Social network

Fellow-country network
Vietnamese community spreads in almost all provinces and metropolitan cities in Korea,
Vietnamese community is not so united in Korea. When Vietnamese people migrating to Korea
their aim for three main purposes: study, work, and marriage to Korean. The first two cases are
more active in contacting to their fellow-country men to set up social groups, they share and
support to each other's in their study and work. Social network of the third group does not appear
to be large due to limitation of outdoor visits and contacts as requirement of their in-laws as well
as their self-isolation from society with onerous complex, married to old men for money.
Women migrants living in far rural areas, where they hardly contact or meet their fellow-country
friends in Korea. For women migrants living in cities, they have more chances to meet their
fellow-country friends to talk and share their family issues. Nevertheless, the frequency of
meetings is not much. Only women migrants living near each others in Korea, fellow-country
women, or same-day-marriage groups have close relationship.
Observing Bible class for Vietnamese in Antioch church, Jeonju City shows that Vietnamese
people participating in this class including all three above types but have same aims, coming to
class to meet their fellow-country friends to talk about Vietnam and their life in Korea, not for
religious purposes. However, there is obvious classification among these three groups. When
some one introduces that they came to Korea for study, others, who are not in the same group,
seem to be self-conscious when they talk to others because they rank themselves to be “lower”
group. Labor migrants are rather close to each others because they are living and working in the
same places. Migrants Married to Koreans visit church with their husband and children not so
frequently. They mostly keep contact with their same category friends.
According to Journal of Northern East Asia, up to 2007, total documented Vietnamese labor
migrants in Korea are about 40.000 people, account for 30% of total Vietnamese labors working
oversea.
Even living with husbands, some Vietnamese women feel lonely and make friends with fellow-
country labor migrants. At first, there are just some meetings in the church or eating outside
together. After frequent meetings, some marriage migrants become close friends of these labor
migrants. Some of them, later, fall in love. Thus, some Korean husbands try to control meetings
and contacts of their wives with their friends, particularly Vietnamese men. They are afraid that
by meeting with Vietnamese labor migrants, their wives would have extramarital affairs cheating
their legally wedded husband and possibilities of escape from their family.
Same-boat network
In Korea, several websites in Korean were running with main aims for making friendship. Well-
knowingly, they are http://cafe.naver.com/kvwed and http://cafe.daun.com/kvwed. These two
websites are forums of international marriage participants who come to share their life experience
as well as broaden their same boat network. Some Korean men who want to search for their
foreigner prospective wives, especially Vietnamese, can come to these websites.
Activities of Korean-Vietnamese couples who are members of these forums stably maintained.
Several meetings and trips were organized. However, these two websites are totally in Korean,
which make difficulty for non-Korean speakers to access and get information.
Besides, above websites, which support to international marriage couples, various activities of
Multi-cultural Families Centers host to enhance friendship of international marriage couples.
For instance, Multicultural Families Support Center in Jeonup city has organized monthly
meetings for Korean-Vietnamese couples to tighten their relations so that they can support each
other's in their daily life.
In reality, however, some Korean husbands are not confident with their society that they could
not marry to native women and had to marry to foreigners, their social position are not respected
in Korea. Therefore, they trend to make friends with their same-boat Korean men.
This happens same with Vietnamese women migrants. They do not have many Korean friends
and mostly their friends are their fellow-country women or their friends whose marriage day in
Vietnam was same. Doing house works take much of their time but they always wish to have
good friends to be shared and helped, particularly at the beginning time after arriving Korea.
Multicultural Families Support Center in Jeonup City has collected phone numbers of
Vietnamese brides, so they can ask Vietnamese brides living in Korea long time to help
Vietnamese newcomers.
In general, Vietnamese brides’ life in Korea are colorful, some have experienced very happy lives
while others have been in several difficulties. Despite of acceptance of society, these Vietnamese
women migrants are endeavoring to adapt to Korean socio-culture and adjust their family and
social relations.

