Kissing Outside the Lines

by Diane Farr

  Colors in Hanboks have to do with the age of the bride and groom. Red was too young for me and peach too old. Pink, I would find out only after we settled on one, is also for a young person, but the grocers/dressmakers believed I was twenty-four years old! I know this because a story about a TV actress buying a Hanbok there later appeared in a few local Korean newspapers, and that was the age the stories ran with. When Seung first told Ama that my Hanbok was pink, she was concerned it wouldn’t look right on a thirty-six-year-old bride. But now, as she puts the final layer on me, she says in the hushed whisper Ama always speaks in, “It’s perfect. You are perfect, Diane.” And I wonder what I did right in my life to deserve this woman as my mother-in-law.

  My own mother has now arrived and won’t stop crying as she looks at me in my fancy garb. Seung’s father pats her shoulder to soothe her. They only met each other for the first time last night at a dinner we had for just my family and Seung’s. That dinner was one of the more stressful of my life. My parents had a rather harmonious divorce after thirty-five years spent together, but one year later my father’s remaining feelings for my mom turned to anger. They have not seen or spoken to each other in four years until this weekend—specifically, until they sat across from each other last night. Which felt incredibly reminiscent of Lisa and Dave’s rehearsal dinner.

  I knew Seung’s parents would, of course, be very reserved and not do much talking throughout this meal. Silence is foreign in my family to begin with, but given the strife between my mother and father I was sure I wouldn’t be the only one in my immediate family feeling on edge. But to make things even worse, there is a giant lie that Seung told his parents about me. A lie that anyone in my family could accidentally slip up on over the course of this meal. And I spent the majority of that evening waiting for disaster to happen.

  Seung’s birthday and mine are only three days apart, which is good luck in Korean culture. However, the fact that I am one year older than him is very bad luck. In fact, it’s highly frowned upon. So as not to burden his parents with any more fears beyond my not being Korean, Seung lied to them and told them I was the same age as him. Making me, in fact, three days younger than him. Though I found this charming at the time, I’ve since realized how likely it is that we’ll be caught at some point, though I’m hoping it’s not tonight, the night before our wedding.

  I have asked Seung two times over the past eighteen months to try and right the wrong of this at opportune times, but he hasn’t wanted to. Since the age difference is so inconsequential to us and so paramount to his mother and father, I have trusted that this is cultural and I should leave it alone. However, after having escaped talk of my age, my graduations, my reunions, and the year I was born up to this point so I, too, wouldn’t have to lie to his parents, I’m sure tonight will be the night the cat is let screaming and screeching out of the bag. And not by Seung or me.

  I huddle my whole family in the entryway of the restaurant of our joint family dinner and point a finger at my mother. I tell her that there is to be no talk of anyone’s age, or anyone’s birthdays, or any year before 1976, when my youngest brother was born. I warn my mother that our family will be doing most of the talking tonight (which really means her), but that if, by some miniscule chance, Seung’s parents lead us into this territory, I will handle it. I then solemnly swear that I’m going to fine any one of them $500 if they blow this. My brothers (you remember them—the ones who made jokes about Koreans eating dogs the very first night they met Seung) then ask if they also have to pretend I’m a virgin. My father’s whole body convulses a little, in repulsion at the mere intimation of my having sex, as he storms off and into dinner. My brothers and grandmother follow, but I grab my mom by the arm and whisper to her one-on-one.

  I’m serious when I say it is not my grandmother, her eightyseven-year-old mother, who I’m worried will slip up. It’s her—after two cocktails. She not-so-gently reminds me that I’m not the first person on Earth to have a secret from my in-laws and that I should get over myself.

  Which seems like stellar advice until two drinks later when she begins a sentence with, “So, the year Diane was born ...” and I rise up out of my chair like Jesus Christ on Easter morning. Seung’s sister, Eun Yi, who has become more and more of my friend over this wedding process, asks my mother if she could show her to the bathroom right now. Feeling surrounded by me and my new sister, my mother still has the audacity to shrug her shoulders at me like, Whatever! I got it.

