China Wedding Part 1

Okay, I'm finally getting around to posting about the China wedding. Only a month late, right?

I'm going to break it into parts because there's just so much to talk about.

Mark and I arrived in China on Thursday. The wedding was held in ChungPing's fairly small hometown. (I've asked hundreds of times, but can never remember the name. Sorry.) We were met at the airport by ChungPing's sisters, and brought to the hotel. It was really nice, and also happened to be where the wedding would take place.

So then, we went out with ChungPing's family, SangKwun, and some others to a Chinese hot pot dinner. We ate it about 4 or 5 times while we were there, and it never got old. Every hot pot restaurant we went to had a big revolving center for all the food. Then we each had our own individual hot pots. And the sesame sauce with cilantro... amazing.

Not surprisingly, Mark also dived right into the Chinese liquor. This little bottle is cheap (like $1.50) but the liquor is potent. As in, I took one sip and could feel my mouth and throat burning. So Mark drank the entire bottle one-shot by one-shot.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and spent some time drinking beer with SangKwun and a couple of his friends.

The next day was when things got a little weird. Birth Father was due to arrive later that day, so we met a few of his work colleagues for lunch. After lunch, they told us that they wanted to go to the Shaolin Temple, which was the birthplace of Kung Fu. Awesome, we were in.

But then, after going out and talking to various drivers, we found out that the temple was too far. So the driver offered to take us somewhere nearby.

He drove us to a place and rapped on the gate where we were greeted by a one-armed man. Then, we were led to a run-down looking building with pictures of animals on the outside. So, we paid the entrance fee and went in. Walking through these dingy, run-down rooms it became apparent that we were in a zoo. But there really weren't any animals, only a huge tortoise in a small aquarium. But then we got outside and were handed a huge block of animal food and saw this.

Yep, that would be a huge bear in a very tiny cage. It was actually pretty sad since it literally had no room to walk around and it was just like a concrete box.

After listening to the bear roar and attempting to feed it, we were directed outside to look at various fenced in areas with animals listed, but no animals. This place was making the St. Louis zoo look like animal paradise!

As we were walking around, we were kind of confused because this park was really crowded and there were quite a few people walking around. Surely they weren't all here to see this "zoo"?!?!

We walked up the hill and saw another run-down area with tons of men standing around outside. There were also a surprising number of dogs hanging out... all of a sudden, Mark leaned over to me and said, "I think this is a dog fight." Excuse me?!?!? [In case any of you wanted to see what a Chinese dog fight looked like, I apologize because at this point I completely forgot I was carrying a camera and didn't take any pictures.]

So in our broken Korean, we confirmed with Birth Father's colleagues that this was, indeed, a dog fight. One of his colleagues (holding his year old son) wanted to get closer to the action. We resisted, so we all continued walking up the hill. But then we found ourselves at a dead end behind the dog fighting building. The guy (still holding his son) walked right into the building and motioned for us to follow. Um, scariest place I've ever been in my life. Apparently this is where they keep the dogs before/after they fight. So as we walked through this darkened dungeon, pit bulls chained in various rooms lunged, snarled, and snapped at us. Horrible. I refused to watch an actual fight, so after we made it through that place, we headed out.

After we got back to the hotel, we met Birth Father, where he had a good laugh about our afternoon's "sight-seeing." What a weird day.

Later that evening we went to dinner. Mark and I had to laugh because the menu looked like this, but we were asked multiple times if we'd like to order.

Here's a cute one of Birth Father and I at dinner.

Birth Father was really cute with his colleague's son. He was constantly trying to play with him and carried him on the walk home. Cute.

After dinner, we all headed to the noraebang. Here's the group.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by this sign in front of the hotel. Yes, that would be a billboard size picture of SangKwun and ChunPing.

To get an idea of scale, here's a shot of the front of the hotel with the sign lit up to the right. It was huge!

After seeing this huge billboard, we could only wonder what was in store for the wedding the next day... The wedding day will be my next blog post. Coming soon...