KOREAN AND VIETNAMESE POLICIES RELATED TO SUPPORTING

VIETNAMESE BRIDES TO ADAPT TO KOREAN SOCIETY
Vietnamese side
National level
Since 2005, to enhance international marriage control, Prime Minister of Vietnam suggested
Guide No.03 implementation that requires the presence of international marriage participants in
the local Service of Justice. These couples would be interviewed and tested their marriage
purposes as well as their mutual understanding and language ability. 21 July 2006, government
started implementing Decree 69/2006/ND-CP about changing and supplementing some clauses of
Decree 68/2002/ND-CP (October 07, 2002) in detail.
Marriage registration and note might be denied if the Service of Justice interviewers have proofs
of undocumented brokers’ hands or fake marriages which do not aim to build happy and stable
families.
To protect women right, Vietnamese Vice Prime Minister proposed to establish one International
Marriage Brokerage Company in Ho Chi Minh City. This company can be set up by one
independent organization and operate following law. However, up to now, this model is only
applied for Women Union, not for other private or non-governmental organizations.
Local government level and other organizations
At the beginning, the government and Vietnamese Women Union Central discussed and pointed
Women Union in Ho Chi Minh City to establish one International Marriage Support Center. This
Center was setup on October 20, 2003 and considered as the center, which has the most effective
activities comparing with other centers in other provinces whose function is brokerage.
Noticeably, although their mission is very significant, these centers are limited in terms of
number of staffs and their qualification. Besides, these centers are located in administrative office
of provinces; therefore, women are afraid of entering these offices. Meanwhile, women working
in Women Union of communes and hamlets lack of understanding about international marriage as
well as knowledge about Korea. Activities of Women Union in hamlets trend to financial support
programs for poverty reduction to stabilize local people’s life and as a result, reducing desire of
international marriage of young women.
In recent years, the Office of Birth, Marriage, and Death of Justice Service has been organizing
several activities in consulting laws, verifying purposes of international marriages, and testing
language capacity and basic cultural knowledge as well as mutual understanding of marriage
participants. By implementing above activities, the judicial officers attempt to solve problems
efficiently if they discover any abnormal signal of undocumented marriage brokers’ hands or
women trafficking in these international marriages.
However, in some “hot spot” of marriage to foreigners, due to being shy and afraid of public
opinion strongly against marriage decision of young women and their family, considering this
decision as “undersell women’s dignity”, local leaders have directed the officers in charge of
international marriage registration to limit this number by making troubles in marriage
registration or note procedures. Despite of trying to make difficulties, in reality, these instant
solutions are not much effective and just push young women depend deeper on marriage brokers.
Marriage brokerage network, by any means, has various techniques and relations to support
couples to dodge laws.
In general, although International Marriage Support Centers of Women Union and the Office of
Birth, Marriage, and Death of Justice Service have several endeavors in helping Vietnamese
women going to marry to foreigners; however, their activities are not yet effective.
Family of Vietnamese brides in Vietnam
In Vietnamese culture in general and in Southern Vietnamese culture in particular, children show
their filial piety by actions (Nguyen Van Tiep, 2008).
To improve family economic difficult situation, the fastest and the only way is to marry to
foreigners. Sons of poor families cannot afford to get good education; therefore, though they
work hard, they just can help their parents little. Married children have to earn for their own
family, do not have good conditions to financially support to their parents.
The word “sacrifice” repeated several times in responses of Vietnamese married to foreigners
when asked about their marriage reasons. They answer that they scarified their life by marrying to
foreigners with expectation to help their family.
In fact, parents of whose daughters married to foreigners feel secure and proud of their daughters’
life due to care of Korean husbands’ family that motivates Vietnamese young women desire to
have foreigner husbands.
However, not all international marriage couples are happy and successful in Korea. Several
Vietnamese women understand their parents’ expectation, so they avoid losing their parents’ face.
Though their life in Korea is in difficulty, they try to save money and send back to their family in
Vietnam. Most of these Vietnamese women’s families cannot image their daughter real life in
Korea, just simply thinking their daughters are happy and rich.
In sum, families should support the daughters to start their new life; however, mostly families
whose daughters marry to foreigners are very passive in their daughter’s marriage arrangement.
