Hello! In this article I am going to talk about culture similarities and differences that occur in my wedding. Sometimes it is difficult to communicate with a person from your hometown, let alone someone from a different country, or…at least people say so. Personaly, as a matter of fact, I don’t think I have a severe problem of communication with my husband, sometimes there are things that are different, while some other times we see how much alike are some other things.
- Family
I think that in family matters, both Korea and Greece are the same. Greece and Korea are family oriented countries and also, while in other countries there is the phenomenon of kids leaving the house when they reach 18 years old, this doesn’t happen to neither Greece nor Korea. We both get the value of family in each other’s lives.
2. Food
Maybe this sounds a bit weird, but it is my personal opinion, putting the extra spicy food aside, me and my husband do believe that in matters of taste we are similar. I have traveled to a few European countries and I can’t really say I was thrilled by the food, nothing was that tasty to me. However, when travelling to Korea, I was gaining like a LOT of weight every time, for example during 10 days stay I would gain 3 kilos….Also, same goes for my husband and his friends when visiting Greece, everyone was complaining they must have gained weight since food is so nice.First of all, both countries love garlic (ok…Korea loves it way more than Greece)There is plenty of foods in Greece with garlic as well as Korea, so me and my husband never had the thing like, ah we should not eat garlic during first months of relationship because it will smell bad…No this never happened, we both consumed garlic like there is no tomorrow! Also, in Korea they eat chicken feet, I don’t know about know but I definetly know from my grandmothers that we ate it too, I even have it as a picture in my mind from when I was little (maybe in villages they still do) my husband was so surprised when he heared we actually eat it in Greece too. Also, if you come in Korea, you will see some restaurants with the sign ź³±ģ°½ (gopchang) This is restaurants with intestine food. Personaly, I eat intestine food like crazy, I already love the greek intestine foods so imagine my happines in Korea knowing I can eat intestines anytime( korea uses cow intestines while in Greece we use lamp intestines) I like intestines here so much that actually, after the wedding proposal, my husband took me to intenstine place (I know some of you might think this is not romantic at all but to me it was heaven) And of course, people at restaurants are surprised and asking my husband if I actually ate the intestines, so my reply ebery time is, husband, take out the photos of greek intestine food, this is nothing. Anyways, I am not going to say more about food because I am getting hungry..
3. House and visitors
About the house now, Here in the buildings, once in a while there is a lady comming to put medicine in the sink and bathroom, (I don’t know what that is) She comes in the morning rings the bell, and says she will pass by in a little while. When this happens, I run like crazy to tidy up the house, my husband though says I don’t need to do that, she will have probably seen worse, but this is a greek thing, I don’t care about other houses but mine should be clean whenever someone comes in. About the visitors now, in Greece, if family comes for visit it is a given you are going to make them stay at your house, you never send them at hotel, as this might seem harsh especially to parents and they will take it as you don’t care about them and you don’t want them (greek parents’ drama) Koreans however, prefer to stay at a hotel and find it uncomfortable staying at someone’s house. This is a difference and I deal with it everytime when I say to my husband that his parents can stay at my parents’ house because my parents don’t want them to feel like we don’t care about them.
4. Greeting
Of course we have different kind of greeting.Greece from one hand has such casual greeting which includes hug and cheek kisses, and yes with also the opposite sex(also, how can you keep calm husband when I do that) while Korea has the cool bow thing.Even I am greek, I really don’t like the greek greeting style, there is so much unnecessary touching and I am completly awkward when I have to do the greeting.In Korea, I like seeing the bow, but when it comes to doing it…I just can’t do it. I should greet my in-laws like that and everytime I am like “do it….do it body, it is just a bow it is not hard” but NO, all that comes out is just an awkward hand wave.
5 Gossip
Gossiping..It’s like a sport in Greece..we want to know everything, and especially when dating someone, the whole family (extended included) will do everything to meet the person, even the last irrelevant person will text you (and it has happened to me countless times) And it annoys my husband since he feels like he is an exhibition or something, they appear randomly without prior notice so he rightfully gets annoyed I guess. In Korea people are curious as well but they won’t do any questions that will cross the lines. This is bit hard for me though since I don’t know sometimes what is crossing the line and what isn’t.
6. Rejecting something
In Greece, when we want to reject an outing, we usually try to find an excuse, While Koreans are more straightforward to that matter for example, while in Korea, someone asked me to go out with them so I was asking my housband to find me a good excuse not to, he just said “Just say you don’t want to meet” (what do you mean husband???I can’t obviously say that and sound mean) So yeah…this is something I don’t understand
7. Technology
I might be younger than my husband, but in matters of technology I do feel at least 15 years older than him.Korea is quite an advanced country, let alone for me that I come from a small small town and first time I used a bus was when I went to study in university, so I have lots of difficulties in Korea about understanding how some things work, although now I am getting the hang of it and when I go to Greece I am annoyed that things are so not advanced, especially in matters of paying methods.
8. Greek ceiling crosses
My husband has experienced greek easter, and we greeks, after leaving the curch with our candles, over our house doors with the candle light, we make a cross which will be black from the smoke, Before explaining to my husband that we do that as…lets say a sort of talisman, my husband told me he saw it and he was wondering what it is and it was looking creepy….In fact, even I would think this is creepy if I was a foreigner, he still thinks it is creepy.
All in all that;s it for today’s article, actually It was a bit hard to write it since I don’t belive I have many cultural differences with my husband, I hope you enjoy it and see you soon!
with love,
TheMeanBrunette
the mean brunette 