A story of an International family.
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Many of my subscribers and readers of my Youtube and blog want to know how open Korean people are about international dating and marriage.
I asked what kind of questions that want to know about Koreans, and many people commented on the video.
I interviewed my students and picked the questions that were most asked by people and asked the questions.
I interviewed 6 students of mine. They are all Korean born and raised in Korea.
These are the questions that I asked them.
1. Would you date someone outside of your race/country?
2. What would you do if your parents disapprove of you dating or marrying someone outside of your race?
3. Do you believe African Americans all act and look like we are portrayed on TV?
4. Do you want your girlfriend/wife to learn Korean or will you learn English?
5. Do you want her to move to Korea or will you move to her country to live?
6. As a Korean man, do you get upset when you see Korean women date foreign men?
The first student that I interviewed was Adam.
He didn't want to show his face on the video, but later on another video, you will be able to see his face! :)
His answer was
1. Would you date someone outside of your race/country? Yes.
2. What would you do if your parents disapprove of you dating or marrying someone outside of your race? He would elope. He said he is still young and has that kind of courage. :)
3. Do you believe African Americans all act and look like we are portrayed on TV? He said Black people have their certain fashion and vibe. He met little black boys (around 7 years old) in Australia, and they wore hiphop clothes and looked very much like how they were portrayed on TV.
4. Do you want your girlfriend/wife to learn Korean or will you learn English? He said he would first communicate with her in English, but he will teach her Korean so that they can communicated in Korean as well later on.
5. Do you want her to move to Korea or will you move to her country to live? He wants to live abroad.
6. As a Korean man, do you get upset when you see Korean women date foreign men? A little bit. He thinks that some Korean girls change the way they behave after they date foreign men. Their attitude change in a bad way.
He was being honest and I appreciate his opinions.
The second student that I interviewed was Justino. He is a very honest guy.
1. Would you date someone outside of your race/country? Yes, but she said he would marry a Korean woman.
2. What would you do if your parents disapprove of you dating or marrying someone outside of your race? He wouldn't care about their opinion because they are always against his opinion. lol.
3. Do you believe African Americans all act and look like we are portrayed on TV? He doesn't think so.
4. Do you want your girlfriend/wife to learn Korean or will you learn English? He doesn't want to push his girlfriend/wife to learn Korean, so he will learn English.
5. Do you want her to move to Korea or will you move to her country to live? He doesn't care where he lives.
6. As a Korean man, do you get upset when you see Korean women date foreign men? Not at all.
My third interviewee was a woman. Her name is Irene, and she is good at Chinese and English.
1. Would you date someone outside of your race/country? Yes.
2. What would you do if your parents disapprove of you dating or marrying someone outside of your race? She thinks that her parents would be ok with anyone that she chooses because she is a bit older than other Korean women who get married.
3. Do you believe African Americans all act and look like we are portrayed on TV? No.
4. Do you want your boyfriend/husband to learn Korean or will you learn English? If her husband cannot speak Korean, she will learn his language. If he speaks Korean, they will communicate in Korean.
5. Do you want him to move to Korea or will you move to his country to live? She can live anywhere.
6. As a Korean woman, do you get upset when you see Korean men date foreign women? No. She thinks that is very stupid to do that.
The next person that I interviewed was Troy. He is a married man who said he cannot have a chance to date anyone who is outside of his race. He was being very honest about answering his questions. He is good at Japanese.
1. Would you date someone outside of your race/country? He said he would not. Obviously, he is already married, so he said it. lol. He said he would not because the cultural difference would frustrate him.
2. What would you do if your parents disapprove of you dating or marrying someone outside of your race? He thinks that his parents are very open-minded so they would accept it.
3. Do you believe African Americans all act and look like we are portrayed on TV? No.
4. Do you want your girlfriend/wife to learn Korean or will you learn English? He will learn English.
5. Do you want her to move to Korea or will you move to her country to live? He wants to move to USA.
6. As a Korean man, do you get upset when you see Korean women date foreign men? No.
The next one was a woman again! :) She has the most hits among all the interviewee's videos. She said she likes Black men because they have good bodies. :) She is a very sweet girl. Her name is Bella.
