Two weeks in March to go to Daegu and "get legitimate" in Eun Jung's family's eyes. Before this I'd met Eun Jung's mum once, and dad & granny never. Now we went there to have a wedding service, show my face to everyone and do all the rituals they like. It was my pleasure. I was really impressed with them all as well.
The Korea I found was one in recovery from the '97 Crisis. Things were looking up, I felt. The department stores in downtown Daegu were bustling with urgent shoppers and everyone seemed to be driving big, new cars. Cheap stuff, I thought: the key to (Asian) economic expansion. Everyone shopping and worknig. Everyone seemed to have a mobile phone too. Here I was, from London, where young lefties protested the IMF "treatment" of Asian economies, but I left Korea this March sure they were bouncing back just fine, and in the mood to tell all those hippies what mugs they were with their misguided sympathies. (Yes!!)
We spent a week in Daegu, where I met every relative and friend I had to meet. Basically, we did well. Everyone liked us, even loved us. At the wedding ceremony I was like a clown, doing it all wrong, to the delight of the audience. Instead of turning over the symbolic ricecake and presenting it to my bride, I ate it; instead of pouring the symbolic alcohol and offering it to Eun Jung, I drank it in one shot: they all loved it, laughing out loud all the ceremony. I didn't mind. I was giving it a go and getting it wrong like an idiot. Koreans love that.
One word for all those know-it-alls from up in Seoul who warned me my relatives from super-conservative Kyeongsang-Do would never "let me in"... you were all wrong, they "let me in" all the way and they're perfect in-laws, always unbelieveably charming and good to us. In Daegu I'm "Uri John" (Our John) so what do you know? You people...are scum!
That main thing aside, we spent a week in Seoul too, either side of the time in Daegu. A bit of shopping, a bit of sociallizing, but apart from Dale Patterson (who even flew down for the wedding, to my big gratitude) and Sharman Horwood, everyone else had gone, so I had to make do with drinking with Eun Jung's friends. Boring! They're okay and not boring, but we're so shit at each others' languages that it's not as fun as it could be.
I came back alone, leaving Eun Jung in Daegu for two more months while I studied an intensive programming course. When she came back to UK in late May I'd studied the course of my life, got some skills and she noticed it at first sight: "You look all clever now!" (And she was right!)
It was an expensive trip, but had to be done, I'm ever glad we did it. If we hadn't, we'd be taking the piss, but we did it, paid the respects to everyone the proper way, and there you are.
1995 ~ 1996 ~ 1997 ~ 1998 ~ 2000 ~ 2002 ~ 2003 ~ 2004 ~ 2005 ~ 2006 ~ world cup 2002 ~ korean personalities ~ korean places ~ the people ~ my own photos of korea from living there and visiting & revisiting it ~ it's quite a place you know, and well worth a visit ~ except you probably won't!