Amanda Takes Off...

Yesterday, we went to register our marriage at the gov't office. Good Man wasn't sure that we had to do it, but I thought we should. In fact, before our legal wedding in America, I argued that I was sure there was something he needed to do at the Korean Embassy and he (and I!) searched the Korean Embassy website, as well as others, but couldn't find any information.

Well, it's a good thing we decided to register the marriage because it was supposed to be done within 90 days of marriage! Obviously we're way past that, so he has to pay a 50,000 won fine. If he pays it before the 14th, he gets a discount and it's only 40,000 won. Minor problem: we can't transfer funds because both of us left our bank cards at home. Oh well. His parents will pay it for us.

We filled out the Korean form, using the sample instructions they gave us. The sample instructions were intended for Koreans marrying foreigners in Korea, and in their sample, the groom was automatically the foreigner. An American, in fact. Good Man needed his father's birth address and he was supposed to be able to write the birth city of his father in Hanja. What? Is that like the Korean version of "Mother's maiden name?"

It took forever to get the marriage registered because he needed to translate the entire American wedding certificate. By hand. On A4 paper. Poor guy.

When we finally finished, the clerk was concerned that the wedding certificate wasn't valid because it said "copy." Yeah, it says copy from the court and has the county clerk's signature and a raised, embossed seal on it. I made that clear and luckily, the clerk's boss agreed.

They had a sign up that they do "Traditional Korean Wedding Photograping." (Yes.) The sign said they only did it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was Wednesday, but I asked if we could do it, since I'd seen two foreigners have it done twenty minutes earlier.

Then we were told that it's only for marriages where both people are foreigners, because there are too many Korean-Non-Korean marriages.

I patted Good Man's chest and said, "하지만 제 남편의 마음 속에서 미국 사람이에요." But in my husband's heart, he is an American.

She laughed and said since it wasn't busy, she'd do it. So they took us over to a corner with a traditional Korean screen and put traditional Korean wedding hanbok costumes on us (one size fits all!) and took our picture.

I was thankful. A gov't official bending on two rules? Taking a photo of a Korean and American on a Wednesday? Thanks, lady!

So now we have legal wedding photos where I'm in a cotton dress and Good Man is in jeans, family wedding photos where we're wearing hanboks, and Korean registration photos where we're wearing traditional wedding costumes. All that's missing is a white dress and tux photo, which you can get done at photo studios in Korea. Maybe for our anniversary. ^^

Good Man asked if I would be put on his family registry. Nope. Because I'm foreign. So I'm not family.

Sigh.

Korea.

Good Man and I met Master's family last night. Of course, on all counts, it was great.

On the way to the studio I passed two of my studiomates. They walked by, not immediately recognizing me, and I turned. They turned their heads, too, and sort of slowed down. "Hey! Do you remember me?" I called out in Korean.

They looked surprised and starting hitting each other. I said, "It's Amanda!" They nodded quickly, bowed deeply and said hello and we chatted for a few minutes. It was cute. They're in middle school now.

We brought some small gifts for Master and his wife and some for the kids. I decided to put them in three separate gift bags. We gave the kids their gifts (a pajama set and top for each). In Korean culture it's rude to open gifts in front of the giver so they ran into their bedroom, opened them, and brought them back out.

Master's Son in His New PJs

Master's Daughter in Her New PJs

He gave me a gift and asked me to open it. I did and it was another gorgeous box made out of hanji (traditional Korean paper). His mother made it. Inside? Korean socks!

We went out for samgyupsal and had soju (of course). Master hasn't had soju in ten days because he's been so busy. He told me that and I said, "I don't believe it!" (I really didn't believe it because I misheard him and thought it was ten months!)

Then we went out for patbingsoo (Korean shaved ice) and had coffee at his house.

His son didn't remember me (of course, I wasn't expecting him to) but apparently his daughter checks out my Cyworld all the time, so she remembered me (which was a nice suprise). At first they were both sort of shy, but they warmed up really quickly.

