Wedding Bells and Flesh Wounds

A friend here in Korea, an English teacher named Emmanuel who has been in Korea for a number of years now, recently got married to a Korean woman. The two met through either a church or a choir group they were part of (or maybe it was a church choir), and in September they had their official ceremony in Canada. The Korean ceremony was held just last weekend, and Shannon and I along with a few other friends from town were able to attend.

It was quite a nice event, and I was surprised at how similar it felt to a western ceremony. This might just be me getting used to Korean events though, so maybe you shouldn't trust me too much in that assessment. What I did notice that made it unique and entertaining was the traditional Korean dancers/musicians who performed at it, as well as the bizarre initiation they made Emmanuel and his new wife go through. The dancers were really spectacular, with lots of drumming and symbol banging. They each had ribbons attached to their hats as well, and they could whip them around in all kinds of neat, hypnotic ways. As for the initiation thing, Emmanuel explained to us that it was designed to deter a man from getting married more than once - taking away a single woman is something Koreans see as a sad thing, so it involved lots of beating of his feet. Maria, his new wife, had to caress or kiss Emmanuel according to where the MC told her to. Being a former nun, things got a little tricky for her once she had to start poking him below the belt, and Emmanuel took a slap on his feet every time she messed up or refused to poke/kiss wherever the MC told her to. It was all in good fun, but I think the guy with the stick took his job more seriously than Emmanuel would have liked.

In other news, Shannon's had an unfortunate ordeal with her dermatologist lately. Cosmetic surgery is quite cheap here in Korea, and the technology is extremely advanced - already Shannon's had an old scar removed for $10, and we've met others who get heaps of work done for things like acne, unwanted tattoos and scarring. Well, Shannon decided to get an old tattoo removed, a small maple leaf on her ankle that never turned our right when she had it done. The doctor she went to is quite reputable, and we assumed it would all go fine. Now, she's got what we believe to be 3rd degree burns on her ankle. We don't know what exactly went wrong, probably the laser was set to high for the procedure, but she's had to go to the doctor every other day to get re-bandaged, have creams put on her ankle, and just to check it to make sure it's okay. It's getting better now, but she's still in quite a lot of pain and it's been more than a month since it went wrong. I'll put some pictures of it up sometime soon, though if you're not big into seeing injuries, you may want to avoid checking this out.

School has been busy this week, as some of the classes that were canceled were now rescheduled. It didn't quite make up for everything I missed, but I've had a few days of working straight through the day with few breaks in between. It's never that bad, working some long days now and then, and really, it's nice to know I haven't been completely forgotten.