The Rituals & Traditions Episode
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Continuing their special series on cultural topics, Catherine and Juliana discuss the ways Korean Americans are observing age-old traditions like Paebek (wedding tea ceremony), Dol (first birthday) and Jesa (ancestor veneration). Their first guest is event planner Christine Chang of Live Love Create in Los Angeles, who explains how her wedding and Dol clients are honoring their heritage in a “fusion” style that feels relevant to them. (Think: a shorter, more inclusive Paebek or a golf ball included in the doljabi.) Next, they chat with mother-daughter duo Laura Park and Estella Riahi of Leehwa Wedding & Hanbok, a sought-after hanbok studio where LA’s Korean community have been ordering custom garments since the early 1990s. Catherine and Juliana learn how hanbok styles have evolved and how Leewha has become the go-to source for celebs looking for hanboks for awards season. Finally, the hosts speak with Jennifer Kim, aka Mudang Jenn, a shaman based in New York who explains the tradition of Jesa and how Korean Americans are adapting the ritual for today.
Christine Chang of Live Love Create Events @livelovecreate
Leehwa Wedding & Hanbok @leehwawedding
Mudang Jenn @shaman.mudang
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– [Catherine] Hi, and welcome to K-Pod, the podcast about Korean Americans in arts and culture from Korean American Story. I’m Catherine Hong, a writer and editor.
– [Juliana] And I’m Juliana Sohn, a photographer.
– [Catherine] We’re continuing our special series about Korean cultural topics. In previous episodes we discussed Korean language and traditional Korean medicine. Today we are going to talk about celebrations and traditions, like weddings, first birthdays, Chuseok, New Year’s.
– [Juliana] Palsun, Chilsun, Jesa.
– [Catherine] It’s interesting to me, because I feel like when I grew up my parents really wanted us to assimilate. I’ve talked about this a lot. And so we did some of these things kind of half-assed, or we didn’t do them at all. And I’ve noticed a lot of younger Korean Americans are celebrating these things in a big way.
– [Juliana] Absolutely, you know I wonder if traditional is the right word for it, because I really think that people are redefining these cultural traditions, and this is what I’m most interested in. My cousins who are much younger than me, you know, the way they are celebrating their children’s Dol, and you know, these really big extravagant gatherings. Lots of people, not just Koreans, but when we had my son’s Dol, it was like on the sofa, you know? And it was just my parents. And I just called my mom before we did this recording to ask her, “What did Forrest and Emmett take for their Doljabi?” And my mom’s like, “Oh, I don’t remember, shouldn’t you remember?” And I was like, “I don’t even remember, like what my kids picked,” because I think I was just so harried being a new mom. And you know, I look at all the traditions and how young Korean Americans are kinda making these traditions their own in ways that I never would’ve anticipated. It was really interesting and exciting to me.
– [Catherine] Yes, when I got married I did wear a hanbok, but only for my rehearsal dinner, and we did not do Paebaek. I didn’t really even know what that was. I just knew that I had seen pictures of some other couples getting married in the full-on Korean clothing, and I never once considered I’d want to do that. I would never dare to ask my husband to dress up in a hanbok, you know, he’s not Korean. But even if he were Korean, I feel like not that many people our generation did that. We just got dressed in the traditional tuxedo, white dress, and my parents never even suggested that we do that. Did you do anything Korean in your wedding?
– [Juliana] Let’s see, so my older sister married a Chinese man, and so for her wedding I was the maid of honor, and I was helping her in and out of outfits. And she had the traditional white wedding dress, and she also had a Chinese red dress, and then she had a Korean red and green hanbok. And I just thought, man, we spent half our time after the wedding in the bathroom changing outfits. And so when we, you know, did my wedding, I didn’t have any outfits. And you know, my sister being the first-born, when she got married, she went to Korea and she had these like really beautiful custom hanbok wedding dresses made, and they were beautiful. But being the second daughter, I didn’t get any of that. So I didn’t actually have a special hanbok to wear, and I only had the old hanbok that I’d worn for like 10 years. And so I didn’t really have anything meaningful to wear on that day.
– [Catherine] Did you do a Dol? Did you do a baek-il celebration?
– [Juliana] Yes, we did those for our kids, and you know, they were a big deal to us, and they were some of my favorite celebrations for them as babies.
– [Catherine] Wait, do you remember what your children picked?
– [Juliana] Oh God, I was afraid you were gonna ask me. I think , I think my son picked a writing instrument. I really don’t remember, it’s terrible to say.
– [Catherine] So I had this whole image of, “Oh the Doljanchi, you know, it’s gonna be like this really pretty table, or we’re gonna have a cake.” But you know, it’s really hard being a young mom, and I was so frazzled and my hair is like, all over the place. My parents came over with rented plastic fruit stacks and gwaja stacks. We just kinda like, slapped it together. I really regret not making a bigger deal of it, but it was so much work for a young mom that I was just like, “Just get it done.” Today’s episode is in three parts with three separate guests. The first is Christine Chang, an event planner in Los Angeles who specializes in Korean celebrations. Next we learn about hanbok from hanbok designer Laura Park and her daughter Estella Riahi of Leehwa Wedding. Our third segment is our conversation about Jesa, or ancestor veneration, with Jenn Kim, who is a practicing mudang. Hi Christine.
– Hi ladies, good morning.
– Good morning.
– Thank you for joining us. So Christine, tell us a little bit about how you got started in this business, because I know that you are one of the very few Korean American paebaek, what do you call it? Paebaek-
– Vendor, yeah vendor. It actually started in 2009, took a leap of faith and just a group of girlfriends really thought, “Hey, I think wedding planning would be fun.” It was just always a side thing for us. And so we did that for many, many years. For me, I saw it as an opportunity, ’cause as a Korean American planning my own wedding, there were a lot of elements in the wedding where I thought, “Oh, this is either too American or too Korean,” and there was no mixture of both. I really took it upon myself to build my own wedding into kind of like the company structure, just because this is who I am, and I speak that language, this is me. And so when I started doing that and eventually had my first child and planned for his Dol, there was nothing really out there that spoke both traditions and both cultures, and I had to make up my own. And so when I first did my son’s Dol, I was very curious to see like how people would react to the fusion, ’cause it’s just something that is not, it wasn’t popular, right? It’s either very, very Korean traditional, because that’s what we know, and that’s what our parents help us to do. And there’s a lot of very, like first generation, 1.5 generation vendors that came from Korea that can service that, but there was nobody really that was servicing the second generation and on, to make that fusion-styled event.
