On Saturday, August 13, Obinna Ogbuji married Suzy Shin, the love of his life, in an intimate ceremony in Seoul, South Korea. Ogbuji is Nigerian and Shin is Korean. The couple met in South Korea, where Ogbuji works as a model and businessman.
The happy couple who clearly enjoyed the blessings and well wishes of their respective parents shared some pictures on social media from their very colorful Korean traditional wedding ceremony and a modern-themed pre-wedding photo shoot.
Ogbuji and Shin’s marriage is turning heads particularly because Asians typically do not warm up to Africans and Africans do not generally hold Asians in high esteem. In fact, in many instances, race relations between the two appear to be stuck in the era of ignorance and prejudice in the last century.
It often goes unsaid, but the level of discrimination African migrants experience in Asian countries is several times worse than what happens to Africans in Europe or America.
Some cite the lack of a common language for communication as a possible reason why race relations remain so backward between the two groups, since many Africans speak French and English in Europe and America.
And with strict immigration guidelines, there are not many Nigerian or African immigrants in South Korea and the rest of northeast Asia, even though the number of African migrants heading that way is rising.
All these reasons have caused Asia to be at the very bottom of the list of possible destinations for African migrants.
Obviously, while it is generally uncommon to find communities of African migrants in northeast Asia, it is even more uncommon to find a marriage between a northeast Asian and an African migrant. Ogbuji and Shin’s union is one such rare example, but it is a beautiful one.
We wish the beautiful couple a happy married life.
