Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Overseas childbirth
In recent years, the trend of traveling great distances, often to unfamiliar lands, has caught on like wildfire among Korea's pregnant moms. So much so that Koreans even coined the phrase "wonjeong chulsan," or "childbirth expedition" while opening up a vast new market where skyrocketing demands of education-zealous parents are being met by heated competition among travel agencies specializing "birth-tour packages" to western countries that offer citizenship to any child born on their soil.

Overseas childbirth today is no longer an option tailored just for the rich, as industry competitors are cutting back costs and making it more "affordable" to draw parents-to-be at all social levels.

An English-speaking country is key in the overseas expeditions, which have spread unnoticeably but significantly and now range widely to include the lower-income bracket to the upper 5 percent.

The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are among the most favored countries by pregnant women who believe that acquiring citizenship there for their child will guarantee entry into a prestigious university, exemption from military service, and a shot at a better life. "My husband and I decided to have the baby in the United States if it was a boy, because we don't want him to have to suffer in a hellish education system or go serve in the military when there is so much more he could be doing," Oh told The Korea Herald holding her 4-month old son Jae-min, technically an American citizen.

According to a leading travel agency, some 3,000 maternity trips were estimated in 2001, 5,000 in 2002, 7,000 in 2003, and peaked to nearly 10,000 last year.

Countries such as Canada and Australia that welcome Korean immigration are more than happy with the idea of Koreans on "childbirth packages," with the extra money it automatically draws in. Some Canadian officials have even publicly said, "It is a social issue for Korea to deal with among themselves and we shouldn't be getting involved to try to stop it."
by Choi Soung-ah, Korea Herald (March 24, 2005)
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/03/24/200503240032.asp

[peppermint]

I figure it says they don't want their boys to serve in the military.

[Real Reality]

So, they are not patriotic and loyal to Korea?

[Derrek]

I saw some music video... help me out with who... where the story line was about Americans buying babies to smuggle them out of Korea.

The video didn't bash, in writing, any Koreans who were doing the selling. It was all against the "evil" Americans. It was obviously filmed in Canada, as the boats all had "Vancouver" printed on the back of them. It was supposed to appear as if it had been filmed in LA or someplace. There were FBI agents all around, people getting killed by mob people... and American soldier getting his head blown off... couldn't figure it out, and had to move on. It was some male Korean pop-star/actor as the lead.

The whole thing seemed to, in true Korean fashion, blame the entire situation of overseas adoptions on "evil foreigners out to snatch our babies."

The sad thing is that, as we all know, most of these babies would have ended up in orphanages here and treated like crap by the Korean population at large.

Irony.

[tzechuk]

People in Hong Kong have been doing it for years. It's only recently that Koreans have started doing this. It's quite sad to think that they have to go overseas to give birth because they don't want their kids to go to the military.

My husband also told me to either go to Hong Kong or England to give birth, whichever I wanted, but I said no. Who knows what will happen in 20 years time (well, I know, we will be back in Europe but that's beside the point)? I mean, may be the law will be changed by them, may be kids won't be forced to go to the military.... might be wishful thinking but things change so fast these days, who knows what will happen?

[Ya-ta Boy]

If you have talked to young Korean men, you've heard many of them complain that the 26 months they spend in the military is wasted time. They feel they could be studying and getting on with their careers instead of doing guard duty or whatever. Given that most don't feel the North is going to attack, they don't feel a patriotic duty to protect the country.

With that as background, I think you can take what the women in the report said at face value. They want to spare their sons the wasted time in the military. On top of that, they don't like the lifestyle kids growing up in Korea have, going to hakwons after school and studying till 2 am every night.

With foreign citizenship, the boys can have the option of entering a foreign university and skipping the unnecessary military service.

The advantages are obvious: a fluent English speaking employee with a degree from a foreign university who is two years ahead in seniority at his company. A pretty good leg up in a highly competitive country like Korea.

[dogbert]

[Leslie Cheswyck]

[tommynomad]

[Roch]

[quote="tzechuk"]People in Hong Kong have been doing it for years. It's only recently that Koreans have started doing this. It's quite sad to think that they have to go overseas to give birth because they don't want their kids to go to the military.

Ms.:

Korean women have been doing this for way more than, um, just since recently.

At least ten of my sixteen year old students at Mapo Ewha A.L.S. way back in Spring, 2001, bragged about being "Made in U.S.A. Babies." Indeed, I was at a loss for all the user kids I met between 10/2000 and 05/2002 in Seoul. One of these days, I'll post a letter about all of the gals and guys in their early thirties whose parents shamelessly used the tax payers of certain nations for the free benefits in doing so.

Also, ALL of my Korean friends at the Univ. of Toronto (St. George Campus) claimed that their parents exploited Canada not as a place to embrace for the rest of their lives, but as a place to exploit for free public education until one of the universities accepted them as a "Real Canadian" and made them merely pay the same rate as the rest of the Home Grown Canuck kids in the program. A neat little benefit for the USER/Corrupt-Minded Korean parents courtesy of tax payers in Canada, eh?

[Intrepid]

I think it's interesting that while the travel agencies have to offer fully Koreanized service in the US, the writer makes the unsupported inference that these kids will be native speakers of English. Some magic about the passport document itself imparting English ability? I've met many "made in USA babies" and naturalized US citizens who couldn't speak a lick of English.

[dogbert]

[Swiss James]

[Mashimaro]

[chotaerang]

.[/quote]
Unless of course--like me--you see patriotism as an anachronism and a character flaw.[/quote]

Well said.