Success!

Uh, I feel like I have to apologize for all the complaining, worrying, and generally feeling sorry for myself in the past posts. We've both finished Level Two with really good grades. So yes, we passed -- in a big way. Woo Hoo!

We're still doing the tutoring, and we had our first session yesterday. I think it's going to be well-worth the money since we are going to be spending the entire hour and a half speaking and listening. Our teacher is really spunky and lively. Plus, she's a stickler and doesn't let a single grammatical or pronunciation error slip by her. I have a feeling that after 9 classes with her, we'll see a serious improvement in our speaking. At least that's what I'm hoping for!

G20

One week from today the G20 will commence in Seoul.

3 signs that Seoul is gearing up for the big event:

1.) Mark read that in the area around the actual conference the government announced it will not be picking up any food waste for 3 days as to not offend the noses of the international visitors. Apparently Koreans living in the affected areas are in a huff over this. (Sidebar: we have to separate our food waste from our recyclables from our trash here. And then it all goes into separate containers outside our apartment complex.)

2.) At the subway station we transfer at every day on the way to school, a 5-10 soldiers have suddenly begun standing guard in the main corridor.

3.) Today we were informed that Sogang's Korean Language program graduation will be cancelled this year in case any terrorists decide to strike while the G20 conference is going on. Good to know.......... maybe I should just plan to stay home while this conference is happening.

Resilience

A few weeks ago Mark and I went with some friends to see a documentary made by a Korean adoptee about a Korean adoptee who reunites with his birth mother called Resilience. It showed their separate lives, their reunion, and their post-reunion lives.

It was almost eerie seeing the movie. It was like I was watching my post-reunion with my birth parents. So many of the things shown in the movie I have experienced... the over-familiarity, the huge emphasis on food, and of course, the ever-present language barrier.

I think another Korean adoptee, Lee, whose blog I read, wrote a really great post that is well worth a read. In addition to a good description of the movie, he also talks about some Korean values, which really explain a lot of the things I have had a hard time with culturally here. Anyway, you can read his post here.

THAT'S a wedding gift!

One of my favorite things about studying (besides learning another language and being able to talk to my birth family, yada yada yada) is the opportunity to learn first-hand about other cultures from my classmates.

This semester it's cool because our increased ability to speak with our classmates allows us to have really amazing conversations. More and more, our teachers will introduce how things are done in Korea and then ask us to share how things are done in our respective countries.

For example, today we were talking about wedding gifts. In Korea, people normally give money. To an acquaintance you are expected to give the equivalent of $30. And for a good friend, about $50. And for a best friend or family member, you can give more if you wish.

In Japan, money is also the most commonly given gift. But here's where it gets crazy... an acquaintance should get about $300.... and a good friend? How about $1,000+!?!?! Talk about breaking into a cold sweat when a wedding invitation arrives in your mailbox!!! Gak!

I promise...

I promise the China wedding post is coming soon. Just totally overloaded right now with school. Seriously, did I mention there are only TWO WEEKS left of semester 2? Which means the midterm is just around the corner. 진짜 무서워요 [really scared]!!! Mark and I are actually investigating the possibility of some private tutoring at the hagwon we went to when we first arrived in Korea for our 2.5 week break between levels 2 and 3. Our listening and speaking levels just don't seem to be where we need them to be, so maybe some 2 on 1 practice will help move us in the right direction.

Plus, I have been limping through level 2 and was informed that level 3 is 10x worse. As in, level 1 to 2 is a step up in difficulty. Then level 2 to 3 is a LEAP up. Yeah, some extra help/practice is absolutely necessary.

Anyway, I promise a post is forthcoming... once I can get the pictures uploaded to flickr and Mark can edit some of our videos.

Back in ROK!

We're back in Korea and do we have some stories to tell. But first we have to work and prepare for classes tomorrow.

So I'll just leave you with this little teaser... our trip to China included the shadiest zoo imaginable, a marching band, Star Wars, some angels, and huge pigs. More to come soon....