Migrant Spouses Talk Up Life in Korea

The Korea Times

01-06-2009
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

When Lorphoumara, a Cambodian native, came to Korea to live with her Korean husband six years ago, all she knew about the country was that it had just hosted the World Cup.

She married her husband after meeting him through one of her acquaintances who is also married to a Korean man. Lorphoumara wanted to leave Cambodia because she couldn't make more than $70 a month as a teacher in Phnom Penh.

``He was a bit short and we couldn't fully communicate in English, but life was good in every way,'' she said, recalling her first impression of her husband.

But when she was pregnant with her first child, bad luck struck the family. Her husband suddenly collapsed and couldn't move for a single day. He had high fever all over his body and was diagnosed with spondylitis, inflammation on the spine. ``I had to take care of him all day long for three months. I was full of tears,'' she said.

Now fully recovered, he is running a small business alongside his wife.

Lorphoumara is also helping other fellow migrant spouses. The Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs has designated her a mentor for them.

She said her happy life in Korea has brought her friends and her family to Korea. Four of her neighbors in Cambodia came over to Korea and her brother is now preparing to work here.

Of course, she is one of the lucky cases. Her story, along with other tales of foreign spouses, has been released in a collection of essays published by the ministry.

Marites from the Philippines, who has stayed here for more than nine years, said she has not yet fully adapted to living in Korea because she is busy farming. ``All I do is work at a family tomato farm all day long. I have no time to learn the Korean language because I have no time to go to school and no one talks to me during work,'' she said.

She also revealed that some wives are suffering from domestic violence. ``I have a friend who went back to the Philippines because her husband would hit her hard when drunk. My husband drinks alcohol a lot and every time he drinks I get scared, too. I am lonely,'' she said.

Their Korean spouses also suffer difficult times when communication falters and the cultural gap is wider than they thought. Park Byoung-yun, married to a Vietnamese woman Guenjjukli, who is 12 years younger than he, said for the first year, the marriage was littered with rows and fighting. ``We didn't really know about each other's country and we had such high expectations for each other,'' he said.

For migrant spouses to learn about Korea and build friendships with fellow migrant spouses, the ministry has set up ``Multicultural Home Centers'' across the nation. The centers, located in suburban areas from where many foreign women marry males in the agricultural industry, help Korean spouses understand their partners' problems and help them find ways to communicate.

``We went on a seminar trip and, while there, I understood how ignorant I was about our relationship, about her. I always tried to make her a Korean, thought low of her culture and never tried to learn it,'' Park said. He is now head of the local center's users meeting.

The government, too, has set out to help these spouses become accustomed to living in Korea. Alongside various educational programs, the education ministry recently announced a plan to hire migrant spouses as local language instructors, giving them the chance to make money, and the welfare and family ministry is also planning to hire them as local counselors.

``They are not foreigners and too different from us. They are just neighbors in society,'' welfare minister Jeon Jae-hee said in a previous interview with The Korea Times.