1. Would you date someone outside of your race/country? Yes!
2. What would you do if your parents disapprove of you dating or marrying someone outside of your race? She would try to make her parents meet her boyfriend several times so that they can get to know each other. She thinks that her parents would accept him because they like her and they trust her. (That is exactly what happened to me!!!!)
3. Do you believe African Americans all act and look like we are portrayed on TV? No. She LIKES BLACK MEN!
4. Do you want your boyfriend/husband to learn Korean or will you learn English? She will learn English and he will need to learn Korean so that they can understand each other's culture better.
5. Do you want him to move to Korea or will you move to his country to live? She wants to live in another country.
6. As a Korean woman, do you get upset when you see Korean men date foreign women? No.
The last person that I interviewed was Kevin. He is very studious and never skipped my class. He is not married yet(he didn't believe in marriage), but he is thinking about getting married soon since his girlfriend wants it.
1. Would you date someone outside of your race/country? Yes, but he would not marry them.
2. What would you do if your parents disapprove of you dating or marrying someone outside of your race? He would think about dating and marrying her again.
3. Do you believe African Americans all act and look like we are portrayed on TV? No, but Black men are a bit scary. (Maybe because they are big. He only met one Black man in person in his life.)
4. Do you want your girlfriend/wife to learn Korean or will you learn English? He will learn English, but he will teach her Korean as well.
5. Do you want her to move to Korea or will you move to her country to live? He wants to move to another country since he has lived in Korea for his entire life.
6. As a Korean man, do you get upset when you see Korean women date foreign men? No.
After I uploaded these videos, many of them asked my students if they would marry (not date but marry) foreigners. So, I asked them the question and made another video.
Three out of four men said, they would not marry someone outside of their race or they would hesitate if their parents are against it. Only Adam said he would because he is young and wild. LOL. Irene was not in class because of her business trip, so I only interviewed Bella. She said she would marry and I believe that Irene would probably say she would marry, too.
They wanted to ask foreigners questions, so we made a video of asking questions.
The questions are
1. If you got married to a Korean, would you learn Korean and could you live in Korea? - by Troy
2. To WOMEN : If you want to get married to a Korean man, are you willing to cook Korean food and eat it almost everyday? - by Kevin
3. TO MEN : What do you think about Korean women? - by Bella
4. TO WOMEN: What do you think about Korean men's obligation to go to Korean army for 2 years? - by Adam
If you want to answer the questions or want to check out other people's answers, watch the video on Youtube, and you will be able to see the comments. :)
Yes! Yuri turned 1!!! Well... technically, she is turning 1 on the 26th. We just had her birthday party today since Saturday is most convenient for everyone. :)
It was really fun! I invited people who we love. We made food, her birthday cake (I made it just for Yuri.) We all wore Hanbok(Korean traditional clothes). James always had some excuses whenever I asked him to wear it with me even on New year's day, but he promised to me that he would wear Hanbok for Yuri's first birthday! So, he had to wear it. He had a pretty nice looking vest, but he took it off since it was quite hot inside.
She did Doljabi, too. Doljabi is a Korean traditional game for a baby. We lay some objects in front of a birthday baby and he or she picks up an object. The object has a meaning such as longevity, wealthy, smartness, etc. And the baby will have that in her life.
Check her Doljabi! :)
I am sure she will have a long, happy life! I love her so much! James and I love her so so so so so so much!!!
Yuri. You have brought us such happiness. Please continue to be with us and bring us lots of smiles and laughs. We love you so much.
But, in Konglish, we use 이벤트 as a very special occurrence or some special thing that you do for somebody.
If a store holds 이벤트 an event, that means they might have some major sale for customers or bring some celebrities to the store so more customers can come to the store.