They passively attend their daughter’s wedding after informed about marriage with
Taiwanese/Korean husbands. These parents are low educated, so they do not know how to adopt
new environment related to international marriage and its outcome. They nearly depend all on
brokers and hope for “lucky or unlucky destiny” of their daughters.

Korean side
Central government
Korean policies and programs related to marriage migrants trend to harmonize prospective
citizens of Korea in future.
Citizenship law and job policy
Citizenship Law requires that after living in Korea 2 years, one can apply for Korean citizenship.
However, in reality, according to Immigration Control Law, only people living in Korea at least
for 5 years can meet all requirements for visa F-5 (permanent residence). F-2 (temporary
residence) Visa considered and issued to those who are Marriage migrants and allowed to work
legally. However, in case of divorcing with Korean partner, their visa status will change to F-1
(Family Visit) and legally they are not allowed to work in Korea. This is big advantage for
foreigner brides in general and for Vietnamese brides in particular in securing residential status in
Korea.
Social welfare services
Social welfare system is evaluated ineffective. Mostly, marriage women migrants seldom use
public services including advantage conditions of social welfare system or consulting service.
The answer “no” makes up mostly for participation of necessary services (Seoul, 2006). These
women migrants have never access to supporting programs due to lack of information or they do
not know that they are beneficiaries.
Among people using social services, several of them said that they do not satisfy because these
services are not necessary for themselves or for their families. Therefore, the government should
pay more concern to develop these services effectively according to real needs of beneficiaries as
well as improve the necessity of them.
Health services
Several women migrants misunderstand that they do not meet all requirements to participate in
public health service. Whenever using these services, they always consider carefully due to their
limited income. Approximately 82% (among 702 respondents) answered they have never be use
public health service or stopped being treated because of reasons relevant to financial issues
(Seoul, 2006).
Language policy for marriage women migrants
International marriages between Asian women with Korean men started from 1990s of century
20th. At the beginning of 1990s, Japanese women married to Korean men through brokerage of
Unified Church and they were taught Korean before their departure. In other cases, Korean-
Chinese women can speak Korean because they are communicating with their community in
Korean. Thus, Korean language training was not a significant concern at that time. However,
when Southeast Asian women started migrating to Korea from 2000s, they have been facing to
several difficulties because there was no policy related to language training. Realizing that
language is a “significant key” to open social integration door of foreigner brides, Korean central
and local governments have opened several free Korean classes for these alien brides.
In June 2009, Korean government reemphasized on comprehensive solutions to solve
multicultural families’ matters.
Local governmental level, NGOs, and Religious organizations
Human Right for Migrants Center was established in Seoul in 2001. This center has providing
health care and law services for alien brides. Besides, this center has been opening Korean
language and computer classes, consulting Korean law related to marriage and holding other
cultural activities. Moreover, this center has been also publishing books, brochures to improve
unequally racial discrimination for women migrants. In particular, this center has sent their social
workers to help women migrant individually. Obviously, Korean language training programs for
women migrants were not organized by governmental organization, but NGOs.
There are many programs for Korean language training. Firstly, it was composing Korean
textbooks for alien brides. Mass media such as TV shows or websites contribute to provide
Korean and other countries’ cultural information, especially Southeast Asia countries. Korean
language training like “Basic Korean for Asian women migrants” broadcasted from September
22, 2006. Later, NGOs have been regularly opening Korean language classes with cooperation of
Korean language Institutes and Marriage Migrants Support Centers.
In general, these organizations have been greatly endeavoring to help Vietnamese brides to adapt
Korean socio-cultural, particularly Korean language training. Alien brides can take Korean class
without tuition fee in Multicultural Families Support Centers. Some women migrants can not
arrange time for class because of taking care of their new-born baby or living far from class,…
these centers, even, send their language teachers to attend these women migrants’ houses to teach
freely two courses, it takes approximately 5 months for every course. Besides teaching Korean
language, these centers also hold other classes such as cooking Korean foods, making rice cakes,
making jewelry…
When poor alien brides give birth, alien brides are helped by social workers of International
Marriage Support Centers like cooking, washing cloths, taking care of new-born kid within two
weeks. They also contact with Vietnamese migrants who have been living in Korea for long time,
asking these women to help fellow-country newcomers.
