PROPOSAL OF RESEARCH Topic: Research on leisure activities of Vietnamese immigrant women in Taiwan I.

INTRODUCTION:

International migration has received significant research attention over the past decade, with the chief focus being on the hiring of workers for specific jobs over set time periods. One aspect of this research has been the migration of female workers on the basis of social networks. Interpersonal relations based on family, friendship and communal ties have supported much of the transnational flow of labor (Lim and Oishi, 1996). In contrast, family-forming migration has attracted much less attention. While for women, migration for the purpose of family reunification still accounts for a large share of movement (ILO, 1999/10/20), a significant and growing proportion of female migration is spurred by cross-border marriage. From the 1990s, the number of migrant partners from China and Southeast Asia entering Taiwan has increased steadily (see Table 1). Although the numbers in the table include male migrant partners, they make up less than 10% of the total. This development goes hand in hand with Taiwans mass economic investment in China and Southeast Asia since the late 1980s (Wang, 2001: 207) Table 1: Residence Visas Issued for Migrant Partners
Country Year 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Total Thailand Malaysia Philippines Indonesia Singapore and Myanmar 870 55 1,183 2,247 14 1,301 86 1,757 2,409 52 1,973 73 2,085 2,950 18 2,211 96 2,128 2,464 50 1,173 102 544 2,331 85 1,184 106 603 3,643 12 1,259 65 487 4,381 3 9,971 583 8,787 20,425 234 China* 7,885 9,180 9,349 8,951 10,528 13,046 15,769 74,708

unit: person
Vietnam 530 1,969 4,113 9,060 4,644 6,790 12,327 39,433 Subtotal 12,784 16,754 20,561 24,960 19,407 25,384 34,291 154,141

Source: Bureau of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China; 1994-1998 data, see Wang (2000: 14); 1999-2000 data see Bureau of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.boca.gov.tw/announce/index.html, accessed 2001/3/14

According to Professor Chyong-fang Ko from the Taiwanese Central Research Institute (2005), Vietnamese brides account for 35% of 338,000 foreign brides in Taiwan, or around 118,300

women, mainly from the south of Vietnam. Another important finding is that around 20% of Vietnamese brides in Taiwan did not get along with their husbands families, either suffering mistreatment or filing for divorce. The greatest difficulties of Vietnamese brides are the

language barrier, poor real-life experience, poor knowledge of the culture, precious few work skills and lack understanding of Taiwanese laws, manners and customs. The Vietnamese women who marry Taiwanese men without any prior understanding and relationship, only through the intermediary of marriage brokers, enter an environment that is completely different in culture and language. In fact although being handicapped in language, many of them have made remarkable efforts to realize their expectations of the marriage and the migration. In general, however, living in such an environment, they feel lonely, hardly develop themselves and easily loose their cultural identities. Though the percentage of women immigrants from Vietnam are by far the second highest percentage of the Taiwanese immigrant population, little research has been conducted on their leisure behavior literature. Most research involving their hurried marriages, along with potential family violence, human trafficking, legal issues related to Vietnamese women marrying foreign nationals and child custody issued across international borders. Meanwhile coping strategies seem to be particularly important for Vietnamese women immigrants since they encounter various constraints and conflicts in the process of acculturation. They have to endure psychological conflict due to social pressure to succeed in their new country. Because of language barriers, lack of personal skills, and lack of knowledge in using social resources, they are usually forced to either stay at home or take low-paying menial jobs unrelated to their former education and experience. Thus, leisure- related activities might be particularly important for Vietnamese women immigrants because they may provide other experiences and benefits often associated with leisure such as, social interaction, relaxation and enjoyment.

II.

PURPOSE OF STUDY:

The roles and significance of leisure activities have in the lives of Vietnamese immigrant women in Taiwan. More specifically, this study aims to explore the experience of Vietnamese women in certain leisure activities that will be recognised during the research time and how important of participation such activities to them in the matter of their quality of life and life satisfaction. Therefore, The findings of this study have been divided into two main sections: 1) Establishment problems and the role of leisure in adjustment process and 2) Post-immigration leisure experience of Vietnamese woman immigrants. III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How Vietnamese immigrant women describe their experiences in Taiwan? What obstacles and difficulties they have to due with in daily life, especially during the first years in new country? (such as: inadequate language skills, servere post-arrival social isolation, culture difference, lack of social interactions, lack of daily life knowledge) What activities do they participate in their free time? How different are their experiences compared to attending to the same activities in Vietnam? What are the positive and negative aspects of their specific activities and experiences in Taiwan? The objectives of this part is to understand and figure out which activities are the most participated to them and their experiences when they join in leisure activities in Taiwan. 2. To what extend do such the mentioned above activities represent as sites of leisure and leisure related benefits for Vietnamese immigrant women?

