Month: February 2014

Happy Wedding in Seoul

In honor of Valentine’s Day and our five month anniversary, today I’d like to talk about our wedding last year in Seoul.

My husband and I met while I was doing a summer program in Seoul, and after a year of traveling back and forth between Yokohama and Seoul we decided to get married.

In an international marriage there are a lot of things to consider, but one of the first big decisions is where to get married.  Japan was out because it would limit the number of his friends and family who could attend, and wasn’t any closer to my family.  We decided against America because it would mean arranging things long distance, or leaving the whole process to my parents.  Seoul was the ideal choice because all of his friends and family could attend, my close friends from Japan could make the trip, and my immediate family could see Korea.  Also, organizing a wedding in Korea was surprisingly stress free.

Next we had to decide what kind of wedding to have.  In Korea there are two main choices: a western style wedding at a wedding hall, or a traditional Korean style wedding.  We both agreed right away that a wedding hall wedding was too boring and impersonal.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  If you dream of wearing a fancy white dress and having a western style ceremony that’s fine.  But for me the wedding halls seem like “wedding factories” putting you through an assembly line of ceremonies and turning out many multiple couples a day.  Plus I thought if I am going to invite people from Japan or America to attend it should be something unique.  The traditional wedding seems to be very popular with international couples in Korea, probably for very similar reasons.

Namsangol Hanok Village
Namsangol Hanok Village

Being on a budget, we decided to get married at Namsangol Hanok Village (남산골한옥마을) (Korean site, there are links to other languages on the right side). This is a kind of outdoor museum of tradtional Korean houses at the foot of Namsan Mountain, and worth visiting just for the experience. (Access from Chungmuro Station, or walk about 15 minutes from Myeongdong.) On weekends, you can get married here in a traditional ceremony for relatively little money, but there are a few small catches.  The first is that they really only have facilities for outdoor weddings.  If it rains, the bride and groom will be moved inside, but the guests have to watch from tents outside, which is a problem if you have a lot of guests.  The other caveat is that the trade off for a cheap wedding is that your wedding is essentially one of their tourist attractions, open for anyone to see.  If you don’t have a problem with that you are good to go, and if you are a tourist it is definitely a worthwhile experience.  Weddings are done on weekends in the spring and fall at 11:00, 1:00 and 3:00, but of course it does depend on there being couples to get married.  Just remember that while the website calls them “reenactments” they are real couples’ actual weddings, so try to respect them and their invited guests.

Gourds for drinking rice wine
Gourds for drinking rice wine
The "alter" from the side
The “alter” from the side
Front view of the "alter" with the official who married us
Front view of the “alter” with the official who married us
Traditional music
Traditional music

As for our wedding day…

It rained the entire week leading up to the wedding, and my mom and sister got very wet walking from their hotel in Myeongdong to the ceremony that morning, but by the time for taking pre-wedding pictures it had thankfully stopped raining, and by the time the ceremony itself started it had dried out quite a bit. That was good because in the Korean tradition his parents had invited everyone they know – they sent 447 invitations through the mail, and handed out even more in person to close friends and family. The final tally for guests was about 300.

The thing that surprised me the most was the lack of any kind of rehearsal at all. There was a quick practice of jeol (절), or bowing, prior to the ceremony, and that was it – no explanation of the order or what would happen, let alone any kind of run through.  There are, however, attendants who stay by you the entire time and tell you what to do.  Luckily, I could understand just enough Korean to follow their instructions.  My friends told me later that it looked like I knew what I was doing, so I guess that’s what matters most.

The other thing I remember clearly was bowing a lot, and how sore I was the next day because of it! During the ceremony itself there was a lot of standing up and kneeling down and of course bowing, but then there was the pyebaek (폐백) ceremony afterwards. This involves greeting the new in-laws and bowing to them. My husband’s parents have a total of eleven siblings between them, so that’s a lot of bowing.

Groom bowing
Groom bowing
Bride bowing
Bride bowing
Everyone bowing
Everyone bowing
Pyebaek bowing
Pyebaek bowing

Overall, it was a really great day, and exactly what we wanted in a wedding.  There is probably a lot more to say, but I’ll save that for another day.

Our wedding rings
Our wedding rings
Happy Valentine's Day
Happy Valentine’s Day

Journey Back

In May I’ll be leaving Japan for Korea.

As part of the preparation for my next journey I needed to go back to the university where I spent my year abroad to get my transcript from that time.

I spent my year abroad at International Christian University in Mitaka, Tokyo.  It wasn’t my first time in Japan, but it was an important step in bringing me to where I am.

The main school building at ICU
The main school building at ICU

Choosing a place to study abroad can be a difficult decision, especially if your university is like mine and has multiple places to choose from.  At the time there were 5 or 6 choices just in Japan.

Waseda and Keio were definitely the most famous of the bunch, but I decided against attending them.  For me the primary reason was that Keio and Waseda had special programs for exchange students.  There were special English based classes about Japan in subjects like literature, history or economics that only exchange students could take, and of course special classes to teach Japanese.  I’m sure students with a very high level of Japanese would be able to participate in regular classes with Japanese students, but I wasn’t that confident in my Japanese level.

At ICU it was a different environment.  Foreign students entered as OYRs, or One Year Regular students.  The key point being that we were “regular” students.  ICU’s selling point is the quality of their English education, and as part of that, even Japanese students have to take a certain number of regular courses (not EFL) in English.  That meant there was a wide variety of classes offered in English, and they were not necessarily populated entirely by foreigners.  In addition, there are so-called JE or EJ classes that are offered in a variety of Japanese and English, so lectures might be in Japanese with English textbooks, or vice versa.  As foreigners, we could take any class offered as long as we felt up to the language requirements.

I went to summer school before the regular year started, and ended up finishing the Japanese language program in the second of the three trimesters.  For my third term I was able to take a couple of JE classes that were relevant to my major back at my home university.  It was a good opportunity to test my language abilities and get to know the regular Japanese students.

The other good thing about being a “regular” student was that there was no barrier between the foreign students and the Japanese students, and we were free to participate in any club or student activities we wanted to.  That was where I made most of my friends – friends who are still among my closest friends in Japan today.

Everyone has a different idea of what they want to get out of their time abroad.  Everyone goes into the experience with different levels of Japanese, and different academic interests, so different programs will appeal to people for different reasons.  But don’t overlook the importance of the social aspects and integration into the school and the country.  The most common complaint I heard from people in other programs was that they wished they had had more interaction with the regular students.

Whether you go to a school that makes it easier to integrate, or to a school that keeps you a little more removed, making an effort to get to know people in the country you are visiting is an integral part of the experience, and worth all the effort it takes!

The entryway to ICU with cherry trees... in February
The entryway to ICU with cherry trees… in February

**This was 13 years ago, so programs at all of the schools mentioned above may have changed.  If you are planning to study abroad, take sometime to really look into the kind of program it is, and get advice from people who have been there before if you can.