But, you know what? Cultural differences are what it's all about in my opinion. I'm a huge fan of that kind of thing. Awkward moments, miscommunication, confusion??
I couldn't believe how many people were talking while the ceremony was happening. The doors were even open to the hallway!! It was a Saturday, so there were thousands of people milling about, going to the dozens of different wedding ceremonies that were being held throughout the complex. You can imagine the noise. And, plus, the woman being married was a Grade 1 Science Teacher at one of the Middle Schools where I teach, so there were a bunch of 12-year-olds there too. Some of them did a little dance, it was really cute.
There were 2 ceremonies, actually. After the first ceremony, we were stuffed into a giant room and ate buffet style with hundreds of other people. It was not very intimate. During the meal, I asked to be excused from the table, because the soju was passing through me. So, a co-teacher of mine helped me find the restroom amid the hundreds of Korean people shuffling about and conversing. She then said, "Do you want to see a Korean wedding?" I agreed happily, and we walked around the complex, past the many rooms where "Western Style" ceremonies were being held. We arrived in this section where the rooms were much much smaller, where there were people dressed in beautiful colorful attire, participating in traditional Korean style wedding ceremonies. There was much less noise, the few spectators were mostly family members waiting to take their turn to take their shoes off and step up into the room to take part in the ceremonies.
The vibrant colors of the bride's and the groom's attires were the first things that I noticed. It was so much different than the wedding clothes in my culture, so beautiful. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love how women look in white wedding dresses. And men look nice in tuxedos. But there's something absolutely captivating about seeing beautiful colors like that. The second thing that I noticed was how much the parents were honored in the ceremony. The parents of the bride, and then the parents of the groom, took turns sitting across the small table from the couple, throwing chestnuts into a blanket that the couple was holding, symbolizing many children and prosperity. There was so much bowing to the parents. Even during the "Western Style" ceremony, the couple bowed to the sets of parents. (There was no "you may kiss the bride" moment; such displays of affection are rarely seen in the Korean culture.)
In the traditional ceremony, there were these two wooden birds on the table facing each other, symbolizing monogamy. The entire families of the bride and the groom were there, even with their small children and everything, and one by one they would move to the center of the room and pay their respects to the couple. The family members were not dressed in traditional clothing, but the wedded couple and the parents were. I wish that I had taken photos of the ceremony, and other people were, but I would have felt a little guilty because I am a foreigner.
The parents took shots of this special alcohol, and when they did that, the women would make a face, and my co-teacher said to me, "In old Korea, women were not allowed to drink alcohol, except during a wedding ceremony."
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