– Well maybe, let’s start with the weddings. Can you walk us through the basic steps of the traditional Korean paebaek, and explain what is the paebaek, and give us a sense of how your clients have adapted it, for you know, modern day.
– Sure yeah, so paebaek is Korean tea ceremony. Basically it’s a ceremony that’s held for just the groom’s side of the family. So in the past ages when a woman gets married, she’s no longer a part of her own family and she’s supposed to just be a part of her husband’s family, groom’s family. So when the paebaek ceremony originated, it was for the bride to be accepted into the groom’s side of the family. And so with that, you do the steps of bowing to your el elders, and then you serve them tea and ask for any marital advice or any words of wisdom. And then you go into receiving gifts from the groom’s side of the family for your future household. And then there’s fun aspects to that too, where your parents throw dates and chestnuts towards you and you catch it, that identifies how many children you’ll have, what the gender might be. Dates because there are seeds inside resemble male, and then the chestnuts, there aren’t any seeds in there, and so that resembles female, and so those are the genders of the babies you’ll have in the future, along with the piggybacking portion, where you piggyback your bride, and you run around showcasing the strength you’ll have for your family, and also there’s the fighting of the dates. So the bride and groom will turn towards each other, have a date in their mouth, and fight for the seed of the date, which resembles who is like the leader of the household. So those-
– I never knew about that.
– So there the ceremony itself is quite intimate, and it’s for family members only, and only the groom’s side of the family. And I think the second part of this question was, “How is it different now and how did you modernize it?” And so if you are familiar with the way that paebaek ceremony, aesthetically how it looks, it’s very vibrant. The colors are very blue, very red, and there’s just color everywhere. That part itself is really beautiful in its own category. But I think step number one for somebody in this modern age living in the States, don’t resonate too much with all these crazy colors, and they’re more like, “I like West Elm and I like something more Scandinavia, and I want something a little bit more pastel and calm and soothing.” And so that part itself was the first part where I had to switch the set into something that was a lot more modern, using tones that are a little bit softer on the eye. And so that’s the first thing that I had to revise. The second portion of it, which was I think one of the most important things that I feel like is current, is involving both sides of the family. It’s not just about the groom, it’s about the bride as well. And so it’s a union of two families and I make it very apparent like, “Yes, traditionally it is this way and you may need to talk to your parents about this, but in the modern age, even in Korea we welcome everybody. It’s not just one side.” And so that’s maybe the the most important thing that we kind of revised and made more modern. The third part about it is, it’s not private anymore and we don’t just do it in somebody’s home or in the corner somewhere, where only just family members can see. People are wanting to share the culture, and they do it wide in the open in front of all their guests, like during cocktail hour, ’cause they wanna share the tradition with it and people are just in awe of the beauty of it, right? And the meaning behind why we do the things that we do. Lastly, another part that changed is, traditionally you have these like different sets of how you go about respecting your elders and doing the bows and tea ceremonies, and it takes a very long time, it can take hours almost. And the bride and groom is going up and down doing a million bells, serving a million tea. That is something that we kind of condensed, and we don’t do the two hours, four hours, of paebaek ceremony anymore. We keep it very short and concise, and do the key moments of it that actually does matter. And so we respect both sides of the family. They get their own time to to you know, receive bows and their own words of wisdom, their own set of tea ceremony each. And then most bride and groom, they still do wanna honor their aunts and uncles. So we just like combine them all, instead of doing all individual, ’cause then that’ll take 10 hours. And then we also combine our same generation cousins and siblings, whatnot in one group, so that we can all just get that done together. So instead of it being hours and hours of paebaek, we can condense it into like 30 minutes, maybe an hour most.
– I love it, so typically it sounds as if the husband and the wife will have the traditional service, white dress, tuxedo, and then they change into the Korean hanbok, and then they move into another room, is that right? And then they do another ceremony in front of their guests?
– Right.
– Is that usually how it works, same day?
– Yeah, so the most popular has been during cocktail hour because they still wanna share this tradition with everybody. So as soon as ceremony ends, we’re rushing them over to the bridal room, and I help them get changed into hanbok, which is their own personal, or a custom, or a rental, that they were under the actual paebaek robe. So it’s two layers of hanbok and robe. After I get them changed into that, then we start the ceremony where I walk them out into the cocktail space, and then we make an announcement saying, “Thank you for joining,” and then moderate the tea ceremony from there. And then after that we rush them back into the bride room, and they change back into the Western and then do the, granted there’s a lot, they go back and forth a lot.
– There’s a lot going on.
– Yeah, mm-hmm.
– So when you say you moderate, what does that mean? Do you mean that you sorta narrate the steps, so that the guests understand what the tradition is that they’re observing?
– Exactly, and so the reason I do that is because when we, in the past, like this is how Korean tea ceremonies were held, was very private. Everybody kinda already knew what to expect because it’s the culture that they’re used to. Here in the States, even as a Korean myself, I know I wouldn’t know this, because I didn’t grow up in this. And so as a Korean or non Korean, you just don’t know what you’re looking at. And so if I just left it up to the couple to just do their own, they’ll just be lost. And that defeats the purpose of me trying to keep, like traditional alive and still make it modern. And so I moderate the whole thing, and I guide them through the steps of, “Now we do a bow here in 90-degree, and all the way down with your hands to your forehead, when your forehead touching the ground.” I moderate all that, and I help them step by step of what we need to do to perform the tea ceremony. And I actually explain to the guests like, “This is why we’re doing this.” And I’m talking to both the bride and the groom and the recipient of the tea ceremony, and also the crowd as well, because we want it to be more interactive where you’re learning something for it and not just seeing people go up and down bowing, and not knowing what that means.
– I think this is so fascinating, because my own parents got married in New York in 1969. They didn’t have their parents in this country, I think at that point. No, my dad had his mom here, but my mom’s family, they weren’t here. They did not do paebaek. Most of their friends did not, because they, number one, just came to America and they want to assimilate. Number two, they didn’t have any of that stuff. They didn’t have their family members, so they just had a Western wedding. They never expected myself or my brother to have a Korean ceremony at all. It’s so different from generation to generation, now it’s coming back. Have you heard stories about Korean parents who didn’t do this themselves even, but their kids want to do this?
