( “The Newbies”. Source )
Originally I wasn’t going to write this post until next week, but inspired by this post over at KoreaBeat I’ve decided to go ahead with it now. In hindsight it’s probably best to so while the previous semi-related post keeps the topic fresh in readers’ minds.
Introduction
One feature of Korean society not so obvious to casual observers is the number of family members living in different cities from each other, sometimes for many years at a time. I’ve already mentioned how the lack of childcare facilities nationwide and sexist workplace practices force many parents to send their children to relatives to be looked after during the week, for instance, but in this post I want to concentrate more on the parents themselves: both those arrangements where one partner, usually the father, spends weekdays working in another city and sees the family in the weekends, and those where the father will send his whole family overseas for the sake of his children’s education. Exact figures are understandably difficult to obtain (although feel free to throw any in my direction if you have them), but I’d wager that the combination of both mean that at least one in fifteen to one in ten Korean teenagers live in different cities to their fathers most of the time, and this certainly does have knock-on effects on Koreans’ perceptions of “normal” family life and marriage as I’ll explain. But just like Koreans living at home until marriage is largely due to financial factors rather than being due to some sense of Korean tradition or filial duty, so too does this cultural difference ultimately derive from a combination of workplace culture, the education system, and economic factors that can and are slowly changing.
Probably the best online source on both groups (known as “weekend couples” and “lonely geese fathers” respectively) is the journal article by Kim Song-chul, entitled “Weekend Couples among Korean Professionals: An Ethnography of Living Apart on Weekdays” in the Winter 2001 edition of the Korea Journal. It’s a little dated, and has a glaring omission as I’ll explain, but it remains a good introduction overall. Rather than simply rehashing its contents, I’ll assume that if readers are sufficiently interested then they’ll click on the link, and so instead I’ll focus here only on those aspects that I see as crucial to understanding them (see here and here for more recent information on lonely geese fathers).
Why does Korea have so many Weekender Couples?
Korea was an overwhelmingly agricultural society until relatively recently (always something very useful to remember when trying to understand Koreans), so of course during slow seasons poor Korean farmers especially have been finding work outside of their home villages for millennia. More recently, Koreans worked as construction workers in the Middle East and as miners and nurses in Germany in the 1970s, and this is probably the source of the Korean word “a-ruh-bite” (아르바이트) for part-time work, as “arbeit” means “work” in German. But etymology aside, their numbers were negligible compared to those today. Since then, vast improvements in transport infrastructure have certainly made living apart certainly more possible and bearable, but then neither group studied here really does so for financial gain anymore. What then, what compels so many presumably loving Koreans to live apart in the first place? (source: aarontong)
Song-chul mentions that Korea is a very centralized society, and this can’t be emphasized enough. Don’t be misled by any coffee-house statistics on Seoul’s population: the Seoul Metropolitan Area is the second largest in the world, has almost 23 out of Korea’s total population of 49 million, and is a “primate city” in geographical terms, dominating the rest of the country much like Bangkok does Thailand. With so much concentration of economic wealth there, and especially of best schools and universities too (as I discuss at length here), then when the father is, say, transferred to a different city or even overseas, it is wise for the family to try to maintain a residence in Seoul if at all possible. Given the new costs of commuting and maintaining a second, studio-style accommodation for the father involved, this in turn means that weekend couples tend to be much more affluent than Koreans as a whole.
Song-chul seems to leave it at that, but in my opinion this is an insufficient push factor in itself. Now, long-term readers of the blog will be well aware of how simply, well, fucked up I view most parents’ views of education here (not to put too fine a point on it), but would those alone account for couples being prepared to live in such artificial arrangements for several years, even decades? I’ve known couples in those circumstances, and over drinks one day a female colleague in one confessed to me that seeing her boyfriend only on Sundays makes that “Sex Day”™ whether she feels like it or not. And Song-chul also mentions a female interviewee who points out that:
…on the surface weekenders’ relationships to their spouses might seem better than before. This is likely because they pretend that there are no problems and refuse to talk about them. Thus, [she] maintains, if a couple lives apart during the week, there is no way to resolve problems in their relationship, even small ones, and that may have a snowball effect.
And then there is the stress, loneliness, excessive drinking, living off junk-food and thus bouts of ill-health that single weekender men often face too. Is being in the right school zone really worth it? It’s not like only Seoul residents go to the best universities here. While spending the ages of 13-18 preparing for the largely multi-choice university-entrance exam may well be not much of an education, for all its flaws it does have the one strength of being completely meritocratic.
No, fathers do transfer when ordered and don’t quit their jobs for the sake of their married life and relationships with their children because of the length of employment and/or age-based seniority system of most Korean companies. Quit your job at the age of 40? You’ll be lucky to get a job in another company for the same wages and conditions as you had when you were 30. And given that Japan, with similar systems, also has many weekender couples, even though it is less centralized and but decidedly more expensive and difficult to travel around than Korea (and not just because of its size), then I place most of the blame squarely on this aspect of Korean work culture. But that isn’t the entire story.
