Emigrant
Sensibility in the Age of Globalization (5):
A
Vietnamese Woman Who Became a Korean Citizen ①
By
Nguyen Thi Hien
Published:
August 24, 2015
Translated
by Marilyn Hook
Editor’s note: Vacation,
business travel, migrant labor, language study, study abroad, international
marriage, immigration—many of us have such experiences of crossing national
borders, and there are many immigrants living in our country. Ilda examines the
emigrant sensibility we will need in order to live equally and peacefully in
the age of globalization. This series is supported by the Korea Press
Foundation’s Press Promotion Fund.
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| In cooking class with foreigner friends. I am second from right. © Nguyen Thi Hien |
“What
kind of visa do you have?”
“F6.”
“F5.”
“E9.”
This
may seem like an incomprehensible secret code to Koreans, but foreigners
understand. F6 is the marriage migrant visa, F5 is the permanent resident visa,
and E9 is the foreign laborer visa. I think these three types are the most
common not just among the foreigners that I have met, but among all foreigners
staying in Korea.
These
days I don’t have to talk about visa types, because I am now a South Korean. It
seems like only yesterday that I first came to Korea on an E9 visa, but it has
been 15 years.
Korea, the unfamiliar place I
fearlessly came to in order to earn money
I
was born into a Vietnamese family of limited means, and in school, I preferred
having fun with my friends over studying. As I also started dating early, it
was not surprising that I failed the college entrance exam.
While
I was drifting along without any particular plans for the future, a friend of
my parents told me that they could get me to Korea, so I should go earn money
to help out my parents. I didn’t want to be away from the boyfriend I had
decided to marry, but I decided to go because I wanted to be a good daughter to
my parents, who had worked hard to raise my siblings and me. At the age of 20,
I boldly left to earn money in Korea.
The
moment I got off of the plane at Incheon International Airport, I felt as cold
as if I had stepped into a refrigerator. But the Korean winter, with its softly
falling white snow that I had only ever seen on TV before, made a big
impression on me. At that moment, I really realized that I was in a different
country. At the thought that I was truly alone in this land where I knew no
one, the cold and loneliness penetrated to my core, and sadness enveloped me. I
had thought of this problem before I came and had firmly prepared myself, but
when I actually came up against it, my young heart was fearful.
A
middle-aged man had come to the airport to pick me up. As he drove, he
explained through gestures and hesitant English that he was a manager at the
company where I would be working. He was friendly and humorous, so my first
impression of the first Korean person I met was a positive one.
We
arrived at my company. It was a textile company that made clothing fabric, and
it was located in a small town about 100 km from Seoul. There were more than 10
other foreign workers, from Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and
Uzbekistan. With the addition of Koreans, it had over 40 workers, so I thought
it was a pretty big company.
After
being shown to my dormitory, I was overcome by sleepiness due to the fact that
I had been too excited to sleep well for the last few days before coming. I
hoped to take a nap in my room, but a company employee came to my room and
summoned me to the workplace. I went there, rubbing my sleepy eyes, and was
given my orientation right then.
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| Travelling around Korea is one of my great joys. © Nguyen Thi Hien |
Getting a different salary just
because you’re a foreigner
What
I’ve found most unfair and illogical about Korea is the issue of wages. Because
I’ve worked during my entire time in Korea, wage discrimination has been the
biggest worry and most disappointing problem for me.
At
my first job, I couldn’t communicate in Korean, but, perhaps because I am
quick-witted, I was always getting a thumbs-up that signified “Good job” from
the Korean managers. Whenever that happened, I felt good and like I wanted to
do even better, and so I worked harder. As the days passed and I got used to
the work, I was able to do it faster than Koreans with more experience.
Then,
I discovered something unfair. It was that no matter how well a foreign worker
did their job, even if they were every bit as good at it as a Korean person,
their pay would always be lower than a Korean’s. It wasn’t just the wages,
either. Koreans received bonuses or holiday pay that was equal to quite a chunk
of their regular pay, but for foreign workers like me, such things were but a
dream.
Doing
the same work in the same place and for the same amount of time but getting
paid less for the sole reason of being a foreigner—I knew that this was
discrimination. A few times I gathered my hope that I could change this and
went to the office to ask for a raise, but it was no use.
“That
much pay is a lot to you guys. If you take that money to your country, won’t
you seem much richer than we do here?” This is what one Korean person said to
me, coldly. They were not wrong, but if they knew that foreign laborers like me
had to conquer loneliness and the difficulties caused by language and cultural
differences in order to earn that money, they wouldn’t have said that.
I
tried to assert my rights at work in my own way, but I felt a sense of
powerlessness. I rationalized the discrimination by thinking, “Yeah, as a
foreigner in someone else’s country I shouldn’t expect better treatment like
this, the boss must have hired me because he couldn’t afford a Korean worker.”
