by Diane Farr
Seung and I each wrote five things we love most about each other that Barry will read aloud as part of our vows. We did not show these things to each other, and I have been nervous that Seung’s stoic nature would make his love seem less romantic than mine. But in the end, three of the five things we each wrote were exactly the same.
Barry says that Seung loves me because I have the strength of a hundred men to get done what is important to me and mine, and secondly, because I know more about Asian culture than he does. Then, that I love Seung because he allows me to be softer and kinder by his example, and that when he picked me up for our first date and I saw he drove a Porsche, I asked him if he was in the Korean Mob. When he whispered back, “Yes,” I didn’t even care if he was serious. Barry then notes that we also each wrote that we feel like a perfect yin and yang, but that we gave different examples to prove how. We both said that we needed the other at night because I am so cold and he is so warm and together we make each other more comfortable. We both summed up that we loved how the other valued the family we started with and longed for the one we would make together. And we both spoke of knowing ourselves well enough to know when we’ve met our match. We went about this point in very different ways, which made me giggle spontaneously on the altar, because Seung’s version was so much sweeter and more poetic than mine—even though I was considered the writer between us.
Barry passes our rings around to everyone in attendance, in a bird’s nest that my maid of honor has secured them in. He asks each guest here today to function as a part of our marriage and help us to honor it. As he then walks us through the five steps of a traditional American wedding, we only get stuck when we can’t get Seung’s wedding band on his finger. Not because the crowd has abducted it but because his hands are so swollen from the altitude. I put Seung’s wedding band on his pinky and assure our assembly that I will see to it later. Barry closes by saying, “By the powers vested in me—by the Internet—I now pronounce you husband and wife.” And with a lean in and a big kiss to Seung, The Giant Korean is mine forever.
* AT THE RECEPTION, SEUNG AND I HAVE AN official “first dance” (trumping our actual first dance at the engagement party where I first met him, when Christine was underneath my skirt and I pulled on my eyelids to signal him over to me). And then I have another dance with my dad. Afterward I take my place on the side of the dance floor we made for ourselves, under a tree where we hung disco balls, to watch as Seung dances with his mother. I am wondering if Ama knows that this is a wedding tradition in our country. It clearly doesn’t matter because her face is beaming as she looks up at Seung now. And then I have a little solo dance with my mother, too, because for as much grief as I have given her for being an untraveled American whose priority has never been learning new things, she worked hard on making her children good people. Her vicissitude as a parent is what has allowed me to challenge her on the differences in our beliefs. And I thank her most for that.
Just before dinner I ask my bridesmaid Leigh to join me in the bathroom. Leigh is my oldest friend and the only one I could ask to do this job with me. There is so much material on the bottom of my gown, making it into the giant fluffy thing that it is, that I don’t know how I’m going to address my need to change a tampon. But with Leigh holding four feet of white crinoline, I manage to get halfway there. When I see that the previous one has absolutely no blood, I gasp. Leigh is trying to comfort me, saying it’s not on the dress either, but that’s not what I’m thinking. I am so excited I can hardly breathe. Leigh had her children long ago and clearly is not as versed in “latching” as I am. I am almost positive that the disappearance of my period is because it wasn’t a period at all. But, trying not to incite a riot of excitement, I refrain from explaining any of this. When I tell Leigh I won’t be needing another girl product, she comments how funny the mind is—that one could just will her body to stop its normal cycle. And I hug her, really hoping that I have willed my body into something bigger than that.
When dessert is served, my father walks the room with a humidor, handing out Cuban cigars. I purchased them on a recent trip to Dubai and am so thrilled they have survived all the way here. Both Seung and his sister partake in the cigars, but Seung’s dad immediately rushes over to him and tells him that he should put it out. He reminds Seung that Korean children do not smoke in front of their parents, as it’s disrespectful. But tonight Seung puts his arm around his father and says, “Apa, the Korean night is over. You are an American citizen and so am I, so smoke ’em if you got ’em!” Apa does not get the reference, but he lights up anyway and lets Seung be. (He does, however, insist that Eun Yi put out her cigar on the spot, so I’m guessing this hall pass for Seung to do as he wants won’t be carried over after our big day is done.)
