Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Francis-Pax]

I would like to have a discussion with all of you who have a Korean spouse. Aside from the usual positive and negative things that exist in any marriage, what kinds of special 'KOREAN' things make your marriage relationship better or worse?

[Cheonmunka]

I don't know that there are any.

[meangradin]

the inexhaustable amount of kimchi my mother in law provides us, is both good and bad.

come on, were you really expecting a serious response to this ill conceived question

[Jeff's Cigarettes]

Dodging spit at the dinner table. Ubiquitous farting...etc

[itaewonguy]

take the bus or subway sometime and look around! those are your inlaws!

[richardlang]

I'm not married, but I think my woman has incredible style sense.

[martinpil]

why did you maary them? were they HOT?

[Faunaki]

[Viaje]

A Korean woman once told me here, in the US, that in her culture she is expected to submit to the wishes of her mother-in-law, and she expressed that this made her very unhappy. Her mother-inlaw happened to be a very difficult inidividual, and she relished the fact that her daughter-inlaw was supposed to obey her wishes. I'm sure there is a lot of variation, but this woman expressed that she felt that she had to submit to both her husband and his mother, and that this made her really question whether she wanted to be married to this man.

[definitely maybe]

not all korean in-laws shove, spit/fart in public, or eat trash. either that or i guess i'm very lucky. i suspect that having a child here can be tough on the foreign half though. i've heard about constantly high temperatures in apartments and miyeok gook everyday, and i'm not sure i can handle that!

[Fredbob]

ON THE POSITIVE
I don't think there is anything positive about marrying a Korean woman, as opposed to any other woman from a different culture. But, I do think that multicultural relationships have benefits.

When you are involved in a bi/multi cultural relationship, especially when there are language problems involved, I think you learn one thing very early, PICK YOUR BATTLES, most couples, especially during the first years of marriage, fight over very trivial things, it's easy to just get mad and fight instead of talk, that's not so easy if you know that if either of you starts going off, talking at full speed, speaking slang, neither of you is going to understand each other.

DON'T ASSUME, we all know what that does. Being in this kind of relationship forces you to ask questions, questions that you might not ask, but probably should. If you think you know exactly what your significant other means without any clarification or reflection, you may feel like you are soul mates, but, eventually that often spells disaster. Men and Women often speak two different languages, most people with at least a year or two of dating experience know that, but many people end up in divorce court after a few years because they stop asking questions. I cannot assume my wife's reactions to things, nor can she assume mine and really, people shouldn't, because people change over time. In a nutshell, being in this kind of relationship forces you to develop productive communication patterns which many couples fail to develop, or only develop when them come close to divorce.

Kids, I think being bi/multicultural, with the proper emotional support growing up, is a positive, I've met a fair number of people from this group who were lost, but I've also met a disproportionate number of people who became extremely well actualized individuals, simply because, they could never really pretend they were completely normal, they could never completely conform, they were forced to go through soul searching and find themselves, because they could never hide the fact that they were in some way different. THERE WAS A RANT SECTION BUT, dave's bumped me off and I lost that half of the thread. I'll summarize,

THE MOST NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT BEING MARRIED TO A KOREAN HAVE TO DO WITH BEING MARRIED TO A KOREAN WOMAN IN KOREA! THERE ARE MANY AND THEY DON'T ALL HAVE TO DO WITH KOREAN, SOME OF THEM HAVE TO DO WITH EX-PATS (But most of those are more easily avoided).

But, trying to be positive about it, I think that many people will accept that living here as a whitey is difficult, many people feel that facing the adversity helps them grow as people. Being married to a Korean woman, often just dating them, gives you both common and plentiful obstacles, negative experiences and enemies. That can bring people closer together, think of it as the Romeo and Juliet syndrome. Why fight each other when there is so much ignorance, racism and general stupidity to fight against.

The one thing I will mention is that I think my daughter would suffer growing up here, you can be a Korean American in America (individuals generally have to define for themselves what that means), but, in Korea, American Koreans are generally not accepted and she will not likely have an impact on that (If she truly somehow became Korean, she would have to reject herself as Korean, by virtue of what the definition (for Koreans) of being Korean is.) I don't think that's going to change any time soon. For good or bad, I wish she could have an option. THAT LAST PART IS DIFFICULT TO WRAP THE MIND AROUND, maybe I'll try to rephrase it later.

[Francis-Pax]

[Fredbob]

I think I can try to sum it up for the OP.
Most people who are married to someone from a different race or culture think primarily in terms of individuals, if we didn't we probably would not have gotten involved in the relationships we are in. Someone's nationality or ethnicity is just an aspect of their uniqueness and, often, not a particularly interesting one (on a day to day basis, the fact that my wife is Korean just doesn't come up much). People like that will generally read your post and recognize that, in terms of priorities, race is much more important to you then it is to us. It smells, at worst, vaguely racist and, at best, an attempt at bolstering nationalist pride, an excuse for Koreans to say, see, Koreans are the best. The question suggests that first my wife is Korean, then a woman, then my wife, then an individual. That's just not the way many of us think. The problem is your question, IMHO. In general, Western guys just don't think of their wives the same way Korean seem to, so the question seems a little ?something?

The reason you are getting so many wiseaxx comments and responses is because the question itself seems a little ignorant or a little racist, or just stupid. It could even be offensive on some levels because it suggests that my wife's identity is primarily derived from the fact that she is a Korean married to a white American when, in fact, she is much more complicated and unique than that, first she is her, a unique individual. Finally, at the very least, its a question many guys get here on at least a weekly basis (regarding wives and girlfriends), so it gets old. Most of us believe, that Koreans expect some kind of compliment, I'm so lucky my wife is Korean, they are so much better than X girls. I've tested that response, if I give the answer above, I get blank stares from even very advanced students. If I give the, "Korean wives are the best" answer, I'm everyone's favorite white boy.

Just to clarify, I'M NOT CALLING THE OP A RACIST, don't even bother trying that with me, I'll just ignore it.

[Horangi Munshin]

[bassexpander]

Well, the excess of heat can be one nice thing about living in an apartment complex...

The neighbors downstairs must cook themselves, because we have left the floor heating off most of the week and temps were between 20 and 23 at all times! Granted, it hasn't been too cold of a week, but we're pretty happy because we were concerned about the cost of heating this big place. If this keeps up, it won't cost us much of anything.