Black Friday, Black Saturday, Cyber Monday are considered 이벤트 in Korea.
This is an 이벤트 of 'Study abroad agency.'
They are saying they will give out some scholarship since they just opened a website about going to Japan.
Dunkin Donuts is doing some 이벤트 on Valentines day. If they buy something for their Valentines, they might win some prizes!
The loan company is doing some 이벤트 saying they will loan some money without interest for 7 days.
You can do some 이벤트 between couples.
If someone 이벤트하다 for her boyfriend or his girlfriend, that means they will throw some surprise party or propose with some music, songs in a nice place.
They do 이벤트 for their boyfriend or girlfriends' birthdays, anniversaries, 100 days after they became boyfriend or girlfriend, Valentine day, some special day, proposal, etc...
They light some candles and confess their love.
They reserve a coffee shop or a restaurant and decorate the place and confess their love with their friends.
They propose outside in public with strangers looking at them.
Especially women dream about romantic 이벤트 from their boyfriends, so many Korean guys are a bit pressured to do those 이벤트 since many other guys do it and their girlfriends get jealous and put some pressure to them.
이벤트 between couples takes place usually in public. They confess their love in the movie theater or they propose in a big coffee shop where there are many people.
Korea is such an 이벤트 country. If you don't do 이벤트, you are just not romantic and your girlfriend might think that you don't deserve a girlfriend. lol.
This is proposal 이벤트 which took place in Gangnam.
Here, a groom does 이벤트 at his wedding for his bride.
So... if you want a Korea girlfriend, REMEMBER! 이벤트 is very important! Especially in PUBLIC!! like in a movie!!!!
Today, my husband was looking at one picture and started giggling.
I took a look at it, and I could find some comments like 'So true.' 'Hahaha, that is true.'
13 people shared the picture to other people, so I guess people really thought that this picture reflects some of truth.
This is another fun joke that is popular. Obviously, guys think that marriage is a crazy thing.
Even from many movies, soap operas, and stories, a lot of men are so against marriage in the USA.
However, this thing can be hardly seen and found in Korea.
Korean women are not that excited about marriage.
M brain monitor(Korean survey company) did a survey to 2000 people in Korea.
57.6% said 'Marriage is not the necessary element of Happiness.
While 46.3% of men responded that 'you can be happy without marriage,' 68.9% of women responded that 'you can be happy without marriage.'
More women think that they can be happy without marriage.
The reason why women think like that is in Korea, even though women have a job and work, they are still considered to be the one who are responsible for the house work and chores, which is totally unfair to women.
Even among my friends, many guy friends of mine want to get married and settle down, but many girl friends of mine want to enjoy their single life and postpone her marriage as far as she can. lol.
So... those pictures of American joke didn't make me laugh nor empathize.
This is the link of the article of Korean newpaper. If you can't read Korean, you don't need to bother to click it. lol. I am just saying I didn't make this up. I have a reference. lol.
Today, I am going to write about Korean common beauty standard. I want to state that this is pretty much just common beauty standard. Everyone has different taste, but there is some common features that people think when they are thinking about a beautiful woman.
When Koreans think about a beauty, this is what they think in their head.
1. Small head(face)
Lots of celebrities are famous for their small faces.
Koreans are obsessed with a small face. They even measure how long their face is on TV programs.
People value the ratio of their head to their body.
Korean celebrities show off their small faces by covering their faces with a cd.
Some people have big faces. They even cut their jaw bones so that they can have a smaller face.
I don't know if you ever seen this, but we have this kind of tool to massage your jaw line so that you can have slimmer jaw line.
2. Big Eyes (Double eyelids)
You need to have big eyes with double eyelids. Sometimes you don't necessarily have to have double eyelids, but you NEED TO have BIG eyes.
Look at her eyes... So big and pretty.
If they don't have big eyes, they get an eyelid surgery.
We are obsessed with big eyes.
3. A slim body
You don't need to have big boobs or buttocks. All you need is a slim body.
