The KT reports that Korean grooms-to-be will receive from Seoul City a 1 million won in financial assistance for their wedding to attend a 20-hour course on multicultural marriage.
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Once again, women who marry foreigners are discriminated against.
True, but they are also not the ones beating the crap out of their foreign spouses, either.
Says who?
Am I the only one who finds the concept of Koreans teaching about being multicultural quite laughable?
Wait a second… so this couple will get paid 50,000 won an hour to attend a class? I’d take that job anyday. I might even look like I’m taking notes and listening to every word they say. And who knows? They might even have some useful information in there.
So the Korean government recognizes they have a problem, and decides to throw stupid amounts of money at it, figuring it will work itself out. I know all about this: I’m an English teacher.
I’m not sure how I feel on the “discrimination against females marrying foreigners” angle, though. Lemme chew on that one for a bit.
Granfalloon,
They are getting money to attend, thus making it a government subsidy. Applicants who are female need not apply. It is discrimination.
So if you meet someone from Israel and assume they don’t want a bacon on their cheeseburger, is that discrimination, too?
The vast majority of mixed marriages are between lower-class rural men and Chinese women. I think they’re just targeting a certain demographic that has problems, yes by tossing money at them. They’ll probably get a host of lectures, too. Things like “Don’t Drink 20 Bottles of Soju Until 3am” and “Beating Her Doesn’t Make Her Horny.” Just pray they learn something while they’re there.
Never mind the apparent discrimination. If it was free (without the cash incentive), you wouldn’t be crying foul, then, despite the fact that things still cost money for space, lecturers, donuts. The average ESL teacher in Korea makes 3 times what their whole household makes. Don’t be greedy.
“So if you meet someone from Israel and assume they don’t want a bacon on their cheeseburger, is that discrimination, too?”
You count bacon?
“Don’t be greedy.”
That’s the best you can come up with? An ad hominem attack?
I couldn’t care less about the money, nor do I need any advice from the government, especially not about my relationship with my wife. Heck, we’ve been married longer than the vast majority of Korean-Korean couples, so maybe we should be giving the lessons.
It’s simply a reminder that things haven’t changed as much as I thought they had.
Let me put it this way: when I got married, it was still impossible for foreign men who married Korean women to get an F-5 visa, but foreign women who married Korean men were quickly granted the F-5 and Korean citizenship.
The amount of self-absorption on this blog is so great it could rip a hole in the space-time fabric.
If this qualifies as discrimination, then it discriminates against anyone who is not a rural farmer married to a Chinese or SE Asian bride. This would ALSO include 99% of Koreans, who do not fit that category.
Secondly, it appears that this program is being run by the Dept of Women and Family Affairs or the Ministry of Gender Equality not the Ministry of Belly-Aching Waeguk and their Grievances. So it appears that the goals and priorities are different.
Thirdly, it is highly unbecoming for privileged First World economic refugees to be complaining about the table crumbs falling to rural farmers with Third World spouses.
In the US, there is currently a program called Cars for Clunkers. Trade in a car that gets under 18MPG for a new fuel efficient vehicle and get up to $4500 in credit from the gummint. This basically rewards those who’ve been driving around in gas-guzzlers all this time. My car does not qualify. I don’t go around whinging about discrimination.
OMFG, I can’t believe I was nodding my head while reading a NutizenKim post. The things stupid people will drive me to do.
I just hope the hicks learn something (anything) and their truly pathetic wives acquire some (any) relief.
@Someguy,
Way to turn an issue addressing tortrued foreign women and make it an issue about yourself. Again.
Most of the international marriages are of the Korean male-SE Asian female sort. You can read all the blog posts about how they’re being abused and are running back to their own countries. I don’t read similar stories about Korean women marrying waeguks like yourself–and frankly, you are the very small percentaged exception. Most Korean women marrying foreigners live in the husband’s country. In fact, I only read about the foreigner husbands complaining about how tough they have it in Korea–and how they’re rejected.
Boo-hoo.
And you make a big deal about getting Korean citizenship…uhhh, why? Why? Though you should be able to get it now. If you’ve been married for years, there frankly weren’t enough foreigner dudes marrying Korean women and staying in Korea. That’s more of the explaination than the Korean government trying to actively discriminate against foreigner men. Sheesh.
