THE INFLUENCE OF CHINESE COSTUMES ON DESIGNS AND COLORS OF KOREAN TRADITIONAL WEDDING CLOTHING

Wedding ceremony is a state of art that contains both the country's history and culture. In my research I am specifically delving into Korea's and China's wedding ceremony especially the clothing. The conclusion I made was that the historical ties of two countries influenced what Korean people wore in weddings. Modern Korean wedding consist of two ceremonies. One is western-style conventional wedding ceremony in which bride and bridegroom wear western wedding clothing. The other ceremony takes place after the western wedding ceremony ends. The bride and bridegroom change their western wedding clothing to Korean traditional one and have traditional Korean wedding ceremony before their parents and relatives. Unlike a western simple white colored wedding dress, a Korean traditional women's wedding clothing is layers of red colored clothing on top of traditional Korean clothing, Han-bok. Such Korean wedding clothing as different from western wedding clothing in color and style led me to research the origin of the Korean traditional wedding clothing. During the research for the origin and history of the Korean traditional wedding clothing, I found that it has something to do with Chinese traditional clothing culture and Confucianism. I mostly referred to old books, documents, and paintings of weddings for the research. The book about the customary formalities of a family written by Zhuzi, a Confucianism scholar of Song Dynasty in China (AD. 960 similar to 1279), was introduced into Chosun Dynasty in Korea (AD. 1392 similar to 1897). Zhuzi's book was based on ancient China's six proprieties. In Chosun Dynasty, the book was reorganized as "National Five Proprieties" which reflects Chosun Dynasty's living at times. This book about manners and courtesy influenced wedding ceremonies of Royal family and ruling class, Yang-ban. In the late period of Chosun Dynasty, the book titled Geo-Ga-Jap-Bok-Go (Family Clothing Research) by Park Kyu-su (AD. 1807 similar to 1876) reflected contemporary manners and courtesy about ceremony clothing and widely used. (National Folk Museum, 1999) The similarities between Korean and Chinese traditional wedding clothing are as follows: First, by Confucianism influence, general people could also wear wedding ceremony clothing the same as ruling class people wear at the wedding. This reflects the idea of equal celebration on wedding over people without differentiating in wedding clothing. Second, bride's wedding clothing is red colored. Third, in wedding clothing of both bride and bridegroom, hat and head ornaments are similar. In other words, bridegroom wears black colored hat and bride wears splendid and beautiful headpiece. Though both Korean and Chinese traditional wedding clothing have similarity based on Confucianism and traditional clothing culture, Korean traditional wedding clothing has uniqueness which reflects Korea's social, environmental, and aesthetic values. This research shows that cultural similarities between Korea and China influenced wedding clothing with three kinds of similarities demonstrated above.