– Mm-hmm, definitely. And I think it’s also because of the fact that they just could not find that service when they were here in the States, that it was impossible. What were they gonna do, right? Just make it up and start making stuff, from just crafts that they have in their home?
– And what are some of the physical elements that you need to do paebaek, at the bare minimum?
– It’s actually a lot more complicated, ’cause there’s a lot of elements on the actual , that needs to be there that resemble different things. So at the very least you do need a mat, and you do need a table, that’s gonna hold all the different elements, and along with that you need tea of course. So the basic stuff is the table, and the stuff that goes on the table. The stuff that goes on the table is, we use a lot of delicacies, like Korean snacks and delicacies, ’cause it’s not just about serving tea, you’re supposed to actually also serve them a snack with it, something that they can consume. And so all of that is on there. There’s, you know, hanbok silks on there, there’s gifts on there, there’s, if you wanted to add duck on there, that’s very important. There’s also the ducks. So I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Korean ducks, but the ducks, when they mate they say they mate for life, and that’s very very, yeah.
– The wooden duck?
– Mm-hmm.
– The wooden duck models.
– Exactly, so that makes it up there. And so these, that’s the very bare minimum of what you can put on the table.
– I’ve been seeing couples where one person is Korean and the other person is non Korean, and they are wearing the hanbok and going through some sort of traditional ceremony. I kinda love seeing mixed race weddings where Korean tradition is being explored.
– Totally, most of my couples are actually a couple where one is Korean and the other might not be, I would say about 80%. And it’s really beautiful to see them incorporate both cultures into their wedding ceremony, ’cause it’s not just about having a Western ceremony because we live in the States. Like one might be Taiwanese and the other Korean, and then so they incorporate both their cultures in there. So you will have a Korean tea ceremony during cocktail hour, but earlier in the day you just had a Chinese tea ceremony. The families and the bride and groom are very respectful of each other’s culture. And so there is no such thing as, “I will not wear that because I don’t identify with it.” You were it because, “I love you, and you are now me and I am you.” And so they respect each other and they will wear the hanbok, they’ll wear the and the , whatever it is, because it’s respectful, and it’s honoring both, each other’s family.
– I’d love to hear more about your process of creating this fusion tradition. I’m a strong believer in fusion traditions and like what feels right, and what feels, you know authentic, I think is like, it just feels more natural. Can you talk a little bit about the process of like, what that fusion is, and how you bring modern elements into it? How do you gauge what’s a go, and what’s not such a great fit?
– Yeah, when I went and originally started to think about what this fusion style meant, it only needed to make sense to me, ’cause it wasn’t for anybody else, and it was for me. And when people started responding and saying, That’s me too, you speak my language,” that’s when it clicked in my head. I was like, “Oh it’s not, there’s so many of us that feel the same way, that know that this fusion style makes sense to them, I should help them.” The other part is when people approach me about bringing different elements into it that might be off of, a little bit different from what I originated or what I created, I stay very open to it. For instance, a upcoming wedding wants a fusion, Korean tea ceremony and a Vietnamese tea ceremony mushed in one. And I was like, I thought about it, I was like, “Let’s try, why not?” My thought behind it is, where does this all originate from? Why do we even do tea ceremony in the first place? And it’s all from the same origin, we’re all the same. It’s to pay respects to your family, it’s to honor them, and that’s why we do it. And so when you go back to the origin of why it makes sense to them in the first place to start a tea ceremony, you start with that base and say, “Yes, we’re on the same wavelength, there’s nothing different from us.” And so you create that fusion, and yes, aesthetically it might be a little bit different, because you’re trying to fuse in, like Korean , and you know different Chinese characters or whatever into one set. But you know that’s just aesthetically, like that’s what you’re visually looking at. But the base and the heart of where it started is exactly the same, and so I feel okay about that because as a Korean American I’m fusing two cultures, so why not fuse another one, and a fourth one and a fifth one, because at the base of it, all still makes sense.
– So with these trips that you make to Korea, you get to observe firsthand what the trends are. Do they all translate here in the States, or are there things that maybe we’re more resistant to, or maybe not quite ready for?
– There are I think, some elements that Korea still hold onto very tightly that we’re very open to give up, such as , in Korea they use more key traditional elements. So for instance, if they are doing Doljabi, they’ll be like, “I’m only gonna do, like traditional Doljabi items.”
– And what are they?
– The most popular are yarn for long life. They have rice for a plentiful future, they have money for wealth. There’s bow and arrow for like future warrior or soldier, and then there’s a brush or a pencil for scholar. So those are like the five that are the tradition. And so in Korea they might stick to that. In the States I think we’re just like, “Oh but there’s, no one’s gonna be a soldier, I think, right? I don’t think they are.” They’re more like, “I want him to be a pediatrician, just like me,” and they throw a stethoscope in there. Or, “I’m gonna throw in a golf ball,” because everybody loves golf apparently, you know? And so they start mixing different elements that makes more sense to them, that I think as Americans, we’re a little bit more, we’re more open to like incorporate, than in Korea where they have very strict traditions, that they are still like, really trying to hold onto, which I think makes more sense to them because they are Korean and not Korean American.
– Well I’m glad you brought up the Dol, because that’s the next celebration we wanted to ask you about. To me it’s one of the, even as a kid that was the one Korean party I knew about, that I actually thought was cool. And a lot of my non Korean friends, they even knew a little about, “Oh you’re Korean, you do that cool choosing ceremony.” Like it’s very fun, and it’s easy for everyone to grasp, you know, what’s going on. I remember fondly looking at pictures of myself and my brother when we were little. We had an uncle who worked for Nabisco, and so he used to bring us all these cookies and we had crazy stacks of Oreos, and other Nabisco cookies behind us. And I just thought, I love the bounty of it, and the way the kids look when they’re dressed up in the hanbok. Like, I was very excited to do the Dol. But now I see they’re obviously way more, you can hire someone and produce an event that’s super polished, it’s grown beyond what it used to be. So tell us a little bit about what people are asking you to do for their Dol.
