There are several reasons why people seek part-time guests at weddings ― the main one is they have few friends available.
``People don't want to look as if they don't have close ties with friends. Also, a bride seeks fake guests when the number of her guests is apparently smaller than the bridegroom's, and vice versa, as the number of guests is often regarded as the family's power,'' said Lee Mi-young, director of Hagaek Friends, one of dozens of such part-time wedding guest ``rental'' companies easily found on the Internet.
About 70 percent of the clients are for brides: Women tend not to have many friends if several years have passed since their graduation and if they have not had a job, while men, having jobs, have many colleagues at work, Lee said.
Among other clients are those who hold weddings in a region other than their hometowns, or those who do not have many acquaintances in Korea due to long overseas stay.
Well, I don't know if they're actually "evil." Necessary expense, maybe. An interesting story, and I learned a new word: 하객 means "well-wisher." A quick Naver search turned up a few of these agencies: HagaekMake, YesGuest, NiceWedding, and the one mentioned in the article, HagaekFriends, to name but four. The article says that fake guests can earn 20,000 to 30,000 won per wedding, and the websites seem to charge about 40,000 won for your average provided guest. More evidence that if I ever get married here I'll need to put in lots of overtime.
3 comments:
If you get married I probably won't come, but I'll leave a comment in your wedding thread. Maybe link it over at my blog.
I'll give you 35,000 won.
If you give me 45,000 I'll put that shit in my sidebar too.
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