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why why why doesn’t have a single word in english and ikon was so hot for that

Looking into the 선

my father's of an age where his classmates at kyunggi high and snu are now, oddly, running the country. the members of korea's ruling class all went to the same schools, attend the same churches, belong to the same clubs, sit on the same boards, invest in the same funds and properties...you get the picture.

it's all horribly incestuous, and to insure things continue that way, they also like to see their offspring intermarry and do everything in their power to see that they do. while arranged marriages are almost unheard of these days, introductions arranged by parents are still very much the rule, not the exception, amongst this class.

what this means, for me, is that there is a constant stream of requests for introductions to daughters that my parents are having to deflect, politely turn down, or perpetually postpone. i should add here that while my parents are not very wealthy (having lost everything and then missed out on the real estate boom while they were abroad), they both come from prestigious families and are fairly prominent in korea. i suppose this makes them especially attractive to new money.

requests range from a simple off-the-cuff suggestion to extremely formal, written invitations. sometimes they go so far as to include professionally taken photographs, a massively impressive curriculum vitae, and clan records and genealogical documentation. while no one is so crass as to list their assets directly, they do find ways to let one know. i was given to understand that one candidate was the eighth-in-line heiress to one of the major chaebol.

to let my parents save face, i occasionally agree to a meeting. these things sometimes have to be negotiated down to the last detail. because all the major hotels are either owned by or strongly associated with a chaebol, there are few neutral grounds. you wouldn't suggest to the daughter of the family who helped found the dong-a ilbo, for example, to meet in the coffee shop of the koreana hotel (owned by the chosun ilbo). after a somewhat tense negotiation of this kind, i once suggested that we meet at panmunjom.

the coffee shop in the lobby of the shilla hotel has been a popular spot for meetings of this kind (not that it's neutral ground). over the years, i have come to know it well. but that is another post entirely...

#dating in korea #for koreans