Koreans Growing Tired of Having to Push the Envelope

Whether it’s a funeral or a wedding, the ritual is the same: The guests file in and hand over envelopes stuffed with cash to a receptionist, who logs the amounts and donors’ names in a velvet-bound ledger.

It’s a custom that has begun to grate on many South Koreans, who are caught up in tough economic times. And some are striking back.

This month, 100 prominent Koreans, including Seoul’s Roman Catholic cardinal, Stephen Kim Sou Hwan, and Seoul Mayor Goh Kun, appealed to the public to scale back the culture of spending.

“It has become a serious social illness that combines ostentation with commercialism to spawn extravagance and waste,” the group said at a news conference.

They urged people to invite only close friends and relatives, and to reject wreaths or cash donations. They also asked members of the public to telephone them with word of extravagant weddings thrown by politicians and wealthy businessmen.

Hwang Eui Gon, a restaurant owner, is all for it “I sometimes get six or seven wedding invitations a week,” he says. “They are like bills to pay.”

It’s an old Asian custom to chip in with cash donations to help friends defray expenses.

But turnout at such events has become a yardstick of social standing, so families invite as many guests as possible and ply them with food and liquor.

“You feel embarrassed when a small number of people show up for your son’s wedding. You feel like you don’t have many friends,” said Lee Soon Won, a retired businessman.

Wealthy families advertise funeral schedules in newspapers. The families of a betrothed couple invite distant relatives, business acquaintances, long-lost classmates and army buddies.

A typical wedding, usually in the spring or fall, draws 350 guests, and gifts average 36,000 won ($28), according to government surveys.

Often, only half the guests stay for the whole ceremony. The rest invade the buffet table, then slip out, often to another wedding.

“Recently an old classmate sent me an invitation to his daughter’s wedding. It was the first time I had heard from him in years,” said Lee.

Korea often seems torn between frugal instincts and a taste for the ostentatious. Right now, in a national mood of belt-tightening, frugality is in, and not for the first time.

Park Chung Hee, South Korea’s dictator-president until his assassination in 1979, banned big banquets at weddings and discouraged all-night funeral vigils at which mourners drank, played poker and often missed work the next day.

The present government banned senior state employees from accepting envelopes because the donations were perceived as bribes. But some of those same officials complain that they aren’t excused from coughing up a gift when they are the guests.

Elsewhere in Asia, Indonesian newlyweds often request cash rather than presents. In the Philippines, bride and groom dance as guests pin bank notes on their clothes until they’re covered in cash. At some funerals, Filipinos drop cash in boxes, biscuit cans and glass jars near or on the coffin.

Japanese make their contributions in ornate envelopes. South Koreans go for plain white ones, Hong Kong Chinese for red.

Getting married is a costly business. South Korean families spend an average of nearly $29,000 for a wedding, according to the government. The bridegroom’s relatives are sometimes expected to provide an apartment for the newlywed couple, and the bride’s family must fill it with furniture.

Newlyweds also go into debt for years to buy expensive gifts for in-laws.

Some see an upside to all this.

“You help friends with donations, and when the time comes to marry off your children or when your parents die, they will help you too. It’s a good tradition as long as you don’t cross the line into greed,” said Choi Chung Kwon, a Seoul businessman.

Han Boon Joo, a 58-year-old housewife, disagrees.

“I only have one child,” Han said. “But my friends have three or four children. You see the imbalance.”