Intercultural Life

Month: May 2019

Making Bibimbap with Yul

Attempting to make bibimbap with my toddler

Hugh wants to start a cooking/mukbang series with Yul where they try to make and eat lots of different types of Korean food. Now I’m sure that every video is going to a messy disaster, but that’s the fun of it!

In this video they attempt to make bibimbap, but really they are just doing the final stages of assembling it as I’d prepared the ingredients beforehand.

Yul was not very interested in doing his own bowl, but preferred “helping” Daddy. Bibimbap is a great food for kids though as there is a variety of vegetables. You just need to switch out the gochujang for sesame oil and soy sauce instead. Gochujang is traditionally used but is too spicy for young kids.

Often people assume a mukbang means eating a lot of food, but mukbangs aren’t always like that. It’s just eating any food and any quantity. We hope it will be interesting for people to see the type of Korean food Yul eats here in Korea. His tastes vary and he is quite picky about vegetables these days, but hopefully will also be a good way to expand his tastes, as well as bonding with Hugh.

What’s new on our channel?

As we have mentioned recently, we are transitioning to doing YouTube in a more professional sense with a regular schedule. The past few weeks have been hectic with Hugh quitting his job and really starting his own business, but once things settle down we will be setting up our schedule.

It’s also the time for us to experiment a bit with our content. We are still small enough to do that, but big enough to get good feedback and find out what works for us.

Join the conversation over on YouTube and make sure you are subscribed to us. Subscribe here and click the bell icon so you get notified about new videos.


Let’s talk about Marriage

The hardest year of our marriage?

I’ve been wanting to do this video for a few months and finally we had the time to film it. Often online, couples present this really perfect image of their relationship, but of course no relationship is perfect. We wanted to talk realistically about what has been hard in our marriage, in particular what it was like last year.

It’s no surprise that work/life balance, having a baby, and money all impact a marriage a lot. Even being aware of these stressors, it’s difficult going through it. We talk openly about our experience and working through the difficulties of the first year of having a baby.

As we mentioned, Hugh has quit his job and is going free-lance so he is in control of his time and can make family life a priority. We will also be doing a lot more YouTube content, which is great for creativity but also great for spending time together as a family.

I hope us talking openly about this will help people realise that no one has a perfect relationship and that you do have to work on your marriage. Being comfortable enough to talk about issues is important in a relationship. Also, knowing that you can argue and things will be okay.

We also want to be open about the reality of life. We aren’t living some wealthy, high-flying life in Seoul. We have a great life in Seoul, but we don’t want to pretend it’s more awesome than it is. Unfortunately some people do try and project that image on YouTube and Instagram but really their life isn’t as glamorous as it seems.

Let us know what content you’d like to see us make and click the bell icon on YouTube so you get notifications when we upload!

New Video Series

We’ve been doing YouTube part-time and somewhat of a hobby for years now, but now that we’ve reached 100K it’s time to get serious! Well… serious enough to publish regular weekly content.

One series we have started is looking at news and trends from Korea every week. Hugh will pick a few topics in Korean news and we will discuss them. Often what is happening in Korea news and what gets translated internationally can very a lot, so this should give a bit of a glimpse into what people are talking about in Korea.

I’ll also share something from Australia and try to find the weirdest thing that has happened. Usually something weird going on in Australia!

We are going to be doing a lot of experimenting with other videos too, so we can find out what content we like making, and what videos people want to watch. Unfortunately Hugh’s body transformation viral video negatively affects us because we gained a bunch of subscribers interested in fitness and health content, but that’s not what our main content is about. That looks bad in the YouTube algorithm, even though we have great comments on our video, because YouTube is showing our videos to the wrong people. We are trying to flip the balance so that our videos show to people interested in Korea and intercultural content, rather than just…. dudebros… haha.

The Truth about Dating in Korea

We talk about dating in Korea! What is the truth about dating in Korea? While we didn’t date in Korea, we were part of the Korean community in Sydney and of course now live in Korea. And Hugh, being a Korean man, has lots to talk about the dating culture and cultural differences.

What sparked this video is that Keith from Seoulistic has written a book about dating in Korea. He interviewed us about our experiences, and some other people too. Korean dating culture can be difficult to navigate for people who have moved to Korea, so he goes into a lot of detail about important things to know.

You can buy the ebook here, and if you use the coupon code ‘MKH’ you will get $5 off.

Also in our video we talk about some of our experiences navigating cultural differences and we talk about when fetish comes into play and what usually happens. With BTS bringing so much attention to Korea and Korean men there are sure to be some people coming to Korea with unrealistic expectations.

When nonKoreans do start dating in Korea and end up in a serious relationship, there are many cultural things to navigate! Having a guide helps a lot, and I wish I had more info when Hugh and I first starting dating…. back in the stone age.

The worst thing people can do in this situation is not pay attention to cultural differences and assume that “love conquers all”. They may make the mistake of thinking since this person is now their boyfriend and girlfriend that everything is “safe” and they can relax. As we mention in he video, the terms boyfriend and girlfriend may not even mean exactly what we assume in Western countries.

There are a lot more topics in the dating category we can talk about. Especially being an “old married couple” now, we can hopefully give some people some insight into what it takes to have a serious relationship with someone from a different culture.

You can leave questions and comments here, or over on our YouTube channel where most interaction is.

My Toddler Pranking Me

3 mins of my toddler pranking me

Yul and I are still in Australia so I haven’t been able to make many videos, but I did have lots of footage of him playing with the garden hose. And since he always turns the hose on me, I thought I’d edit all the footage together. Enjoy!

We’ll miss having this space when we go back to Korea…

© 2024 My Korean Husband

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