Pre-Wedding Jitters... Saturday, December 17

Tomorrow's the much anticipated sister-in-law's wedding and ever since I've been warned that I'll be wearing a hot pink hambok I've been dreading it.

I hate that I'm dreading her wedding. I want to attend her wedding as me -- Amy -- not as a far-fetched image of myself that's so very Korean and so far from who I really am.

I know this is Korea; I'm more than well aware of this fact.

I speak Korean...
I eat Korean...
I wear Korean...
I listen to Korean...
I sing Korean...
I watch Korean...
I play Korean...
I even married Korean.

I probably speak, eat, wear, listen to, sing, watch, and play Korean more than I do English. And in doing sometimes I question just how much Korea let's me be me -- a Polish/Canadian. So often I feel like my own culture, my identity as a Polish/Canadian is pushed aside and given less than second priority. I felt more freedom with expressing my own culture and whatnot when I taught English. Students loved hearing about the cultural differences, learning the slang and mannerisms, but now I have no students. I don't teach English so now my medium for practicing my culture seems to be rather obsolete and limited to either my own home or venting about it over coffee.

My Korean professor at university was right. "When you go to Korea you'll meet one person -- Korean" was what he told me when I told him I was going. Korea is infested with Koreans and though I think they really do want to become more in tune with Western culture and more modernized, they're still very much Korean-focused. Oddly enough, this is what initally really sparked my interest. I come from Canada, a huge multicultural country where depending on where I go I am the minority. Canada is a beautiful collague of cultures, unlike Korea that is very Korean-Korean.

Sometimes I feel rather choked in Korea, wanting to break free and just explore, experience and live my own culture. Korea has it's own way of thinking, a way of thinking and a way of life that can be frustrating to me. Whether it's the heirarchy of age or dominance given to the men, some things in this culture just don't fly by me but I try my best to either ignore it or bite my lip. It's goes beyond this though. It seems to interrupt and interfer with things that I do value. Things that are special to me like holidays and things related to the holidays that I no longer participate in or are very limited in doing so.

Take Christmas for example, a holiday that is pretty much given a solid month (if not more) of recognition in Canada. Korea gives it one day. Advent calendars, cabbage rolls, decorating the Christmas tree and house, the manger story on Christmas morning, going door-to-door singing Christmas carols, Christmas Eve candlelight services, listening to the Salvation Army Band, making ginger bread houses, sending Christmas cards, a birthday cake in the shape of a cross for Jesus on Christmas... I can't even cook a cake here. Regular ovens are pretty much a luxury.

So many of the things that make Christmas Christmas to me seem so far away. Instead, I have a cheap two dollar Advent calender I bought from Emart, I can't bring myself to unpack the Christmas decorations my mom sent me last year, and the extent of celebrating Christmas here consists of going out for dinner and watching a children's performance in Korean and at a church that really has no meaning to me besides it being beside my old apartment.

Christmas in Korea always feels like a Charlie Brown Christmas.

Sometimes I feel like I either have to conform to Korea on my own accord, risk being pushed into it or risk not really fit in if I don't conform. My in-laws will never introduce me as a professional boxer who runs her own fitness company, nor will they tell anyone I'm Polish/Canadian. I'm "Amy, a former Dankook University professior who is Canadian". Canada seems to have some kind of luxery appeal to it. My family is very proud of our Polish heritage, so I was raised to respect this fact. I never called myself Canadian or even considered myself Canadian until I came to Korea. Moreover, I haven't worked at Dankook for almost two years.

I love Korea but I love being a Polish/Canadian from Canada. I just wish Korea wasn't so Korean at times because being in this mono-culture country is sometimes very hard for me to be me when I'm so not Korean. I feel like I'm juggling the two cultures -- Korea's and mine.

I wish Korea was more accepting of difference.

Tomorrow I'll be attending my sister-in-law's wedding in a Korean-created version of what my in-laws want me to be -- Korean -- and I feel rather sad about it. I'm always trying to cater to their Korean culture but when will they cater to mine?

"Make me a Polish cabbage roll and I'll gladly wear a hambok" I told Snickers.