No boobs, No ass. Just slim body. Slim legs.
4. Nice fair skin
Koreans associate fair white skin with innocence. If you have darker skin, people think that is more of sexy than innocence. People like to have nice fair skin so there is cosmetics to whiten your skin.
내 소원은 1년 365일 하얀피부
여성들 가을 겨울에도 피부 미백 관리한다.
If you translate this to English, it is
'My wish is white skin 365 days 1 year.
Women get their skin whitened even in fall and winter.'
If you look at this picture again, not only she has smaller face, she has whiter face since she is more beautiful. lol. This is a picture of an advertisement of a plastic surgery.
Anyway..
If you have all these features, come to Korea!!! You will enjoy your popularity. You might be able to get scouted to become a celebrity on Korean TV!
Again... people have different tastes. Some Korean celebrities are dark or tanned. They are really popular and pretty!
Since I am from Korea and lived in China and travelled to many different Asian countries, so I think I can talk about this stare issue.
When James was in Korea, he was always wondering what Korean people's stares meant. Obviously, many people stared at him wherever he went. He felt very uncomfortable when everybody turned their heads to look at him.
Especially, on the subway, James always went onto the subway through the door at the end of the car.
One car has 4 doors on each side, and James never used the 2 middle doors. That means you need to deal with people looking at you from your right and left. lol.
Well.. So why do they stare?
It is coming from the lack of exposure. Usually, old people stared at James. Younger people didn't stare at him as much as older people did. Korea is a homogeneous country. We look very much alike. Older people hardly see foreigners that are not white. When they see a black person who looks nice, (they usually think that black people are from Africa and Africans should look poor.), they look at him or her and observe him or her. (This is just my opinion, and I strongly think that it is true.)
OK. There is an example.
There is an old Korean guy. He found James. He started looking at James. James started feeling uncomfortable. James felt like the old guy was not happy with James or something. However, when the old Korean guy opened his mouth and told me(Lily) that James looks so cute and handsome in Korean, we realized that that look that he had on his face was just his face when he is not smiling. lol. A lot of people look angry when they are not smiling. lol.
Don't you think so? With a straight face, he does not look happy. You don't think so? Oh whatever.
Let's try again.
See?? He is definitely keeping his straight face. If he stares at you with this straight face, you might think that he is not happy with you. Right? If you don't think so, then I can't help you. lol.
Maybe, some older Korean people might have bad feelings towards foreigners. The reasons can be various. They might have gone through the war. (The Korean War was actually controlled by USA and Russia.) They may have had some bad experience with foreigners personally, or simply that is how they have been raised and educated. In Korea, you get to learn how proud homogeneous our society is in our social science class. So, that education might lead them to think that foreigners might invade our society and they are not fond of it.
So, the conclusion is the reasons why people stare at the foreigners are
1. They find you fascinating. They are not exposed to many other races, so the foreigners look very interesting to them. - I think this is quite cute. :)
2. They might not like foreigners. Mostly, this is not the case unless they have some bad experience with foreigners personally, but still it is possible. They might think that foreigners are trying to destruct Korean society by dating and marrying Koreans.
3. They are surprised by how good looking you are. This might be really possible. I remember many teenagers stared at James and whispered to each other saying he looks handsome. (Hehehehehe. I was so proud, hahahahaha.)
4. They are surprised by how big(or fat) you are. No offense, but Koreans are quite small and slim. On the other hand, many westerners are bigger than us. Some are quite bigger than they should normally weigh. We can't find many fat Korean people in Korea. If you have some body features that are different than Koreans, that draws Korean's attention.
OK.
Now, it's time to talk about other Asian countries.
When we went to China, it was really... interesting. Obviously, they hardly saw black people like James, some people even stopped to get more glimpse of him. James was like a celebrity. One day, we were eating at a restaurant. We were close to the window, and there were so many men standing close to the window to see James. That made us laugh so hard. When we laughed, they laughed and waved at us. lol. They found James very interesting and different from them. They probably never saw a black man before. That was cute and funny.
