Meet the Parents.

It may come to a surprise to long time readers that don't actually know me, but I am, in fact, engaged to a Korean woman I've been seeing for the past two years and will be getting married at the end of this year. This has been kept off the main page intentionally. I don't feel compelled to share such information with complete strangers. My students, family, my friends, and everyone that knows me personally should know by now, so there is hardly a point to keeping it "secret" online anymore as well.

However, keeping such things to myself has meant that some of my best experience have not been shared. I don't plan on sharing anything intimate I wouldn't tell friends, but some distinct cultural situations are not going to be mentioned if I don't eventually mention the fact that I will be living with a Korean person for a for the rest of my life.

We've already set a date for the ceremony, and we've moved far enough along to get to the all important "Meet the Parents" phase of the relationship. Traditionally Korean couples don't bring most dates home. This has led to all sorts of creative ways for young Korean people to spend time with each other that doesn't involved going home together. DVD rooms, Board game rooms, Overnight stays in relaxation rooms, etc, all allow people to spend time together in a non-supervised, semi-private atmosphere outside of parents scrutiny.

If you make it to "Meet the Parents" stage, you've gone to "boyfriend" to "potential marriage potential". This doesn't apply in my case, as I've already proposed, and we set a date for the wedding far before we ate with the entire family. This decreases the pressure somewhat, as I've already sort of gotten the more important (from my perspective) things out of the way. All I had to do is survive the meal and I pretty much passed the tests they set out for me.

I had met both the mother and brother before. I'm friends with her brother, and we've hung out a few times alone without my fiancée. He speaks English after a trip to Australia, which makes me feel very comfortable. Her mother, on the other hand, speaks no English, and doesn't really have any experience interacting with foreigners. I've met her a few times, but it's been a little nerve racking. She's nice, but I keep feeling pressure to speak Korean and not to make mistakes in front of her.

Today was the first time I met her father, which was the entire point of the dinner in question. We had been trying to arrange the meeting for the past week or two, but he's canceled because of work. He reminded me of a Korean version of Clint Eastwood, his skin wrinkled and leathery from the sun and his voice husky and rough. My initial fears about him turned out to be unfounded. He is a very Korean man to the core, but I think it went well enough. He also doesn't speak English or interact with foreigners at all.

We settled our business over a dinner of duck at a local restaurant. He was asking questions about our "plans". He seemed interested, if somewhat stumped as to how to interact with me. I listened intently to everything he said and agreed. I've seen enough Korean televisions shows and dramas to know you don't do anything to directly disagree with a father in this situation.
His advice to me was succinctly summed up with, "If you don't work in our country, you don't eat." I nodded in agreement. He's speaking from experience, and I know that for a fact. I don't want to make it more profound than it was, but I felt that I was acknowledging the responsibility I was taking on. I understood it directly without any translation help, which made it more lasting and important to me.

Mercifully, I was able to follow almost everything he or anyone else said at the table. I watched my table manners as well as I could. I was getting stuffed because her father politely insisted I ate nearly everything. I didn't have to drink any alcohol, which was good for everyone. He commented I used chopsticks well. I actually was better at it than her brother at picking up some slippery fish cakes.

It was lucky that her brother was present, because some of the attention I would have received was directed towards him. He is single, and will graduate college soon. His parents were urging him to get out of the house like his sister will shortly. It's not that he is exactly trying to stay home with the folks, but that's where he will be until marriage..

His parents were clearly using me as an example about what he should do. Once they started leaving me alone and working on him I felt I had passed whatever tests they had. While I sympathized with watching her brother squirm in such a situation, I did my best not to show my relief that I wasn't the focus any longer.

I went from "pulse pounding, heart racing, near vomiting" nervousness to somewhere on the side of "vague general comfort", I don't feel at ease, or free to express myself completely, but I'm not sure if that is because of language or due to the social conventions of Korean families. There is much more I can't say than I can, but this was the first important set to making sure I was moving in the right direction in regards to her family.

Family events like this will only be getting more common as time goes by. I've still got to decide if I want to go to celebrate Chusok with her larger extended family. It's optional for women, and she hasn't gone the past few years, but it would be another first for me. We've still got to meet my parents as well, which throws the ball in her court in regards to language and customs.

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