Besides
the struggle over pay, I had a pretty good relationship with people at my
workplace. I had a Korean friend my own age, and we would go to the public bath
together and listen to music we liked. She gave me a present on my birthday,
and I was grateful to have a friend like her. I gave that friend the piece of
pottery that I got as the second-place winner in a singing competition for
foreigners.
The
older people at my workplace also showed me love and consideration. Some called
me “daughter,” or invited me to their houses. Thanks to them, my life in Korea
was less lonely. And I was able to learn Korean.
Speaking Korean before I knew
it, and dreaming of becoming an interpreter
In
order to communicate smoothly with Koreans, I studied Korean here and there
when I had time. But there was one particular incident that made me decide to
start studying Korean in earnest. It was meeting a Korean police officer.
One
day around the time when I had been at my workplace for three years, a few
police officers came and instructed foreign workers about safety rules. One of
the officers complimented me on my Korean skills, told me how he often went to
Vietnam, and asked if I could teach him Vietnamese. I didn’t think I would be
able to teach Vietnamese, but I gathered my courage and agreed to help him.
For
a few months after that, I taught him Vietnamese once a week after finishing
work. I was paid for it, but more helpful than the money was the advice he gave
me. Among them, one that is still vivid in my mind is, “In the future, trade
between Vietnam and Korea will increase and people who speak Korean well will
be in demand, so study Korean hard so that you can act as a mediator between the
two countries.”
I
began to dream of becoming an interpreter. I started to study Korean hard, in
my own way. At that time, there were few Vietnamese people who spoke Korean
well. So I was given the chance to be an interpreter for the police several
times. I interpreted police interviews with a Vietnamese marriage immigrant who
wanted to report spousal abuse but whose Korean was poor. At that time, I
couldn’t speak Korean that well, but I did the best that I could for her, and
even accompanied her to a shelter in Seoul and interpreted for her there.
In
the end, that Vietnamese woman was able to divorce her abusive Korean husband
with the help of an organization that assists foreigners. And she was able to
get Korean citizenship. When she thanked me, it felt very rewarding. I made up
my mind to study Korean even harder.
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| A self-help group for Vietnamese women in Korea © Nguyen Thi Hien |
In
time, I found that I was more comfortable living in Korea than in my own
country. This feeling started with the fact that I can put money in my bank
account and pay for everything with one check card, and expanded to how I can
pay for the bus or subway just by touching my card to the card reader, and get
the food I want to eat delivered to my door with just a phone call when I don’t
feel like cooking. I don’t think these modern conveniences will come to Vietnam
anytime soon.
As
a result of having observed Korean people, I can see why Korea has become so
economically developed. I think it is because it is a society made up of people
who are impatient and so do everything quickly, who have a sense of
responsibility, and who work hard. After
having lived with these people for a long time, I have begun to change. I used
to take 30 minutes or an hour to eat a meal, but now I can finish one in 5 to
10 minutes. I used to pay no attention to time, but now I am always punctual.
It seems that some part of me that I’m not aware of wanted to become more like
Korean people.
Deciding to stay in Korea as an
illegal alien
Time
passed, and my labor contract ended, so the time came to leave Korea. I was
overwhelmed with uncertainty about what I would do for a living if I went to
Vietnam, whether my Korean was good enough to get a job at a Korean company in
Vietnam or allow me to work as an interpreter. The question of whether or not
to go to Vietnam revolved in my head for a while. After a lot of thinking, I
decided to stay in Korea with an unregistered status; that is, as an illegal
alien.
I
extended my time in Korea under this unregistered status, trying many kinds of
work here and there at textile companies, electronics companies, and garment
factories. I don’t have any particular memories of my relationships with the
Korean people I worked with during that time, but the wage discrimination that
I experienced before was even worse. No matter how well and how diligently I
did my work, I received a wage so low that it could be compared with Koreans’,
and in fact was below minimum wage.
However,
I’ve never gotten paid, as has happened to some of my illegal alien friends
who’ve had corrupt employers. I think this is not just discrimination,
injustice, or illegality, but a human-rights abuse and a circumstance that can
kill a person.
Of
course, even among Koreans there is discrimination between permanent and
temporary workers and between men and women. It’s not just a matter of wages;
there are many cases in which Koreans see foreigners as cheap labor and worry
that they will take away Korean people’s jobs, so they look at us with hostile
gazes. However, I think that in order to become a peaceful and beautiful
society in which a variety of people can live together, what is most necessary
is for the pay and treatment of foreigners who work in Korea to become equal to
that of Koreans.
*Original
article:
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