Stories of Multicultural Families

 T he language barrier, unfamiliar food, strange culture and lifestyle… These are some typical obstacles that marriage immigrants face, and they often lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication among family members. To help them better adapt their new lives in Korea, both the Korean government and non-governmental organizations are making efforts to support multicultural families.

Ms. Fernandez, a Filipina wife married to a Korean hus-band in Naju, Jeollanam-do (South Jeolla Province), had the same issues in her early married life in Korea, as nobody helped her learn the Korean language. She had no time to go to free Korean language classes offered at the community library or immigration center because she had to help her husband with farming work and raise their chil-dren. She has difficulties teaching Korean to her children at home due to her insufficient knowl-edge of Korean. But these days, she meets her Korean language teacher three times a week thanks to the government‘s children-rearing support project for multicultural families. Now she can talk better in Korean and feel better by releasing her stress, because her teacher listens to her stories and problems and introduces Ko-rean culture. 

Oguchi Yumi, a Japanese lady who lives in Busan, Gyeongsangnam-do (South Gyeongsang Province), with her Korean husband, is another beneficiary of the government‘s child rearing support project for multicultural families. She was unable to teach her kids Korean at home like ordinary Korean parents because of her lack of Korean language skills, but now she feels more confidence in teaching her children because she can receive help from her Korean language teacher.

 

On the seventh floor of the "Save the Children" building in Changcheon dong, Seoul, a 29-year-old Vietnamese teacher named Phuong is busy with seven children every second Saturday. These children are all from Vietnamese-Korean couples. Since November 2008, six Vietnamese teachers at the ―Hana Saturday Vietnam School‖ have been teaching Vietnamese culture and lan-guage to children from Korean-Vietnamese families in order to help immigrant spouses educate their children and live happier lives in Korea. Like Phuong, more Asian students studying in Korea are voluntarily joining such support groups in Korea to help marriage immigrants of their own nationality settle easily in Korea. More civic groups and local government entities also operate support programs for marriage immigrants and multi-cultural families. Along with non-governmental organizations, the Korea Foundation for Women is joining the movement. Through its multicul-turalism project, the organization supports vari-ous programs for marriage immigrants in cooperation with 29 related civic groups. It also provides 3 million won per person as emergency medical care in order to help marriage im-migrants in need.

 

Choe Seon-ae, a naturalized Korean, also had the same difficulties a few years ago when she came to Korea from China to live with her Korean husband. But she realized that marriage immigrants like her need to act as mentors for others because they can better understand their difficulties and solutions. Choe now works as a Korean-Chinese inter-preter and translator at various events and inter-national functions. For marriage immigrants like Choe, internet community cafes exist, where international spouses can exchange useful in-formation and support each other.

"Handa" (cafe.daum.net/handa09) is one of these cafes for multicultural families in Korea.

 

Cristina Confalonieri, one of the celebrity panelists on popular TV talk show "Beauty's Talk" is no exception to these difficulties, as an Italian wife living with her Korean husband and mother-in-law. Since her wedding in De-cember 2007, she has gone through trials and errors like other multicul-tural families, but she says there are no big difficulties, as long as family members accept and understand the differences between them as natural. At home she speaks Korean to her mother-in-law and Italian to her husband. At work, she speaks English to her co-workers in Yeoksam Global Village. She does make occasional mistakes because of cultural differences, but her husband and mother-in-law's support and understanding have helped her adapt to life in Korea better and have made her marriage happier.
 

This article is also published in the following website:
http://www.korea.net/detail.do?guid=28053