The Couple Culture
Couples. are. everywhere. My friends and I constantly feel like certain things in Seoul are designed only for couples. Indeed, almost everywhere you go, you can identify a feature of a place that is specifically there for the sake of couples.
Walking down the street is an interesting experience, because at any time of the day, you will see boy and girl, hand in hand. There are so many couples. Everyone is paired off, and at some places in particular, you feel like an outsider purely because you are alone (the term 'forever alone' has been thrown around here more times than I care to admit). It's almost unfortunate to be single, because there are so many more things that you can experience if you are part of a couple.
A classic example of this is the Namsan Seoul Tower. It is the tallest tower in Seoul and has a beautiful view of the city. However, it is most famous for its 'love locks':
Couples all over Korea go to Namsan to pledge their eternal love for one another. They do this in the form of padlocks, which are symbolic of their 'eternal love'. There are so many of these love locks, and most of them contain photos, messages and names. The idea is very romantic, and also very cute. I find it very cute that some of these love locks are also in the form of random things, such as phone cases, paper, and even this sock:
As you can see, the variety is quite large, and some of these padlocks have been locked to the tower for years (you can see that the older ones are rusty, underneath the new ones). I hope that these relationships have endured! ^^
On most of these padlocks are written romantic, cheesy messages, but there are some locks which are related to family as well, which I think is lovely. The love lock on the right in the above photograph is even related to a cat, for whatever reason.
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| Someone had fun here. |
Another super cheesy (to the point of being humorous) feature of the Namsan Tower is the heart-shaped seats, which dip in the middle, to allow couples to get closer together:
These heart-shaped seats are also covered with multiple hand-written love messages, perhaps for those couples who were not equipped with padlocks. It seems kind of silly to us Australians, because I cannot think of any place in Sydney that is even remotely close to this, but in Korea, it's really just standard. If you visit Korea as a couple, at some stage you will get sucked into the romance and end up at Namsan, pledging your love eternally. Probably in matching outfits.
That's another thing here. Matching outfits. It is such a common thing. Koreans like to express their love openly and it's almost as if it's a competition between each couple about who can turn the most heads when they walk down the streets. Matching outfits are a means by which each party can 'mark their territory', because a man/woman in a matching outfit is definitely off the market.
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| A classic example of matching outfits. |
You will see a lot of school students in matching outfits (which typically consist of a matching pattern or a matching colour). Sometimes, everything matches: from accessories down to shoes. Other times, it will just be a hoodie or just a single accessory. Regardless, it's cute and considered extremely normal here.
On the topic of matching things, another common expression of romantic love here in Korea is matching couple rings. These range in price, so that all sorts of couples can afford them, but the more serious couples opt for rings as expensive as $200 (each). Couple rings serve the same purpose as promise rings, sort of like, 'we will be together forever'. This confused the heck out of me when I first came to Korea because THEY WEAR THE RINGS ON THEIR WEDDING FINGERS. So when I first came to Korea, I saw all these wedding-looking rings on my Korean friends' fingers and I was like, WHY!? WHY IS EVERYONE MARRIED HERE?! Especially because I know that in Korean culture, it is very uncommon to get married young.
Finally, I asked one of my friends and he explained the whole couple ring thing. I was like, 'cute'.
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| There are many kinds of couple rings. These ones are a thick band with an engraved message. |
Sometimes, couple ring designs can be quite cheesy, such as the ones pictured below:
It's all very... Korean drama. :p
Aside from these obvious external expressions of love, in general there are just many things in Korea which seem to scream, "we love couples! Please be romantic and make every foreigner feel uncomfortable!" At the cinema, for example, there are the standard couple seats that you might find in Australia:
But even outside the cinema, in the waiting lobby, there are couple seats. And in restaurants, there are couple seats. I even walked past a bar the other day, with a sign that said, "free drink if you're a couple!" Sometimes, it's really cute, but other times, there seems to be a unified groan amongst the foreigners. I don't mind it at all, and I can appreciate it because even though there are so many couples, who wear matching outfits (which some might describe as 'lame', 'unnecessary' or 'sickening'), they are rarely inappropriate in terms of their public displays of affection. I have only seen maybe three (random) couples kiss openly during my entire stay in Seoul. It is refreshing, and an example of how vastly different their culture is from ours.
Common couple activities in Seoul include:
- Going to the movies
- Going to a sauna together
- Travelling to different cities
- Going to the beach
- Going to theme parks such as Lotte World/Everland
- Going to Karaoke
- Pledging their love
- Sitting on their phones in cafes
- Studying together
- Drinking beer
- Dancing in clubs
- Going shopping (apparently Korean males have a lot more patience shopping with their girlfriends... Although this doesn't surprise me, given how fashion-crazy Seoul is).
- Going to touristy places/places with amazing views
- Apparently just walking the streets
...So, kind of similar to Syndey. The main difference is that couples tend to hang out alone. I haven't really seen many couples in large groups. It's all about the romance. It will either be boy and girl alone, or boy with a large group of boy friends/girl with a large group of girl friends. Couples are very exclusive, and for this reason, it is also weird for a girl to have close guy friends if she is in a relationship (and visa versa).
I have not finished analysing the couples here in Seoul. Perhaps I will add to this post later. Regardless, its couple culture is a defining feature of Seoul, and I kind of enjoy it, because there is a lot of happiness in the air.
Until (hopefully) tomorrow!
Signed in Seoul,
Kristin
Kristin is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Korea Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
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