Korean Culture (한국 문화)
From Hanboks, to traditional ceremonies in Korea, here are the things to know about Korean culture. (한복에서부터 한국의 전통 의식까지, 여기 한국 문화에 대해 알아야 할 것들이 있다.)
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A Look Back: Our Korean Wedding Ceremony
Three years ago at the end of October, my family from the States arrived to Seoul and we made our way down to Busan to prepare for my first wedding ceremony to my husband. Though it’s not our “official” anniversary because we chose our subsequent American wedding ceremony date in January, that doesn’t stop us from receiving a card yearly from my grandmother wishing us a “Happy Anniversary” in October. Every year about this time, the leaves begin to change colors and I am taken back to images of the colorful Hanbok that I wore for our ceremony surrounded by family and friends outside on a gorgeous day with blue…
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Conversations With Koreans: Wait, we aren’t friends?
“Thank you”, “Hello”, “Give me… please” and a few other words and phrases are among a handful of words that foreigners just in Korea learn and among them is often the word chingu (친구), translated loosely as “friend”. Foreigners splice this word into their English sentences without hesitation and use it seemingly without understanding exactly what it means. This is probably one of my least favorite words in Korean and I’ll explain why. If you’re learning Korean or trying to speak Korean, then you’ve probably learned that there is a hierarchy in the language and how you use it. Because of this, who is considered your “friend” is really important.…
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Couples In Korea & Money: How Much Allowance Do You Get?
“How much allowance will you give your husband after you get married?” Allowance? Husband? Why were these two words in one sentence, I wondered. When you get married in Korea, you might get asked some interesting questions about who controls the money in your relationship and if you’re the wife, you may be asked if you give your husband an allowance. This was news to me after I married my Korean husband and just had to learn more. Who handles the money in the relationship in Korea? (This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you purchase after clicking at no cost…
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Conversations With Koreans: How many bowls of tteokguk have you eaten?
Happy Seollal, or Lunar New Year! 새해복 많이 받으세요. It is the Lunar New Year in Korea and people around the country will be eating tteokguk. If you’ve learned Korean or are learning Korean, this is a great time to learn a little saying that relates to tteokguk. Tteokguk is a rice cake soup that is a must eat this holiday in Korea and it also relates to your age… you’ll see. (This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you purchase after clicking. Thank you for your support.) Whether or not families across the country will be celebrating in the traditional…
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A Korean Wedding Ceremony and The Paebaek Piggyback
Getting married in Korea? Wondering what a traditional wedding ceremony in Korea is like? Whether you’re having a modern wedding ceremony in Korea or a traditional wedding ceremony, one part of the events will be a paebaek ceremony. A unique and traditional step in the wedding process in Korea, this ceremony in which the bride and groom wear traditional Hanboks is what truly unifies the family. Here’s everything you should know about the paebaek ceremony and what it means. Learn about the traditional paebaek ceremony in a Korean wedding ceremony: (This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you purchase after clicking…
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A Guide To A Traditional Korean Wedding Ceremony By A Multicultural Couple That Did It
Getting married in another country or married to a person from another culture or country comes with a host of lessons and learning. When we decided to get married we very quickly decided we wanted to have a traditional wedding ceremony in each our home countries. So, with that, it was time to figure out how to plan a traditional Korean wedding ceremony. These days, many Koreans opt for a more western style wedding ceremony but since we were going to have that in the States where I’m from, we wanted to be traditional from beginning to end. But, what happens in a traditional Korean wedding ceremony? I wondered. And,…
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What Does A Traditional Korean Wedding Dress Look Like?
When I began planning our wedding ceremonies (yes, we had two!), the American wedding ceremony being much more familiar was a breeze. When it came to the Korean ceremony, there were so many questions that stood out like: What does a Korean wedding dress look like? What do Korean women wear in a wedding? Is there a traditional Korean wedding dress? Or, do women wear more modern dresses these days? I wanted to be culturally appropriate and we decided to go traditional because we’d be doing a traditional American ceremony as well. There is in fact a difference in the traditional Korean wedding dress versus the standard traditional dress, or…
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The House of Sharing: Learn About The Comfort Women In Seoul
If you come to Korea and have the opportunity to learn about the comfort women from the women themselves, don’t pass it up. The House of Sharing was set up in 1992 funded privately by some Koreans and a Buddhist organization. Originally housing 12 of the surviving grandmothers, or comfort women from WWII, as of 2019 there were 6 women living in the home. These women have become activists, giving testimonies of the atrocities they endured, protesting and traveling abroad to spread awareness of a system that is still happening today around the world. Should we learn about the past so we don’t repeat it in the future? Yes, and…