My table has had fancy champagne on it all night. The Korean tables have bottles of Crown Royal, and my Irish relatives have bluelabel Jameson. My friends are showered in vodka and Seung’s are bathed in scotch. And they all collectively drink too much and dance until the proprietors beg us to get on the bus for the thirty-minute ride home. Once we’re on, I see strangers making out with each other and two guys I don’t know who are heatedly debating the lyrics to a Don Henley song. There is both laughter and vomit on the ride back, which all proves to me that a good time was had by all.
When Seung and I wake in our condo the next morning, I tell him about the mishap with my period and that for all we know it may have been a fetus latching to my uterus on our wedding day. “Fetus” and “uterus” are not words Seung wants to hear after a night of drinking, so he puts his hand out to make it stop. When I press him that we literally may have gotten pregnant on our wedding day, he pats my face, saying, “That’s great, honey.” Clearly, he ain’t buyin’ it.
We race out to our breakfast brunch and I sit down with Seung’s cousin Dan from Texas. His daughter and Leigh’s daughter were our flower girls yesterday, and I am hoping to get some time with their family before they head out. Dan was Seung’s childhood idol. He was the first Korean relative whom Seung saw play football and cheer for American sports teams. Dan is charming and the father to three stunning daughters. His wife, Candace, is elegant and kind and indulged me when I asked for just her youngest daughter to walk with my goddaughter for our ceremony. Suddenly, just now this morning, I realize that Candace is American and Caucasian, and a Texan at that. I just now think to ask her if Como (older sister of Seung’s father—her mother-in-law) had any issues when she and Dan got married. She says her mother-in-law did not object, but she pauses just long enough that I suspect someone did.
We smile at each other, not sure of what to do from here, as I am just entering a family she has been a part of for over a decade. Only I’m practiced at this kind of conversation by now, and I am about to ask Candace if it was her family who had an objection to her relationship with Dan. And ask her what they did as a couple to keep their relationship safe from the objections of others. All leading up to the bigger discussion about what Candace did to handle her whoever’s feelings at the time of her wedding—when I suddenly realize I don’t have to ask anymore.
Because I am here. I have my own story of how I arrived at my marriage to someone of a different race when one family was dissenting at the start. Seung is my husband and everyone here at breakfast this morning makes up both our families. Instead of needing to discuss it all, I just smile as Candace explains to her daughter that she can call me Auntie if she likes. And I’m so excited that my family just might look like hers someday (if I’m lucky enough) and that all the turmoil of “how will we survive if one of our families shuns us?” is done. With a wedding band beneath my beautiful engagement ring on my left finger, I have crossed over from she who is looking for advice—to she who has some to give. My path to marriage was not the most treacherous tale of all those I have heard, and I did manage to arrive at my wedding, with more than enough family and friends to support Seung and me. Hopefully all this drama between love and race will end soon. Unt
il then, I am now ready to be to other mixed-race couples what those forthright and loving souls were to me.
* SEUNG CARRIES ME OVER THE THRESHOLD OF our home in L.A. when we return Sunday night, while my roommate from college in England photographs us. She and a dear friend from New York are sleeping over, as are my father and grandmother. It’s a packed house on our first night at home. And at six in the morning the next day, my maid of honor, Laurie, does her last duty and sneaks in the side door of my kitchen to bring me a pregnancy test. I run into my bathroom to pee on the stick, and before stepping out to show her the answer, I race into my bedroom to wake Seung. I put the pee-stick right in Seung’s face. He wakes to the oh-so-gnarly smell of my morning’s first urine one inch from his nose and asks what an “X” means. I adjust the stick so he can see that it is actually a plus sign. For positive. We are pregnant.
I see five things go running across Seung Chung’s face. But the one that lasts is total disbelief. He is left frozen, staring at me like, How the hell did you make that happen, one second after we were married? Without his having to say a word, I whisper, “You married an Irish girl. What did you expect?”