– So Dol itself is a celebration of the child’s first birthday. So historically back in the day, because it was a poverished country, a lotta babies did not make it till one. And so one is a huge celebration for family. The sentiment still stays the same, where the first year of anyone having a child, like if anybody has a child out there, it’s the worst. It is hard and it’s a battle. And when you say it takes a village to raise a child, it’s the truth, and you wanna celebrate with them, you making it to year one, because that’s the hardest year. And so in the States they go buck wild, it’s a triumph really because you’ve made it, in a different way. And so our parents are more wanting to have a party, a big party, because of that. And they also wanna make it very unique, where traditionally you can just hire like a Dol vendor from a hanbok place to come set up and do the traditional things and then just call it a day, or they can make it more fun and create a Dol that is more custom to their family and who they are and who the baby is. So they ask for custom things. So for instance, the most popular for Dol is when I talk to a couple, I ask them a couple of questions that defines it all. I’m like, “What does your baby like?” And I also ask like, “What is important to you as parents, and what did you learn from this first year that had you survive, and what do you wanna celebrate?” They tell me about their first year and how they survived, and things that they did with their child. And then we create a design that incorporates their life as year one, and then put it into what the Dol is going to look like. So for instance, like if the baby really loved apples, like we’ll do like a cool little apple setup, where they can have, I don’t know, candied apples, or a vendor that does candy apples, or something like that, right? So we make it more interesting, where it’s not just about like putting a baby on a , and doing a Doljabi, and then you know, making it very traditional. They wanna make it more unique and and more custom to them. So that’s been the most popular way of people celebrating Dol, making it more open because the more friends and family you have and the acknowledgement that all these people helped you survive, you wanna invite them to the party. So they like to just service them and they say, “Just come eat with me,” right? And a lotta people don’t do it in their homes anymore, and they do it at a venue, so they can have a higher guest count. So they make it into a big party.
– So one of the iconic symbols of these Korean ceremonies, as Catherine said, the stacks of a bounty, whether it be fruit or rice cakes, I know that that’s very important but that isn’t the kinda thing that people can really afford to. And and for me who’s like, very like conscientious, like it just looks like waste to me because a lot of that food doesn’t get eaten. But I love this idea that you make these ceramic and the dumplings. Can you talk a little bit about the offering table, and how you make it more special?
– It originates from my mom. My mom is an artist, and she’s one of the first Korean folk artists in Koreatown in LA. She brought over, back in I guess the early ’90s, crafts and folk art from Korea, and started teaching it to her peers in our home. And so she brought over this clay called , which originates from Asia, it’s called paper clay. And so when I grew up watching my mom teach other people how to make these beautiful, like Korean dolls, and Korean sculptures out of paper clay, which is , I kind of already knew, like leading into this, that I wanted to create , or whatever it is, that goes on the paebaek or table. But there are people, like out in Connecticut, out in Maine, out in Texas or whatever it is, where these vendors don’t exist, but they still want to be able to have these delicacies on their table. Plastic is fine. I personally didn’t like the look of plastic or the thought of plastic. So I was like, “I’m gonna use my art skill, and I’m gonna use what my mom brought over from Korea,” which is , paper clay, “and make my own.” And so my mom helped me make a lotta these things, ’cause she’s the pro not me. When people know that it travels well and they can still have the same effect of having the real out there in front of them out in Texas or whatever, they love it.
– When you say paper clay, is it more like paper mache or is it actual ceramics that you fire?
– You don’t fire it, it actually air dries. So if you look up, yeah it’s most popular in like Japan and Korea, but it’s called , and it’s paper clay. You mold it, it air dries itself and you can, no firing, no heat added. It’s more sturdier than ceramics, ’cause that breaks very easily. It lasts forever.
– This is clearly Juliana’s next project, ’cause you know she loves ceramics, so she’s now curious. I can see you’re gonna order some. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you throw the Dol? Walk us through what the guests see when they walk in. Tell us about that.
– Yeah, I mean earlier you said the most fun part about a Dol was a Doljabi, which is where you place the items in front of the one-year-old, and they crawl, walk, or run over to it, and pick what this item is going to be that determines their future. So as soon as the guests enter there is this Doljabi raffle, right? All the guests participate. They pretty much make an assumption like, “I think this child really is gonna be a accountant in the future, so I’m gonna put my raffle in the abacus,” or, “I’m gonna put it in the golf ball,” or “I’m gonna put in the stethoscope, ’cause both their parents are doctors, and this is the child’s future for sure.” So they play a little raffle in a game, and they make their choice, and at the end, after we do the actual Doljabi, that’s when we find the winner of the raffle and the parents gift them and say, “Thanks for participating, you hit it on the nose. This child likes to golf, she picked the golf ball.” So , that’s the fun part.
– And my understanding is, it’s traditional that guests would guess ahead of time, right?
– Yeah I mean, it’s the most popular thing that people like love to just watch. But if you throw in the game part, like it’s more exciting, right? ‘Cause you just, it’s fun to have a little bit of entertainment there.
– I love the story about how you felt that there was a need for change, and not seeing anything out there, you decided to, you know, meld a couple of different things that felt right to you and create something new, and then it resonated with so many people. And I love that you use the terms like, oh you know, the West Elm aesthetic, which, you know, people don’t necessarily, you know, associate that with like traditional Korean aesthetic. But I see that out there. There are so many different life stages as well, though. Like the 70th and 80th and 60th birthday, the Hwangap, the Chilsun, Palsun. We had a big Chilsun for my dad. I mean, he refused to have the Hwangap, ’cause he said, “Oh, everyone lives to 60 now. It’s not an achievement.” So he refused to have a big 60th birthday, but he did have a 70th, and it was, you know, friends, family. We rented out a small place, printed out little invites and everything. But I wonder, has your event planning reached those kinds of milestones yet?
– It has, only because you mentioned, you planned it for your father. It’s always the children planning it for their families, their father, their mothers. And we are hitting the age where, my mom actually, she passed Hwangap, right? And so I’m looking forward to her Chilsun, and a place where I have to start thinking about celebrating her and these different milestones. There’s also the same thing, where my mom refused to have a Hwangap. She said the exact same thing. She’s like, “I’m only 60, what do you mean? I’m young.” So what we did actually was a photo shoot instead that was only for our family. She said for her 70th, 80th like, “Have a party, do it. I don’t care, like I’ll participate.” But for, and this is I think a little bit more popular for maybe the 60th, which is the Hwangap, is family members do photo shoots with their parents for that milestone instead of having a party, because of the same reason why your father didn’t want it and my mom didn’t want it, is ’cause they’re young. 60 is young.
– I don’t even know, what are the traditional things, what one would do at a party like that? A 70th 80, are there rituals?
– There’s always tea.
– Always tea.
– Yeah.
– There’s always tea, and there’s always , there’s always-
– And there’s always .