Sex and Work
( Image by Camera Freak )
Somewhat impersonal and artificial notions of married life and family life are shared by Koreans to a much larger extent than the actual numbers of weekender couples and lonely goose fathers would suggest. Like I’ve mentioned, it is almost financially impossible and there are huge social stigmas against unmarried couples living together, and hence seeing each other only during weekends can be the only practical option for a couple if they live at opposite ends of a city. I’ve even known a Korean couple that lived in two cities but met in a third on weekends to avoid bumping into any relatives or family friends. But in my experience these arrangements seem to be entered into quite willingly by Koreans, whereas most Westerners, knowing that distance relationships have a reputation of failing, would only enter into them as a last resort and only if they were expected to be temporary, not lasting for years or even decades as they do here. And just like my teenage students are rather incredulous when I point out that their forced study and lack of sleep would be considered child abuse in New Zealand (5 hours sleep for a 13 year-old? You’re sure I’m exaggerating?) most Koreans seem bemused with Westerners’ opinions of this, to them, quite normal arrangement.
Again, I think Korean work culture is responsible. Koreans have a reputation overseas for working hard, but long hours should not be confused with high productivity, and in practice much of Korean employees’ time spent at work is actually spent nappiing, going off to lunch, and chatting or playing computer games. Why Koreans feel compelled to arrive at work very early and not leave until late at night after the boss does is a topic for many other posts, but the result is that many fathers virtually never see their wives and children during the week. Throw after-school institutes, six-day school and working weeks that still haven’t been fully abolished into the mix too, and probably more than 50% of Koreans have grown up in what were effectively weekender couple households. Hell, no wonder they enter into such arrangements so willingly as adults. They’re the norm.
( Image by theXenon )
Not unsurprisingly then, married Korean (and Japanese) couples seem to rarely have sex (if at all), and there is the strong stereotype (think “ajummas”) of them having gender but not sex; their divorce rate is one of the highest in the world; the Korean prostitution industry is one of the largest in the world; there are STD clinics masquerading as urology clinics simply everywhere; parents would rather send their kids to after-school institutes all night rather than spending time with them; adults seem to have an excessive, almost Freudian attachment to their mothers…I could go on, but would probably be extrapolating from the original subject just a bit too much. But although someone in this thread at Dave’s ESL Cafe thought that Korea’s recent history of arranged, originally loveless marriages was more to blame for much of the above, if popular culture is anything to go by than Koreans certainly do seem to have modern, “Western” ideals of romantic love. Surely that their married lives don’t measure up to those in practice is related to where one or both or them (or their parents) spend 12+ hours a day?
When I began this post I intended to demonstrate that these views of family life was not some inherent, unchanging part of traditional Neo-Confucianism and/or Korean culture but more because of educational and financial imperatives, and I think I have achieved that, but as I’ve written it I’ve become less and less convinced that Koreans enter into such arrangements as reluctantly as I thought. Certainly, Korean society is very rapidly changing, Koreans ultimately prove not to be as different to my largely Western readers as it’s easy to think (and a language gap exaggerates), and I’ve repeatedly emphasized on the blog that aspects of Korean society that Westerners criticize are usually just as readily criticized by Koreans too. What I really need at this stage then, is to hear from the couples themselves.
Coerced Geese?
(Articles about lonely geese fathers are usually accompanied by sad-looking, somewhat depressing cartoons, so I thought that that video would make a welcome change. Found via boingboing )
Meanwhile, I’ve concentrated on weekender couples rather than lonely geese fathers here primarily because I think that their existence says a great deal about Korean society as a whole, rather than just on the failings of the Korean education system. The latter being more unique too, there’s much more information available on them. But something I was reading about immigration to New Zealand recently made me realize that family members are often virtually encouraged by other countries’ bureaucracy and immigration rules to live in separate countries to one another just as much as by any proclivity to do so by Koreans themselves.
Consider this from the book Astronauts from Taiwan: Taiwanese Immigration to Australia and New Zealand, by Tim Beal and Farib Sos, 1999 (Scroll down to September 2000 here for a review):
Many immigrants were misled by the points systems and did not understand the autonomy of the professional bodies which regulated entry into various occupations. The points awarded by the immigration officials based on educational qualifications did not necessarily mean that they would be accepted by professional bodies. The points system placed strong emphasis on those holding qualifications in science, technology and engineering, and it was reasonably assumed by many immigrants that, because the New Zealand government assigned such a high value to professional qualifications, they would be automatically recognized in New Zealand.
Consequently, many immigrants were denied access to employment opportunities commensurate with their qualifications. This was particularly the case for doctors and dentists. This issue was not specific to Taiwanese of course, and many immigrants from other places complained that the government had given them a false impression of the New Zealand job market. The lack of recognition of their skills in New Zealand by professional bodies, combined with a lack of English skills and unfamiliarity with the New Zealand culture and business practices, resulted in unemployment and underemployment of many professional immigrants. (pp. 55-56)
( “Les Templiers”. Source )
I’ve deliberately not mentioned the various immigration policies and point systems and so forth in place then, as they’re largely irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make, and they’re rather out of date too. But my family also suffered from the above problem, albeit in Australia rather than New Zealand, and after personal and repeated assurances by the Australian Immigration Department that my father’s decades of social work qualifications and experience in the UK would be recognized too. They weren’t, and this forced my family to return to the UK after a year or so. Similarly, while Taiwanese (and Korean) “Astronaut Families” were a hot political issue in the mid-1990s in New Zealand, especially in the suburb of Auckland I lived in which had the highest numbers of them in the country, most Taiwanese originally came to New Zealand simply to make a better live for themselves and their children, and were fully prepared for the drop of income that this entailed (nobody chooses to live in NZ to make money). Not for having to say, go to medical school for seven years again. After learning of things like that, it was perfectly rational for their children to remain at school here while the parents returned to Taiwan to work and/or concentrated on their businesses there. Thereby, despite their original intentions, becoming the very astronauts so scorned by New Zealanders.
