Crossing Cultures

How could a woman bring herself to marry someone who spoke not one word of her language and then go to live with him in a country far distant from her birth country? I just read an article in the New York Times about Korean men who are marrying Vietnamese women a few days after “choosing” them.

It seems there is a glut of single men in Korea right now as that country has a preference for boy babies, sort of an odd way to describe female infanticide. So the eligible Koreans are traveling south to Viet Nam to find a bride.

The story chronicled the experience of two different couples who had both arrived back in Korea at the same time and given birth to their children at roughly the same time – both girls.

There are huge problems because of the lack of communication. He refuses to learn Vietnamese. She finds Korean extremely difficult to learn and impossible to understand. The mother-in-law with whom them live says that foreigners will destroy their society and won’t even look at her female grandchild.

I always felt sorry for both parties in arranged marriages. But at least in those cases, both persons usually could communicate in a common language.

It’s unclear how these beautiful young Vietnamese girls will fare in the long run – whether they will adapt to their new homeland and devote themselves to raising their children or whether they will be subjected to abuse from husbands who treat them more like purchased property.

And what about those little girls? Will they prove to be the translators for their parents, if they manage to stay together with the divorce rate for these marriages on the rise? Will there be a KSL program for them when they are school age since they will spend most of their early years with their Vietnamese mothers? Will the Korean society accept them as equals to fully Korean children?

Any differences I might have with my spouse seem trivial when compared to this story. And at least we can discuss them in a language we both understand.