Holiday family gatherings bring stress to the young

By Nam Hyun-woo, Baek Byung-yeul and Park Ji-won

The happy New Year has come but it may neither be happy nor new for those who will soon have to endure a torrent of nosy advice from their kinsmen during this time of the year.

Kim Min-joo, 24, a university student in Seoul, is already feeling stressed and irritated by the thought of going to her grandparents' house for a family gathering on Lunar New Year's Day, also known as Seollal in Korean, which falls on Jan. 31.

The house called keunjip, or the home of the eldest son of a family, is where all relatives gather to spend the long national holiday together and making New Year resolutions.

However, a lot of people including Kim, especially young people who don't have the perceived required "social status," are likely to be the subject of nosy conversations of their kinsmen.

According to a recent survey of 1,644 people in their 20s to 30s by Ium, a social online dating service provider, some 30 percent of respondents said the top reason they want to avoid the holiday's family gathering is because of annoying advice from relatives.

Meanwhile, 33.2 percent of respondents answered that the best way to avoid "too much" advice from family members is to remain stuck inside the room. "Asking for setting up a blind date," came in second with 24.1.

No job, a lot of advice

Kim, 29, is a jobseeker. He graduated from a Seoul-based university three years ago, but hasn't been able to find a full-time job.

"I'm afraid of meeting relatives, mostly older aunts and uncles on this Lunar New Year. They will nag at me and boast about their children who have decent jobs," Kim said. The Lunar New Year holiday will last from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2.

He said he is okay about being nagged, but is very concerned that his parents may feel embarrassed about his current state. He recalls that his father got upset during last year's New Year holiday, when one of his uncles made a remark that "Kim is an undutiful son." His father was so upset with the uncomplimentary remark that he quarreled with the uncle.

"I think they pay too much attention to me only when they have the chance to show off their successful children. Whether I get employed is my business, not theirs. I can't understand why they scold me as if I were the troublemaker of the family," he said.

"I expect that this year will be worse, since the so-called two-year support period for jobseekers and my decision to apply for smaller companies has expired."

He said if he had his way, he would like to skip the family gathering during the Lunar New Year holiday.

No marriage, no decent life?

A job isn't the only source of nagging. Marriage is also one of such hot topics that family members will love to poke their noses into.

Jeong, a 33-year-old engineer, also shares similar concerns as Kim. For Jeong, who is single, his relatives continue to pester him to get married, despite repeatedly explaining to them that he is not yet prepared to do so. That has still not stopped them from always introducing "prospective marriage partners" to him during family gatherings. "Still many Koreans, especially our fathers' generation, think marriage is a requirement, while the younger generation thinks that it is an option," Jeong said.

Since turning 30, his relatives have never stopped nagging him about the subject. "I have to admit that listening to their nagging does not feel very good. But as long as they think that way, I have no other option but to endure until I get married to someone," he said.

According to sources in the marriage broker industry, the number of meetings they arrange increases by some 30 percent around national holidays, such as Lunar New Year, because young unmarried people, like Jeong, are come under enormous pressure to get married around this season.

"Matchmaking becomes easier around holidays, because clients become less picky in choosing their partners," an industry insider said.

Choi Kyung-chul, 36, said the thought of meeting his kinfolks during the Lunar New Year holiday is already making him feel uneasy.

"It's been years that I am been asked when I am going to get married by my relatives," the office worker living in Seoul said.

"I don't understand why they always try to interfere in other's affairs. My family members gather together probably once or twice a year. As this kind of family union is rare for our family, I just want to have a talk about something that can encourage each other, not like asking personal affairs nosily," Choi sighed.

Choi has been working at an IT company for about a decade since he graduated from university. Despite dating several women, he has not met his ideal life partner.

It has gotten to the point where some of his relatives are beginning to raise questions about his sexuality with others suspecting that he might not be straight.

"I am totally fed up with this meddling. I personally don't have any bad feeling towards them, but whenever my uncle, aunts and grandparents mention about my marriage issue, I feel like I am in the vein for getting out of the meeting right away," he added. In a bid to avoid this unpleasant situation, Choi chose to spend this year's Seollal holiday in Japan.

"I think it is a good time to go shopping in Japan amid the weak yen. I will finish my trip in a lighthearted mode," Choi, who still enjoys his single life, added.

"Under those circumstances, you should express to your relatives what you are planning to do in order to achieve your goal," Kang Won-sup, a psychiatrist at Kyung Hee University Medical Center, said to reporters.

"The most important attitude is not to compare with and have high expectations on others. Just accept the way they are," another psychiatrist at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, said.