Set up for life

In some ways, this reads like a typical announcement of the impending marriage of a popular TV celebrity:

With her sophisticated looks and precise enunciation, the KBS presenter No Hyun-jung (27) is sometimes called an “ice princess” despite enjoying greater popularity than some movie stars. On Tuesday, her handlers broke a lot of hearts by announcing that No will soon be marrying Chung Dae-sun (29), the third son of the late Hyundai Aluminum chairman Chung Mong-woo, and a grandson of the Hyundai conglomerate’s founder Chung Ju-young.

Reading through the article, I idly wondered how they managed to meet and hit it off, what with her here in Korea, and the guy in the U.S. pursuing his studies at Berkeley, then MIT. The answer:

The match came to pass because No’s father got to know the Hyundai family after working as a supplier for the company and by chance found himself talking marriage with them. The two families reportedly met up in Japan, and the date for the wedding was chosen on Monday.

I certainly hope that’s the extreme Reader’s Digest version of the courtship.

And, hopefully, there was some more romantic stuff they’re leaving out. But, in all likelihood, maybe not.

I know that Korean parents are traditionally involved in “helping” their children choose mates (or at least find them). My boss has, in fact, been asked to recommend potential spouse candidates for the son of a friend who has spent most of his life in the States. (Dad still wants son to marry a Korean woman.)

Boss is supposed to find single women who are “appropriate”: college-educated (preferably a master’s degree or higher from a good school); fluent in English (cause the son’s Korean is a little rusty); and willing to relocate. If any pass the initial screening, Bachelor #1 will fly in for a meeting.

Maybe it’s pretty common here, at least among people of a certain social standing. But this is the first time I’ve read about something that really sounds more like a business arrangement. And I thought my parents were involved in the wedding!

Seriously, I know that arranged marriages are common in many cultures. And, given some cultural expectations, they make a lot of sense. If you live in a society that, like Korea, is heavily family-centered, and you spend most of your free time with your family, then it makes sense that your family will have a big say in who gets inducted in. And, in some ways, it may be more important to find a person who will mesh well with the family than their individual mate.

From what I’ve observed, many Koreans socialize with their extended families a lot. Weekends and holidays are spent with large groups of people, usually the husband’s relatives–sometimes the wife’s side of the family. And the few times I’ve been privy to family gatherings here, the genders usually segregate, with men hanging out together and talking and women doing likewise in a different part of the house.

I guess in the best of circumstances, the person you meet and fall in love with, somehow meshes perfectly with your family and also happens to have the appropriate credentials (good family, educational backgrond, etc.) I wonder how often that really happens, however.

And maybe I am biased by my particular cultural view. I wanted to find a mate who was my soul mate, a best friend and lover. I am very lucky that I did. If I hadn’t met my husband, however, I would have preferred to remain single rather than marry just some nice guy my family liked…even if he made lots of money, and was wonderful, and kind, and good to me.

I know that marriage inevitably ends up being hard work, full of compromises and self-sacrifice, and that love can grow between two people who build a life together and work to make a good home for their children. I’ve heard people who have had arranged marriages say that theirs was the reverse of the Western ideal (meet, fall in love, marry). Instead, they met and married in short order, then fell in love.

Still…as much as I want to believe that, I know I couldn’t have married someone my parents chose for me. For one, my dad would have wanted a NASCAR fan, and my mom would have been dead set on someone who likes the contemporary Christian station. Sunday afternoons I don’t even want to think about . . .;-)