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fezmond
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
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 Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 2:29 am Post subject: Bringing wife/fiancee to the UK? |
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Can anyone post about their experiences bringing their korean wife/fiancee/gf to the UK?
We plan to head over in 2012 and hopefully the economy will have recovered a little by then. I don't really care what job I find, though I'm worried about finding jobs for her (despite the fact she's fluent in English).
Also, anyone have any major problems with their spouse adjusting to all the differences - food, culture, etc?
cheers |
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sheriffadam
Joined: 10 May 2010
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 4:00 am Post subject: |
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Mine stayed with me for 6 months earlier this year in Nottingham, was only a long holiday for her so no fuss about work and didn't have to worry making friends and that, but: Not to make it sound boring but she enjoyed watching programs on TV such as Friends, South Park, Americas Next Top Bimbo where she practised english or just couldn't watch them in Korea.
There are a few Asian supermarkets in Nottingham where we could buy her supplies from, including oddly the uni operated minimart just 2 minutes from our house, shinramyun jappaghetti few sweets there.
We bought a rice cooker for christmas and after that we were all set!
Long term I'd think about moving nearer one of the established Korean community's in the UK. But know thats a double edges sword really! |
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alistaircandlin
Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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Settling in was difficult for my wife. I was out at work every day and in my first year as a newly qualified teacher, which meant I was very busy evenings and weekends. This meant that my wife was stuck at home a lot.
After some time though we sent letters to every primary school in the area, to ask if she could volunteer as an assistant. This was better - my wife's major is education, so she was interested to see how British schools compared to Korean ones. She enjoyed the time she spent in primary schools but even so it was still frustrating - she was volunteering as a teaching assistant when over here she can work as a teacher. We applied for teaching assistant positions and jobs working in kindergartens but had no joy. After a while this just became disheartening - I don't think she was prepared for the amount of applications you have to do in the UK to get a job, and the early childhood field is competitive.
After a year volunteering in schools she decided she wanted to get any kind of job and, against my advice, even applied to work at McDonald's, which she didn't get. She ended up working part time in Chinese restaurants. I think this kind of thing is okay for a teenager or a student, but for a graduate with a lot of experience it is less than ideal.
She also decided to spend the second year concentrating on improving her English, so she enrolled on Ielts, GCSE and other courses at the local colleges. She definitely felt better when she was occupied in studying - but having to do unskilled work was just depressing.
Strangely, it was me who eventually talked my wife into moving back to Korea. She wanted to stay in England until she had achieved something more - either qualified UK teacher status or an MA in TESOL. I think I was just bored with England though and wanted to move again - also teaching can be a very stressful job over there. I knew that we would be able to save money and I would have an easier time of it in Seoul.
For me, I'm glad we made the move back to Korea for various reasons. For my wife though, I'm not sure. I asked her last night if she wanted to move back to England and she said no, primarily because it is too expensive. But she's currently working in a Hagwon over here, and whereas before this was something she dealt with, now she has clearly had enough: she's overworked and tired all the time. She's decided to take the exams to qualify as a public school teacher over here, which will be better. But it's a big if: it is hugely competitive to get in.
So, to sum all that up, I think it depends on the job situation. Does your wife has some kind of specialism, where she will walk into a good job in England? Is she happy to stay at home and be a housewife? If not she should be prepared to start from scratch and work her way up. I would guess that if we'd stayed in the UK it would have been at least five years before my wife could work as a qualified UK teacher. |
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fezmond
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 12:50 am Post subject: |
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cheers for the replies guys.
we're not actually married yet, but it isn't far off.
she is an education major and a hagwon teacher over here in seoul so she doesn't have any specific skill set to really offer in the uk. that's my biggest worry. she said that she'd take any job, but as you said alistaircandlin - it's not ideal for an experience graduate to work as a waitress or a biscuit factory etc...
i'm unsure of where there are decent sized korean communities in the uk outside of london and (apparently) manchester. definately none in wales that i can think of. anyone know?
in answer to your questions - she wouldn't be too happy being at home all day with little else to do but study and clean, plus i'm not sure we'd have enough money to support outselves living in somewhere like london/bristol etc. plus, it'd only be for 2 years (or so we're thinking), so there wouldn't be any chance to get qualified as a teacher in the uk and work her way up.
cheers for the advice though, have a good xmas |
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nobbyken
Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Location: Yongin ^^
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 1:31 am Post subject: |
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You'll need to arrange a visa prior departing Korea, if you want to stay more than 6 months.
Check out the Border Agency website: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/partnersandfamilies/partners/
It may be easy to enter a classroom as a classroom assistant, but as a teacher may be very difficult. There are many foreigners in the UK these days and some kids even need to learn English there. Asian people may be better to teach Asian kids as they understand the cultures, but there may even be Korean kids who need to talk to someone in Korean.
How about doing home-stay to earn money while helping a Korean kid have a good study experience in the UK? |
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sheriffadam
Joined: 10 May 2010
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 2:55 am Post subject: |
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| nobbyken wrote: |
How about doing home-stay to earn money while helping a Korean kid have a good study experience in the UK? |
Is there seriously money in that? |
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debb199
Joined: 15 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 3:39 am Post subject: |
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| fezmond wrote: |
i'm unsure of where there are decent sized korean communities in the uk outside of london and (apparently) manchester. definately none in wales that i can think of. anyone know?