In fact, his daughter was hilarious. When we were eating patbingsoo, she wanted the exact same spoon I had. She looked at my spoons, looked at the rest of the spoons, and chose the one with the same handle decoration. Then she took both spoons and compared them very carefully to make sure they matched.

When I ordered a chocolate banana patbingoo, she whispered, "Amanda, we will share, OK?" (Of course...it's Korean culture!) She wanted to sit next to me (and made me switch seats with her since she's left handed and I'm right handed), she wanted to hold my hand, she wanted to chat and chat. She learned (sort of) how to use my camera and wanted us to take photos of each other taking photos of each other.

It was wonderful. It was like nothing had changed and I'd never been gone.

Nothing except Son and Daughter are so tall! And Daughter can write in Korean! (She wrote me a little Christmas card telling me she loves me.)

We spoke a ton of Korean (and a little English) and reminisced about different things. I was finally able to tell him how much I hated the octopus (squid?) I ate really early on in Korea after mountain climbing. He laughed and asked why I ate it. I said I didn't want to be rude. He said he and his brother kept giving me the biggest pieces because they didn't want to be rude. We all got a good laugh out of it.

He told me that my Korean was really good and he could tell I'd been studying in America. When random Koreans tell me my Korean is good, I know they're just being polite. But I trust it coming from him. And in traditional form, the more soju we drank, the less Korean I spoke and the more English he spoke! I really enjoy speaking Korean with Master and his family. It's so easy with them.

We also talked about my studio in America and I told him why I'd been refusing to test. (Too expensive, owner makes up tests to make money, not in any hurry to get another belt, etc.) He said as long as I plan on testing in Korea again one day, I can put it off. I sort of needed to hear that. Despite being at my new studio for a year and a half, still feel, in my heart, that Master is my instructor and Tongil is my home. I don't want to disappoint him, so getting permission to put off testing was nice.

I found out some bad news. A new studio moved into the neighborhood—right at the end of the block. That's why he hasn't been drinking. He's been spending his time renovating the front of the studio to compete.

We spent about four hours together and it just reaffirmed that I will always be friends with Master and his family, no matter where we all live and how long it is before we meet again.

From an AP wire:

"Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots," North Korea is "compelled to take a decisive measure," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.

Sunday night Good Man and I went to an Orthodox Jewish wedding of two atheists.

Like the last two weddings I attended (excluding ours), I didn't understand a word of what was going on.

During the reception I dragged Good Man on the floor to dance. ("Drag" is actually a strong word. Encouraged by pouting and "여보" in that girlish Korean whining voice is more like it.)

We were slow dancing and I said, "Who's leading here? Me or you?"

"You, just the way I like it!"

Good Man can't dance. At all. I mean, I can't dance (the last time Mark and I danced—right before I left for Korea—he asked me who was leading, in fact). But Good Man really can't dance.

Of course, it makes sense. Koreans don't dance at weddings. Like me, Good Man doesn't really like clubbing. And what about school dances, prom? To quote Margaret Cho: We didn't have prom in Korea......only war....

We weren't planning on dancing at our wedding, and now I know we won't dance, because he would be so uncomfortable. But he was such a good sport, and by the end of the night he was getting better.

This wedding, like every other American wedding I've been to, featured the bride dancing all night and the groom standing around, chatting with friends.

(Side: I wore the Convertible Dress from Vicky's and it was great! I had to readjust after several hours, but considering I hadn't even tied it into place? I also have to wear a tank or cami under it because my bust is too large. But it was very comfortable and I don't think most people realized I was wearing a tank under it. Sizing runs large. According to the size charts I needed XL, but L fit better.)

Good Man showed me this photo essay: Recent Scenes from North Korea.

And then he found these Amazing 70-year-old Color Photos .

Gorgeous. Haunting. I love photography.