– You know, I haven’t crossed that bridge yet. To be very honest, I haven’t planned an event for Chilsun or Hwangap yet. When the time comes, I’m sure I will do my due diligence and fly to Korea again and start talking to everyone. So yeah, I see a lot of the fusion requests, and a lot of the combination of multiple traditions in all milestones of life. And as we live longer in the States, it’s not just gonna be a Korean American event, it’s gonna be multiple cultures all mixed in one, and I can’t wait to see that happen, ’cause I think that’s just gonna create the most beautiful, our own traditions.
– Well, thank you so much. I learned so much from you, Christine. I think you were the perfect person to ask about all of these traditions.
– Thank you for having me, ladies. I really appreciate your time. Have a wonderful day, thank you.
– We have here today Laura Park, who’s the founder and designer of Leehwa Weddings, which is the largest hanbok studio in the United States, I believe, it’s based in Los Angeles. And her daughter Estella Riahi, who is her right-hand person in all things at the studio. And she’s gonna help also discuss the hanbok, and also serve as a little bit of a translator for Laura. Welcome everybody.
– Thanks for having us today.
– Can you tell us about how you started and opened Leehwa in LA?
– I just started little bit there the fabric, the very small store.
– And what year was this?
– 1990, so in Los Angeles, the hanbok store is very small, and then very old people make the hanbok. The old store, they purchased my fabric. That time I realize that, “Oh, the market is still doing good.” So after two years later, currently I open to my store.
– So you sold fabric only for two years, and Korean Americans in LA were hand-making their hanbok the early ’90s.
– Yeah, early ’90s, the two years only sell the fabric.
– She realized there was a demand. And just to clarify, she started from like our home. So she didn’t actually have a lease for her store, there was no storefront. And as she was able to sell the fabric, she realized there was an a demand, like to the Korean hanbok stores, she realized there was a demand in Los Angeles for people who were actually purchasing hanboks. And that’s what inspired her to finally take that risk, and try it out in LA.
– It’s kind of remarkable, ’cause that doesn’t, it’s not even that long ago. But I do remember when we moved to the States, we came here with our own hanbok, and as we grew older and grew out of our clothes, we would go back to Korea. And so maybe like five years, 10 years would go by, we would outgrow, our would be very short. And then, because we didn’t know of any place in the US back then to get the hanbok. And I think it was very hard to find hanbok fabric or even hanbok places in the US, even up until the ’90s.
– Yeah, even though, you know, currently they not interested, they cannot find the hanbok store.
– [Juliana] Yeah, before the internet, and you know.
– Hanbok is a very unique item, yeah.
– The earliest hanboks that you made in the ’90s, what were most of them, what did they look like? Was there a style, or was there a very popular color scheme that people were interested in early on?
– Yeah, even though I was married in 1989, that time as a hanbok color combination, the very stand out color, contrasting, red and yellow, red and green, navy blue and yellow, like the strong color combination.
– What was the staff, or what goes on top and what goes on the bottom?
– So the colors would signify pretty much where the women are in their lives. So before they’re married the skirts are yellow, and when it’s time for the bride to get married, it’s red.
– Yeah, Korean traditional, before married to a man, can wear the yellow color. After marrying, she can wear the green color. So usually the one skirt and two top.
– And what about for weddings? Is it red top and red bottom?
– Yeah, red bottom and yellow top.
– At the actual wedding, yellow on the top?
– If they want a traditional color scheme. But in American weddings, brides typically wear white. So now what’s very trending is to wear a white hanbok, which obviously long ago was a big no-no, because that’s the color you wear when you pass on, when you’re, you know, well you’re not alive. But now it’s like, they’re kind of merging what the brides wear in America, which is white, but they also wanna wear a hanbok design. So these days it’s like a lot of white, and like more monochromatic pale colors also for that reason, because they want a more modernized look.
– So do you find that a bride today, if she wore a white hanbok, the older people in the wedding think it’s shocking?
– I don’t think so. I think a lot of moms are on Instagram, Pinterest, and you know, they see what’s out there. Celebrities are also wearing hanboks. So they’re already coming in knowing what’s trending, what’s more modern, and they actually are horrified sometimes when our brides actually come in looking for traditional colors. Like some brides want the red skirt and the green top, and like very, you know, what we would call like old-style colors, and the moms are like, fighting with their daughters saying, “You don’t wanna wear that, that looks so old-fashioned.”
– Okay, so Estella, you said you got married just a couple years ago, right?
– Yeah.
– So tell us, what did you wear at your wedding? And I’m sure this was a topic of great deliberation. Did you have several outfits?
– So my husband is not Korean, so we, while it was very important for the both of us to incorporate our Korean culture, we were trying to also be mindful of his background, and he is half Italian and half Persian. So we didn’t wanna just take away the show by just only having a Korean traditional celebration. So we kind of researched his side, where in the Persian wedding, they also have a similar table to our Korean traditional paebaek table. So we bought different Persian foods and Korean foods, and we pretty much made a big spread. And then we did the actual Korean tea ceremony where the importance of that is to gain respect and permission from both sides, from both parents, where we bow to both sides, pour the tea, and receive the blessings to pretty much marry each other. And so in terms of the outfits, while we wore the American, you know, I wore a white wedding dress, my husband wore a tuxedo, we then had an outfit change by surprise. So everyone was shocked to see us come out in completely different clothing. With a paebaek traditional ceremony, you actually wear a hanbok, and then additional robes on top. There’s a bridal hanbok that you wear underneath, and then there’s a paebaek robe that you wear over that, and the same goes for the groom. Traditionally the brides, again as we discussed, it’s like red skirt, you know, green top, that’s like the traditional, and the outerwear was traditionally very red, and the groom’s robe is traditionally very blue. But we kind of wanted to steer away from the traditional colors, because we were already incorporating such a traditional element of the actual paebaek ceremony. So we actually steered towards more pale, modern colors. So my husband wore like a pale baby blue robe, and I wore a white hanbok dress. And then with a traditional, it’s called style. So it’s a royal longer hanbok, it’s not the short style, but it was traditionally worn in the palace by the people of the royal class. So it also signifies, again the class, and who was able to traditionally wear it. But now none of that really matters. It’s more of an aesthetic preference.
– I think for Korean Americans, weddings are definitely the most popular time to go hanbok shopping, but most people I think don’t own a hanbok for their everyday lives. In your experience, the customers who come in, are they mainly shopping for wedding hanboks, or do you see people interested in hanbok for more everyday wear at all?