In Vietnam, Republic of Korea Embassy in Ha Noi and Consulate General of republic of Korea in
Ho Chi Minh City do not officially organize pre-departure classes for Vietnamese brides. In Ho
Chi Minh City, only when Vietnamese women come to Consulate General of Republic of Korea
for marriage registration, Visa office informs the migrants about “one-day class held by KOKUN
(Korea Center for United Nations Human Rights Policy) for Vietnamese women, assuring that
those who attend this class will be endorsed visa immediately. However, Visa Issuing Office
does not have strict regulations, to make mandatory these migrating brides to attend above class.
In general, central government, local governments, NGOs, and religious organizations have been
collaborating to support alien brides to adapt and integrate quickly to new life.
Family-in-law
Central and local governments as well as other organizations are proposing action programs to
support alien brides in all aspects. Yet, the most effective institution, which hastens integration of
Vietnamese brides, are family-in-laws, particularly mother-in-law.
In some special cases, soon after arriving Korea, Vietnamese brides register for Korean language
private teaching in Office of their Commune, but the office needs some time to arrange,
especially when the number of alien brides in locality is more. During waiting period, they have
to learn Korean language by themselves. For couples living together separately from parents-in-
law, adaptation to new environment is more difficult because Korean husbands have to work
outside since morning until late evening. When language teachers of Multicultural Families
Support Centers are ready for teaching, these Vietnamese women migrants have pregnant or have
given birth and are feeding newborn baby, it becomes harder for them to study Korean. Some
women migrants take language classes and can not follow, later they quit. However, living
together separately, most of Vietnamese women migrants feel more comfortable because they do
not have to involve much in family-in-law and daughters-in-law problems.
General saying, at the beginning period in Korea, Korean family-in-laws is considered as a cradle
– where socializes Vietnamese brides. Depending on this socialization environment, Vietnamese
brides can adapt quickly or not.
Korean mothers-in-laws known as tidy, neat, and careful while at the beginning period
Vietnamese brides are like fishes out of water; do not know Korean life style. As a result, various
misunderstandings lead to conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-laws. Vietnamese
daughters-in-law feel stuffy because whenever they do any thing, they are warned while actually
their Korean mothers-in-law are trying to guide their new daughters-in-law because they think
new brides are new to surrounding. Mostly, conflicts involve in doing house works. House works
are daily works, so if contradictions happen often, they might cause serious conflicts, which is
hard to be healed.
Besides, due to being anxious of sending some money back to Vietnam while Vietnamese brides
are living with mothers-in-law who mainly manage finance in day-to-day expenditures of the
house, if Korean mothers-in-law do not give some money for them, these women feel unsatisfied
with their family-in-laws.
On the contradictory cases, several Vietnamese brides said that they have great mothers-in-law
who are always ready to help them in doing house works and looking after kids. There are some
small contradictions but they are negligible.
The husbands are expected to directly help new wives to study Korean language and adapt to new
environment. However, in Korea, husbands are bread-winners, so they have to work very hard
and do not have much time to teach Korean for their wives. In reality, Korean mothers-in-law are
the guides of new brides.
In some cases, Korean husbands do not care and are not harmony with Vietnamese wives; the
parents-in-laws are strong bridges connecting brides with family-in-law and help them to
overcome difficulties at the beginning time. In other situations, sisters-in-law play a very
important role in helping new brides to adapt to new environment.
In summary, with endeavors of central government, local governments, NGOs, religious
organizations, families and especially families-in-law, Vietnamese brides have more chance and
advantageous environment to adapt to new life in Korea.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

Conclusion
Comparing with life in Vietnam, material life in Korea of Vietnamese brides are much improved,
some Vietnamese women can send back some money to support their families in Vietnam. In
Korean families, though their husbands have low, average income, they can afford to buy family
conveniences, which only middle and high income Vietnamese people can.