Certainly only a minority of lonely geese father arrangements would have been created through similar problems with settling in other countries, but it’s something to bear in mind. After all, it was after reading that book above that I so suddenly identified with Taiwanese (and Korean) immigrants to New Zealand and began writing this post, and having become so cynical in the writing of it it’s a good note to end on, for I fear that I may have dehumanized Korean weekend couples a little by looking at them at such an abstract level like I have. Naturally I’d like to hear from those in weekend couples or lonely geese families themselves after writing all that, but failing that I’ll see if I can find any interviews of them, preferably online.
I found your blog via a link from Brian’s. It’s really great!
To comment directly on the weekend couple phenomenon: You obviously already know about the pressure to get married, especially for women. Your status changes in your family *and* in your workplace.
My head teacher from my first job here was an unmarried 40-ish woman with her own apartment and fascinating travel stories from around the world. She was harassed *every day* by her neighbours asking her when they would “eat noodles at her wedding”. Her students had much less respect for her than for married women (and certainly less than any married or unmarried man). It would have been much easier for her to marry the first guy who came along, and live apart from him, which would have allowed her both the freedom to live as she wanted *and* would have shut her neighbour up too. Happily, she still hasn’t caved to this patriarchal view of a woman’s worth.
Foreigners are not immune to this. When I first started seeing by boyfriend, my boss took us out for supper, my students giggled whenever they saw him, he could come to the school to eat lunch for free in the cafeteria and 2 teachers re-organized their schedules so that he and I could have a long weekend in Jeju. Yeah, the same people who want me to sit at my desk with nothing to do during the exam session were giving me a day off so that I could be with my boyfriend!
Korea is a great place to date, by the way. Every restaurant has “couple sets”, a simple ice cream order from Baskin Robbins becomes a mini-sculpture with cookies and sprinkles, there are outlandish bouquets of flowers on every corner. It’s so important to be a part of a couple, and be on your way to marriage… so the courtship ritual is just out of this world.
Of course, those big Korean wedding ceremonies at those infamous wedding halls? Not legal marriages. I’ve heard of couples marrying at a wedding hall, then living separately as a “weekend couple”, and essentially living as single people would in the US or Canada, but with the new status…
At any rate, it’s a pretty weird view of relationships. Women endure all sorts of ridiculous surgeries and fashions so that they can land a man who they will marry in a ceremony that isn’t recognized by the government so that they can live separately, so that he can get himself a mistress by age 40. Just doesn’t seem healthy to me.
I really, really dig your blog. The research that has gone into your posts far exceeds what there is on my blog, which deals with my personal observations and invariably leads to the conclusion that the Master Race is populated by retards. Of note in your blog, who is the guy in the 4th picture with the 70′s porn mustasche?
NB, thanks for the compliment. Can’t help you with the fourth picture though, but you may be able to find more information by clicking on the link underneath it.
Virginia, thanks also, and sorry I took so long to reply. I was distracted most of yesterday by writing a post about that NOW flash presentation on women in commercials that I found on your site!
I did know of the pressure to get married, and actually my 31 year-old sister-in-law is starting to experience it from her parents, but I had no idea how much married people’s status changes in the workplace.
Your head teacher sounds like someone I’d like to meet. She reminds me that although I’m not much of a socialite these days, I used to have strict criteria over Koreans I could be friends with…*pause*…does that make me sound too cold and/or calculating? But what the hell, I’ve found I simply could never be more than friendly acquaintances with the large numbers of 30 year-old virgins here, and have difficulties with 25+ year-olds who still lived with their parents too. They might be nice, interesting people, but friendships can only develop so much if there’s taboo subjects between you. Hence, although my best Korean friends have been “normal” by Western standards, scandalously living with their boyfriends and so on, they’ve all been social mavericks in Korea, and it took a lot of guts for them to be so.
In my twenties, I avoided couples that voluntarily only just saw each other once a week like the plague for much the same reasons, but now that I’m in my thirties and after having just written that post I may have to change my perspectives. Or will I? I do still think that a family staying together when Dad is transferred is more important than staying in the right school zone.
I’m rambling a bit sorry (not helped by having my 2 year-old daughter climbing all over me as I type this, wanting me to draw snowmen). I never really dated in Korea, my wife being only my second girlfriend here and living only 20 meters from me in a “one-room” meaning that she was effectively living with me very quickly for a supposedly sweet, innocent country girl. But even then at 24 I think I would have tired of the couple sets and so on at restaurants very quickly. It just seems so…teenager-ish to me, which, given their gruesome education system, I think many Koreans in their early twenties effectively still are really. But your comment has made me realize just how much there is a couple industry here, with all the clothes, the phones, the rings, the anniversaries and so on…all de rigeur for couples that may only have been dating three months. Like teenagers back home, but with a lot more disposable income. Actually that’s just given me an idea for the angle I’ll take in a paper on how adolescents learn about gender roles and sexuality I’m hoping to get accepted by a journal.