This part will comprise these following research questions: How do they feel about the leisure activities in Taiwan? What are the benefits and/or negative outcomes of their participation? Benefits may be: Social interaction, community integration or social development Potential negative outcomes are: Culture isolation and discriminant 3. What role do the activities play in terms of fullfilling a need for leisure in their lives This part aims to understand their motivations to join in leisure related activities and the role of such activities in helping them to adapt new culture Why do they seek to attend such activities when they arrive in Taiwan? How important is participating such activities to them in the matter of their quality of life and life satisfaction? IV. Do they satisfy with their life in Taiwan? SOME ANTICIPATED OBSTACLES IN THIS STUDY It will be essential for me to establish a sense of trust and rapport with Vietnamese immigrant women in Taiwan. My undersrtanding of immigrant women is just influenced by my own experience as an international student at STU and my observation of Vietnamse brides in Taiwan. There will be some discomfort on part of the participants in sharing their experiences, especially their personal information. Moreover, since most of the girls were from rural areas (CNA, 1999) and in general, Vietnamese brides are about twelve years younger than the Taiwanese grooms, and have had little education beyond 6-year elementary school

(Wang, 2001). Therefore, I need to build the trustworthiness and help them to understand my study objectives. V. LITERATURE REVIEW

Article 1: Jinhee Chung (2008). An exploration of Korean Immigrant womens leisure in spiritual settings. Recreation and Leisure Studies, 14-36 In this article, researcher identify the role and importance that ethnic church have in the lives of Korean immigrant women in Canada. From the study, they found that for immigrant women, they can benefit from church attendance such as: social interaction, social capital development, how to adapt to living in Canada and also develop the resistance to constrain ideologies. But they also found the negative outcomes of church participation such as: lack of integration into the broader Canadian society and the reproduction of traditional gender ideologies. The more detail benefits that immigrant women can get from participation such activities are : they can exchange information, they can get the emotional support and also reinforce the ethnic identity. The negative aspects are the challenges between traditional and new values, lack of mainstream society and reinforcement of gender inequality. Therefore, from this article, we can apply some hypothesese for Vietnamese immigrant womens study such as: 1) Leisure activities significantly help immigrant women in adjusting in the new life 2) Some places/activities in Taiwan are important sites for their leisure 3) The participation in certain activities affects their integration or resistance to Taiwan society 4) The participation in certain activities recreates a smaller community that help Vietnamese immigrant women deal with their daily life Also from this article, I can pick up some ideas relating to the difficulties and obstacles that Vietnamese immigrant women have to deal with during the first years when they come to Taiwan. They might be: 1) The language barrier (ie. Chinese and Taiwanese) 2) Lack of personal skills 3) Lack of knowlegde in using social resources 4) Being unfamiliar with the new countrys customs 5) Also they may have to experience with discriminant

6) Lack of social support from in-law family and friends, ect.. In this article, the mutual aid or social supports that help immigrant women are mentioned as: providing goods and services, giving financial assistance, giving emotinal, psychological support and information and counselling on employment, business, healthcare, childrens education as well as personal problems. Article 2: Stodolska, M. (2000). Changes in Leisure Participation Patterns After Immigration. Leisure Studies, 39-63. In this article, researcher develops a model that explains the realtionship between some constrains of immigrant women and their leisure participation and the results of negative perceived of leisure participation and enjoyment. Model: Lack of language skills Their leisure participation and enjoyment Abandon many of old leisure practices in home country

Fear of new environment

Lack of social network

Prevent them from accquire new ones in new country

Also the researcher studies how new leisure opportunity can motivate people to change their leisure activitiy to have a quick and relatively pleasant way of assimilation into new culture. Article 3: Rublee, C.B., & Shaw, S.M. (1991). Constraints on leisure and community participation of immigrant women: Implications for social integrations. Society and Leisure, 14, 133-150. In this article, author develops a series of hypotheses to test as described in the following model which I adapt some. Also, if the immigrant women have high home-orientation, they will have the low community involvement in new country.

Inadequate language skills

Servere post arrival social isolation Culture differences (leisure-related norms) Lack of social interactions (activities, neighbourhood..) Lack of daily knowledge Difficulties in accessing social support systems (in-law family,friends) The immigrant womens leisure participation and their level of assimilation into new culture

Article 4: Allen, L.R., & Beattie, R.J. (1984). The Role of Leisure as an Indicator of Overall Satisfaction with Community Life. Journal of Leisure Research 16(2), pp.99-109.

The researchers test the significance of the availability of public and private recreation facilities and services, personal space for relaxation as well as opportunities to socialize with others and interact ones environment, such as: garden, park, book store Therefore, we can draw out from this article specific type of leisure environment can serve as a setting for many leisure activities which people of difference of preference, race or ethnic can integrate successfully (ie. Vietnamese and Taiwanese,etc.). Also the leisure space can offer the opportunities for equal status and cooperate the development of social capital.

METHOD OF ANALYIS (prefered/may be changed) - logistic regression models to evaluate the determinants of participation in Taiwan - standard individual demographic control variables and the log of community size are tested for their effect on the odds of participation