Other than Laurie and Seung, no one will know our news for the time being. Immediately upon seeing the positive sign, Laurie fills my bag with five more pregnancy tests, warning me that I will not be satisfied with just one. And then she puts three books wrapped in a T-shirt inside also. When I ask what they are, Laurie says everything I need to know about gestation, and that they’re hidden in the shirts in case my in-laws are standing next to me in the security line and I’m asked to empty my bags. Holy shit, did I pick the best maid of honor or what?
We’re driving to the airport in less than an hour with Seung’s parents, who are also flying to Korea. We’re not on the same airline as Ama and Apa, and I am so glad because once I’m on the aircraft and buckled in, I am voraciously inhaling What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Seung, however, is nonplussed. Either he really doesn’t believe it, or he is still too high from yesterday’s events. Ah, yes, just yesterday, when my life had a whole other focus.
I will only find out months from now that early pregnancy for men is very different from early pregnancy for women, but while sitting in the fancy class to Korea, I decide to take Seung’s cue and put the pregnancy on hold till after our honeymoon. Or at least I will try to.
CHAPTER 13.
LET’S TAKE THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD!
“How many people will be sitting for dinner at this wedding reception tomorrow?”
—MS. DIANE FARR, AKA MRS. DIANE CHUNG
SEOUL IS UNLIKE any other city I’ve ever been in. It’s as urban as Hong Kong or New York, but it does not have an island feel like both of them do, even though most of the real estate is upward bound. The streets in the city are as quiet as Chicago’s—where people are polite and don’t raise their voices. It’s also as clean as Singapore, but the youth here are a dead giveaway that this is a democracy through and through. Teenagers in Seoul are much more artistic than almost anywhere else in Asia, reminiscent to me only of Tokyo. The kids are listening to music I haven’t even heard of and are outfitted like chic, cool pop stars. Animation and video games take on a whole other level here, so much so that they make a PlayStation look like Atari.
The twentysomething working people ever on the move in this sprawling capital are in a hurry like Californians, but are wielding electronics that put Hollywood to shame. While riding trains around this city, I’m amazed not only that everyone’s phones work everywhere here, but that they just have to tilt their heads to hang up the call before making the next one. Chauffeur-driven cars abound, the shopping puts Paris to shame, and I have to wonder aloud if the whole southern half of this peninsula is rich. Seung replies that we’re leaving for the countryside tomorrow and I can see for myself. Before we go I ask him to sit with me in a coffee shop and take a moment to just look around. This city is so fast. And so busy. And the most amazing thing about it all is that I can go an entire day without seeing another non-Asian person. Picture yourself walking through a skyscraperfilled environment where everyone is the same race. It’s so strange. But the most amazing part is that even though they are not my race, they are so cosmopolitan that they are not intrigued or even remotely interested in the fact that I’m different or Caucasian. This is the most unique mix of the best of both worlds as an ethnophile. All of us souls who run around the world looking to discover a place just before it is “discovered” by the masses will rarely, if ever, be satisfied. Because discovering a new land and culture, before they are either overly interested in you for your tourism dollars or completely over you for what the tourism has done to them, is a tiny window that most of us with a wanderlust may never hit. Well, let me say for the record, I just found mine in Korea.
The next day Seung and I say goodbye to his parents and take off alone on the fast train to Buson, a small city on the southeastern tip of the country that’s famous for its film festival and honeymooners and I finally see the rice paddies. The image of terraced land with people squatting low, doing the backbreaking work that constitutes pulling each grain of rice from the ground, swells my heart. It’s a visceral feeling I have, seeing this labor that literally looks like God’s work in the hot sun. Korea is so uniquely breathtaking, though, because the backdrop to these gorgeous green vistas of tall grasses are mountains. Huge mountains that go on and on across the country. It is not only one of the most dramatic landscapes I’ve seen in the lower Orient—it packs the punch of a much bigger state. And to think that I am only seeing half the beauty this landmass has to offer because Kim Jong Il sequesters North Korea from the rest from the world.