Heartily agree with you about the wedding halls (which is why I got married here), although most couple confess that in the end they’re just easier. Didn’t know that they weren’t legal weddings though.
Must go…the snowmen won’t wait. Damn you Raymond Briggs!
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I had not realised the importance of the weekend / lonely goose couples phenomenon.
I’m French, aged 31, married to a Korean man.. We have a daughter, she’s 2 and a half.
My husband and I met in England, I was working in an accounting firm and he was teaching taekwondo. He was my taekwondo master, we fell in love… he asked me to go to Korea with him, I accepted, we ended up in Seoul. He’s the first son of a quite wealthy family and I soon understood that my arrival and our marriage plan were bad news for them. It was hard for them to accept me but we didn’t give up and we got married.
In Seoul I was an English teacher of course, after a brief experience in a Korean company. The immigration office had granted me the authorisation to work in a Hagwon due to my educational background and my marital status. But I was not satisfied, even if my wage was ok. I soon got a professional opportunity back in France and considering that my husband could teach taekwondo more or less everywhere in the world we decided to take the chance. I went back to France first and 8 months later he joined me. The separation was long and difficult but it was necessary as I needed to find a flat, arrange for his visa, and enrol him in a French language institute as he was very fluent in English but could not speak a word of French. So this first separation had only been temporary but at the time we thought it would be the last one.
In France we then met some Korean people through the “Association France – Coree” which is a Korean French community where we met a lot of very interesting people. There was A, a Korean woman, about 40 years old with her 2 children. Her husband had come to France to work as a nuclear engineer on a big international project. His job here lasted only 1 year but the family had moved all together. When A’s husband had to go back to Korea she refused to follow him and decided to stay in France with the children. The kids were studying in an international high school where all the lessons are both in French and English. I know very well this school, the monthly fees are 800 Euros per child (about 1000 dollars) and to be honest I don’t think it provides exceptionally good education. But all the kids studying there are children of nuclear engineers, Eurocpter engineers, high level civil servants… A told me she was very much concerned about her children’s education and that her husband and she had chosen to live separately to give the kids the best opportunities ever. She later confessed that her life in France was much more comfortable than in Korea as she did not have a good relationship with her mother in law.
A’s husband’s family were rich and they could perfectly afford to pay for the children’s school, A’s rent (1200 Euros for a 3 bedroom apartment ), her French language institute fees… Her husband comes back to France every 4 months. They look happy. I don’t know about him but she’s definitely happier here than in Korea. I told her what I knew about the school but she wouldn’t listen. She kept saying that it was much better than any school in Korea. I think she desperately wanted to avoid going back to Korea because of her mother in law. Now, a new nuclear project has started in the South of France and she’s hoping her husband will be able to come back.
I also met B, she’s a high level civil servant in Korea. She works for the ministry of Education. She was sent here to study Education sciences at my university. She came with her 13 year old daughter who goes to the same school as A’s children. Working for the ministry of education I guess she knows better than A about the reality of the Korean educational system. I met B many times as she asked me to teach her French and to proofread her dissertations.
In Korea she’s working on a programme to develop international schools outside of Seoul. Apparently they are aiming at decentralising education in parallel with the relocation of central administration in the Chungchangnam province. She confirmed the fact that Korean people make huge sacrifices for their children’s education and that more and more people consider living apart from their spouses as a middle term option.
But I think this is not specific to Korea. Indeed I‘ve seen it here. My brother is a police officer. He’s married, he has 2 children. Both his kids suffer from asthma. My brother was transferred to a police station in Paris but his wife and children did not follow him, they decided to stay in the South of France due to serious pollution problems in Paris. He therefore stayed alone there for 3 years. He rented a fat with one of his colleague and visited his family twice a month. My brother and sister in law were strongly criticised for this. My parents who are quite conservative thought that what they were doing was ridiculous, husband and wife should live together, my sister in law should have followed him bla, bla, bla… I think what my brother did was quite brave, he didn’t want to take any risk regarding his children’s health… I totally support him.
I think the traditional family profile is no longer applicable in our modern society. In France (and also in Korea) we face serious unemployment problems, people should be encouraged to shake the traditional frame in order to improve their lives.
When I was working in Korea in the English Hagwan one of my co-worker, C, was a “lonely goose”. He was from Australia, aged 51, his wife had stayed there but was actually planning to come over for work. C had been in Korea alone for 2 years but I don’t think he was feeling lonely, anyway he never looked like he was but that was maybe just an aspect of his personality. Korean people in the Hagwan where we worked were very friendly, we often had dinner all together… We were not especially encouraged to drink alcohol during these dinners so I think the alcohol problem the other “lonely geese / weekend commuters” are facing in Korea according to the several statements we can read, is just something cultural. We know that Korean men drink a lot whether they are away from their families or not. C’s wife came to visit C 3 times, she had been offered a teaching position by the Hagwan and was planning to accept it. Unfortunately C had an accident a couple of months before his wife’s planned arrival, he died from a cerebral haemorrhage. It was a shock for everyone of course but especially for his son who had seen his father for the last time 2 years before his death.