  * TODAY, AS MY MOTHER AND SEUNG’S PARENTS head off to meet my father in the lobby for the Korean ceremony, all is calm again. I wave goodbye to them and then, finding myself alone with Seung in his hotel room for the first time in several days, I jump onto his back like a teenager with too much nervous energy. I ask him if he wants to practice this piggyback ride for later tonight. He is so nervous that he forgets I’m not kidding. Seung puts me down and tells me he wants to practice his speech. He also doesn’t want me to hear it, so he is pacing and whispering to himself and kinda reminding me of Fred Flintstone after a fight with Wilma. I am trying to calm him down and remind him that it doesn’t matter now. We are all in. Seung never really calms down this evening. I, on the other hand, am done worrying.

  All of the homework I can possibly do is done. I’ve passed the baton of running this show over to my “producer” and the production assistants and all the relatives who will help. And I am weightless tonight. Now I just get to have fun with some of my favorite people in the world who have all come so far to help Seung and me enjoy this day.

  Along with Cousin Charles, who will be introducing us when we enter the five-thousand-bulb fairy-light tent for our ceremony, Seung’s cousin Mike and three of his dearest friends from around the country will emcee the ceremony from a script that we all wrote together. They will explain each of the five chosen rituals that I have learned over my engagement and let the lightness and joy of love permeate these very serious ceremonies.

  But first the crowd will enjoy a traditional Korean barbecue. Or so I believe. I am pleasantly unaware that Seung’s other two cousins, Brian and Eric, have not yet gotten the food for this dinner to the tent where it is meant to be served in fifteen minutes. This is because I didn’t realize, when I asked them to drive the food up here, that today is also the day Korea is playing in the World Cup.

  It’s no shocker that there is no Korean food in Mammoth. I’ve hired a friend’s mom, who is a terrific caterer in Koreatown, to make all the most popular Korean dishes. She got started in Los Angeles this morning at five o’clock, and a refrigerated truck will be driving her dishes up the mountain tonight. A local caterer is standing by to do nothing but serve the food, pour soju (Korean rice wine, like Japanese sake) for the collective shots we’re asking our guests to toast us with, and get all of my rented gear—everything from chairs to flatware—prepared to be bussed to tomorrow’s location.

  The kicker is that we asked Seung’s single, twentysomething cousins to pick up the truck and then the food from Koreatown to reach the caterers by 5:00 PM. Brian and Eric seemed like the perfect candidates for this mission because they speak fluent Korean and would be able to communicate with our friend’s mom and translate the Korean symbols on the dishes to the caterers. We didn’t take into account the fact that their pride as Korean Americans would lead them to take a three-hour break, while en route, in a local bar to watch soccer. But that’s where they are when my producer calls to check up on them. Our event starts at 7:30 PM, and the food finally arrives at 7:29.

  When dessert is served, Charles gets up to begin our ceremony and talk about the Chung family’s journey to this country. He is wonderfully serious and wonderfully silly. He makes all the male cousins stand up to prove just how big Koreans are and swears this is because of Cheez-Its. He says that all the Chung mothers ate so many of them when first coming to America that the introduction of dairy into their diets made their kids huge. Charles then raises a glass of soju and asks everyone to make a first toast w
ith the words “Kampai!” As hundreds of people drink in their first taste of Korean spirits, the Como (older sister of Seung’s father, who flew here from Hawaii) begins talking heatedly to Charles. It takes a few relatives to confer and confirm, and then translate to Charles before he gets back on the microphone to say:

  “Sorry. ‘Kampai’ is the Japanese way to say ‘cheers.’ ‘Kum bei’ is the Korean toast. So, let’s do another shot, with ‘kum bei!’”

