Introduction :
What the multi-cultural families face in the Korean society
1. Group Members
Dongwon Yi (21, Dentistry)
Jaewan Oh (20, Materials science and engineering)
Shinhyo Bang (20, Nuclear engineering)
Our group consists of 3 people who studies at the Seoul National University. The names are Dongwon Yi, Jaewan Oh, Shinhyo Bang. We are taking an Advance English class that discusses about the cultures and societies in the other world. And through that class, we had an opportunity to learn about subcultures that exist here in Korea. What we were interested was about foreigners who are included as a member in a Korean family. So for this spring semester we are going to search for things that are related to the stereotypes which multi-cultural families face and experience. Through the ethnography we will feel the danger of the single story about things around us which we have learned at the previous classes.
2. Topic : Multi-cultural families who live in Korea
As our society, Korea, is growing rapidly we are spreading our influences abroad to other countries. Even when we see in our University, we could meet a foreigner every steps we go. That means we are globalized and many foreigners are interested in our country and want to blend in. To be specific, we are interested in those who has participated to be one of the member in the Korean family. However they are not treated as a normal person but as a special and different person. Therefore when they go out to the society, they experience different treatment from people and more terribly face discrimination. So our project is to know what bad and also good things they face from their lives and examine why they face it, how serious our society has the thought about different races and how we could solve it.
3. Stereotypes & Prejudices
To begin, we started by sharing out thoughts about stereotypes and prejudices of multi-cultural families. Here are the examples.
- The nationality is normally Southeast Asia
- Domestic violences happen frequently for example foreign wives beaten up by Korean husbands
- Half blood children experience discrimination at school.
- Foreign workers experience discrimination at work.
- Foreigners get married for money, not love.
- They are the major social evils for example tax thieves, crimes, illegal immigration.
- The foreigners are really poor
- It effects the employment rate in Korea
- They don't speak Korean fluently
- They experience over than two cultures and languages
- The appearance will not be as same as a normal Korean person
- Normally they experience a hard time in the childhood
4. Interview Plan
We searched for groups or institutes that are related to multi-cultural families and the first choice was 'Kosian's house'. It was a place that does a sorts of events for the families and make them feel comfortable in Korea. And we called and send a mail for our request. However we searched for more resources and found 다누리 which is an institute that consult about the problems the multi-cultural families face. We are trying to contact them and ask the specific things about the life to be an multi-cultural family. When the interviews are not successful, we have a few suggestions and we will be prepared.
This is a video clip of Al Jazeera about the situation of multiculturalism in South Korea. It is mostly about how Koreans are adapting to the phenomenon. There are protests claiming that multiculturalism should be banned, and also there are some interviews and other video clips about multicultural people’s life in Korea, like Jasmine Lee.
B. http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/koreas-multicultural-growing-pains/
In this article, there are some statistics and cases that show multicultural families’ troubles. “Korean people usually have negative attitudes toward people with a multicultural background.”(Kim) Interviews with the actual immigrants and multicultural families show the difficulties that they are facing.
If article B showed multicultural families’ stances, this article shows how Koreans think about them. The point is that according to the experts, Koreans are “not ready” for the multiculturalism. Koreans tend to have positive attitudes toward European and American immigrants, but not toward those who are from Asia or Africa. The writer emphasizes this with supporting statistics.
D. Multicultural families are facing unfortunate lives, Korea Herald.
35% of migrant wives tend to RETURN home. The reason for their moving back
was primarily the nostalgia, followed by their intention to educate children outside
Korea. This is interesting because we think that Korea gas better education
environment than any other countries. 67% of foreign wives are sending money to
their own country. This could be viewed as a loss of domestic capital. Marriage
without love; but it's financial purpose.
35% of migrant wives tend to RETURN home. The reason for their moving back
was primarily the nostalgia, followed by their intention to educate children outside
Korea. This is interesting because we think that Korea gas better education
environment than any other countries. 67% of foreign wives are sending money to
their own country. This could be viewed as a loss of domestic capital. Marriage
without love; but it's financial purpose.