Now, my husband and I have decided to go back to Korea as my husband has been offered a great opportunity to open his own Taekwondo gym in Seoul. He’s living this coming September alone. Our daughter and I will join him in a year or 2 as I have to finalise my job here and he wants to take the time to find a nice apartment in a good area… I’m not worried about our daughter’s education, she will very probably go to Lycee francais – the French school in Seoul – where I have good chances to be employed. It is true that we consider our daughter’s well being (and not only education) as a top priority and this is also part of the reason why we are coming back to Korea. In France violence involving children is increasing, it is more and more difficult to trust the educational system, my husband being Asian is facing racism… Of course this is a decision that my family is accepting with great difficulties, we are facing criticism even from my in laws. They think it is a bad idea to live separately for such a long time. In fact, I know they don’t trust me, they are scared I change my mind and decide to stay in France. Also, even if they don’t say it, I think they are scared I might have an affair. I’ll leave them to their fear, our decision is taken. For financial reasons it is going to be difficult for my daughter and I to travel to Korea before our final trip, but thanks to the internet the separation will be quite bearable .
(James: I’ve rearranged the paragraphs and layout of this post to make it a little easier to read, but haven’t touched the content. Hope that was okay!)
I thought we only spent a year in australia?
Thanks for the reply…
Dating *is* an industry here! …which is what makes it all the more incredulous that the weekend marriages seem to be a bit of a sham.
There are times when a married couple may need to live apart – different residences, maybe even different countries (as has been pointed out above) – but not to the point that there are entire apartment buildings (oppistels) that seem specifically designed for the work-week-away-from-your-family.
Another point I had wanted to make when I commented before comes from my fiance, who is lucky enough to work with several fluent English speakers who are very open to answering his questions. They explained to him that “work = family”…. Spending long hours at the office is just not seen in the same way…. it’s not taking you away from your family, but giving you more time with your surrogate family – your co-workers.
Your blog is fascinating, and today is an “exam day”… think I know how I’ll be spending my afternoon….
Thanks for all the comments…quite a lot to discuss!
em the little sister, come to think of it, we did indeed spend only a year or so in Australia. I’ll rectify that heinous mistake immediately.
Virginia, thanks again the compliment, and I didn’t realize that officetels were designed with weekend couples in mind, although it makes sense. I’m actually quite jealous of all the newbie teachers living in them these days…they’re such cool bachelor-pads…especially as the worst room I’d ever lived in in my life awaited for me when I was a newbie myself. Shunting a replacement teacher in there later on led to him doing a midnight run after his first paycheck, although walking to the institute at 6:15 am in the snow every morning probably didn’t help either.
I hear you with the work=family thing too. Another reason I don’t like hearing that frequently drinking with colleagues late after work is some supposedly timeless, unchanging and somehow superior part of Korean culture is because you have little choice for drinking buddies and even friends if you’re quitting work at 8pm or later everyday. Much the same is found in those rare jobs in Western countries with similarly unsocial hours, such as waiters.
Alex, that comment must have taken a long time, and is very much appreciated. I’ll get onto it after a rather late lunch for me here.
9:10…Erk! Have to make that tomorrow morning I’m afraid, as the post I’m writing at the moment is taking a lot longer than expected sorry.
No Problem at all, I realise it is quite dense.
Alex,
thanks for your patience. Also, I hate to disappoint, but while I greatly enjoyed reading it I’m not sure what I can add to it really. A’s story does sound typically Korean, as I can understand a Korean woman especially preferring to live overseas, particularly if life in Korea meant living with her mother-in-law; strained relationships between them and often slave-like control over daughters-in-law is a staple of many dramas here, which have me screaming “Divorce Him! Move out! For God’s sake…!” on the very rare occasions that I watch them. But I don’t consider A and her husband “married” in anything but name anymore, and if fact they’d be considered legally separated by the NZ definition.
I sympathize with and understand all the situations you describe, especially that of yourself and your brother’s family. Personally I don’t consider either of you lonely goose families however, as you were/are all very much forced into them, unlike the effective divorces a lot of the relationships in the journal article appear to be. “B”, for instance, may well be making the right choice about her daughter’s education, but it’s definitely to the complete detriment of their family and married life, and in my own personal opinion almost never compensating. I’d rather home-school if it meant keeping the family together.
As I typed that last sentence I was reminded of an anecdote I wanted to include in the post but forgot. 4 years ago I was talking to a fluent, middle-aged male student of mine 1 on 1 because the other students in the class hadn’t turned up. He was an intelligent and friendly man, interesting to talk to, and at one point he mentioned that he paid a not inconsiderable amount of money each month to an education company for one of their teachers to call his 15 year-old son 3 times a week and chat to him in English for 10 minutes. When I (naively) asked why he didn’t save his money and he talk to his son instead…he reacted like I was trying to explain homosexuality or something. He literally couldn’t get his head around the concept, and visibly struggled to understand why on Earth any man would want to do it…
*Sigh* Is it any wonder with dads like that that so many of them are prepared to spend years away from their children?