– Yeah, so I was in 1990 only the wedding shopper stopped by my store, but actually from now, I have been very busy four seasons, because they don’t care about, they have the big celebration, the red carpet. Yeah, they wanna wear to the Korean style. Yeah, not traditional, but they look something unique. So they find that the Korean, the modern hanbok.
– So they’ll come to her, pretty much say, you know, “I’m going to the Emmys,” or, “I’m going to the Oscars,” you know, “This is how I look. I prefer brighter colors,” or, “I prefer darker colors. What do you think will look good on me?” And then so she’ll kind of pull different dresses that aren’t necessarily traditional hanboks, but definitely have like a flare of the Korean traditional, you know, elements within it. As my mom already mentioned, we’ve dressed, you know, Korean Americans for the Emmys, the Oscars, recently the Gold House Gala, and there was the Unforgettable Gala the other night. So we’ve been dressing for very, again, non-wedding purposes. That was completely not the case, you know, 30, 40 years ago, or even more recently. This is like, I think a surge of the interest of sharing our Korean culture with just general America. You know, for me personally, to be honest, it wasn’t like a proud thing to say that I am Korean and Asian, because there weren’t that many people who look like me when I was growing up. But now it’s like when I share that I’m Korean, everyone kinda flocks to me and asks me more about the Korean culture, because there are many things that have brought our Korean culture mainstream. And then at the same time that’s validating Korean Americans to wanna share, to wanna wear that, for these kinds of events.
– What are some of the most photographed dresses that you have made?
– The movie stars are tend to wear our hanbok, and then this year Kevin, old singer.
– What is it, what’s his name?
– Kevin Wu.
– Oh, yeah.
– So, and he was sent by Arden Cho, and we dressed her last year. But it’s just amazing, again, and what Arden wore, and what my mom’s referencing too. Her hanboks, the way it was designed for her body, you would think it’s a Western-style dress. So I don’t know if my mom explained earlier, but she went to FIDM in downtown Los Angeles, which is a fashion school. And so she was able to learn fashion design in the American style. So to combine kind of how a dress fits on a woman’s body here, while also using Korean fabrics and other traditional elements. So it kind of straddles those lines of like, Western and Korean. But that was like, I think last year our biggest design that was being shared, you know, on social media quite frequently.
– So this year very surprised that many people contacted me, but I cannot help for everybody, because I’m in Los Angeles. Anyway, the older hanbok need alteration. The man’s hanbok is the one size fit.
– So Laura, you only sell custom hanbok? People can’t order by size, or kind of off the rack?
– Yeah we do, but you know, very hard. Hanbok is a very delicate fit. Korean traditional hanbok is the, don’t care about the bust line. But my design very important to bust line, because very important, right? I don’t want to flat. So I always think about the fit.
– Got it.
– And hanbok is very gorgeous, very beautiful, and then can do even the sexy too. Yeah, I’m putting the sexy line.
– Love it.
– Well, that’s so interesting that you would say that, ’cause you know, I used to think it’s so poofy, it covers your whole body. It’s almost like asexual, because it doesn’t show the female shape.
– Absolutely, yep. And so when she refers to the fact that she’s kind of making it more sexy, she’s actually outlining the bust line by, you know, use the, I don’t know what the term is for in fashion design, but she uses darts to kind of like outline that shape. But whereas traditionally the hanbok really like, wrapped you, in and so obviously flatten any, you know, feminine shape-
– Yes, there are no darts in traditional hanbok.
– Hanbok is always flat, right? Everybody ask me, “I don’t wanna look pregnant.” Especially younger people. The hanbok is very beautiful, but you know, I don’t wanna make the pregnant look.
– Have you ever made, or been asked to make, a hanbok out of leather or denim? How wild do people get?
– So essentially we cater to people who want more traditional hanbok styles, and we definitely custom make those for them. But we have another line, it’s for people who wanna wear hanbok on a daily basis, but we’re obviously going to use fabrics that are more wearable and accessible, you know, price point-wise as well. So that’s our line called House of Leehwa, and that’s our street wear line. So they are, you know, they range from crop top designs to pants designs. It was actually a men’s hanbok design, but girls wear it now. And there are different ways, where we’ve kind of figured out that when we’re selling online, and that’s kind of how our business actually modernized, with using Shopify and Instagram and Facebook, is that if we’re catering to an online marketplace, we couldn’t keep going with the custom-making concept because that’s going to make it almost impossible. Where people are kind of, you know, dropped down picking their size and we’re mailing it out. And a lot of these clients are from all over, you know, in different states outside of California. So either way, we have these new designs where they can actually put it on themselves, tie it themselves. So size doesn’t, it does matter, but it’s more of a range now. And so with those hanboks, our fabric choices too are going to kind of also dictate the ability to wear it again more frequently. They could wear it to the market, they could wear it to school.
– I find it remarkable that people want to wear hanbok- inspired street wear on a daily basis. Who are these people, are they younger?
– Now it’s for, now even to my age, looking for the, yeah, very sexy hanbok too. I’m young, right?
– It’s definitely younger, but I have to say they’re not always Korean. So recently we were in DC, because the Smithsonian Institute, they actually reached out to us, telling us they were interested in carrying our street wear hanbok design. So they were interested in the House of Leehwa line. But when we went and brought, we pretty much had like a pop-up shop there, and we were curious as well, who would be interested in purchasing these items. And I’ll have to say, you know, I mean there were definitely Koreans, but a lot of them were non-Koreans. And they were buying our scarves, our, you know, outer-like jackets that look Korean but not really. They were buying our skirts that kind of like wrap around the waist and they can just tie it. But they were people who just love Korean culture genuinely. They love the Korean shows, the dramas, they only use Korean beauty products, they eat Korean food. And so it’s remarkable. It’s not just the Koreans who wanna, you know, wear it every day. It is that population, but it’s also a new pool of people who are just genuinely interested in our culture.
– So riding the K wave, the K culture.
– Yes.
– Yeah. So Laura mentioned that maybe, like the majority of your customers are not even Korean. And is that true for the more traditional kind of hanbok as well, and not the street wear?
