Mainstream Love

In a country where you'd most probably think people would have more apprehensions in such public displays of affection given such purist history and conservative values, you’d then smile and give credit to how Koreans can be their creative selves in mainstreaming this so called couple love. Oooh yeah, baby!



The Couple Shirts.

Korean couples really know how to be K-POPish with these matching tops that sometimes not only match the colors, but the prints themselves. Just when everybody else in the world strives to be as unique and original as possible in their wardrobe, Koreans tell us that there is great fashion dug in looking alike. The concept will initially strike you as cute, since they are primarily put on couples, whom you would realize are simply trying to profess their love to their partners. It even looks more fun, especially when you’re in an allowable place like a theme park, which is always a good venue for couples to have dates or such.

I actually spent a Sunday with friends in Everland, a popular theme park in South Korea, and boy, I’d like to think that there were more couples than kids in that place. Couples in couple shirts, at that. Five more seconds of looking at them though, enough to notice how the purses and shoes even match-- I suddenly had to ask, “What are they really trying to get at?”. Nah, I'd like to think that was plainly brought by the fact that there is no way I could sport such look anytime soon. Haha.


I asked my housemate what she thinks of Korean couples sporting matching outfits, and she said that it really is a common thing, especially among younger couples in colleges and universities. She's sported matching colors with her husband before, but has never really gone beyond matching shoes nor socks. For her, they plainly give the impression that they are the fashionable breed of couple. And quoting my housemate on this, “It’s like, they just want to show that they are one as a couple.”

Well one thing sure, Koreans, in general, strike me as dangerously bold and appealing when it comes to fashion, really. And that Koreans are the most “mainstream-ed” people as of the moment. Mix mainstream and fashion with love, and you’ll definitely get that mainstream kind of couple love. ;-)

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The Sunday Dress Culture

I have never really been the great Catholic devotee, but having been raised by spiritually-rooted parents and sent to an all-girls school that had to perform short, weekly quizzes about the Holy Bible, I don’t think it would surprise anyone if I show even the slightest effect of the Catholic influence in me.

And one great practice, you ask? Sporting a dress for the mass-- especially on an Easter Sunday. Whoot whoo!


I was very much aware of the Lenten week this year, though I must say that it was very hard to feel the supposed quiet and calm spirit of it, given the fast-paced working environment that I am in. It was “business as usual” in the place where I am currently caved in: hearing the same alarm sound from my mobile phone in the morning, walking on the same underground walkway to the same subway exit, to reach the same building elevator so I’ll get to the floor where my same high-backed office chair is placed. And for some reasons, as soon as my ass slumps itself on the cushion of that office chair that I just mentioned, I am automatically transported to a world of non-stop googling, online reading, and occasional eye-drooping. It’s normal, don’t worry. We all get tired when all we have to do is burn holes in our chairs, and pretend we have mastered all that there is in our field of work.

But despite this five-day virtual transformation in the office, weekends have more or less brought me back to the simpler of things, and not to mention, the more pleasant ones. I have never looked forward to Easter Sunday in my whole life than this year, when even an outright reminder to myself that I should not eat meat on a Friday, still plodded me to a samgyeopsal lunch appointment with a colleague. My longing for Easter Sunday is therefore a redemption from my submergence to another culture that made me forget my own.

And what a way to celebrate such yearning, than with someone who has more or less been exposed to the Sunday dress culture back in our teen years. It’s funny that the first question that this friend brought up as we talked about meeting up to attend the morning mass, was if we have gotten ourselves a church dress to wear. In the few times that this friend and I have actually met, hearing the Holy Eucharist has always been our agenda together, so going a level higher to inquiring about church etiquette may be a promise of better church meet-ups together. Who knows?

I get a late night, self-invite and reminder from a housemate that she wants to join me to mass the next morning, plus a shout-out from someone in the subway station as I high-heel your way to church-- and I end up standing in one line at the back of the cathedral with three of my friends, for coming in late. Serves me right for wearing black heels, eh?

So off to my newly-bought white flats as I spend Easter Sunday with the cherry blossoms in Yeouido, after hearing the mass. Despite the crowd and the heat of the afternoon, I think I can say that my dress had its perfect use for this day. :-)

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On Ceramics and Three-Headed Eagles

A friend dragged me into this informal Korean Language class that he said he randomly caught online, and I must say that this has a more “multi-cultural” feel compared to the one that I have been attending in Hyehwa every Sunday. Most of the students in this one-and-a-half hour class in Sookmyung are Westerners and Middle Easterners. Taller creatures, yes they all are to me. Haha! It is also informal in a sense that all I get every week are a few sheets of paper that has the week’s lessons, compared to the textbook that I have to bring every Sunday to my class in Hyehwa. One thing with the informal class though, is I get stamps every time I attend a session, which, if I reach ten, will get me a gift! Similar to drinking much, much coffee at Dunkin Donuts for the stamps, to eventually get a free cup after a dozen! Teehee.


Now I have just been to two sessions in the Level 1 class when it called for a cultural field trip for all students. And I kind of liked the idea of going out and mingling with Westerners so I listed myself in. I initially did not want to go because I didn’t want to spend that much (haha), but it turned out to be a fun experience for me.

The whole group first met at the Angguk station (Exit 2), where we, the students, were divided into two further groups. Group A got to do ceramic-making first, venue of which could occupy about only 10 people. That’s actually the reason why there was a need to divide— there were around twenty people who participated in this trip.

The crash course on ceramic-making is pretty easy to listen to and look at. As a first time ceramic artist (ahem), anyone would encounter petty problems of course, like how to make the coil of the same thickness, to properly smoothing out the outsides of your vase or jar, given such full-grown nails that would occasionally prick on the clay itself. I’m pretty fine with my work, though. I could’ve just made the most out of the provided clay, and made a bigger one.

Voila! Here I go! Done, done, done! Here's my W19,000-worth of artsy hands. Any bidders?



Next stop was a trip to a small museum called the Gahoe Museum, which had lots of blah blah's about Korea’s folklore. I sure heard a lot of names from the Kingdom Animalia— from tigers to bears to cows to three-headed eagles! There was a little tea-talk time afterwards among our group, and I could clearly remember this blonde Russian doing all the speeches, while the rest waited for him to just stop. Haha. Leila, our teacher-in-charge was very accommodating though, in nodding and agreeing to everything that the Russian blabbed about. Now I don’t mean to imply that the Russian was saying all nonsense, I am actually amazed that he knows so much about Korean folklore. Well anyway, tea anyone?

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