Good Man and I are in Jejudo, the Korean Hawaii. (So they say. It's beautiful, but it's not Hawaii.) Good Man's Mother thinks he's at some computer conference.

Last night at the airport I saw something I hope to never see again.

Ajummas, technically, are middle aged women. Ajummas as most people use the term are loud, square-shaped women with the same ajumma perm, ajumma visors, ajumma sun masks that make them look like birds, and ajumma clothes. (Patterned cotton/poly pants and shirts, patterns not matching.) They'll hit you with their umbrellas, push you to get on the subway first (even when their are tons of open seats), and yell at you if you're doing something they think is wrong.

(Side note on the last point: In my apartment complex we can only bring paper recycling out on the 9th, 19th, 29th of the month. We came to Jejudo yesterday, and we get back the 31st, which is the same day I need to have everything out of my apartment. So I brought out the paper recycling yesterday. On my way to the recycling area, so ajumma started screaming at me.

I just stopped, waited until she was done. She shook her head and starting complaining about how foreigners don't learn Korean. I said, in Korean* "Yes, I understand. But Saturday I'm moving. And today until Saturday I'm going to Jejudo. So I'm doing it today!"

Well, that shut her up.)

So last night at the airport, I went into the restroom to find 6 stalls and about 25 ajummas. Were the ajummas in line? Nooooo, this is Korea, and a single line in a room full of ajummas would make too much sense!

Instead, there were ajummas in front of each stall. So we basically had 6 ajumma lines. I stood behind all of them, trying to be the start of one normal non-ajumma line.

The ajummas would exit the stalls, pants still down around their knees, all cackling and talking to each other. If you've never heard an ajumma cackle, consider yourself lucky. An ajumma cackle is grown-up agasshi wining combined with a chicken clucking with a hint of witch in it.

They'd start tucking themselves into their pants (yes, themselves, no, not their clothes, themselves), but none of them would actually move out of the doorway so that their ajumma friends could use the toilet. No, they were just showing off their ajumma underwear to their ajumma friends in their ajumma visors with their ajumma perms in what had clearly become the ajumma bathroom.

Finally, a stall opened up. The first stall. The one closest to me. There were no ajummas in front of this door, so I looked at the next one, expecting her to change lines. She didn't move, so I started to walk toward the stall only—

To be rammed in the shoulder by the ajumma standing behind me in line.

I left the bathroom and found Good Man.

"I need to find another bathroom because I am not an ajumma. And luckily, I am not Korean, so I will never become an ajumma. I think this is why you love me."

He nodded very seriously.

*Usually when I say something in Korean, I write it in Korean. But I'm at a PC bang using IE 6 and for some reason IE doesn't work well with my blogging platform. Of course it shouldn't, IE is crap and Firefox rocks. Korea has not yet caught on to Firefox. Korean government websites often only work with IE and a ton of ActiveX plugins. Korea, in spite of being so well wired and connected, is pretty clueless when it comes to options other than Microsoft.

Now, speaking of clueless, I was looking for information about the Jejudo Sex Museum and Yahoo is now automatically opening up Korea Yahoo. So I typed in "Jejudo Sex Museum" and a screen popped up telling me I had to enter my Korean ID number to prove I was over 19. I suppose this is a way to prevent youngsters from looking at things they shouldn't be looking at. I went to the US Yahoo site, typed in the exact same thing, and got what I wanted. Try again, Korea...

OK, I'm late to the Korean news party...like I said on the podcast I did with ZenKimchi and Jen, other people do news much better than I do.

Please help Michael White's mother get his remains home. You can send funds to the following bank account.

S.Micheal White Fund
Daegu Bank
080-10-004509

I get a lot of email from people thinking of coming to Korea to teach. Please listen to this podcast. This is an extreme case of police incompetence and difficulties in Korea, but I really believe that this podcast, this whole incident, points to a number of problems with Korean society and being a foreigner in Korea.

Edited to add: Transcripts are available in English and Korean.