– They’re Koreans who are marrying into non-Korean families. It’s those people, as well as Korean adoptees, and people who are just kind of mixed, in that you know recently, or not recently, but five years ago, I remember 23AndMe and Ancestry, those DNA testing kits were really trendy. They were Korean, but they didn’t look Korean if you just looked at them. And they would visit our store, they would just fly out to Los Angeles to learn more about like that drop of blood, that in fact had showed up as Korean. So there are people who are Korean with a little bit of Korean, or marrying into the Korean culture, or people who just love the Korean culture and they’re not at all Korean.
– Going back to what you said about, it’s a misconception that hanboks don’t really have to fit because they’re so loose. Are there any other common misconceptions people have about hanbok?
– I would think so, in one, you know again, traditionally the hanboks were very poofy, and so they automatically think the modern hanbok is not poofy, it’s the opposite of that, it’s going to be more fitted. And so they kind of always emphasize as they’re placing their order, they don’t want it to look as poofy as possible. But what makes a hanbok look poofy is a petticoat. And so with the petticoat, that’s going to create more of the fuller, rounder shape. So, but long ago the petticoat was actually, it served to keep, you know, your body hidden, because the fabrics were thin. So if you didn’t wear a petticoat, it’d be a see-through dress. But when we try to explain the reason why you have to wear a petticoat with a lining, is so that not everyone’s, you know, you’re not naked pretty much, just wearing the fabrics. So the misconception is, a lot of people will just say, “I don’t wanna wear the petticoat at all.” And we have to kind of explain why that’s not okay, because you know again, it’s going to be see-through. So then we take out the crinoline that kind of creates like that poofy look. So that’s one big misconception. And another is tying the ribbon. Everyone ties it very creatively on their own. We’ve seen all different kinds of ways that it’s been tied, backwards, upside down, et cetera. But that will be a next, probably most common wrong thing about hanboks.
– Well, thank you so much for coming and taking your time.
– Thank you for having us. It’s remarkable what you’re doing, shining light, you know, as to the Korean American, you know, the stories that we have to share. So thanks for providing the platform to do so.
– Yeah, thank you so much. I cannot explain the fully, but I try my best to, yeah.
– Oh, you were great Laura.
– Thank you Laura, thank you Estella.
– Thank you.
– Thank you both.
– We are now speaking with Mudang Jenn, who is a practicing Korean shaman in Long Island. And today we asked her on our episode to talk about the Korean tradition of Jesa. Hi Jenn, thanks for joining us today.
– Hi.
– Could you please explain to our listeners what a mudang is?
– Yeah, so a mudang is a Korean shaman. If you look up the definition, it’s a spiritual worker who works as a intermediary between the people and the spirits. A lotta times the things that shamans do is work doing rituals, doing ceremony, divination work or any work that involves bringing blessing, protections into the family, into a home space, or for businesses. So there’s different work that shamans do, depending on the requests from their community and its members.
– You know, the word shaman and all these rituals. It really hearkens back, to like old-timey Korean traditions maybe stemming from Confucianism and Buddhism. So I’m wondering, how does that fit into modern Korean traditions and rituals? Can you tell us about like, how active are you, and who’s seeking you out?
– Yeah, so even though Korean shamanism is considered, like a ancient practice that has a lineage of like, whole history and stories, but Korean shamanism in my opinion has always flowed with society and with the people, because we could see how our shamanic practices has changed and evolved with different influences. For example, when we look at offerings, you know, back in Korea times tea was used as offerings, whereas now we use liquor, or offerings are a reflection of today’s modern times. So I think there are ways to incorporate our modern existence, and include the stories of our ancestors in our spiritual practices.
– Well, I’d love to talk about Jesa, because when Juliana and I decided to do this episode on rituals and traditions, there were some that immediately came to mind for me, which was wedding, Dol, New Year’s, and Juliana suggested Jesa, which I only vaguely knew what it was, \because my family did not practice Jesa, which is basically, I think ancestor worship or ancestor veneration. But I know it is a major part of traditional Korean life. And then since then I’ve learned that perhaps one of the reasons we didn’t even discuss it, was because my family has a Protestant background, and I’ve learned that it’s not really part of Protestant tradition in Korea. And Juliana is from a Catholic background, where they do more Jesa. So I’d love you to explain what Jesa is, and maybe explain why some Koreans do it and some Koreans don’t do it, in terms of their religion.
– Jesa specifically is a Confucian ritual, and oftentimes going back in history, Jesa was only conducted by families of the elite, of the aristocrats, of the family, because they had the means of setting up a huge, lavish altar with offerings. And a lotta times the labor of preparation of Jesa fell on women. And Jesa originally was to venerate the ancestors of the paternal family under paternal lineage. So unless a family had a male son, or a male heir of the family, who was like the leader or the conductor of the Jesa ritual. Nowadays a lot of those old practices and those old structures don’t exist anymore. Whereas now so many Korean Americans and so many other people are doing Jesa to also venerate their matriarchs, their maternal line as well, now is more seen as a family activity, instead of just being solely the labor of women. And I think that’s a really important evolution, or so to speak, of how the practice evolved, because now it’s open to all in terms of the way, of who could practice, who could conduct rituals, of whose ancestor we wanna connect with. And I grew up Protestant. When I was younger, I was Protestant Christian, my family is Protestant Christian, so working with ancestors or having conversations about ancestor was non-existent for us. There was just a lot of conversation about God, and His stories and their messages. And I think maybe it has to do with the fact that for Protestant Christian, not all, but there are still some people who view our shamanic practices, or our ancestral practices, rooted in devil worship or seen as a little bit satanic. And for Catholics, you know, my family later converted to Roman Catholicism, and if I’m not mistaken, I think the Pope a few decades back kind of gave permission, or allowed the Korean Catholics to explore Jesa, or to bring in ancestral ritual rites, if that fitted them. And I think for Catholics, I think the notion of other spirits is very present, because for Catholics, we also believe in the Holy Spirit and the saints. So we also, in our practice, it includes other divinities and divine figures.
– [Juliana] Oh, interesting.
– When does one even practice Jesa?
– Okay, so Jesa in the traditional way, there were different, every ancestor ritual had its own name, had its own practice, depending when he did it. For example, if it was their death anniversary, we call it or we also call it Jesa. But Jesa nowadays is usually done or performed on the passing of their ancestors. If you happen to know the date of their passing, we would try to hold a Jesa ritual on the night of their passing. Or you know, because we’re modern folks, we’re very busy, or we try to be, or we try to perform Jesa as close to the date as possible, according to our schedule and lifestyles.
