Marriage - Part Two

In this post, I will talk a little bit about marriage gifts before going into marrying "elites" in Korea.

In Korea, marriage is more of a union of families than a union of two people.  There's a lot of process involved in marrying families, it seems.  Korean families make material preparations and exchange marriage "goods" when their children get married.  Many cultures have something similar, I'm sure, but the Korean way is way too complex for me to understand the details.  Simply put, groom's family prepares the home for the couple to live in, the bride's family fills the home with furnishings and the families exchange cash, jewellery, silken goods and other "marriage" items.  Families come to agreements on these items before the couple marries.  I can't imagine the parents sitting down and negotiate on them. 

When I was working in the patent department of our company, I've been told that I should study and take the patent bar to become a patent lawyer... so that I can marry well.  I like the idea of "marrying well" (whatever that means), but I'm not gonna take the wrong career path for me to do so.  "Patent lawyer" in Korean is "byeollisa".  In Korea, some of the top professions end in a single Korean letter pronounced "sa".  Doctor - Euisa.  Lawyer - Byunhosa.  Judge - Pahnsa.  If a girl wants to get married to a "sa", she needs to be hot, for one, and her parents have to fork up a lot money.  Usually, the parents of the girl has to pay for the couple's house, a doctor's office and car for the son and buy loads of shit for the groom's family.  I've heard of marriages become unrealized solely because the guy's parents demanded too much materialistic goods from the girl's family and the girl's parents couldn't afford it or refused.

The way I see it, the parents of the "sa" is SELLING their son, trying to get some return on their investment.  It's sad, in my point-of-view, but some say it makes sense.  It's even sadder than some families willingly pay up that much money and send their daughters off thinking that they've gotten a good deal.

"sa" is definitely in high demand among women but there are also professions for women that men prefers.  Teachers are popular because the profession is directly related to the education of children.  Flight attendants are also very popular, because I think the women have to be physically attractive to start with and the profession demands high quality of service which husbands desire from their wife-to-be's.

Some professions rise to the status of "elites" if they ride the trends to be come popular.  In the recent years, fund managers were in top demand because they became lucrative careers during the economic rise after early 2000s, but I'm sure that that popularity took a massive hit due to the global financial crisis.

Marriage - Part One

Marriage is a major topic that offers the most variation across different cultures... and across generations.

Some marriage cultural aspects in Korea haven't changed much over the years so I will post about them here.  Although I haven't seen many people get married while I was living in Canada, I know enough to realize what is distinctly Korean in Korean marriages.  This post will focus on the topic of people choosing their marriage partners.

Koreans talk about "conditions" or "qualifications" of somebody they plan to marry.  It's not so much the "standards" that I'm used to hearing back in Canada... I call them "qualifications" because that's what they are, to me at least.  In North America, in general, I think one dates another of his/her sexual orientation then determines whether he/she can get married to the person after a long while of getting to know the person.  In Korea, people simply have a set of qualifications they almost adhere to before they even date somebody seriously.  

A woman will have the following set of "conditions" for her marriage-material dude (in order of priority from my perspectives):

1. Job/career - Profession and/or minimum salary is a good metric

2. Education - I've already touched upon on this topic, but the guy's school shouldn't rank too low

3. Parents' current/past career - Read as "Potential need to financially support parents and/or future inheritance"

4. Personality - This is not a simple fact on a profile sheet, but personalities shouldn't clash too much

5. Siblings - Simply put, is the guy the eldest son who has to put up his parents?  Will his sisters play the evil step-sister roles?

6. Physical appearance - Guys should look presentable enough

7. Hometown - Certain regions of Korea suffer from bad reps

A guy will have the following set of "conditions":

1. Physical appearance - #1 priority to aim for that trophy wife

2. Personality - Again, not measurable but men prefers "wife" material (supportive)

3. Education - Notice how big of a role this has?

4. Parents' current/past career - Same reason as above

5. Job/career - Not very important, but some professions are preferred above others.

6. Hometown - Same reason as above

There is definite credibility to the priorities I placed on those conditions above... since the marriage match-makers in Korea uses similar priorities.  I've been told that for men, it's physical hotness; for women, it's money.  Matchmakers apparently use a score-based ranking system and they match people of similar "rankings".  I get -5 points for being the eldest.  Hot girls get matched up with doctors and lawyers.  You know what else is interesting?  Some matchmakers employ "elite" singles to match up with their clients...to just go on single "dates".  Seems like a Disney version of pimping to me.

Parents play major roles when it comes to their children choosing their marriage partners.  Korean parents usually have to approve/disapprove of their in-laws (both the soon-to-be-weds as well as the parents) and parents of both parties have to come to agreement.  There's even a term for the first meeting among the parents:  "sangyeolleh" which, according to the dictionary, means "the formal bows between the bride and the groom".  My mom, for example, has her own set of "conditions" for my wife-to-be.  Unfortunately, I think there are maybe 3 girls in all of Korea that fits her bill... and I haven't met any of them yet... and I'm not holding my breath.

Koreans claim that people have better lives when the marriages are done between a couple that meet each other's "conditions".  Then how come Korea has one of the highest (definitely top 3) divorce rates in the world?

Blind Dates

Koreans have "ting" terminologies (derived from the word "meeting") which they use for the different ways they meet people of the opposite sex.  I will go into more detail in a later post, but I will explain one of the "ting"s: "so-gae-ting" where "so-gae" is Korean word for "introduction".  It's basically where you meet somebody through an introduction, but very often the two of you meet by yourselves without the middle person.  In other words, a blind date.

Unless I'm wrong, blind dates are somewhat of a taboo back in NA.  Back in Canada, I only went on one blind date... and it was with a Korean girl... (didn't work out).  I've never heard of a couple getting hooked up through a blind date nor have I seen any friends hook each other up on blind dates.  I think people preferred to take the risk of running into a 50-year old hairy virgins on online dating sites over getting set up on blind dates.

I've been in Korea for 3.5 years and I went out on more than 20 so-gae-tings... 10 of which were during the second half of last year.  That is not considered unusual for somebody my age in Korea.  I don't really go around begging people to set me up, but I don't refuse when I get offers.  I've built a repertoire of first blind date topics that I can discuss as ice-breakers.  Like most blind date veterans, I have a routine.  Start talking about the circumstances on which the blind date was set up... and talk about the people who set you up and your relationship to those people... that's between 15 to 30 minutes.  Then talk about basic profile facts... name (you'd be surprised how often this is not a given prior to meeting face-to-face), age (important in Korea), family, work, school majors...  By this time, the dinner/lunch (which I always pay for) would be over and we'd move over to a coffee shop or a bar depending on the location and time of day.  Then I talk about how I'm Canadian and I have moved here 3 years ago.. this always has a follow-up question as to why I came here.  After that, topics become more fluid and I'd ask first-date questions: "What are your hobbies?" "What's your favourite movie?" "Have you traveled anywhere?" "Where is the favourite place you visited?" After an hour or so of that BS, I make a decision call at that point...  I try and make effort to make more interesting conversations if I'm interested in the girl.. or I make an excuse to get out of there if I find the girl too annoying / ugly / fat / old / boring / dumb / conservative / crazy / clingy / whiny / sensitive / snobby / bitchy / skanky.  Also, if I ain't interested, I let her get up first and I walk behind her so that she reaches the counter first in order to make her feel inclined to pay for the coffee/drink.  Costs associated with these random blind dates add up quite a bit.

It's not awkward...