  Everyone laughs and takes another drink, while I squeeze Seung’s hand just outside the tent. We’re waiting to make our entrance and are just out of sight from the guests, but not out of earshot. I tell him, “I knew the relatives would heckle us if we got anything wrong,” and I say it with a smile because I know I’ve gotten all my Korean things right.

  Seung and I now step onto the stolen pallets, which are beautifully wrapped in burlap and silk to encompass the mountain and Asian theme of this night. Our parents then join us from their respective tables at opposite ends of this center stage. Seung and I now begin the first of many bows we will make over the next hour. Seung’s mother’s family jump out of their seats to assist me right from the start. I do almost twice as many “head to the floor bows” as Seung. Our friend Karl (who found me my coach and is also narrating a part of the ceremony) assures all the females present that reciprocity will be served, as Seung will surely be making up for my excess humility tonight over the rest of his life. Seung gives my parents hand-carved geese, as is tradition because they mate for life. I catch ten Jujubes and eight dates in my dress, meaning I will have eighteen children by Seung. At one point I pour Apa and Ama tea, filling their glasses to the brim and watching their faces closely. I expect them to be shocked when they discover I spiked the tea with Crown Royal, but they only laugh, and I wink, and we settle in to enjoy a terrific night together.

  The last ritual of the evening involves Seung carrying me around the tent on his back—and then my mother! My mother refuses, though, even after the entire room cheers her on, so I get two piggyback rides. Seung then takes the microphone and does a masterful job on his speech. He thanks his parents for their love and support and for giving him such a rich culture alongside his very American life. He thanks family and friends for making this long trek, and makes me feel like even more of a princess by talking about my quest for this weekend to be wonderful for everyone. After the crowd has been asked to drink soju many, many, many times (and has the option to chase it with either Guinness or chianti, representing my cultural backgrounds), Seung asks everyone to take one more shot before he hands the microphone over to me.

  I thank my grandmother particularly. Not just because she flew from New York with my niece on her lap, and then took a five-hour car ride to reach this ten-thousand-foot town, and is here tonight drinking with the best of ’em, but because she is the immigrant of my family and had it not been for her journey I wouldn’t be here at all. I explain how my grandmother came to America in 1927 as the youngest of five children from Ireland. I tell how she nearly gave her mother a heart attack when she eloped with an Italian boy from the neighboring ghetto on 125th Street in Manhattan. There are over twenty-five people in this room tonight whom my grandmother held in her arms as children, all of whom witnessed how rich my gram’s life has been, as well as my mother’s, due to the blend of two cultures in their household.

  I then go on to call anybody a punk who cannot hang and drink as well as this octogenarian. I invite my guests to join us for karaoke in a bar we have rented for the evening in the lobby of the hotel where everyone is staying, and encourage them to have a hangover at my actual wedding tomorrow. Because just like at the wedding Seung and I got together at, magical things can happen at the Friday night party before a Saturday night wedding and no one should hold back on my account. And all jokes aside, I now turn to the other immigrants in the room, my new in-laws.

  In Korean, I begin the following speech:

  “Father and Mother, I am very glad to be here with you and your family and to marry your son tonight. I thank you for accepting me as part of your family, particularly because I know I was not what you imagined for Seung Yong. But your kindness and love have made me feel welcome. I assure you that I love your son very much, and I look forward to learning your culture with him and sharing it with our children. My heart belongs with all of yours now.”

  My father-in-law weeps openly from my first sentence onward. As does Seung, even though he does not understand most of the Korean words I am using. But, of course, the content of what I say is not what moves him.

  * ON SATURDAY MORNING I JUST WANT MY mother and grandmother with me when I get ready for my actual wedding. The two most wonderful hair and makeup artists whom I have come to love over fifteen years in television are here as guests on my big day, and they are spending the morning with us also, making the three of us look babe-a-licious. While they do their magic, I take twenty orchids from last night’s centerpieces and cut them to make my own bridal bouquet. I wanted something from my Korean wedding to be part of my American one, and this seems fitting since one comes from every table. I tie the branches of the orchid stems together with extra lace from my wedding gown and my mother’s baby bracelet. I then take my deceased best friend’s high school graduation ring to bind them all together.

