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Newspaper Columns >
From Korea To Wauseon...
Sauyun Followed Her Heart!
by Carol Breidenbach
Farmland News Feature Story
24 February 2004
Sauyun Burton was born in South Korea's Kwangju Province, the oldest of the three children of Sunzwon Hong and Myunznga Lee. She was quite sickly as a child and spent most of her free time reading.
In high school, she made five very special friends and they shared an interest in travel. Together they planned excursions to neighboring cities. Eventually the five took up mountain climbing. The real kind.with hooks and ropes and no trails. They climbed all of Korea's mountains including its tallest...Halla-san, a 1,950-meter volcanic peak in Halla-san National Park on Jeju Island.
 Regan and Sauyun were all smiles after their first wedding ceremony in the home of a family friend in Sandusky. Sauyun majored in education at a college in South Korea's capital city, Seoul. She also studied social welfare in graduate school there, interning at a children's day care center. During college, she worked in the accounting department at the Ocean Trading Company.
Her first trip outside Korea was on a business trip to Japan, where she discovered a love of international travel. Besides making a return trip to Japan, she's traveled to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
In December of 2000, she came to Wauseon to visit a family member of her best friend from high school. She also took a Greyhound bus to Chicago to visit a friend's cousin. Since her friend had to work during the day, she walked all over downtown Chicago on her own with a guide map. The Navy Pier and Botanical Gardens were highlights of that trip, but she hasn't yet had much of a chance to see more of the United States.
Back in Wauseon, she was taking a walk with her friend's children when they encountered one of their pals, Megan Burton and her dad Regan. There was mutual interest between Sauyun and Regan right away and he invited her to the movies in Toledo and later took her boating on Lake Erie.
Soon, however, it was time for her to return to Korea, write her master's thesis and prepare for graduation. But before she left, she and Regan agreed to continue their long-distance friendship by email and phone.
After graduation, she and her parents took a trip to Thailand. But she kept thinking about Regan. "Our relationship was growing," she says. "In October of 2002, I came back to Wauseon. But two weeks after I got here, Regan was sent to Sweden on assignment with the Lear Corporation."
"During the time he was gone, one of Regan's co-workers and his wife reached out to me with an invitation for dinner in their home. The dinner was very special and we drank tea from a china tea service with dessert. We became friends right away and they got me involved in lots of community activities."
A Big Decision!
Not too long after he returned from his business trip, Regan proposed marriage. Sauyun didn't make a hasty decision. "Because marriage is very important to me. I gave it a lot of thought and consideration" she says. "I did have some concerns about the cultural differences and living so far away from my family."
 For their first ceremony in Korea, Regan and Sauyun wore American-style wedding clothes. But she followed her heart and on March 1st of last year, she and Regan were married in the home of a family friend near Sandusky.
Throughout their relationship, the other members of Regan's family have made Sauyun feel welcome. She enjoys talking to her mother-in-law about gardening and they share plants and fresh produce. Her father-in-law is interested in auctions and garage sales. She says it is fun to see his treasures. Regan's sister bought the couple the perfect wedding gift: a rice cooker.
Besides gaining a husband, Sauyun has gained two step-daughters: Rachael, 20, a student at Northwest State Community College, and Megan, 9, a student at Elm Street School. "It's fun to do things with Sauyun," Megan says. "She helps me with my homework. When I come home from school, I look forward to seeing her. Because of Sauyun, I've had lots of interesting experiences that I never would have had otherwise. It would be nice to meet my new family in Korea, but I do enjoy talking to them via web cam on the Internet."
A new experience for Sauyun was hosting a birthday slumber party for Megan. With ten girls invited, she wasn't sure how much mess and noise to expect. She decided to just go with the flow and enjoy it...and the party was a great success.
Sauyun also presented an educational program on Korea to Megan's class and brought chopsticks and sticky rice for each student to try. "Megan really helps me learn English and American slang," she says.
Gracious And Welcoming
Last fall, Sauyun's parents asked her and Regan to come to Korea so they could meet their new son-in-law and host a traditional Korean wedding for them. So in October, they made the 16-hour flight from Chicago to Seoul. Regan was glad to meet his new in-laws and he found them to be gracious and welcoming. However, the language barrier kept them from getting to know each other very well.
He really didn't care much for traditional Korean foods, but there were plenty of American restaurants like T.G.I. Friday's, Pizza Hut, Outback Steak House and Baskin Robbins from which to choose.
"Sitting on the floor for long periods of time was a real challenge," he says. Listening to Sauyun's friends and family members talking a mile a minute in Korean was another challenge because I couldn't join in. In most Korean homes, the heat source is in the floor so people sleep on feather filled mats. They had a regular bed for me. The traffic is horrible and I used public transportation for the first time. You get a lot of personal service when you shop there. It seemed like there was a clerk at every counter."
New...And Old
On the day of the wedding, family members and friends gathered to take part in two ceremonies. For the first, Sauyun wore an American-style white wedding dress and Regan wore a black tuxedo. But then the couple donned the colorful traditional wedding attire, the Hanbok, for a Korean ceremony and exchange of vows.
Usually only the members of the groom's family are invited to this ceremony. But since the members of Regan's family couldn't attend, Sauyun's family took their place.
 For their second Korean wedding ceremony, Regan and Sauyun wore traditional Hanbok and posed with her parents and a pair of colorful wedding ducks. The ceremonies took place on November 1st in a local marriage/banquet hall. A buffet of traditional Korean food was served at the reception and the bride and groom cut a wedding cake very similar to those served in the United States. They do not have music and dancing at Korean weddings and it is traditional for the bride's family to pay for everything, including the groom's clothes. Wedding showers are uncommon in Korea.
Regan's co-workers at Lear Corporation gave them a pair of Korean wedding ducks as a gift. The ducks stand for harmony and pairing and they symbolize love that is unending, even in death. Tradition says the ducks will be prominently displayed in the bridal pair's new home. If the couple begin to quarrel, one will point to the ducks. Then both husband and wife will be reminded of what they symbolize and the fight will be over.
Sauyun's parents like Regan and they feel more comfortable about her being in the States now that they've met him for themselves. Not surprisingly, Sauyun's father tried to load up as much of the stuff she'd left behind as possible and send it back to the states with her. Since there was a limit to the amount of luggage they could take back on the plane, he wasn't very successful.
After ten hectic but fun-filled days in Seoul, Sauyun is settling into her new life in Wauseon. She's applying for citizenship and learning to drive...with Regan as her instructor. Maybe they should take the ducks along.
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