Life After Marrying a Korean Man

The colloquium on the "Lives of Foreign Women with Korean Spouses" was held last November 17 with nine foreign wives attending the occasion (including myself).

It was an auspicious event as it gave us the opportunity for first time ever to share our personal experiences on how is it to have Koreans as our husbands.

As expected, interracial marriage is not a bed of roses. Rather, it involves a considerable amount of patience and flexibility to be able to overcome personal and cultural differences.

Murtiny Jeong from Indonesia outlined her difficulties on how to deal with strange manners and behaviors. She also noted her considerable shock on family hierarchy and the role expectations.

She said foreign wives like us are not respected in a way that our husband's family forces us to fully adopt the family's way of life - to be completely "Koreanized" overnight .

Nelda Choi from the Philippines brought up a more sensitive issue like the husband's monopoly and full discretion over his salary. ".If he has money, he will not give it to you" she blasted.

Oxana Lee from Russia pointed out her "handicaps" during her early days being incapable to make "kimchi" and other Korean foods while neighbors came to her husband's rescue to offer foods.

Felicitas Amaya from Mexico, who has been married for about a decade, grapples with the ways on how to protect her kids in school from the "unrefine" upbringing of Korean children.

Rozelle Dizon from the Philippines worried about Korean divorce and child custody which practically favors the husband. My concern, on the other hand, is no longer confined on the domestic realm. I could only lament over Korea's all-pervading and formidable patriarchism that has marginalized women in the workplace and other mainstream of societal activities. This is crucial for me as far a pursuing a self-fulfilling career is concerned. Yet if Korean women hardly make it, how can I, a woman of different skin tone?

The occasion was emotion-filled and in a sense, husband-culture bashing. And this is understood because we are a bunch of women who are undergoing a painful process of self-redefinition.

What is difficult is that while we recognize the fact that marriage inevitably alters our identities, Korean husbands, who are attached to their families and culture for posterity, demand our full submission to the extent of self-sacrifice. We are forced to forget who we are and live only to serve the interest of our men.

It was, perhaps, too late for us to realize that based on Korean cultural tradition, marriage is not a union between two separate individuals loving each other and vowed to stick together through thick and thin. It defies the philosophy of severance of ambilical cord from the old family and be united with his wife. For Korean culture, marriage is a process of family extension and subsequently obliging the wife to fulfill all sorts of domestic responsibilities.

Nonetheless, instead of moaning over our "misfortune", Murtiny Jeong confidently said that we can still make Korea our home. She suggested a list of activities that can make our lives much easier here. These include learning Korean language and culture, including culinary arts. She optimistically said that through these "we can develop better communication with our husbands' family members and society as well".

She also noted the importance of joining expatriate clubs or organization of people sharing the same concerns in life.

In addition, I underscored that since Koreans allowed their sons to have tied the knots with women of different races like us, the tradition has been severed permanently. And this is a fact Korean families have to face. Interracial marriages will surely alter Korean culture like a process of amalgamation.. More importantly, globalization is an era that poses an enormous challenge for Korean society to catch up with global culture as well.

Finally, the colloquium gave us the venue to recognize ourselves as a group with common interest. In fact, a club of expatriate wives exclusively designed to meet our concerns is now in the making. The Korea Unesco Cultural Exchange Services (KUCES) expressed its full support to this end.

Well, marrying Korean husbands is not all that bad, folks. Here's KUCES coming to our rescue providing us a venue to realize that we are not, in any way, at the wrong place, and that we are here for a common purpose.