  Also from last night I have two hundred “love notes” from all my guests. The last part of a Korean wedding ceremony is a time for elder relatives to give advice to the new couple and usually give money. We took this one step further by putting note cards under every dinner plate and asking the entire group to write their favorite love advice to us in lieu of cash. Some of the cards are funny but most are heartfelt. Barry, our friend and lawyer by day but minister for tonight, will pick his favorite three notes to share with the group as part of our “sermon” on the mountain deck this afternoon. But my friend and bridesmaid Liz, who is responsible for having introduced me to her husband’s friend Seung, is late to pick up these note cards. Liz took my advice to heart last night and is so hungover today that she is two hours late to come be my wedding runner. But it’s actually kind of good that she’s late, because during this delay, I realize I have an uninvited guest with me.

  “Who gets their period on their wedding day?” I ask myself in the bathroom as I scrounge around for feminine doodads. I have nothing in this little medicine chest to remedy what I do not want on my wedding gown. So when Liz finally drags herself over, I send her right back out to get tampons. To which she says, “I guess you’re not pregnant, then?”

  At thirty-six years old and completely engulfed in a hormonal baby fog, I started trying to get pregnant three months ago. I figured even if I were twelve weeks pregnant on this day, I still wouldn’t be showing and that was fine by me. Both Seung’s mother and mine independently asked us to start trying to conceive from the moment we got engaged. By the time they were my age, they both had children in high school. So they are plenty eager for me to hurry up. But two weeks ago, after I’d peed on ovulation sticks nearly every morning over the last seventy-five days, my maid of honor told me I should just wait until after the wedding now. She felt I had too much on my plate, and conception would never happen this close to game day. Considering I was going to Korea and then Sri Lanka on my honeymoon and would have a hard time keeping track of everything, I chucked the ovulation kit into the drawer two weeks ago. Even though I wasn’t trying, I have to admit I am a little sad to see it confirmed that there’s still no baby on board.

  And then suddenly Liz is back and I am dressed and off we go. First in an elevator, then in the car, and finally in a gondola to the ceremony site where the entire wedding party is gathered. Seung and I do a reveal, where he sees me as his American bride for the first time and the photographers catch every moment of it on film. We have an enormous wedding party—eight men, eight women, two flower girls, plus our minister and two readers. This party of twenty-five, along with the photogs, are my nearest and dearest and we are all laughing so hard w
hile we do a giant photo shoot. And it’s just now that I’m realizing how American this entire ritual is. American weddings vary by family and faith and location, but the emotions behind each beat are all thoroughly a part of our culture. Girl wears white dress, while boy wears his very best. A family passes their daughter to a man who will now become her new family. Friends bear witness as the couple make promises for their future to each other. Bread is broken and celebration ensues.

  AS EVERYONE IS brought up by gondola, my dad and I are hiding in the kitchen of the facility that’s adjacent to our ceremony site. The guests are given champagne at the bottom of the mountain so they can enjoy the ride up that much more. Fifteen minutes later, they’re greeted by the five Buddhist monks here today who are chanting wonderful echoes all around them. Once all the guests are seated, the wedding party begins their procession to our altar to the sound of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” The holy men then join Barry in the closest circle around Seung, who waits for me. And I take my daddy’s arm as we begin the walk down the aisle.

  When I come into the outdoor room, all the sound stops and our guests stand. I can’t help but smile when I see Seung. He not only looks so nervous, but he also looks about sixteen years old. I can feel my father’s hand shaking as we walk across the rose petals to those same pallets, covered in more burlap and white trim today. My father lifts my veil and he kisses my cheek. I whisper, “Thank you,” and wink at him, trying to calm his nerves. But as I let go, I feel lightheaded myself. I reach for Seung and, just as he has from the moment I met him, he steadies me.