Seung and I stay in the same hotel where his parents stayed nearly forty years before on their honeymoon. The hotel has changed greatly, but the beach might be exactly the same. We take long walks over rocks and sand and eat terrific food in very local, family-owned restaurants all along the way. We travel to the outdoor daily market and finally, I feel like an alien. It’s not because I’m American. Or Caucasian. It’s because I have a T-shirt on that the locals don’t like. Said T-shirt covers me across my collarbone and to my elbows. It is loose around the middle, but Seung warned me that it was too fitted on my chest when we left our room today. I was sure I already had a gauge on the modesty in this country and didn’t agree. However, the ajimas (Korean for older women not related to you) who sell their food at the stalls here today are heckling me. I can’t understand their words, but their tone is universal. This is furthered when they literally start grabbing their breasts as a gesture to hide mine. I hurry to the next aisle in this market where the sun isn’t so bright on my white shirt, hoping maybe the shade will make it all seem like less of a display.
There are miles of dried everything at these food stalls, from seaweed to frogs. The foods and spices are stunning in color and wonderful to see, but even to me, as well traveled as I like to consider myself, some of these things seem too frightening to even think about consuming. My new husband is having a ball, though, buying all kinds of strange-looking stuff to take back to his parents. (At least I hope it’s for his parents.) This very distant town feels like a real honeymoon, and Seung and I sleep in and let all the thrill of the wedding go as we begin to fold back into one another.
TWO DAYS LATER when we get back to Seoul, Seung and I begin our many meetings with his relatives. The women I can’t wait to meet most are the two daughters of the eldest male of Seung’s father’s generation, who were raised entirely in America and came back here to South Korea after college. They are the ones who not only married people their grandmother deemed appropriate, but also nursed their father back to health after his stroke. I can’t imagine how these women bridged the gap between having been Americanized in their education and life and yet still so traditional in their relationships to family and their major life choices. The younger sister, Judy, is on the East Coast of America right now but when I meet Rita in person, you might guess that
I don’t hesitate to ask everything I’m wondering.
“I was miserable at first,” says Rita, the elder of these two sisters, about leaving the States to come back to Korea as a single twentysomething. “It was really hard. But eventually it did get better.” Again, like all the members of our generation in Seung’s family, I find Rita to be without pretense. Her husband went to Pepperdine University, and not only has seen every movie ever made, but is a producer and buyer of films in Korea. Rita tells me that she actually knew her husband before the “tea” set up by their families. She had met him at many events in Seoul through mutual friends, and Rita whispered to him at the end of one late-night party, “Don’t tell my grandmother that I was here.” Everyone laughs at the table and I can’t tell if she is kidding or not, but her candor is fantastic nonetheless. She tells me the story of her wedding, perhaps in preparation for the party we’re having here later this week. She says it’s not an evening of revelry or dancing, and that children in Korea (even grown children like Seung and me, in their late thirties) do not drink in front of their parents.
So it’s not just smoking, it’s all the devilish calling cards that I was raised on, as an Irish/Italian/New Yorker/American, that are off-limits in front of parents here. Huh. But Rita also says that as soon as her wedding was over, she and her husband had so many laughs and drinks in rapid succession with friends, not far from the ballroom where their families were, that they totally made up for the formal ceremony. So maybe it’s not all that different—just the appearance is?
Rita has us meet today at a four-story restaurant in the middle of Seoul that is run by Buddhist monks. The food is family-style and epic with its portions, and we cannot possibly get through it all. It’s only that much more unlikely to happen because Rita and I won’t stop talking. She tells me that she has opened a private school to teach the many languages she knows to children. I look at her life and wonder if Seung and I could ever live here. Her husband could produce my movies and I could sit at a little-kid desk after filming and really learn this language from Rita. Seung smiles, knowing how I get sucked into every place I visit, wanting to stay for three to five years, but then end up rarely even returning for a visit because my drive to see someplace new is insatiable. But this is Seung’s family’s homeland. I know I will be back here, and I’m so thrilled that I do like these people. I’m actually very inspired by Rita, and all of Seung’s cousins in fact. I find nothing but comfort in every member of our generation in Seung’s family. I look forward to my children playing with theirs.