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Fellow-country network
Vietnamese community spreads in almost all provinces and metropolitan cities in Korea,
Vietnamese community is not so united in Korea. When Vietnamese people migrating to Korea
their aim for three main purposes: study, work, and marriage to Korean. The first two cases are
more active in contacting to their fellow-country men to set up social groups, they share and
support to each other's in their study and work. Social network of the third group does not appear
to be large due to limitation of outdoor visits and contacts as requirement of their in-laws as well
as their self-isolation from society with onerous complex, married to old men for money.
Women migrants living in far rural areas, where they hardly contact or meet their fellow-country
friends in Korea. For women migrants living in cities, they have more chances to meet their
fellow-country friends to talk and share their family issues. Nevertheless, the frequency of
meetings is not much. Only women migrants living near each others in Korea, fellow-country
women, or same-day-marriage groups have close relationship.
Observing Bible class for Vietnamese in Antioch church, Jeonju City shows that Vietnamese
people participating in this class including all three above types but have same aims, coming to
class to meet their fellow-country friends to talk about Vietnam and their life in Korea, not for
religious purposes. However, there is obvious classification among these three groups. When
some one introduces that they came to Korea for study, others, who are not in the same group,
seem to be self-conscious when they talk to others because they rank themselves to be “lower”
group. Labor migrants are rather close to each others because they are living and working in the
same places. Migrants Married to Koreans visit church with their husband and children not so
frequently. They mostly keep contact with their same category friends.
According to Journal of Northern East Asia, up to 2007, total documented Vietnamese labor
migrants in Korea are about 40.000 people, account for 30% of total Vietnamese labors working
oversea.
Even living with husbands, some Vietnamese women feel lonely and make friends with fellow-
country labor migrants. At first, there are just some meetings in the church or eating outside
together. After frequent meetings, some marriage migrants become close friends of these labor
migrants. Some of them, later, fall in love. Thus, some Korean husbands try to control meetings
and contacts of their wives with their friends, particularly Vietnamese men. They are afraid that
by meeting with Vietnamese labor migrants, their wives would have extramarital affairs cheating
their legally wedded husband and possibilities of escape from their family.
Same-boat network
In Korea, several websites in Korean were running with main aims for making friendship. Well-
knowingly, they are http://cafe.naver.com/kvwed and http://cafe.daun.com/kvwed. These two
websites are forums of international marriage participants who come to share their life experience
as well as broaden their same boat network. Some Korean men who want to search for their
foreigner prospective wives, especially Vietnamese, can come to these websites.
Activities of Korean-Vietnamese couples who are members of these forums stably maintained.
Several meetings and trips were organized. However, these two websites are totally in Korean,
which make difficulty for non-Korean speakers to access and get information.
Besides, above websites, which support to international marriage couples, various activities of
Multi-cultural Families Centers host to enhance friendship of international marriage couples.
For instance, Multicultural Families Support Center in Jeonup city has organized monthly
meetings for Korean-Vietnamese couples to tighten their relations so that they can support each
other's in their daily life.
In reality, however, some Korean husbands are not confident with their society that they could
not marry to native women and had to marry to foreigners, their social position are not respected
in Korea. Therefore, they trend to make friends with their same-boat Korean men.
This happens same with Vietnamese women migrants. They do not have many Korean friends
and mostly their friends are their fellow-country women or their friends whose marriage day in
Vietnam was same. Doing house works take much of their time but they always wish to have
good friends to be shared and helped, particularly at the beginning time after arriving Korea.
Multicultural Families Support Center in Jeonup City has collected phone numbers of
Vietnamese brides, so they can ask Vietnamese brides living in Korea long time to help
Vietnamese newcomers.
In general, Vietnamese brides’ life in Korea are colorful, some have experienced very happy lives
while others have been in several difficulties. Despite of acceptance of society, these Vietnamese
women migrants are endeavoring to adapt to Korean socio-culture and adjust their family and
social relations.
Korean side
Central government
Korean policies and programs related to marriage migrants trend to harmonize prospective
citizens of Korea in future.
Citizenship law and job policy
Citizenship Law requires that after living in Korea 2 years, one can apply for Korean citizenship.
However, in reality, according to Immigration Control Law, only people living in Korea at least
for 5 years can meet all requirements for visa F-5 (permanent residence). F-2 (temporary
residence) Visa considered and issued to those who are Marriage migrants and allowed to work
legally. However, in case of divorcing with Korean partner, their visa status will change to F-1
(Family Visit) and legally they are not allowed to work in Korea. This is big advantage for
foreigner brides in general and for Vietnamese brides in particular in securing residential status in
Korea.
Social welfare services
Social welfare system is evaluated ineffective. Mostly, marriage women migrants seldom use
public services including advantage conditions of social welfare system or consulting service.
The answer “no” makes up mostly for participation of necessary services (Seoul, 2006). These
women migrants have never access to supporting programs due to lack of information or they do
not know that they are beneficiaries.
Among people using social services, several of them said that they do not satisfy because these
services are not necessary for themselves or for their families. Therefore, the government should
pay more concern to develop these services effectively according to real needs of beneficiaries as
well as improve the necessity of them.
Health services
Several women migrants misunderstand that they do not meet all requirements to participate in
public health service. Whenever using these services, they always consider carefully due to their
limited income. Approximately 82% (among 702 respondents) answered they have never be use
public health service or stopped being treated because of reasons relevant to financial issues
(Seoul, 2006).