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I don't know whether there is a Korean community in Wales, but there is a Korean restaurant inbetween Cardiff and Newport which has always been full of Koreans when I've been there. It's a hotel as well though, so it may just be that every Korean person who visits the area ends up staying there! |
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blm
Joined: 11 Nov 2010
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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| alistaircandlin wrote: |
She also decided to spend the second year concentrating on improving her English, so she enrolled on Ielts, GCSE and other courses at the local colleges. She definitely felt better when she was occupied in studying -
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My situation is a little different in that I emt my wife outside of Korea but a lot of what you say rings familiar to me. Until doing an english course my wifes friends were all Korean and I was worried she would get home sick. Doing a course helped a lot because there were only a handful of Koreans and she soon made friends with a lot of other women in similar circumstances and made a lot of non Korean friends. |
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alistaircandlin
Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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| blm wrote: |
Doing a course helped a lot because there were only a handful of Koreans and she soon made friends with a lot of other women in similar circumstances and made a lot of non Korean friends. |
My wife also said that one of the things she does like about the UK is that she can talk to people of different ages and backgrounds in a familiar way without having to worry about saying the right thing.
Sorry for the sweeping generalisation here but I think that in Korea, if an older person is talking, the younger people should just nod and listen. They don't fully interject with their own thoughts or opinions. My wife joined this discussion group in England and really loved being able to talk freely. She feels the same about talking to my parents, although it freaked her out to call them by their first names to begin with.
I know this Korean / American couple who have had a similar experience living in the States. The woman, who is Korean, feels she is able to find her identity and learn about who she is as an individual in America. She felt stifled in some way by Korean society. I wonder though, if this is not particular to Koreans who move to the West but is actually just a kind of elated feeling one has when living in another culture for the first time. I remember a similar feeling when I first travelled round India at 21: a kind of adrenaline-fueled intensity as if I was wired on caffeine, a feeling of hyper-awareness that made every little event seem infused with meaning. Maybe it's just that moving to a new place severs through your habitual thought patterns and makes you feel free.
I'm still not sure about this idea that Younger Koreans are confined by the old Confucian models of behaviour, however; I sometimes ask if it is not just down to an individual's personality; if someone is more outgoing, he can speak up for himself. But many Korean people I've known have expressed a similar sense of constriction because of having to speak or act in a certain way. To return to the topic, my wife felt that not having to adhere to this proscribed system of behaviour was one of the positives about living in England: she could talk to anyone, of any age, as if she was talking to her best friend. She particularly enjoyed talking to really old British people, and I know that they always appreciated spending time with her. I'm suggesting that it might not necessarily be better to be part of a Korean expat community; it could mean she has, in effect, never moved away, and will not have that sense of being somewhere new and seeing things differently. This young Japanese guy, who did a homestay at my mum's place in Lancashire once, burst into tears when he found out there was another, older Japanese guy living there too. He felt upset for precisely the reason I've mentioned - he knew he would have to be submissive and deferential; this was the very thing he was running from.
Nobby - I'm not sure it is always easy to get a job as a teaching assistant in the UK. It depends on the area you live in, the demographic of the school's intake and whether it is primary or secondary. It's not so hard to get a post in a secondary school but primary is very competitive and frustratingly difficult to get into, she would probably have to work as a volunteer - I believe that's how most people get into it.
I don't think there are any decent sized Korean communities other than New Malden. There are one or two restaurants in Manchester, but I don't think there is a sizeable community of people. Bournemouth and Brighton are quite popular with Korean people though - there might be small communities there.
I think another positive about the UK is that in the big cities it is quite multicultural; at any rate it is less homogeneous than Korea. I would suggest that this is one thing we can take advantage of. Although we only lived in a small town my wife was still able to meet people from different countries and really valued this: through studying English she became friends with people from various places in Europe and the Middle-East; I know she found her Islamic friends particularly welcoming and hospitable. |
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sheriffadam
Joined: 10 May 2010
Location: Busan
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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The being free really is a big deal. I met my now wife in Oz, we plan to move back there for the space/freedom/Big V8's... 
She doesn't like Korea sometimes, we all know why! |
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fezmond
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 4:53 am Post subject: |
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| debb199 wrote: |
| fezmond wrote: |
i'm unsure of where there are decent sized korean communities in the uk outside of london and (apparently) manchester. definately none in wales that i can think of. anyone know?
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I don't know whether there is a Korean community in Wales, but there is a Korean restaurant inbetween Cardiff and Newport which has always been full of Koreans when I've been there. It's a hotel as well though, so it may just be that every Korean person who visits the area ends up staying there! |
is that the seoul house at st. mellons?
never even knew it existed til you mentioned it. cheers |
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debb199
Joined: 15 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| fezmond wrote: |
is that the seoul house at st. mellons?
never even knew it existed til you mentioned it. cheers |
That's the one - it's a bit out of the way, but worth it for a Korean food fix. It's just off the A48 inbetween Cardiff and Newport. |
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ticktocktocktick
Joined: 31 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:01 pm Post subject: |
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| I took my soon to be wife to the UK about a year ago, and she wasn't too keen. She didn't like the food, the prices, and how pretty much everything closes by 5.30. I'm from just outside Manchester, so we went to the Korean supermarket there, which is tiny, but they do have homemade kimchi. I think the Korean community in Manchester is mostly students. Somewhere near Newport is a huge LG factory, that's why there's Koreans in that area. We're planning to stay in Korea for a while, but we have talked about going to the UK eventually, but I wonder how she'll handle it. |
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sheriffadam
Joined: 10 May 2010
Location: Busan
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ticktocktocktick
Joined: 31 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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| I stand very much corrected! |
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