with no one to marry. I did watch a documentary about it recently where they are trying to work with the agencies to at least teach the women about Korean life and teaching the language before they go to Korea, to try and make it easier for these women.
I guess among all the sad stories there are also the happier stories. For example the man in my husband’s hometown, he and his foreign wife seem to have a happy life and have recently had a baby. So for her at least, the risks she took were worth it.
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