wedding

Sometime last week marked the 5th anniversary of the first time I came to Korea. Five years feels about right, I think. As time has progressed, my amazement that I actually went through with it and came here has never really abated. I'm still as shocked as ever that this is where my life has taken me. I still occasionally, whilst out and about, stop and look around and think to myself, "You live in South Korea. What the hell are you doing here?"


Of those sixty months since I first set foot on Korean soil, I reckon I've spent forty-five months in Korea, the rest having been spent back home whilst between jobs. That's a long time to spend anywhere. In fact, I turned 30 recently, which would've also been my 360th month alive, meaning that those 45 months constitute 12.5% of my entire life. That's 1/8th of my entire existence spent here.

You know, being that I've been here a while, I've done a lot of things, and I've written about a lot of them here, so maybe the well of things to write about has just about dried up. This would explain the dwindling output of yours truly on this my beloved blog.

But now, in an attempt to awaken from this torpor, I will relay to you a fresh, new experience I've had in Korea. This weekend, for the first time ever, I attended a Korean wedding. (Perhaps titling this post "wedding"has taken a bit of the punch out of this big reveal.)

But yes! a Korean wedding. I knew neither the bride nor the groom. I'd never met either one of them before. The groom was a childhood friend of my girlfriend. This tenuous connection to either party involved added to my sense of being an interloper. I say "added to" because I pretty much idle at interloper when I'm over here.

We arrived about 5 minutes late, because parking was, as it always is in this country, a nightmare. I figured there was no harm done, because despite our tardiness, as we approached the church there were still loads of people milling around the vestibule, smoking cigarettes and talking. We entered the church, and paused briefly at a table were two gentlemen sat. Mihyun received an envelope from one of them, which she wrote her name on, put some cash into, and gave back. We entered the sanctuary.

Now here's where it gets a little weird. We opened the doors, and there were immediately on the other side more people who were also just chatting and milling around, along with other people seated in the pews. Altogether there was a decent amount of people in there but considerably less than there were out front and in the foyer. The weird thing was that the ceremony was quite clearly in progress. I mean, the bride and groom were plainly evident at the end of the aisle, along with a priest. (I should mention now that only was this my first Korean wedding, but these Koreans were also Catholics, making it my first Catholic wedding as well.)

We quickly found a seat in the back corner and I tried to figure out what the hell was happening. I saw that yes indeed the the wedding was in progress, as the priest was standing up at the pulpit, giving a sermon I guess. But still, in the back, were all these people just standing around, and talking, like it was nothing. Then I looked around at the sparsely populated pews in front of us, and saw that most of the people in the back ten rows or so were also just carrying on and having normal conversations. The pews toward the front of the church were more densely populated, and were full of people actively paying attention to what the priest had to say.

It went on like this, with people toward the back giving the ceremony half of their attention at most. A lady in the pew in front of me had her phone loudly ringing. She sat there and answered it like it was nothing. People came and went as they pleased. Some coming in and sitting for five minutes, then getting up and leaving again. And all the while there was that cluster of people standing toward the back, emitting a bit more than a murmur. Occasionally the service would require that the congregation stand, and about half of us would. The priest talked for a long time. Then a lady sang a song. Then 3 high school girls sang another song. Then it just sorta ended. The bride and groom, now I suppose as husband and wife, walked back up the aisle. But they never actually left, they just turned around again and walked back toward the pulpit and had their pictures taken. Then everybody wandered out of the church and back outside.

The area outside was now deserted, save for the fellow stragglers with whom we were exiting the church. I wondered what happened to all those people who had been there half an hour earlier, because I was sure that not all of them, hell not even half of them had ever made it into the sanctuary. We made our way to the next building over, where the "reception" was being held.

We entered, and it was already a heaving mad house. There were about 3 dozen tables in there, and then toward the left side was a buffet. The tables were packed with people who, despite the wedding having just ended, were producing that accumulative cacophony of those who have clearly been at it for a while. The whole place had a foggy, humid atmosphere, like it was full of hot breath and wet shoes. At the middle of each table were empty soju and beer bottles.

There wasn't enough seating in the place, but we managed to find a spot where some people had already finished eating and left. It was filthy, with crumbs and globs of food on the tablecloth, but it was clearly as good as we were going to find. We headed to the buffet, and everything was pretty much gone or half gone. The food that was available was soggy and tepid. I filled up a plate, ate half of it, and convinced Mihyun it was time to go.

Soon thereafter we did. The bride and groom never showed up to the "reception" meaning that they were never received, which makes calling it a "reception"erroneous. I had a lot of questions for Mihyun about all that I'd seen. She said that in Korea it's normal for people to show up to a wedding just for the food, and then go home. I explained that in the US, that goes unsaid at a wedding. Of course everyone just wants to get to the food, but we all agree first to actually watch the people get married before stuffing our faces. I contended that wasn't it more than rude for those to talk throughout the ceremony? And for others to eat the food provided for them without actually attending the wedding. Hell, for them to eat the food while the wedding was happening. She agreed, as she often does after I exhort some aspect of Korean society as being rude or uncouth, but as always it was a passive acknowledgement. A Yeah, but what're you gonna do?

I'm currently reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. It's delightful and appropriate given my current situation and station in life. To most accurately explain my attitude toward Korean weddings, I'll have to borrow a term from the book, and simply say that I don't grok them.