My husband is getting very nervous as his departure is due soon, I don’t know if I should be very happy about this but he told me that it’s going to be much more difficult for him not to see our daughter than not to see me…^^
I understand his stress and we are doing everything we can to organise everything properly so that the separation will be the shortest possible. Also I’ll have to take our daughter to special Korean classes because otherwise I’m scared she’ll forget the language and won’t be able to communicate with her father once in Seoul. They have always been very close to each other, when she was a baby he was the one getting up in the middle of the night… he’s always playing with her.
I cannot understand the relationship between your student and his father. I think it’s too easy to blame this kind of attitude on culture. I’ve seen Korean men (other than my husband) caring a lot for their children and being very close to them, and I’ve also seen French and English men not giving a shit.
Also, people moving abroad for their children’s education should ask themselves a few questions, it seems to me that some of them are taking their decision a bit too lightly, as if it was fashionable to send your kids abroad. Of course if it is done properly it can only be beneficial but let me tell you a story – another one^^.
At the last meeting of our French Korean committee I met a Korean teenager who could speak American English like a native speaker but could not speak Korean better than a 5 year old child. I spoke to him a lot because both of us had the same problem: our Korean was just insufficient to be able to take part to any conversations that were going on. And I was more affected than him about this, he didn’t seem to care whether he could understand his own language or not. He’s the son of a nuclear engineer, he has already spent 12 years of his short life in the US and he’s clearly not interesting about Korea, Koreans and Korean language. I’ve asked him what his plans were for the near future, he answered that he’ll go study in New York because he felt it would be too difficult for him to try catch up on the language if he went to a Korean university. He also mentioned that he wanted to avoid doing his military service in Korea, so being abroad would be more convenient. What a pity!!
My next question was why he did not speak any Korean at home with his parents, his answer was that they did not seem to think it was necessary for him to speak Korean to have a bright future. Again, what a shame!! Then what about communicating with the rest of his family (grandparents, cousins…), opening his mind to another language, culture… Same answer, why should I bother, if my English’s good I’ll have a good job, lots of money and I’m not even particularly attracted to Asia girls. Woaw! And his parents were very proud of what they were doing.
I was flabbergasted and disgusted at the same time. Some people are so focused on their kids’ education that they actually forget to give them any. What about teaching them to open their mind, tolerance, curiosity about the world, respect and self-respect… My daughter might not go to Oxford or Yale but at least I’ll make sure she knows what is important in life: loving and caring for others.
Sorry, this is a long comment again, I’ll try to make shorter answers next time :)
Thanks again Alex, and no need to apologize for the long comments: they’re very interesting, I read all of them, and I’m looking forward to hearing about the move later on. I apologize if I’m too busy and/or tired to reply straight away.
As I type this I must pack up this laptop before heading home from work, but just a quick note on this comment:
I cannot understand the relationship between your student and his father. I think it’s too easy to blame this kind of attitude on culture. I’ve seen Korean men (other than my husband) caring a lot for their children and being very close to them, and I’ve also seen French and English men not giving a shit.
I think you mean between my student and his son, but you’re quite right, it is too easy to blame it on culture, and I’m often guilty of doing that. I too have met and seen many caring, loving Korean fathers that would easily put many of their Western counterparts to shame.
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FYI–The Korean word for part time work is probably a loan word from Japanese (I’m sure you’re aware of many more), arubaito (アルバイト) which they took from German, I believe in the late 19th century, but don’t hold me to that. I find it relatively unlikely that both Japan and Korea independently came upon this loan word, but I could be wrong.
Matthew,
I’m not sure how that’s related to the post topic exactly, but still, thanks for passing it on! And actually, I must confess I’ve always been curious by the origins of the Korean word “ara-ba-ee-tuh” (아르바이트) – for those readers that don’t know, it’s from the German verb “arbeit” meaning “to work” – making sure to discuss it with a German-Korean couple that are friends of my wife and I. The jury’s definitely still out, but personally I think it’s much more likely to come from the tens of thousands of Korean nurses and miners who went to work in Germany for several years in the 1960s for much needed remittances and foreign-exchange. I believe a similar wave of Japanese workers preceded them, and so the word may well have come from Japanese into Korean via that route, and at a time when Koreans were already very receptive to such a loanword, but I still think that it was more likely to have arisen independently in both countries – recall that relations between the two weren’t normalized until…er…1963, and there’s still some restrictions on cultural imports from Japan even today!
nothing special to add but, as always, I love your blog. I always end up getting sucked in by all the links and then end up spending several hours scouring your writings :)
I know that everyone who reads your posts appreciates the depth and insight.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
I’ve read a number of your articles but this is my first time commenting, mostly because this article irritated me so much I felt I have to comment.
Though most of your articles are informative and well-researched, I can’t help but sense the bias of a bitter expat ooze from your articles, and this one is one of the most blatant. If you’re going to talk about social issues of a country not your own, it wouldn’t hurt to be a bit more neutral. Criticizing a culture as an outsider (and no matter how many years you’ve lived there, you weren’t raised there; you’re an outsider) just makes you look incredibly judgmental and ethnocentric. Saying flat out “Korean parents view of education is fucked up” is not acceptable in a serious article if you want me to take your article without about fifty grains of salt, not to mention your comparison to “sensible Western parents” in your education-related article, implying that all Korean parents are crazy by comparison.