– I think anyone who’s watched, you know, K-Dramas, you’ll see that this sort of ancestor worship, whether it be in like “Mr. Sunshine”, where they go to the burial, you know, mound, and pour, you know, on the grave. Or in like “Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha”, where on the anniversary of the, you know, the male lead’s father’s death, his Sunday class, you know, mentor comes, and helps him perform it with him. So there are all these like references to honoring, you know, your ancestors. And it made me wonder, you know, how many people practice it here, as part of their Korean American diaspora? My family is very, very observant. So I mean, at the drop of a hat, it felt like we were like at the cemetery, you know, bowing and doing, you know, saying prayers. So it has really been a part of my life. How do I meld the modern and the tradition, so that it feels right and authentic to me? This is why I wanted to talk about Jesa and have you on today.
– Yeah, thank you for asking. As Korean Americans, yes, our roots and ancestry is in Korea, but our lived experience is also very important as well. My grandmother was a traditional Buddhist and she practiced a lot of folk magic. And she passed away here in New York, and we have her out here in the cemetery in Long Island. And when we go to her graveside, we bring in some foods or fruits that she enjoyed to eat. For example, we bring a cup of coffee, and we pour the coffee along her graveside, because coffee is something she enjoyed. And you could also see how Jesa now is practiced very differently. For example, when I work with the Korean American community, one of the questions I ask is, “You as a Korean American, if someone was to do an ancestral rite for you, what are some of the foods that you would enjoy?” And our experience as Korean Americans, you know, some of those foods might include pizza right, pasta, right? Because these are just, our livid experience is just so different than from Korea. But even now Korea are also having a lot of Westernization of the traditional Korean foods. So with Jesa you could see, kind of like the way it’s changed and evolved with the people, because our spiritual practice should be a reflection of our expressions.
– When you bring food to your grandmother’s grave, do you eat it there, and you pour the coffee? What do you do with the food that you make for her? How much do you make, and do you all eat the food? How does it work?
– So one of the things is that when we do Jesa, everything’s so grand. Everything is like a lot of food. But when I go to the graveside for my grandmother, we bring very minimal things that she really enjoyed and we’ll put it on top of her grave, giving her moments to receive and to enjoy. And even at the graveside, we’ll bow, we’ll do , right? we’ll bow, we’ll give our greetings, and we share a few words. You know, especially when I do this with my mom, I make sure to give her a lot of time, so that she has a moment to connect with her mom, and share whatever messages and words that she has. And afterwards we eat the food, because it’s part of a ritual process. When we give our ancestors food or any type of offerings, we also eat it, because it’s like almost like completing a cycle. The energy we give to our ancestors is the energy that we get back. So we try to consume all the food at the cemetery, and we don’t bring back any food with us. So it’s very important to be mindful of waste.
– Thank you, I was just curious having never done that. And I know Koreans don’t like to waste food, so that makes perfect sense.
– So I understand that there is modernization in the offerings that are made to reflect their modern lifestyles. But I only started practicing my own personal modernized wonky Jesa about a year ago, when I started thinking about, you know, I’m an adult now. You know, I’ve always just kind of gone over to mom and dad’s and you know, “You lead the way.” But now that they’re getting older, and I started thinking about taking charge, and figure out what does it mean to age into some of these responsibilities. And one of the things that you had brought up, was that some of these rituals are like indigenous Korean culture. I hadn’t really thought of the word indigenous as a part of Korean culture before, because growing up in America, it’s always applied to Native Americans.
– Yeah, I mean so many of us don’t think of like shamanism or some of these rituals as our indigenous practice, even though Jesa is a Confucian ritual. But the veneration act or rituals, or holding rituals for our ancestors, has always been part of our like practices, or our history or part of our culture. It’s just that with Confucianism, they tend to put more structures into their rituals, with you know, Confucianism and neo Confucianism. That’s why a lot of times Jesa is, it feels so rigid. It’s about, where do you place this dish and that dish. You know, there’s so much rigidity, which in my opinion takes away from the spiritual aspects, or takes away from that act of really being present and connecting with our ancestors. Just like Korea is also very big on agriculture and farming, and I learned a lot of those skills like farming and things like that, from my own grandmother as well. And I think that in the same way we practice , which is so ingrained in giving respects to the land, to the earth, where we were able to produce our harvest, our foods, right? Which is what a lot of like these rituals are rooted in, is making sure that we also give thanks to Mother Earth from where we got our food from. So it’s kind of like using that same principle or that same concept and idea, and also giving respects to our ancestors, where we came from. One of the most traditional food that goes on Jesa is the, is the , right? And we call it , which is the tricolored, or the three-colored vegetables. And if you go to H-Mart, you ever see how they package, there’s always like , which is a spinach. Sometimes there’s Mu radish or the bellflower root, the , or sometimes there’s also , which is the fern bracken roots. And you’ll see a package together, is like green, white, and brown. That also holds a lotta symbolism for us, ’cause it represents family. Because the roots, the , the root represents our ancestors, and the fern-
– I had no idea.
– Yeah, and then the fern brackens, the , which are like kind of like stalks, like pillars, represents your parents, the structure or the pillars of the family. And the leafy greens, which is the spinach represents our, so a lot of our foods also hold symbolism about family in our roots as well.
– Oh, that’s so fascinating. I just thought they were like ideal ingredients for .
– Yes, yes, yes.
– Well I love how you brought that all together, how it reflects the land and nature. I guess it gives a lot more depth and understanding of our tradition and heritage that I didn’t even really know about. That’s not something that the Catholics are, they don’t emphasize that. Thank you so much, Mudang Jenn, for coming and sharing your knowledge. So interesting, and I learned a lot. It gives me more ideas, different ways of thinking about how I will perform an ad hoc Jesa ceremony at home this year, coming up for the Lunar New Year.
– Yes.
– Thank you, Mudang Jenn.
– Oh no, thank you to you both.
– [Catherine] We hope you have enjoyed our episode on Korean traditions and rituals. Thank you to all of our guests for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us. You can follow Christine Chang on Instagram@livelovecreate, Estella Riahi and Laura Park @leehwawedding, and Mudang Jenn @shaman.mudang. You can follow K-Pod @koreanamericanstory.
Credits
Co-host, Producer, Photographer
Juliana Sohn @juliana_sohn
Co-host, Producer, Editor
Catherine Hong @catherinehong100
Audio Engineer
AJ Valente
Executive Producer
HJ Lee
Production Manager
Kimberly YoungSun