With the word called globalization and intrnationalization, the capital and the labor freely come in and out among boundary lines of nations. Letting the nations and the races, the human race and ranks, and the boundaries of the culturs disappear, these globalization seek to investigate the intergration of every heterogeneities. But in the movement of crossing the border, ther is uncertainly in the joinning and formation among the population. And the rise of the minority group which is
seperated from within can be said that it is the new problem. These new change of appearance in the culture during the past 10 years is being accomplished without exception even in Korean society. A direct case is cross-cultural marriage. Generally, people say that marriage between man and women who have different nationalities is a cross cultural marriage.
According to the National Statics office, the international marriage has increased more than 10 times compared to the 90's when it was not more than 5%. And aspect of international marriages before is that there was a majority of Korean women who were married to American or Japanese men. But now the international marriage between Korean man and foreign women increased more than 15 times. Or as many foreign labers come to Korea, the marriage between Korean women and foreign laborers are increasing.
Then like this, what are the reasons and causes why international marriage is increasing? The reason is due to the psychological and actual fact or people are complexly acted.
From ancient times in Korean society, there was a nortion preffering a son to daughter. It was a fact that there was a decrease of number of women who were in the marriagable age. And in those days, psychological fact that there was a wave on Korean men's image of other country's women that Korean man know how to value and love women.; This led to the revitalization of international marriage. Compared to the past, women who have many changes have had strict conditions about seeing men. And women who experienced follows in the society have remarkably increased. Same thing goes for women's economical independance is becomming possible. It is revitalized. Brother relation also gives marriage some restrictions. In case of serving parents, just because you're the first-born son, getting marriage can be very difficult. It is not too much to say that supporting for their parents becomes an opportunity to choose an international marriage.
When Korean man met Korean women, a certain condition and situation work as a stumbling block which is a very actual circumstance these days. changing of social patterns and awareness would lead to such results. But women who think about international marriage have not experienced such certain conditions, they just trust their husband about it. And they don't have any certain desire for complex terms that Korean woman have. It works as another primary factor that a man can take on a wife.
Marriage and love doesn't work just by romantic fedings. Proper sharing is formed with each other, and the thing that elaborates the strategy for it is marriage. They would feel warm-hearted and they would love each other. So until they decide to get marriage, it is extremly a personal matter. But after the decision of getting married, the actuality that they have to tackled into is enlarged to the public space.
First of all, in the Korean culture, there is a myth which got stuck into the roots of our culture just the same as racially homogeneous race. The difficulty in overcoming cultural differences is the reason why our divorce percentage is increasing, and this goes hand in hand with international marriage. Recently the news shows us that the divorce percentage doubled among men who are married to Chinese and Vietnamese women. The Korean language education of the rural children who has a foreign mother having a low ability of the Korean language has been a serious problem. Moreover, children who are having mixed blood and different appearance is one of the unfinished issue in our society. Like a small pebble which is thrown into the lake makes a big ware length, a small problem at home will grow bigger into a social and international problem.
The idle attitude of the Government is also another issue. The parties concerned of public health administration say that there are AIDS infected patients through international marriage. Because of that now there is no certain health diagnostic system before marriage especially foreign women due to private problems. On top of these problems of preservation of good health, because the regulation about the expensible management of international marriage is much feeble, 'Commercial scale' of international marriage become also an issue. We can already forecast that marrying an ordinary women just by looking at her becomes a problem.
But there are days and nights for everything. It is extremly a natural affair. I think that seeking its benefits and working out a countermeasure is much wiser rather than pressing down social exchange by international marriage which is continuosly increasing.
The foreigners give a nation labor supply during their stay in a certain country. And they influence in the point of many things to a nation, because they are faced with various life styles like marriage, family organization, naturalization, citizenship use, education, health, medical treatment, welfare and so on. We should not ignore the riot which had occured in France by Arab youths, as if we were just watching a fire across the river because of the reasons that they have a difference in race, religion and native place.
Prior to us , advanced nations which accepted foreign labor in a large scale like Germany, U.K, France, America and so on have recognized a more in reality to which they can't escape. Moreover, because they think that the inflow of foreigners give them social benefits like the activation of economic activity, technological improvement and cultural variety, they are activity flumming politics which tolerlate such things.
Now, Korea should develope synthetic policy that they can systemically administer supply and demand, application and social adaptution of foreign human strength. And they must also mindfully teach foreign brides the Korean language, Korean cultural education and methods of social adaptaion in our national dimention. It is important also to administer and supervise the international marriage management. First and foremost, changing the awareness of the people who are prejudiced about other human race is very important. I hope that these families are accepted as one family in the Korean society and they can persue a healthy life in the Korean society.
By 어두운 별.
(사진3 KBS드라마 '겨울연가'의 한 장면, 사진4 출처 DC갤러리)
국가마다 국제결혼에 대한 사회적 통념이 조금씩 틀린 것 같아, 한국사람의 입장에서 국제결혼에 대한 저의 생각을 담아봤습니다.