So... If you don't like stares, China is the worst place, but you need to remember that the stares are not from harm purposes or hatreds. They are just very naiive and they were just never exposed to other foreigners.
If you go to Shanghai, it is actually better. Believe or not, Shanghai people are more modernized and exposed to foreigners than Beijing people even though Beijing is the capital.
Another fun place for us was Malaysia.
We never thought that we would get many stares, but we did. There are so many Malaysian (dark) people stared at both of us!
In Korea and China, people only stared at James, but this time, they stared at both of us crazily. If you are a single person and visit Malaysia, they will not stare at you. But if you are a black and asian couple, they will stare you crazily until you feel uncomfortable. I think they thought our combination was very interesting.
Thailand, people didn't stare at us that much. But!!! The Russians and East Europeans stared at James when you were there. Hahahahaha. That is funny. Yeah, but that really happened.
Some Russians wanted to take pictures with James. They look so fascinated by his black skin. lol. Since Thailand is a tourist country, there were so many Russians and East Europeans came. (well... People from all over the world are coming, actually.) They stared at James a lot. But, local Thai people didn't even turn their head to see him at all.
Hong Kong and Singapore are the best places.
James loved it because no one was looking at him. No single old person looked at him funny.
There are so many foreigners in Hong Kong. They don't care.
He felt like he was one of them. lol.
Now, we are in the USA. People don't give us that crazy stares.
Once in a while, James says he misses those stares. He felt like he was a celebrity. lol.
Well... I guess we should enjoy the moment whether it is good or not. Once the time passes, you might think that it was actually quite cool and fun! :)
I meet many people who complain a lot about the country they visit or make fun of people in the country. I think, at some point, when I lived in China, I used to complain things that Chinese people do. On the other hand, James stayed very positive about the countries that he has been in, Korea and China. I think it is really really important to stay positive and try to understand the people or if you can't understand it, then you just admit the way they are. It is just a cultural difference. You can't judge them with your cultural standard. Their cultural standard is different from yours.
Today, I came across some videos that foreigners went physical with older people.
This is the first video that I watched.
When I watched it, I couldn't believe that black man hit the old man.
You can't do that in Korea. That is just wrong!
We as Korean respect the elder. Even though what older people say might be wrong, we need to stay respectful to them. It is just better not to talk back. It is better to stay quite and avoid them. That is how we have been taught and raised. When you go to another country, you need to act in the way as the people there act! You can't just act like you are the best and can show them your power saying "Can you see these rock?" Learn their culture first before you go to another country. If you can't tolerate the culture, just don't go there. Seriously, this video bugged me a lot.
And.. what happened here was..
The black guy was talking on the phone and the old man told him to talk quieter. He said something in English, and the old guy couldn't understand him (probably). Then the old man said "why don't YOU come here" (I guess the black guy was mentioning at the man to come fight or something). Now, in Korean, you as (why dont YOU) sounds like nee-ga. The dude, obviously not knowing korean much, probably heard nigga. Then, probably, he got so upset and show that kind of reaction.
This was all from misunderstanding.
So now what?
You need to know at least a little bit of their language when you go to a foreign country. You can't get mad at somebody who is speaking a different language assuming that he call you the N word.
When you go to a foreign country, act like the local people act and learn the language.
Another one that I watched was this one.
This one made me extremely angry.
That foreign white guy knocked the weak old man down.
Even though the old man might have ticked him off or something, you just don't beat up the weaker person than you. And again!! You don't hit elderly people. It is just against our culture! You are being rebellious! and you are a horrible person!
Gosh. I wish I was there with James, so that he could beat that white guy up and show him who's the boss. lol. jk.
Anyway,,, Again!!! If you visit another country, study the culture before. I know that people visit my blog are not even close to those crazy ugly guys... but we all need to remember this. It is because we can sometimes complain without knowing their background.