For the program now, the government is addressing a problem in society. I actually think it’s a great idea. Go ask your wife what she thinks about whether she feels “discriminated” against. If she lacks the egocentrism of her husband, then she’ll find that she’s not offended, at all. SE Asian women are being abused by fairly ignorant Korean men. A solution is presented and now it’s discrimination against Korean women married to Westerners. Unfucking believable.
I am trying to imagine things from a White guy’s perspective: you’re feeling offended on behalf of your wife but really the issue itching you is your own feelings of discrimination (thus the ridiculous reference to citizenship). Actually, I can’t even remember if you’re White, and it really doesn’t matter if you’re Black or Hispanic or Pakistanian. It doesn’t matter.
And how timely? On Korea Beat today .
A study has found that among marriage immigrants resident in Korea, foreign women married to Korean men outnumber foreign husbands married to Korean women by seven to one.UN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
Why does that surprise you? There’s a shortage of women, not men, especially for less marriagable men in the countryside, no compelling reason within Korean society to import husbands, and, so far as I know, no agencies trafficing foreign husbands.
Read #12. The tremendous gap between the number of foreign wives and foreign husbands in Korea only underscores why it’s ridiculous to cry “discrimination” against not establishing programs tailored to Korean women.
And about your Korean society importing husbands statement, I’d riff and make an English teaching joke, but I won’t, out of veering down the road well too travelled by expat blogs.
An influx of foreign bride imports is a matter of domestic policy. Korean women marrying foreigners are inevitably headed overseas and are therefore not a domestic concern.
T_Song, I find your total disrespect for the Korean Constitution rather ironic considering you’re so happy to quote the US Constitution (incorrectly) against Obama, and yet again your obsessive need to bring race into everything.
Someguy refers at #1 to gender discrimination, his race is totally irrelevant to the issue, but for some reason you have to bring race into it. [White is not a race by the way, neither for that matter is Someguy white)
Korean Consitution – Article 11
“All citizens shall be equal before the law, and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic, social or cultural life on account of sex, religion or social status.”
Someguys comment about the past administrative practices of the korean authorities discriminating against female koreans (treatment of spouses) contrary to the law and constitution of korea is perfectly valid comment about the institutionalised sexual discrimination against women (and ergo their families) experienced here.
In the light of such circumstances a certain amount of cynicism of such measures is understandable. In this particular case, I personally am happy to go with the vunerable foreign brides explanation, and let it go.
“And you make a big deal about getting Korean citizenship…uhhh, why? Why?”
T-Song are your reading skills really so poor? I quote:-
“It’s simply a reminder that things haven’t changed as much as I thought they had.”
Followed by an example of the institutional discrimination against korean wifes referred to at #1. “Let me put it this way: when I got married, it was still impossible for foreign men who married Korean women to get an F-5 visa, but foreign women who married Korean men were quickly granted the F-5 and Korean citizenship.”
Quite simply, the person making the big deal is you, with your perpetual “issues” and discrimination against waeguks who have committed the crime of living and breathing in korea, and the even worse crime of a commenting on some aspects of that experience.
“A solution is presented and now it’s discrimination against Korean women married to Westerners. Unfucking believable.”
Again bringing your own “issues” to the table, reference at #1 was to “women who marry foreigners” not westerners, or white or any other discriminatory reference that you’re trying to allude to.
“If this qualifies as discrimination, then it discriminates against anyone who is not a rural farmer married to a Chinese or SE Asian bride.”
Netizen Kim also on the bandwagon, as if trivialising somehow is an argument.
NO it discriminates against Korean brides, full stop (period).
There is no reference in the article on any limitations in the “offer” as to the race or nationality of the brides in question, nor the location job, or otherwise status of the Korean groom.
Whether, there is a justifiable public policy argument (prevention of abuse of vunerable spouses) for this clear gender discrimination, is a reasonable basis of debate. Trivialising and claiming that offering this course only to men, is not discriminatory is just plain stupid.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....l?ITO=1490
Nice Yuna.
Yes, unfortunately the UK at local government level is trending way overboard on the PC front these days.
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