And this: “parents would rather send their kids to after-school institutes all night rather than spending time with them; adults seem to have an excessive, almost Freudian attachment to their mothers” …. reeks so hard of judgment and disdain for Koreans. I was really disgusted by your writing in this post.
I don’t doubt that the social issues you write about are real. I’m just asking you to think about your tone and your attitude towards Korean culture and how you portray it. I ran into similar attitudes while I was in in Japan towards Japanese and I avoid people who displayed it very quickly as the sign of a negative and judgmental person.
And the nail in the coffin is that you can’t even speak Korean fluently: look, I understand you’re busy with work and your family, but I don’t know how you can expect to talk about Korean social issues with any kind of conviction or validity when you can’t even communicate fully with the majority of the Korean populace.
Agh, it just reeks of the worst kind of Western entitlement.
Dear Jennifer,
thank you for your delightful comment. It always warms my heart to hear from someone who starts by effectively telling me that they’ll only ever contact me to complain.
If I may beg to differ on some aspects of your otherwise profound analysis of my 2500 word post however:
I do agree that, unfortunately, the vast majority of Koreans will indeed always consider me as an outsider. I wonder on what basis you do so yourself however, especially considering the fact that: I’ve lived here 11 years; have married a local; have two children that were born here; am a permanent resident; and would seriously consider getting citizenship were it not having to give up my foreign passport, thereby ensuring that I could no longer work at my present job, let alone deny opportunities to my wife and children that are very eagerly sought after by many Koreans.
Indeed, perhaps Korea may well be “my own” country by now? I’ve got far more of a personal investment here than in England, New Zealand, or Australia, where I have also lived. But regardless, how come Koreans are allowed to criticize Korea, but if I do the same then I just end up looking “incredibly judgmental and ethnocentric”? Perhaps I should just shut up then?
One wonders what the point of Korean fluency would be in that case, but we’ll get to that.
Oh, I think it’s quite apt myself, and in the context in which it’s given is not at all out of place. Granted, I did generalize too much in the 3 year-old education-related article, and would write it a little differently if I did so today, but nevertheless the timetables I provide there speak for themselves, as I said in a recent addition at the end of it.
Moreover, I will maintain to my dying days that when the vast majority of Korean parents think that 5-6 hours of sleep for 13 year-olds is either acceptable and/or an effective method of studying, then Korean parents’ view of education is indeed fucked up. No, not “misguided”, not “flawed”, nor “understandable,” given the importance of going to a SKY university, but Completely. Fucked. Up.
But by all means, do try to persuade people that levels of sleep deprivation that stunt children’s mental and physical development is acceptable. Lots of luck.
The first point is based on my own experience of talking to Korean parents for 11 years, which I’m curious as to if you’ve ever done so yourself, and the latter has been made by so many Koreans themselves in books on Korean social issues that I’d wager you’ve never actually opened one of those either.
It sounds to me like you’re very much conflating me with all those fresh-off-the-plane expats in Japanese bars, and it behooves you to not be so negative and judgmental yourself.
On what basis do you make that assumption? Hey, I have admitted elsewhere that my Korean ability has deteriorated since my first (and especially my second) child was born, but I used to talk in Korean with Koreans on these issues all the time before then, and now that family life has settled down a bit then I’m trying very hard to get back to my former level. Indeed, the latest post up as I type this is a song translation, and every 3rd or 4th post these days is a translation of a song or news article, so you’ll forgive me if I think you’re actually largely responding to your stereotype of Westerners in Asia again rather than myself.
Well it would, given how much you’re projecting into it.
Goodbye from someone who considers Korea home, and who doesn’t need your permission to have opinions about it.
Look, James, I have extremely enjoyed reading your blog so far (I’ve done hardly anything else all day) and I generally agree with you, I have to say that you will never be “korean”. You still have had a deciding part of your formation outside. You may understand koreans but you are different from them. It’s your home- of course, but still.
Okay, feel free to disregard this comment as subjective- ’cause it is- but I would like you to at least consider what I say (I am definitely not trying to put you down nor am I agreeing with Jennifer).
My dad has lived in Latin America for the past 19 years (with an exception of a couple years in between) and has now received citizenship in the country we have lived in for the past 7 years and from where my mom is from. He is still, decidedly, Canadian. Oh, he has gotten used to this culture and is quite more latin than others, but he still is Canadian. How to explain-for example, he is not as crazy as us. He is really impatient while I have to say people in our country are laid back (it frustrates me to no end). He manages his and others’ time well, which my mom struggles with and admires him for (and if you know anything about Latin America you know that if you throw a party at 7 you tell everyone it starts at 6). Obviously these are generalizations of both cultures, but I still think they can apply.
Also, from what I’ve read in your blog, sorry, but you don’t really seem Korean :/ (then again I’m not myself so I may not be the best judge)
Can I ask you a question: what do you like about Korea? (I’m honestly curious-so far I’ve only seen you write about it’s problems, which is very well I may add.)