Several women in Korean-Vietnamese marriages want to earn money for their own family and
save some money to send to their family in Vietnam. However, due to barrier of language, low-
education, lack of professional skills, they hardly find jobs with good income. They just can work
as unskilled labors in factories, private companies, or in restaurants… If they can earn, they do
not need to contribute their income for family expenditure, instead, they can keep for themselves
or send it to their family in Vietnam.
The material life is improved; however, Vietnamese brides are still emotionally deprived.
Language difference makes Vietnamese brides hardly talk and share their daily matters and
feelings with their husbands and their family-in-law. Korean husbands have to work outside
whole day; they cannot have much time for family. These Korean husbands cannot speak
Vietnamese so they hardly communicate well if their wives cannot speak Korean. For women
living with parents-in-laws, mothers-in-law are direct teachers and help new brides to adapt to
Korean socio-cultural environment. Korean mothers-in-law are well known as prissy women, but
generally, they treat their Vietnamese daughters-in-law very well; particularly they often help
their daughters-in-law to take care of grandchildren.
While Vietnamese women have better material life, their emotional life is very complicated.
Racial discrimination makes Vietnamese brides feel inferiority complex and social isolated. They
come to their fellow-country friends, in particular Vietnamese labor migrant men or same-boat
friends.
Although central government and local governments have organized several supporting program
for multicultural families, but because of being shy of contacting with out world and limit
Korean, Vietnamese brides cannot access and participate in those social welfare programs.
Besides, migration policies of Korean government and uncooperative Korean family-in-law lead
to difficulty of naturalization right of Vietnamese brides. Their residential status depends deeply
on Korean husbands and Korean family-in-law.
Overall, comparing with native families, Korean-Vietnamese families have lower economy, but
mostly Vietnamese women migrants feel satisfied with their current life. Before marriage, some
Vietnamese women thought that the only way to work in Korea is marry to Korean men. After
their arrivals, although several women cannot work, with care of Korean husbands and Korean
family-in-law, they are secured and attempt to build happy families.
Suggestions
Vietnamese side
National management aspect, Marriage and Family law need to be complemented and improved
according to reality and appropriate with national tradition and international customs. Marriages
should be based on mutual understanding, love, and respect to each other. Expeditious meetings
and weddings hardly secure for sustainable and long last marriages.
Laws related to repatriates have not concerned yet. In law aspect, after migration and live in
foreign countries, Vietnamese government not legally and demographically controls Vietnamese
women. Nevertheless, they are not yet citizens of local country, when they return to Vietnam, as a
result, they have to face to various problems related to their residential status. Vietnamese brides
married to Taiwanese and achieved Taiwanese citizenship, after divorced; mostly they stay and
work in Taiwan. For those who do not have Taiwanese nationality, have to leave Taiwan (Tran
Thi Kim Xuyen, 2008). This is same with Vietnamese women married to Korean men. After
returning to Vietnam, mostly they do not go back their hometown; instead, moving to big cities to
look for jobs and wait for marrying to other foreigners. They are afraid of losing their family’s
face. For this reason, community should open its arms to help these unlucky women and give
them friendly environment for their community reintegration. Government should implement
detail policies relevant reintegration these women.
Paralleling with developing pre-departure models, Vietnamese government need to have strict
rules on illegal marriage brokerage individuals and companies who only care of their benefit.
This can prevent Vietnamese women from marriage risks and international women trafficking.
Vietnamese embassy in Korea should have supporting and community control programs such as
saving documents and statistic of Vietnamese living in Korea to have supports when they need.
This Representative organization of Vietnam should set up a network of Vietnamese community
in Korea to help mutual fellow-country friends.
Beside attempts of national government, local governments also should plan action programs to
support Vietnamese women in international marriages. Firstly, poverty reduction programs need
to be concerned and emphasized on far poor rural areas. In these areas, job and income are two
most important factors which bring secure life for local people. Thus, providing jobs and training
professional skills for local people, particular for youngsters, are very necessary, helping them to
access to escape from poverty and improve their current life.
Other associations or organization such as Women Union, Youth Union are also play important
roles in supporting Vietnamese young people not to involve in risky matters. Pre-departure
support models provide basic knowledge of Taiwanese and Korean language and culture
understanding that should be apply in all localities in which there are a great number of
Vietnamese women marrying to foreigners.
