(no subject)
This week has been unreasonably interesting.
Monday, Tom, our new co-worker, came over from England. He's cute, Jeannie would like him, but very young, 23 years old I believe. We had a kind of welcoming party for him and Melissa/goodbye party for Chris and David/ birthday party for Juliette and Ami.
Then on Wednesday, my supervisor/friend Esther's father finally died. He's had cancer for a very long time, and Esther's been spending a great deal of time at the hospital the past few weeks, getting paler and paler. The foreboding was totally wearing her out, especially because her mom was convinced that her dad was going to recover. It's all been very hard on her and I don't know how much longer she would have been able to take it.
So, on Thursday most of my co-workers and I went to the hospital for the funeral. In Korea, people go to funerals at the hospital where the person died. After that, visitors take of their shoes and walk into a room with a picture of the deceased, bow, and place a white chrysanthemum below the picture, then give their condolences to the deceased's family, in this case Esther, her mom, and her brother.
There have been a few times in my life when I felt like my mere presence made a huge positive difference to someone, and this was one of those times. Esther seemed so...grateful to see me.
After that you go into a room across the hall and waitresses bring you a meal. There were a lot of people there eating and paying their respects. My co-workers wondered what sort of business he was in to be so well-known.
We left after about an hour and a half.
There are a couple of interesting superstitions about funerals. One is that after you come home, you are supposed to put salt outside of your door to get rid of the death stuck to you. This seems similar to the tradition that some storekeepers have, especially in older, more traditional marketplaces, where allegedly they will throw salt at customers who do not buy anything from them when shopping in the morning, to ward off the bad luck that bad customers have brought with them to the store at the beginning of the day. I have never seen this happen, incidentally, but for this reason many older Koreans won't shop in the morning.
The other superstition is that if you are getting married soon (if you have set the date), you are not supposed to go to a funeral, because then you will have bad luck during your marriage. So another co-worker, Yunie, got married this week. She wasn't supposed to go. I think she dropped by for a few minutes anyway, because she and Esther are very close, but I didn't see her. Apparently you aren't supposed to go to other people's weddings either, because they will steal your marriage bliss, but that one isn't followed as closely.
Friday night I went out with a bunch of co-workers to welcome Tom the Englishman more informally, and I stayed out too late, mostly talking with Kelly and Tolsen, but it was lots o fun.
Then today after meeting Jiyoung, I went to Yunie's wedding.
It was SO FANCY. Oh my gosh. I've been to two weddings, one at a wedding hall, and one at a church. This one was at a hotel.
I got there early enough so Yunie and I could take a picture together, yay!
The ceremony and reception were in the same place, so we watched the ceremony from our round tables, sort of like dinner theater. There was also a big screen showing closeups of the ceremony, and a slideshow during the reception (they looked so happy in all the pictures!).
There was a pianist and a violinist playing, the mothers came in to light candles first.
Then Yunie's father handed her off to her new husband, and they walked down the aisle together. I didn't understand much of the ceremony itself, but the sermon seemed to be mostly about parents and children and how your marriage changes after five years, ten years, and so on. But I didn't get the part about what happens at each stage.
After that, a singer sang a song that made Yunie cry.
There was a candle spiral, there was a gigantic (but inedible) cake, there was a CHAMPAGNE FOUNTAIN. Ironically, we did not eat any cake, nor did we have any champagne. At my wedding, if my guests can see a cake, we are GOING to EAT the cake!
Also! There were bubbles and a FOG MACHINE going! Craziness!
Then, the dinner! It was my first Korean plated dinner wedding. There was an appetizer (oyster, shrimp, baby octopus salad), mushroom soup, salad, salisbury steak with mushrooms, rice, and vegetables. Koreans don't really do dessert, but there was coffee and rice cakes and fruit.
As usual, we were kicked out after an hour and a half. There was even an announcement, "if you want to talk more, please do so in the lobby."
All in all, quite quite lovely. But I still wish Korean weddings lasted six or seven hours.
