My Korean Husband (나의 한국인 남편)
Married with a Korean husband. What to know about a Korean husband from cultural differences to life in Korea. Multicultural family in Korea. (한국인 남편과 결혼했다. 문화적 차이에서 한국 생활에 이르기까지 한국 남편에 대해 알아야 할 것. 한국의 다문화 가정.)
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On The Phone With My Korean Mother-in-Law
After the apple incident, in which my mother-in-law called one day and asked if I liked apples years ago and I answered yes only to have her hang up to then purchase and send me a box of some 50 big delicious apples which was much to much for us to handle before they were to go rotten, I’ve tried to figure out what she means when she asks me these innocent questions. Do you have a Korean mother-in-law? There are a sure a lot of stories about how bad they can be, but I’ve got some reasons Korean mother-in-laws can be pretty good. And these phone calls and the…
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Mom, why can’t I understand them?
I met my husband’s family early on in our relationship. Only a few months into the courtship he was headed down to Busan for something or other and he was going to stay at his sister’s house. I asked if I could go to meet his family and he took me and didn’t mention until we were at the door that Korean families don’t usually meet girlfriends and that his conservative family would probably ask if we were going to get married soon. We met and as my Korean conversational skills were pretty low at the time I played with my husband’s one year old nephew for most of the…
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My Korean Mother-In-Law’s First Visit
On my way home from work this afternoon, my husband called and told me his father would be coming to the city to go to a tax office and may possibly be staying the night at our house. Our house? Possibly? Of course, my husband is currently in a van on his way out of the city for a concert, so just me and his dad. This scenario reminded me of the one and only time his mother visited us just before we got married. There are a lot of stories about mother-in-law’s and when it comes to Korean mother-in-law’s, well, the stories aren’t usually that good. To be honest,…
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When I Met My Korean Boyfriend’s Father For The First Time
There’s only one important man when it comes time to meet the significant other’s family in Korea and that is the father. To me, and I would imagine to most women, the mother was the person I wanted to impress and I had already met her a couple years earlier. I wasn’t very concerned with the father, what father wouldn’t I be able to impress after all? Joking aside though, I was not prepared for how serious meeting him was really going to be or what it meant. (This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you purchase after clicking. These funds…
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First Meeting: The Korean Women of the Family
Two weeks ago, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law both called to ask what I wanted for my birthday. I’m getting better at telling them what I need, because I’ve realized when left to their own devices they get me things that aren’t me at all either because what they’re giving me is what Korean family members usually give each other, or they just don’t know me all that well due to the obvious language differences. I’m still not sure which is the case, to be honest. I can explain things in Korean until I’m blue in the face, but when it comes to showing my personality, my real personality, it’s a…
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Memories of Our Wedding
I can’t believe one year has already gone by. It feels like this happened just yesterday. Oh the memories of that beautiful day with wonderful people, delicious food, joyous music and such happiness surrounding us all. A poem by Khalil Gibran, read at our ceremony and introduced to me by my grandmother when I was in high school. ~On Marriage~ You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance…
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A Korean in an American Wedding Ceremony
Back in October of 2011 when Jae-oo and I were first wed, we were in Busan, South Korea and had opted for a very traditional styled Korean wedding with hanboks and lots of bowing. I blogged about it at the time, as my blog is all about my adventures here in Korea, but neglected to blog about my American wedding ceremony some months later in Ohio. Blogging about something that seemed so normal and uninteresting culturally didn’t strike my fancy. Recently, however, Jae-oo and I celebrated our one year anniversary and talked about that American wedding ceremony, as that was the date we opted to go with for our anniversary. Many…
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A Korean’s First American Christmas
A Christmas tree decorated from top to bottom with white lights and ornaments collected over the years, old stockings hung over the fireplace, gifts wrapped carefully in beautiful paper with Christmas patterns and topped with perfect red and green bows, lights hung from the eaves and boxes and boxes of other decorations scattered throughout the house and lining the shelves. This was the scene when I grew up when the “thanks” of Thanksgiving would end and the Christmas season would go into full affect in our house. It had been at least five years since I had last been home to celebrate this holiday with my family and this year…
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A Korean Deals with Sarcasm
The second time he came home with me, it was summer and everyone was more comfortable. Jae-oo knew where things were in the house and could get them on his own, though he still wanted me to help him find things in the kitchen, and my family was now comfortable enough to wear pajamas in front of him in the morning. With guards let down, it was inevitable that this would be the first time to really see if there was any discomfort between people without the fake ‘nice to meet you’ smiles on. The novelty of dating a foreigner had somewhat rubbed off and people were starting to act…
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An American Family and a Korean Husband
The first trip home with Jae-oo was a lot of introductions. Not only was he meeting friends he’d heard stories of but just as, or maybe more, importantly he was meeting my family. He’d met my mother on her visit to Korea but was now meeting my sisters and then aunts and uncles and grandparents. That may sound like the whole family, but that is just the beginning. My family is large and large in the sense that my mother’s generation has remained very close to their cousins which made the “aunts” and the “uncles” of my generation nearly triple and which meant we grew up with just as many…
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Halloween with a Korean
This week, I got back to Korea from a month long trip home that I manage to get away for once a year. This year, we were home for Thanksgiving and it dawned on me that for the past four years I have taken Jae-oo home to celebrate a different American holiday each time. And each time I realize it is his first time celebrating such and such a holiday American style. I now have this urge to make a baby’s “Jae-oo’s First” album of the events that transpire. Seeing these holidays through his eyes and answering questions that seem so obvious to me as I grew up celebrating a…
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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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My First Hanbok & Getting Married To A Korean Man
My how the time has gone. I didn’t realize it’d been three weeks since I last posted on here until today when I logged on. When planning a wedding, or in my case two, but mostly half of only one, things just pile up. This past weekend I got married to Jae-oo in our first wedding ceremony. As we’ve decided to become a multi-cultural duo we’ve opted for a very traditional Korean ceremony in his home town and then in a couple months a traditional American ceremony in my home town. That’s getting a little ahead of my topic for this blog though as I’ve decided to go back a…