International Marriage Support Centers should verify and provide accurate information about
Korean ad Taiwanese bridegrooms, avoid insults for Vietnamese brides and in vice verse. These
centers should be bridges of international marriages instead of illegal marriage brokerage
companies. These centers have to increase the number of staffs and improve their staff’s ability
so that they can meet the needs of prospective brides.
Along with helping would-be-brides, representatives of Women Union in hamlets should have
programs related to changing awareness of parents, trending to think of their daughters’
happiness rather than spending money of their dutiful daughters.
In short, activities of these organizations should concern about necessity instead of formality.
International marriages also need NGOs’ concerns. With NGOs supports, human resource for
supporting programs increase and decrease pressure for Women Union, which lack of social
workers to assist cross-border marriage couples.
Mass media that can direct public opinion should have objective views and reflect exactly cross-
border marriage phenomenon, avoid social bias and provide information based on respecting to
human and the truth.
Marrying to foreigners of Vietnamese young women re affected by various factors in which
family is an important one. Parents of these women are worried for their daughters but they do
not reject marriage decision although they have never seen would-be-son-in-law until they attend
their daughters’ wedding.
In summary, Vietnamese side needs to have systematically educational strategy from individual,
family to community to reduce risks of cross-border marriages.
Korean side
For central government and local governments, laws and policies related to international marriage
should be improved to avoid disadvantages for alien brides married to Korean citizens.
Residential status of alien brides is a present controversy argument. For legal divorce cases, alien
husbands/wives should be protected. However, residential status of these people is affected
seriously if they do not yet have Korean citizenship. After divorcing, their visa status from F-2
(permanent residence) changed to F-1 (family visit) which creates a big barrier for these alien
brides. They would try by any mean to be in Korea and earn, not to be deported to Vietnam,
losing face with family and community, and the most important is to be near their children.
Residential status and job of these women nearly depend on their Korean husbands and Korean
children. This invisibly separates custody children right of the mothers while they are not allowed
to work legally after divorcing. As a result, the children would be with Korean fathers.
Vietnamese mothers are jobless, cannot have financial secure and of course do not have right to
take their babies. Protecting the mothers is also protecting normal development of mixed-race
children.
According to Korean law, marriage migrants cannot access every social welfare service due to
their nationality. This should be changed so that marriage migrants can be beneficiaries of
socially subsidized programs and other social services because they are wives of Korean men and
the mothers of Korean children.
Setting up national supporting network in which including social workers who can communicate
with women migrants so that these women can get supports any time and in anywhere. Most of
supporting activities being organized systematically and effectively in several big cities, but not
in far rural areas where many Vietnamese women migrants are living. Rural brides are living and
working as farmers seldom participate in and benefit from public social services.
Correspondingly, supporting programs for alien brides should be organized in rural areas.
Building up fellow-country network within area to help each other's is also a feasible solution.
This can promote mutual supports among Vietnamese women migrants in studying Korean
language and culture as well as exchange information.
Marriage brokerage is a legal business in Korea; however, various operations of several
companies are cheating, causing negative results to Korean husbands – alien wives’ life. Korean
government should regulate rules related to this kind of business. For instance, Korean and
Vietnamese marriage brokers must submit Korean men and Vietnamese women’s general health
record and provide accurate information about marriage participants.
To build up real multicultural families, Korean government and Korean family-in-law should
support and encourage alien brides to maintain and develop brides’ culture, not only following
Korean culture.
It is the time when both Korea – Vietnam and Taiwan – Vietnam need to organize bilateral
meetings to discuss about Korean-Vietnamese and Taiwanese-Vietnamese marriages on macro
management. These involved countries should revise all marriage rules and sign agreements on
marriage brokerage‘s operations, marriage and citizenship registration for foreign brides and
mixed-race children in multicultural families.
In addition, these countries should co-ordinate to detect and tackle cheating and illegal activities
of marriage brokerage organizations and individuals in Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan.
Furthermore, these relevant countries determine clearly responsibilities of themselves, in
particular protecting and supporting women migrants.