Monday, Tom, our new co-worker, came over from England. He's cute, Jeannie would like him, but very young, 23 years old I believe. We had a kind of welcoming party for him and Melissa/goodbye party for Chris and David/ birthday party for Juliette and Ami.
Then on Wednesday, my supervisor/friend Esther's father finally died. He's had cancer for a very long time, and Esther's been spending a great deal of time at the hospital the past few weeks, getting paler and paler. The foreboding was totally wearing her out, especially because her mom was convinced that her dad was going to recover. It's all been very hard on her and I don't know how much longer she would have been able to take it.
So, on Thursday most of my co-workers and I went to the hospital for the funeral. In Korea, people go to funerals at the hospital where the person died. After that, visitors take of their shoes and walk into a room with a picture of the deceased, bow, and place a white chrysanthemum below the picture, then give their condolences to the deceased's family, in this case Esther, her mom, and her brother.
There have been a few times in my life when I felt like my mere presence made a huge positive difference to someone, and this was one of those times. Esther seemed so...grateful to see me.
After that you go into a room across the hall and waitresses bring you a meal. There were a lot of people there eating and paying their respects. My co-workers wondered what sort of business he was in to be so well-known.
We left after about an hour and a half.
There are a couple of interesting superstitions about funerals. One is that after you come home, you are supposed to put salt outside of your door to get rid of the death stuck to you. This seems similar to the tradition that some storekeepers have, especially in older, more traditional marketplaces, where allegedly they will throw salt at customers who do not buy anything from them when shopping in the morning, to ward off the bad luck that bad customers have brought with them to the store at the beginning of the day. I have never seen this happen, incidentally, but for this reason many older Koreans won't shop in the morning.
The other superstition is that if you are getting married soon (if you have set the date), you are not supposed to go to a funeral, because then you will have bad luck during your marriage. So another co-worker, Yunie, got married this week. She wasn't supposed to go. I think she dropped by for a few minutes anyway, because she and Esther are very close, but I didn't see her. Apparently you aren't supposed to go to other people's weddings either, because they will steal your marriage bliss, but that one isn't followed as closely.
Friday night I went out with a bunch of co-workers to welcome Tom the Englishman more informally, and I stayed out too late, mostly talking with Kelly and Tolsen, but it was lots o fun.
Then today after meeting Jiyoung, I went to Yunie's wedding.
It was SO FANCY. Oh my gosh. I've been to two weddings, one at a wedding hall, and one at a church. This one was at a hotel.
I got there early enough so Yunie and I could take a picture together, yay!
The ceremony and reception were in the same place, so we watched the ceremony from our round tables, sort of like dinner theater. There was also a big screen showing closeups of the ceremony, and a slideshow during the reception (they looked so happy in all the pictures!).
There was a pianist and a violinist playing, the mothers came in to light candles first.
Then Yunie's father handed her off to her new husband, and they walked down the aisle together. I didn't understand much of the ceremony itself, but the sermon seemed to be mostly about parents and children and how your marriage changes after five years, ten years, and so on. But I didn't get the part about what happens at each stage.
After that, a singer sang a song that made Yunie cry.
There was a candle spiral, there was a gigantic (but inedible) cake, there was a CHAMPAGNE FOUNTAIN. Ironically, we did not eat any cake, nor did we have any champagne. At my wedding, if my guests can see a cake, we are GOING to EAT the cake!
Also! There were bubbles and a FOG MACHINE going! Craziness!
Then, the dinner! It was my first Korean plated dinner wedding. There was an appetizer (oyster, shrimp, baby octopus salad), mushroom soup, salad, salisbury steak with mushrooms, rice, and vegetables. Koreans don't really do dessert, but there was coffee and rice cakes and fruit.
As usual, we were kicked out after an hour and a half. There was even an announcement, "if you want to talk more, please do so in the lobby."
All in all, quite quite lovely. But I still wish Korean weddings lasted six or seven hours.