It was about a ninety-minute drive to the village and we arrived at the town wedding hall where the event was being held. It was late morning and when we arrived, lunch was being served to guests in the great hall downstairs. I was taken aback by the size of the crowd, it seemed that everyone in the village was there. Easily 300, maybe more guests were seated at long tables with bench seats and caterers were serving them lunch. Bob and Yong-Su went to sit with the family, Dave, his wife and I found seats at a table along the far side of the building. The food was typical Korean fare (Stir-fried vegetables, fried meats, seafood and of course rice in many presentations.) and there was plenty of it along with several options of spirits. Dave was drinking Makli, which appeared to me to be dirty river water, sticks included. Dave raved about it, but I declined and drank water since we were in dress uniform and the day was already heating up. There were ceiling fans, but no air conditioning so I was sweating already.
After lunch, it was time for everyone to visit the bride in her rented pearl beaded gown. This requires a bit of explanation I think, so let me set up the situation. Yong-Su’s family was a blue-collar, working-class family. By local standards they were doing well, but far from well to do. Her sister and brother-in-law had been married in a civil ceremony and saved their coins for seven years to pay for this public spectacle. (They had three children by the time they had enough money saved.) Hence the rented hall, catering and rented dress. (The dress value was over $8,000 in 1990, hence only rented.) This was a public ceremony to show everyone they had the means to have the wedding. (This was based on conversations with Dave, Bob and Yon-Su, and may not be representative of Korean culture in general, just the small part I witnessed.)
The procession of people visiting the bride and giving her cash wedding presents in her alcove on the second floor continued until early afternoon when it was time for the wedding ceremony. The ceremony was in a large hall on the 2nd floor (half the size of the downstairs hall) and it was packed to capacity. It was standing room only in the back, which was nice as I was standing near a balcony door trying to get any breeze I could find in the heat. It was a western style Christian ceremony conducted in the Korean language so I couldn’t tell you what the officiant said or give real details on the text of the ceremony. It lasted well over an hour and finally it ended.
Once the bride and groom exited the hall, the guests filed the out and back to the hall downstairs for more food and drinks and the reception. Meanwhile, the bride and groom changed into the traditional hanbok, a traditional Korean dress specially designed for the ceremony. Then they were sequestered in a small area draped in silk where the kunbere ceremony was held. The Korean ceremony represented thousands of years of tradition and was private for the bride and groom.
Eventually, the bride and groom re-appeared and were seated at a long low family table in the front of the hall on a dias. It seated about 30 or so and Dave, Bob, Yong-Su and I were all seated with the immediate family this time. I ended up seated between two of the bride’s younger brothers. I was at a loss for much of the conversation as I spoke no Korean a and only Yong-Su and my army mates spoke English. Yong-Su was our translator and I only had a clue about what she translated, which was I’d say less than a tenth of the conversations that were going on. Mostly I was eating and some drinking while everyone else was talking around me.
After the ceremonies, there was a slow departure of everyone but the immediate family at the table. I was slow to notice this as I was seated facing away from the main seating area and because I was becoming occupied at the table. In the process of everyone trying to get to know the Americans at the table, I was asked: “How many sons do you have?” I replied that I had three sons and immediately my status at the table soared to incredible heights. Now it appeared, it was time to challenge the manliness of this incredible American stud.
I was politely informed that it was customary that if you wanted a refill of your drink, you poured a drink for the person seated adjacent to you. I was seated between Yong-su’s brothers and one of them had poured me a shot of Soju, so I in return poured him a shot. No big deal. (Soju is a rice whiskey akin to panther sweat. It takes about 4 shots to get seriously polluted.) After pouring his shot, he signaled “cheers” and we both kicked our drinks back. Then the other brother repeated this dance, and I kicked back another shot. My father taught me well, that if you are going to be drinking, to eat well too. Booze and an empty stomach are a bad combination, so I had been taking every opportunity that came along to put on the feedbag. It quickly became evident that the plan was to get me hammered.
I’ve never been a small person and I have been 200+pounds since the eighth grade. These brothers may have matched my weight together. I decided if they were going to get me hammered, I was going to return the favor. If one of them poured me a shot, I poured them both one. Shot for shot they didn’t stand a chance with me. Then they tried just putting the glass up and taking a sip while I drank the whole shot. I made a big production and animated that if I kicked back my shot, they had to kick back theirs. After I called them out, everyone was watching the show and I had peer pressure on my side as they tried to outdrink the stud. After 5 shots, I was wobbly but still eating, the brothers were leaning against me dozing lightly.
Eventually, the wedding hall staff wanted to go home. They had cleaned up, put all the leftover food in buckets and we were shooed out of the building to the parking lot. There seemed to be no real plan after that point as I remember we spent a long time in the parking lot, talking, eating out of some of the buckets and of course the Soju was still flowing. Eventually, the party dwindled down to about 10 and we drove down the road to the bride’s house. (This part may seem a bit disjointed, but I was pretty well smashed and this is what I could piece together after I sobered up.) Dave’s Korean wife was now our driver as she was pregnant and was the only sober one in our group.
At the house, the men congregated in the kitchen, the women in the family room. There was a TV on in each room and I think we were playing poker while the ladies did whatever. I can remember the brothers again trying vainly to out drink me resulting in them laying passed out on the floor. I was wobbly, but still upright for the most part and successfully managed to find the toilet. (You entered it from outside, that is all I really recall.) And finally, Dave’s wife corralled Dave, Bob, Yong-Su and I and convinced us we needed to go back to base.
I woke up the next day with a terrible hangover, but memories of another interesting adventure in Korea.
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