By Yi Woo-won
In the last two months (one month apart) my two grandsons who live in Seoul got married. I could not attend the first wedding of my first and eldest grandson, Jeong-seo, because regretfully, it was amid the height of the latest surge of COVID-19 infections. I was bitterly disappointed as all my children dissuaded me adamantly from attending the ceremony.
Jeong-seo is the only child of my eldest daughter. When he was still an infant, my wife and I had to nurse him on the bottle for months. My daughter lived with us then and had just started teaching at a high school in a little town in the countryside.
My wife really loved babysitting the little child and showing him proudly to the neighbors and her friends. She never tired of looking after him. Sometimes I took my turn by putting him to sleep on my arm. Once, after observing us lying in my bed with our two heads next to each other, my wife said admiringly that the head of the little child took exactly after his grandfather's. Her casual remark that day was so pleasing and flattering that it still flashes across my mind with the image of my wife then. Jeong-seo, 33 now, and his newly-married wife are both promising architects.
When the next wedding came along a month later, I was determined to attend it at any cost. So I told my children emphatically in advance. Intriguingly, the ceremony was going to be a Catholic marriage, which I had never been to in my life. Both my grandson, Ju-hyeok, and his fiancee are baptized as Catholics and they met for the first time at a Catholic church.
My pew in the church was the second row right in front of the altar. During the mass, I just followed the others to rise, sit down and join hands for the prayers. This time, I had my hearing aids in both ears, hoping I could hear a few words of what the priest would say in his sermon. But I uttered a wordless sigh of despair. I could make nothing out of what he said in his lengthy, passionate address. However, his calm, graceful gestures and manner were enough to convince me that he was an admirable priest and preacher.
After the ceremony, there was a reception, a Korean-style buffet, where I met Jeong-seo and his wife. My delayed congratulatory message for their marriage was: (to him) "You should be very proud of yourself because she is so pretty and smart;" (and to her) "You are so lucky because my grandson has a great sense of humor, which I don't have. In fact, I always repent sadly that I had been sinful to my wife involuntarily because of my stupid, innate disposition of humorlessness."
I heard Ju-hyeok and his bride were going away for their honeymoon shortly after the reception. They would be flying off to the Maldives located in the Indian Ocean, a popular vacation resort for many honeymooners from Korea nowadays. Jeong-seo and his spouse also went to the islands for their wedding vacation a month earlier.
In the last five decades or so, there has been gigantic progress and many changes in Korea economically, socially and culturally. In those days when I was of the ages of my grandsons, for average newly-wed couples, a post-nuptial vacation was simply an unaffordable luxury. Even a marriage at a town wedding hall with a reception was too expensive. I got into debt for months after I got married.
Finally, my wife and I did have an occasion to celebrate our wedding, many decades ago now. It was our 30th anniversary and we stayed at the luxury Shilla Hotel on Jeju Island for 5 days. The trip was arranged by my two, dutiful, married daughters. We found our hotel room on the fifth floor with a great view out over the beautiful ocean. We were grateful to them for their thoughtful effort. Honestly, we had been just too busy to raise our five children from kindergarten to college. We simply had no time to think about pleasure-seeking or a vacation.
Yi Woo-won (yiwoowon1988@gmail.com) lives in Waegwan, North Gyeongsang Province, and has been writing since 1986.
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Jeong-seo is the only child of my eldest daughter. When he was still an infant, my wife and I had to nurse him on the bottle for months. My daughter lived with us then and had just started teaching at a high school in a little town in the countryside.
My wife really loved babysitting the little child and showing him proudly to the neighbors and her friends. She never tired of looking after him. Sometimes I took my turn by putting him to sleep on my arm. Once, after observing us lying in my bed with our two heads next to each other, my wife said admiringly that the head of the little child took exactly after his grandfather's. Her casual remark that day was so pleasing and flattering that it still flashes across my mind with the image of my wife then. Jeong-seo, 33 now, and his newly-married wife are both promising architects.
When the next wedding came along a month later, I was determined to attend it at any cost. So I told my children emphatically in advance. Intriguingly, the ceremony was going to be a Catholic marriage, which I had never been to in my life. Both my grandson, Ju-hyeok, and his fiancee are baptized as Catholics and they met for the first time at a Catholic church.
My pew in the church was the second row right in front of the altar. During the mass, I just followed the others to rise, sit down and join hands for the prayers. This time, I had my hearing aids in both ears, hoping I could hear a few words of what the priest would say in his sermon. But I uttered a wordless sigh of despair. I could make nothing out of what he said in his lengthy, passionate address. However, his calm, graceful gestures and manner were enough to convince me that he was an admirable priest and preacher.
After the ceremony, there was a reception, a Korean-style buffet, where I met Jeong-seo and his wife. My delayed congratulatory message for their marriage was: (to him) "You should be very proud of yourself because she is so pretty and smart;" (and to her) "You are so lucky because my grandson has a great sense of humor, which I don't have. In fact, I always repent sadly that I had been sinful to my wife involuntarily because of my stupid, innate disposition of humorlessness."
I heard Ju-hyeok and his bride were going away for their honeymoon shortly after the reception. They would be flying off to the Maldives located in the Indian Ocean, a popular vacation resort for many honeymooners from Korea nowadays. Jeong-seo and his spouse also went to the islands for their wedding vacation a month earlier.
In the last five decades or so, there has been gigantic progress and many changes in Korea economically, socially and culturally. In those days when I was of the ages of my grandsons, for average newly-wed couples, a post-nuptial vacation was simply an unaffordable luxury. Even a marriage at a town wedding hall with a reception was too expensive. I got into debt for months after I got married.
Finally, my wife and I did have an occasion to celebrate our wedding, many decades ago now. It was our 30th anniversary and we stayed at the luxury Shilla Hotel on Jeju Island for 5 days. The trip was arranged by my two, dutiful, married daughters. We found our hotel room on the fifth floor with a great view out over the beautiful ocean. We were grateful to them for their thoughtful effort. Honestly, we had been just too busy to raise our five children from kindergarten to college. We simply had no time to think about pleasure-seeking or a vacation.
Yi Woo-won (yiwoowon1988@gmail.com) lives in Waegwan, North Gyeongsang Province, and has been writing since 1986.
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