'Culture of money envelope'

By Park Moo-jong

The cold is painful for the elderly, especially for ailing old people. This unusually cold winter is set to last for at least two more weeks.

As a result, maybe, I received more news of the deaths of my friends' and acquaintances' aged fathers, mothers, fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law.

As most Koreans do, I busied myself visiting funeral homes at hospitals during the months of December, January and February with a white envelope containing a 50,000 won ($42) note.

At each reception room of the memorial site, my friends and I are served meals, mostly “yukgaejang” (hot spicy meat stew) and four to five side dishes, including kimchi, and of course soju and beer.

Still, spring comes. And the wedding season begins. When cherry blossoms, rapes (canolas) and forsythias (golden bells) are in full bloom, my desk will be full with invitation cards to weddings, many will come through text messages to my phone these days.

An invitation card means “an envelope of cash” as a “gift to celebrate the wedding and encourage the start of the new life of the young couple” and also to help pay for the cost for the ceremonies and wedding lunches or dinners for the guests.

Vice versa, if the host is invited to weddings of the siblings of the guests, the same amount of money is usually given to him or her.

The problem is that many of the invitation cards are from those whom the “invited” can hardly remember. To go or not to go makes the invited feel burdened. Of course, many other invitations have been anticipated for a long time.

Of the invited, more than 50 percent go to weddings against their “wishes” because of personal relations and for appearance's sake, according to a report.

Of the guests, some 40 percent were present at the wedding ceremony, while others were not and most of them only took meals at restaurants in the wedding hall or near it.

The report by a government-financed organization shows that a whopping 80 percent of those questioned expressed negative views of “money envelopes” as a gift.

But ironically enough, those who think the envelope should disappear usually send invitation cards to their friends and people they “know” for their children's marriage and continue this unpleasant practice.

For those who are unable to attend the ceremony or do not want to go, the hosts of today are kind enough to send a text message of their account number to the invitees' smartphones.

Many of the parents argue, somewhat jokingly, as aforementioned, that they have to send many invitations to their acquaintances in order to make up for what they have contributed to others' weddings so far.

There is still a rampant misunderstanding among many Koreans that the success of a wedding largely depends on the number of guests and the amount of congratulatory money gathered.

A stubborn social trend to hold the “once-in-a-lifetime” event in an extravagant and luxurious way beyond people's means, except for remarriages, is largely responsible for the flood of invitation cards.

The cost of the average wedding in Korea is more than triple those in Japan, Britain and Taiwan.

A Korean wedding of a middle-class family costs nearly 100 million won ($84,000), compared to the West's $20,000.

The excessive costs are proved by an old saying, “The pillars of the house are uprooted after three daughters are married off.” This means, of course, parents with three daughters have no other option but to go bankrupt after their children get married.

Despite the persisting economic difficulties that adversely affect every nook and cranny of our society, wedding costs show no sign of going down.

Two years ago, a leading newspaper launched a campaign for a “small” wedding that earned huge public support at the time. But now, two years later, it has turned out to be much ado about nothing.In many cases, a wedding ceremony in Korea is not really a family event, but a social one with more than 300 guests on average.

It is still vivid in the people’s memory that many so-called “big shots” in the government and political world gave their children grand wedding ceremonies with the attendance of more than 1,000 guests at six-star hotels.

Such weddings caused serious traffic congestion around the hotels due to the swarms of luxurious sedans, and the amount of cash gifts was beyond the imagination of ordinary citizens.

The typical scene of such a wedding ceremony features a display of more than 100 standing colorful wreaths at the entrance to the hall ― a wreath costs 100,000 won ($83). And then there is a queue of guests waiting for their turn to sign their names in the visitor's book and give the money envelope to the receptionist.

Over the past decade, I presided over 51 wedding ceremonies. There are two I still remember vividly.

One was a wedding of a German bridegroom and a Korean bride, who met in Germany while she was studying composition there. It was held at a middle-class hotel and the participants were around 70, half from the German side and the other from the Korean side.

They cordially refused the wreaths and money envelopes. It was the most exemplary event I had ever seen.

The other was held at one of the most luxurious hotels in Seoul. The ceremony itself cost 150 million won ($130,000), including flower decorations worth 40 million won ($34,000), and the participants numbered about 800. To my great regret, the couple divorced one year later.

For how long must we prepare money envelopes, which are something like utility bills, to congratulate weddings or to pay tribute to the deceased?

Park Moo-jong is the standing advisor of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's oldest English daily after working as a reporter for the paper since 1974. He can be reached at moojongh@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com.