The Choson (S. Kor) Article on Vietnamese Brides
From: Anthony Le <leductony@yahoo.com> >
Date: Apr 27, 2006 3:13 AM
Subject: [Vsg] The Choson (S. Kor) Article on Vietnamese Brides
Hi List,
Does anyone happen to have a link to the Choson
article by Che Sung Woo on Vietnamese brides? I've
seen articles written by Vietnamese and Koreans
(translated into Vietnamese) in response to the
article as well as reader's responses. But I haven't
actually seen the original article that everyone is
responding to. I imagine that most of the readers who
responded haven't seen the article either. I'd
appreciate it if someone knows where I can get the
original article (either Vietnamese or English). I
don't know Korean, unfortunately.
Thanks,
Anthony
From: DiGregorio, Michael <M.DiGregorio@fordfound.org>
Date: Apr 27, 2006 3:38 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] The Choson (S. Kor) Article on Vietnamese Brides
http://www.tienphongonline.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=45061&ChannelID=2
From: Grace Chew <gclchew@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Apr 27, 2006 4:14 AM
Dear Michael:
Could you please send the website address of the VN
article you've just sent to VSG? I'd difficulty
encoding it in the Vietnamese language.
Thanks
Best wishes,
From: Anthony Le <leductony@yahoo.com>
Date: Apr 27, 2006 5:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] The Chosun Article on VN Brides: Response in Vietnamese
Dear Grace,
Thank you for the link to the English translation. The
article sent by Michael is a response from a Korean
named Ku Su Jeong. It has been reprinted in many of
the Vietnamese newspapers. Here is the link in Tuoi
Tre:
http://www.tuoitre.com.vn./Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=134435&ChannelID=89
I just realized that TT also has an excerpt of the
original article (as a sidebar to the Ku Su Jeong
response). It is a bit odd to me that the response
from Ku Su Jeong is widely circulated, but not the
original article that is causing the uproar itself.
Anthony
From: Grace Chew <gclchew@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Apr 27, 2006 7:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] The Chosun Article on VN Brides: Response in Vietnamese
Hi Anthony,
I've enjoyed more the article that's being circulated
as well. (Thanks for the convenient link to TT). It
has more interesting information: (1) the way
foreigners (here, the SK men) think of Vietnamese men
and women (ie. VN women are "can cu" and "chiu duoc
trach nhiem nang ne", while VN men are "luoi bieng"),
statistics, comparison between VN women and her Asian
neighbors and so forth.
I am just wondering why not just foreign men but also
foreign investors/companies as well typically think of
VN men and women this way. Further, when VN women
married to Singaporean men are interviewed on TV, they
said the same thing. They probably had to say
something bad about VN men so that they (the VN women
interviewed) do not "look so bad" having to look for
foreigners through extraordinary channels.
Actually, I wonder more why VN men leave investors
more unfavorable impressions than VN women ? Is it
because not many women hang out at "bia hois / quan"
compared to men? Family upbringing? There was a
protest by VN men ,if I remember correctly, in 1995
about what they deemed as unfair recruitment as
foreign investors seem to recruit more women for
managerial positions. I wonder if anyone can provide
some statistics very quickly...
Sorry, o day chi la mot mo y kien lon xon.
From: Sveta Hsun-Hui Tseng <hui1022@u.washington.edu>
Date: Apr 27, 2006 8:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] The Chosun Article on VN Brides: Response in Vietnamese
Subject: [Vsg] The Chosun Article on VN Brides: Response in Vietnamese
Does the response have a English translation?
From: DiGregorio, Michael <M.DiGregorio@fordfound.org>
Date: Apr 28, 2006 12:45 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] The Chosun Article on VN Brides: Response in Vietnamese
Dear all,
I was reminded this morning how often these stories overshadow the realities of declining, and aging, populations in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, and the equally important desire for many people in these countries to establish a family. These two factors, and not only poverty in the Mekong delta, have been instrumental in creating a demand for brides. The interesting aspects in all this demographic, economic and cultural pressure, reach out from the "shock" many Vietnamese feel when they read such stories, to more important issues related to global householding, cultural representation (i.e. Vietnamese women as hardworking and loyal, Vietnamese men as lazy profligates), transnational cultural power and weakness, and consumerism, among other things.
Mike
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Date: Apr 28, 2006 6:33 AM
Subject: Re: RE: [Vsg] The Chosun Article on VN Brides: Response in Vietnamese
Dear list,
I have been following this thread with great interest. Stepping back
from the story itself to another "logic" of "the industry of marrying a
Korean": growing gender imbalance in Korea. Since the 1980s, Korea has
developed a highly skewed sex ratio at birth, with somewhere around 110
or so males for every 100 females by 1985, and rising since. (I am not a
demographer, but I seem to remember that a "normal" sex ratio at birth
is 105 males/ 100 females -- is this right?). In any event, there seems
to be a developing Korean bride shortage. One way to solve this problem,
briefly touched on in one of the articles, is to go to China, where
South Koreans can find ethnic Koreans living in that country.
But where else can a Korean go to find ethnic Korean brides? Or to put
it differently, where else can a Korean man of modest income go?
Taiwanese, for example, can go to Fujian province, or all sorts of
places in China. There is a far more limited pool of ethnic Koreans in
the world. Furthermore, well-off Korean men can always beat out poorer
korean men in the competition for Korean brides. So Korean men of modest
means go to Vietnam.
There is an analogous phenomenon developing in Japan -- farmers marrying
Filipinas, for example. . .
From: Grace Chew <gclchew@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Apr 27, 2006 3:59 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] The Choson (S. Kor) Article on Vietnamese Brides (in English)
Dear VSG:
This article is in English on Chosunilbo:
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200604/200604200010.html