Determinación del comportamiento de las mezclas pastelgras-aceite de girasol

Korean men who marry foreigners are often represented as older, less educated farmers. Data from the National Survey on Multicultural Families in 2009 shows that this media representation is not entirely incorrect in terms of their education and income levels.61 As mentioned in a previous chapter, cross-border marriage is not limited to rural areas, however. While early media attention focused on rural bachelors, the marriage migrants themselves have recently had the overwhelming media attention. There has been less recent discussion about the husbands of marriage migrants, who they are and how they decided to marry foreign women.

I heard a variety of stories during informal conversations with the husbands of my Vietnamese interviewees and ended up interviewing a number of the Korean husbands who had married Vietnamese women. Each of them had a different life story, and it was indeed hard to summarize them as a grand narrative. There are various reasons that prospective bridegrooms considered cross-border marriage. Based on the

interviews, I am going to reconstruct a Korean man’s narrative to give a sense of who these men are, why they considered cross-border marriage, and what kind of process they went through. I presented three common themes that emerged from the interviews with quotes. Then I selected one interview based on the scope and the richness of the information.

“Korean women are snobbish.”

Interviewees often explain that they chose to marry a foreigner because Korean

women are snobbish. Most of them tried to meet Korean women through their network

of family and friends. However, they often found that Korean women are “too materialistic and snobbish.” Women whom they met often asked directly how much they earned, whether they had any assets, and whether they were planning to live with their parents. They felt insulted and upset. They looked for other possibilities.

“I was a fine man when I was young.”

I heard the following story repeatedly from the Korean husband interviewees: “I was a fine man when I was young. I am not sure what happened. All of sudden I found myself undesirable.” Initially, I took it as nothing more than a statement to compensate for their “undesirable” situation. However, some of the individual life histories

converged with the history of national economic development. For example, a 44- year-old man, who used to work for the one of the biggest steel companies in Korea until he was laid off after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, must indeed have been considered a fine young man with a good job in the late 1980s. He wanted to establish himself a little more before he married, so he postponed marriage. However, he was laid off in his mid 30s, and it took a while for him to find a job in a smaller steel company. The fact that he is in his 40s may make him less desirable in the marriage market. However, it seems that the opportunity for him as a factory worker with a modest education to build an economic foundation for a family has declined structurally.

Stigma of commercially arranged marriage

Seven out of 8 interviewees married through commercial arrangements. Some of them brought this up at the beginning of the interview. They often said, “I am not qualified to talk about the marriage” or “I feel ashamed to talk about this.” It was clear that many were aware of the negative media representation of commercially arranged

cross-border marriages. It seems that there are double stigmas associated with the men who engaged in cross-border marriage: the fact that they looked for foreign brides indicates their weak socioeconomic status, and the stigma associated with the commercial arrangement itself, which is often associated with abusive practices.

Minho’s Story62

Minho is 40-year-old truck driver. Ever since he was 28 years old, he has either been self-employed or driven a truck. He did not have any time or space for meeting women because he was so busy. He met a woman through other people when he was about 35 or 36 years old but the woman was snobbish. She asked how much he earned, whether she had to live with his parents, and how much money he was going to send to her parents. This made him withdraw the idea of marrying a Korean woman.

Even though he did not personally know anyone who had married a foreign woman, he knew about it through the media and decided to marry a foreigner. He was afraid of Chinese women because of the publicity about fake marriages. Filipinas were not very familiar to him and he was also concerned about his kids in the future.

Vietnamese people seemed very diligent and they look like Koreans. So he made up his mind to see Vietnamese woman.

He found an advertisement in the local newspaper and called one of the agencies. The person from the agency visited him and showed him photos of married couples. That same week, he went to Vietnam. He talked to his family before he headed for Vietnam. His parents did not say anything because they generally supported his decisions most

62 _{Interviewee’s name is not his real name. I chose this narrative because this offered more detailed} information of his decision making process and his experience in marriage brokerage agencies than others.

of the time. One of his brothers-in-law warned him that he might feel that he wasted money later. He was aware that there are many uncertainties about this marriage. The bride might not perform as a wife as satisfyingly as he expected or she might run away. It was not an easy decision because he had to take into consideration these uncertainties and his future kids.

When he went to the airport there were another 9 men from all over the country. He explained that since a broker (siljang) is able to find at most 2 to 3 bridegrooms per month, various offices set one departure date and send people on that day. He used the agency called “Happy Wedding,” which has offices nationwide. But he mentioned that it may be difficult to find them because they change their name constantly and the managers quit their jobs frequently and start their own marriage brokerage businesses.

He chose his wife because she was a first daughter. First daughters are responsible and vital. Also she had grown up without parents. He thought she must be strong. Since he was the youngest, he thought it was a good match. After 45 days, he went to Vietnam again and stayed for 5 days. A Vietnamese local authority reviewed whether he had property and was healthy.

After his wife came to Korea, he had a chance to communicate with her in more detail with the help of an acquaintance at church who could speak Vietnamese. He realized that she did not receive any of the money that he had given her through the agency. He was very upset about it and called the other nine men who had been married at the same time. He seriously considered suing the agency, but the cost was too high given the benefits. Now he has two babies. His only worry is supporting his children. He is

already 40 years old, and in order to support his children until university, he has to work another 20 years.

He continued to talk about how he felt about cross-border marriage in general. He mentioned that it was not easy to talk to other people about this process because he married through an agency, which involves money issues, unlike a “normal love affair.” But at the same time, he emphasized that it was not an easy choice. He had to consider many things such as whether his kids would be discriminated against or not, and whether he and his wife would face any problems in the family. He felt really sorry whenever he saw an international marriage that failed or when a woman ran away. He mentioned that men who choose this kind of marriage are less educated and earn little. Hence, their lives are hard and it is hard for them to spend enough time with their wives and take care of them. Women often stay alone or with their parents- in-law, and it must be really hard for these women to stand. He thinks that that is why this kind of marriage does not work out very often.