Tag: international marriage (Page 3 of 3)

INTERCULTURAL MARRIED LIFE: AUSTRALIAN/KOREAN COUPLES

2016/04/24 / Nic / 0 Comments

We ask questions to Australian/Korean married couples! How did you meet? What aspects of your partner’s culture have you adopted? Best and worst things about international/intercultural relationships? Advice or other couples?

Big thank you to everyone who helped us make this video!

Check out Rachel and Nick’s YouTube channel, The Drunken Bear here.

Check out Sophie’s blog on raising a bilingual child here.

There is a reason why we don’t do these videos regularly: they sure are a pain to edit! But we had been wanting to do something like this for a long time. This video is just Australian/Korean couples, but we may in the future do another video with a bigger mix of people. We wanted to focus on the culture rather than race aspects, as too often people focus on race and what people look like. But culture is what we should be talking about. How do you navigate and international and intercultural marriage? It’s an ongoing exploration and discussion.

(A video with Korean subs will be coming).

Australian Korean BBQ

2016/01/20 / Nic / 2 Comments

Another quick video in our Australian summer series! You may be wondering how this group of people actually came together. Some of us grew up in the same areas, or went to the same schools, and then only later in life have reconnected because we’ve all married into Korean families. Other people we’ve met through the blog or through Korean classes. Australia is becoming more and more multicultural and as the Korean population grows, the more common multicultural families with Australians and Koreans are becoming. It’s great being friends with other couples and families in similar situations, and with some of us living in Korea and some of us living in Australia, it’s rare that all of us can come together like this.

Secret Weddings?

2015/10/27 / Nic / 3 Comments

Chloe and I talk about the reality of why you might have a secret wedding if you marry a Korean.

We talked a little bit in the video about friends reactions and as Chloe said, questions about proposals and diamond rings, but I think people really don’t realise how hurtful some comments can be. Especially in western culture, we get so hung up on this idea of when the marriage started on paper that people can say some things without realising how frustrating and hurtful that can be. I’ve had extended family members try to insist that my office registry wedding was my only real wedding. That type of thinking really casts a shadow on the actual weddings we want to share with family and friends and are just inappropriate, because actually it’s our relationship and we get to choose when we publicly commit ourselves to each other. When people are forced by necessity to marry in a government office, others shouldn’t try to lessen that just because it’s not how they expect a marriage to start. From what I’ve seen from other international couples we know, is that regardless of how the marriage started or if there had to be a secret office registry wedding, they are all happy with the choices they made.

Wedding Anniversary

2015/04/22 / Nic / 9 Comments

Will I?…. Will I really?

I’m pretty terrible with dates and hardly remember anything, I even looked at the date yesterday and didn’t remember it was our anniversary. We do have 3 wedding anniversaries though (registry, Australian and Korean) so if we do miss one, there are others to celebrate. I also have a very understanding husband who doesn’t expect much but likes spoiling me, so we still had a nice dinner together. And part of my present was BIGBANG concert tix!

(Quick give me ideas for what I can do for our Korean wedding anniversary!!!!!)

6 Challenges of International Relationships

2015/01/29 / Nic / 4 Comments

While movies often glamorize international relationships, in reality there are a lot of things to think about!

Also just wanted to clarify that when we say “the government doesn’t care if you are married” we meant that the government doesn’t give a crap about your love life and a marriage certificate is not a visa, nor does it guarantee a visa. However, actually being married can make obtaining a visa easier. We will expand on these topics in later videos.

AKG – What did their friends think about them marrying a foreign woman?

2014/06/20 / Nic / 8 Comments

This is a serious topic, so not exactly a light hearted video. In hindsight I realise how much more accepting my husband’s parents were than his friends. I was welcomed into the family right away but I realise now that some of his friends had reservations. I think people would usually think that it would be the other way around. We get a lot of questions about if the parents will accept, but less about friends. Of course parents have more power but also you can’t underestimate the power of friendships, especially because Koreans have such long and enduring friendships. There have definitely been break ups between Korean men and foreign women that were influenced by friends.

On a more light-hearted note, Han is wearing one of my sweaters for some reason in this video.