A Very Korean Christmas

Recently a Western friend of mine asked me, “What is Christmas like in Korea?” “Well” I said, “it’s kind of like what happens when you feed plastic army men to a pet duck.” Then I realized that explanation made absolutely no sense, so I wrote this blog post.

Korea spent the past several eons rotating in the near orbit of Chinese Civilization, with all the Confucianism and rice wine that entailed. Then in the 1950’s, the Korean War broke out and South Korea ended up being invaded and basically taken over by the American military. This led to a sharp cultural turn towards the West, which included Western holidays, religions, food, clothes, and an intense frenzy to learn the English language.

The big holidays in Korea traditionally come from Chinese holidays. Lunar New Year, Seolnal (설날) in Korean, is a big deal, and usually happens a month or two after the New Year that Westerners associate with the Roman calendar that we use. There’s also Chuseok (추석), a big harvest festival in the fall, which involves a lot of solemn bowing to the graves of your ancestors. These holidays are very ancient; Christmas, in contrast, is quite new. (A similar story seems to be unfolding in the recent Chinese embrace of Christmas, in which it is seen as a consumer-driven Western cultural import. The Atlantic ran a really interesting article about Christmas in China last week. I highly recommend it.)

Because Christmas is a really new holiday, Koreans don’t really celebrate it with their families. Korean culture is changing really quickly, so there is a huge generation gap, and this is part of it. Young people have embraced Christmas in recent decades, but older people don’t usually get into it. This is a generalization, however. After about a century of American missionary activity, South Korea is one of the most Christian nations in Asia, with about 40% of the country claiming Christianity as their religion. There are also large numbers of Buddhists and atheists. Korean Christians definitely do celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, and have special church services. But they probably don’t celebrate with family dinners and presents the way most Westerners do. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is as foreign to Koreans as Korea’s long tradition of savoring pork that comes from pigs raised on human poop is to Westerners. Many Korean people may not celebrate Christmas at all.

I live in Hongdae, a hip campus neighborhood known for its entertainment, nightlife, and restaurants. I was curious about what I would see on Christmas, since last year I lived in a more typical neighborhood and didn’t see much going on at all. Although there were lots of young couples at the shopping center, it seemed like just another day - filled with stooped-over ajummas peddling onions on the sidewalk and taxi drivers swerving maniacally through the crowded streets.

In Hongdae I saw huge crowds of young people out on Christmas. Korea is fairly obsessed with couple-dom, and Christmas is mostly about couple dates in Korea.  When I asked my Korean coworkers if they had plans for Christmas, they all signed and said no, denoting how sad they are to be tragically single. Since being single is horrible in Korea. The minute you get off your plane in Seoul, people will start asking you if you are dating someone or married yet, and why not if you are single. “Don’t worry, you’ll meet someone soon.” a conversation student of mine told me when I smiled and explained that I didn’t have a girlfriend.

Many young Korean couples celebrate their anniversaries by dressing in matching outfits called “couple sets.” Restaurants also sell matching food for couples in couple sets, and this whole phenomenon is pretty pervasive. So, in Korea, Christmas is a holiday for couples going on dates, wearing matching clothes, and going out to mob shopping and entertainment areas. Restaurants are booked up, and shopping centers are filled to capacity. A Korean coworker of mine said she went to Myeongdong on Christmas Day, and the streets – filled with Adidas outlets and Korean clothing stores with names like Shirt and Tie Coordination – were so packed with people that it was hard to walk. She ended up going home in disgust. 

From Hongdae

In Korea Christmas is less about family traditions, and more about friends, dates, and shopping. Hordes of young Koreans go out on the town to celebrate Christmas with their significant other, many dressing in matching outfits.  

From Hongdae

Unlike in the West, where most businesses are closed on Christmas, in Korea everything is open. I bought some coffee at Café Bean, to counteract the fact that I had woken up at 7 am to call my dad during the family Christmas party. (13-hour time differences are a bitch!) Café Bean seemed to be getting into the spirit of things.

From Hongdae

Walking around, I also saw lots of young Korean chicks dressed in red scarves and coats, some of them wearing red plastic reindeer antlers. I like the weird face this guy is making. He looks like he just injured his genitals somehow.

From Hongdae

I went and ate some Korean barbecue with a French Canadian friend, and Korean chick he knows. The restaurant was packed. They had some Christmas lights hanging up, creating a somewhat festive mood. I saw Christmas lights in restaurants a lot, but no one puts them on their houses in Korea. Which, as a trashy American, I really think is a shame. Imagine how much better Korea would be if people covered their entire homes with garish displays of lights, plywood cutouts, and inflatable decorations, so that people could go out of their way to gawk at it all like children attending a freak show. I know such spectacles are at the center of some of my favorite Christmas memories.

From Hongdae

The ubiquitous costume characters in the streets that promote makeup shops and cafes got into the spirit. This Garfield looked really dirty though for some reason. Given that he was grimy, loafing on the street, and wearing a Santa hat, I assumed he was the Korean equivalent of the homeless alcoholic men that America has traditionally employed to play Santa Claus at our Christmas festivities.

From Hongdae

Christmas Eve I also saw a huge party happening in Hongik Park, near the University. Silent Disco, a regular event at the park, was in full force - with dozens of kids dancing to headphone music that no one else could hear. Many of them were dressed in Christmas garb as they bobbed en masse. I actually saw more people in Santa costumes on Saturday night than I could count. Korean kids think it’s fun to go out dressed as Santa and get wasted with their friends. Who am I to argue with them?

From Hongdae

From Hongdae

From Hongdae

From Hongdae

I ended the night, like most expats in Korea, and I suspect many Koreans, at a bar in Hongdae. Club FF was having a special Christmas show. An indie band played a set of Korean indie tunes to a crowd of admiring young female Korean fans, who were all dressed up and wearing makeup. They stood and watched the show in quiet adoration, as though they were desperately hoping the guys onstage would notice them and suddenly sweep them off their feet. Then they all left, a different crowd took over the bar, and an energetic chick band got up and worked through a set of Christmas tunes. They were dressed pretty Christmassy, and not bad at all. My French Canadian friend loved them immediately because he thought they were cute.

From Hongdae

Even rock stars giggle demurely behind their hands in Korea.

From Hongdae

From Hongdae

The girl band’s repertoire included, of course, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas.” I have no idea why Dynamic Korea has chosen to singularly latch onto this early 90’s American pop hit, but Koreans seem pretty obsessed with it. I actually came to hate the song last winter, because I heard it constantly blared from stores and restaurants everywhere I went for about six weeks.  When I taught English at BCM Language Academy last year, I had to work on Christmas Day. (Our hagwon owner was a tightfisted businessman, if there ever was one.) The Korean teacher working in the classroom across the hall from mine spent an entire hour teaching the lyrics to this song to her class, playing a cassette recording of it and pausing the tape after each line to explain it to the students.

So in a nutshell, that’s Christmas in Korea. Weird, tacky, loud, fun, bizarre, drunken, and filled with people dressing up together in matching costumes to go out and get wasted and fall down in the street. Which is pretty much how most things work…