Language policy for marriage women migrants
International marriages between Asian women with Korean men started from 1990s of century
20th. At the beginning of 1990s, Japanese women married to Korean men through brokerage of
Unified Church and they were taught Korean before their departure. In other cases, Korean-
Chinese women can speak Korean because they are communicating with their community in
Korean. Thus, Korean language training was not a significant concern at that time. However,
when Southeast Asian women started migrating to Korea from 2000s, they have been facing to
several difficulties because there was no policy related to language training. Realizing that
language is a “significant key” to open social integration door of foreigner brides, Korean central
and local governments have opened several free Korean classes for these alien brides.
In June 2009, Korean government reemphasized on comprehensive solutions to solve
multicultural families’ matters.
Local governmental level, NGOs, and Religious organizations
Human Right for Migrants Center was established in Seoul in 2001. This center has providing
health care and law services for alien brides. Besides, this center has been opening Korean
language and computer classes, consulting Korean law related to marriage and holding other
cultural activities. Moreover, this center has been also publishing books, brochures to improve
unequally racial discrimination for women migrants. In particular, this center has sent their social
workers to help women migrant individually. Obviously, Korean language training programs for
women migrants were not organized by governmental organization, but NGOs.
There are many programs for Korean language training. Firstly, it was composing Korean
textbooks for alien brides. Mass media such as TV shows or websites contribute to provide
Korean and other countries’ cultural information, especially Southeast Asia countries. Korean
language training like “Basic Korean for Asian women migrants” broadcasted from September
22, 2006. Later, NGOs have been regularly opening Korean language classes with cooperation of
Korean language Institutes and Marriage Migrants Support Centers.
In general, these organizations have been greatly endeavoring to help Vietnamese brides to adapt
Korean socio-cultural, particularly Korean language training. Alien brides can take Korean class
without tuition fee in Multicultural Families Support Centers. Some women migrants can not
arrange time for class because of taking care of their new-born baby or living far from class,…
these centers, even, send their language teachers to attend these women migrants’ houses to teach
freely two courses, it takes approximately 5 months for every course. Besides teaching Korean
language, these centers also hold other classes such as cooking Korean foods, making rice cakes,
making jewelry…
When poor alien brides give birth, alien brides are helped by social workers of International
Marriage Support Centers like cooking, washing cloths, taking care of new-born kid within two
weeks. They also contact with Vietnamese migrants who have been living in Korea for long time,
asking these women to help fellow-country newcomers.
In Vietnam, Republic of Korea Embassy in Ha Noi and Consulate General of republic of Korea in
Ho Chi Minh City do not officially organize pre-departure classes for Vietnamese brides. In Ho
Chi Minh City, only when Vietnamese women come to Consulate General of Republic of Korea
for marriage registration, Visa office informs the migrants about “one-day class held by KOKUN
(Korea Center for United Nations Human Rights Policy) for Vietnamese women, assuring that
those who attend this class will be endorsed visa immediately. However, Visa Issuing Office
does not have strict regulations, to make mandatory these migrating brides to attend above class.
In general, central government, local governments, NGOs, and religious organizations have been
collaborating to support alien brides to adapt and integrate quickly to new life.
Family-in-law
Central and local governments as well as other organizations are proposing action programs to
support alien brides in all aspects. Yet, the most effective institution, which hastens integration of
Vietnamese brides, are family-in-laws, particularly mother-in-law.
In some special cases, soon after arriving Korea, Vietnamese brides register for Korean language
private teaching in Office of their Commune, but the office needs some time to arrange,
especially when the number of alien brides in locality is more. During waiting period, they have
to learn Korean language by themselves. For couples living together separately from parents-in-
law, adaptation to new environment is more difficult because Korean husbands have to work
outside since morning until late evening. When language teachers of Multicultural Families
Support Centers are ready for teaching, these Vietnamese women migrants have pregnant or have
given birth and are feeding newborn baby, it becomes harder for them to study Korean. Some
women migrants take language classes and can not follow, later they quit. However, living
together separately, most of Vietnamese women migrants feel more comfortable because they do
not have to involve much in family-in-law and daughters-in-law problems.
General saying, at the beginning period in Korea, Korean family-in-laws is considered as a cradle
– where socializes Vietnamese brides. Depending on this socialization environment, Vietnamese
brides can adapt quickly or not.
Korean mothers-in-laws known as tidy, neat, and careful while at the beginning period
Vietnamese brides are like fishes out of water; do not know Korean life style. As a result, various
misunderstandings lead to conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-laws. Vietnamese
daughters-in-law feel stuffy because whenever they do any thing, they are warned while actually
their Korean mothers-in-law are trying to guide their new daughters-in-law because they think
new brides are new to surrounding. Mostly, conflicts involve in doing house works. House works
are daily works, so if contradictions happen often, they might cause serious conflicts, which is
hard to be healed.
Besides, due to being anxious of sending some money back to Vietnam while Vietnamese brides
are living with mothers-in-law who mainly manage finance in day-to-day expenditures of the
house, if Korean mothers-in-law do not give some money for them, these women feel unsatisfied
with their family-in-laws.
On the contradictory cases, several Vietnamese brides said that they have great mothers-in-law
who are always ready to help them in doing house works and looking after kids. There are some
small contradictions but they are negligible.
The husbands are expected to directly help new wives to study Korean language and adapt to new
environment. However, in Korea, husbands are bread-winners, so they have to work very hard
and do not have much time to teach Korean for their wives. In reality, Korean mothers-in-law are
the guides of new brides.
In some cases, Korean husbands do not care and are not harmony with Vietnamese wives; the
parents-in-laws are strong bridges connecting brides with family-in-law and help them to
overcome difficulties at the beginning time. In other situations, sisters-in-law play a very
important role in helping new brides to adapt to new environment.
In summary, with endeavors of central government, local governments, NGOs, religious
organizations, families and especially families-in-law, Vietnamese brides have more chance and
advantageous environment to adapt to new life in Korea.