I respect you and like you, so hopefully you won’t read this comment in too bad light (and honestly I’m positively frightened at what you’ll reply, if that hasn’t show enough already ^^’)
Sorry, the first line there should read “Look, James, I have extremely enjoyed reading your blog so far (I’ve done hardly anything else all day) and I generally agree with you, BUT I have to say that you will never be “korean””
Thanks for your comment, and I appreciate the spirit in which it was given. And I’m actually in full agreement with you that I’m not and never will be (accepted as) Korean, although I admit that that message isn’t very clear in my reply to Jennifer a couple of years ago. It’s just that with her, and hundreds of commenters like her that I’ve encountered over the years, mentioning that I’m simply an “outsider” in an accusatory tone is just another way of — without actually knowing anything whatsoever about me — accusing me of being ignorant of it; and/or that my criticisms of it are invalid because, as an outsider, they feel I don’t even have a right to criticize it at all. Moreover, as you might imagine with people who rely on ad hominem attacks, any specific, evidence-back criticisms of what I say are always glaring for their absence.
I can’t really respond to people who effectively feel I have no right to speak (and, frankly, these days I don’t respond to people like Jennifer at all), but I can at least demonstrate that I probably know more about Korea than they think. Hence my pointing out how much Korea is definitely my home now and has been for a long time…regardless how accepted by native Koreans I am (or not).
Anyway, I don’t have have time to elaborate on the numerous things I like about Korea sorry — suffice to say, if I didn’t like the place, I would have left years ago. And I do admit that despite that, I do seem to focus on Korea’s problems nonetheless (although that’s kind of inevitable with a blog that looks at social issues and so on.) But I’m much much better than I was when I wrote my reply to Jennifer in 2010 (let alone when this post was written in 2008!) and indeed out of my last 10 posts as I type this (not counting Korean Gender Readers) 1 has been a largely neutral one on historical US parallels to Korea’s “alphabetization craze,” and 4 have been positive, singing the praises of: a recent SNL Korea skit on cosmetic surgery, my daughters dancing to K-pop, a celebrity standing up for her animal-rights beliefs, and a groundbreaking song.
So, although I certainly was only doom and gloom for a long time, I don’t think it’s fair to say that about me now! :)
Yes, I must read those posts- you have so many!
I was asking because I want to go study in Korea and maybe find someone to eventually settle down with there, but while I know every country has it’s problems you made Korea sound downright miserable (which I know is not your intention) in many of your posts and I want to know I can find enough peers and friends to share values with, because sadly it’s hard for me in my own country.
Anyways, thank you for taking the time to reply and I understand your response to Jennifer, it really is hard to answer to people like that. I will now go read those positive/neutral posts! :D
I was surfing the web looking for information about how the weekend couple phenomena affect children. It was an interesting beginning to the conversation but I do wish it was more detailed. Perhaps, you have done a follow-up? Please let me know.
I wanted to share with you and others my story – especially, those who think you are just bashing Koreans. I am a Korean-American female in my late 30s. I am married and have daughter. I was in a stable and prestigious professional job in the United States when my husband got the chance to teach at a university in Korea. I struggled with the decision to stay or accompany him…eventually, I chose to accompany him to Korea and quit my job. My old bosses and my mentors in the States all supported my decision – across the board and regardless of nationality or age group.
It was exactly the opposite reaction with most of the Koreans that I met in Korea. From family to relatives to people who were in my professional field, I was met with skepticism and disbelief. No one could understand how I could give up my professional career just to come to Korea and keep my family together. They doubted my abilities because they believed I came here because I just couldn’t cut it in my previous job.
I faced this skepticism for over 2 years. This past year, when I got a “real job,” related to my professional field, my husband and I were forced to be a weekend couple. I could not bring my daughter with me, so she is living with my husband. No one said, “Why would you do that?” Instead, everyone is just concerned because my daughter is not living with her mom, instead living with her dad. No one questions that two people who have “good” jobs (meaning, jobs with a certain level of status in Korean society) should make any and all sacrifices to keep those jobs, even if it means breaking up the family.
These three years in Korea have been eye-openers for me. Coming from California, I have seen many many moms with children living apart from their fathers for decades. I can see now why, for the most part, these moms and children seemed so “foreign” to me, growing up and even today.
Some of these children turn out just fine, but many others have difficulties in their lives, especially as adults. MANY of these children and their mothers have absolutely no real regard nor serious interest in the communities where they are residing. Many live a very narrow, selfish existence which induces the production of children who grow up to be selfish, self-centered adults, who have an inability to think of the community beyond their own small families. I blame socio-economic structure but also blame the parents themselves – you can only blame the circumstances in which you live so much…at some points, parents have to be parents and must put the entire welfare of their children – not just book learning – first.
BTW, I have rendered my resignation in order to live together with my family full time again. Monetarily, it might be tight, but in terms of my family’s overall happiness, this is definitely the best decision. We are all counting down the days.
Just about to turn off the computer and go to bed sorry, but just a quick note to say thanks very much for the long and thoughtful comment, and do you mind if I copy and paste it into a new post? That way, many more people will read it, and it will hopefully spark a conversation on the subject, rather than just languishing here in a very old post that – frankly – very few people will ever read. Thanks!