Social Text

Kim, Eleana.
Wedding Citizenship and Culture: Korean Adoptees and the Global Family of Korea
Social Text - 74 (Volume 21, Number 1), Spring 2003, pp. 57-81

Duke University Press

Eleana Kim - Wedding Citizenship and Culture: Korean Adoptees and the Global Family of Korea - Social Text 21:1 Social Text 21.1 (2003) 57-81 Wedding Citizenship And Culture Korean Adoptees and the Global Family of Korea Eleana Kim On a hot August afternoon in a bucolic setting on the outskirts of Kwangju, South Korea, a palanquin was hoisted up and brought to the site of a canopy tent, under which a table, laden with food, alcohol, and two live chickens, rested. An elderly Korean man intoned directions into a microphone and an interpreter called out the translation in English. Around fifty Koreans, the women dressed in Korean hanbok, surrounded the tent, and all eyes were on the heavily made up bride as she was helped out of the palanquin, her face turned down into her hands, elbows raised to either side of her head. She and the bridegroom knelt on opposite sides of the table, rising awkwardly to kowtow several times, pouring and ceremoniously sipping alcohol from carved out gourds -- and thus endured the elaborate ritual of a traditional Korean wedding ceremony. In this pastoral location, the authenticity of the ritual performance was made conspicuous by tennis shoes and sports sandals peeking out from beneath the hanbok (which were poorly fitted -- some too large and some too small for their wearers) and by men in tank tops and shorts looking on from a distance. As the spectators stood on tiptoe and craned their necks to observe the careful gestures...