Viet Brides in Korea: Part 3 - Smile on Their Face, Steel in Their Spine

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Not All Viet Brides Marry S. Korean Men for Money

The 'golden daughter-in-law' Pham Thi Huynh Nga, who comes from Cho Moi District in An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta. Photo: Tuoi Tre

It's possible to find happy couples of Korean husbands and Vietnamese wives who have joined their hands - and hearts – to build their life together from scratch with bare hands.

In one case, a Vietnamese woman wins the trust and support of her in-laws and has but one final test to pass before she becomes the first Vietnamese policewoman in the land of Kimchi.

A happy woodcutter's family

Still in their dust-covered work clothes, Kim Seong Choel drove his Vietnamese wife Nguyen Thi Nguyet Nga in an old-fashioned lorry to a Dangjin bus stop to pick up the Tuoi Tre reporters.

In honest and natural manners, the couple showed the visitors around their simple house built on the side of a snow-covered hill where most inhabitants live on agricultural work.

Married in 2005, Choel and Nga now have two daughters.

Choel, 41, said he works as a farmer during the harvest season. During the winter months when snow covers the land and kills all agricultural activities, he goes to town to work as a hired hand. On days when work is not available, he goes into the forest to cut and gather firewood and sells it to the local people.

On snowy days, his wife Nga, 25, just stays home to take care of their two daughters.

Being fatherless when he was young, Choel has tried his hand at all kinds of odd jobs to help his elderly mother. After his Korean wife died of cancer, Choel had planned to remain widowed to care for his two children. However, at the urging of his friends, he took a trip to Vietnam in 2005 to find a wife and met Nga. He did not pretend to be wealthy and did not offer her any false promises. Instead, he was completely honest with her about his circumstances.

Nga's economic status was not much better than his. From a disadvantaged family background, she had to drop out of school early to work to help her parents and younger brothers and sisters.

Before meeting Nga, Choel had turned down many good-looking girls the marriage broker had introduced to him, explaining that, "I need a girl to become my wife, not an actress to strut around at home".

He recalled his happiness at seeing Nga and hearing her tell him that she needed a husband with a good heart, not a deep pocket.

"I am very lucky to have found Nga, a wife who always stays by my side to share my difficulties. She understands a happy marriage is born of hard work, mutual effort and sympathy, and not of money.

"My advice to Korean men with Vietnamese wives: share the burden with your wives and don't ever think of them as an object you possess", Choel said.

Despite their financial difficulties, Choel tries to arrange for his wife and daughters to go back to Vietnam to visit their grandparents every few years. He even plans to move to Vietnam to live permanently in his wife's home town Chau Thanh when their children are grown up.

That will be a well-deserved reward for his wife after many years of hardship in Korea, he said.

A 'golden daughter-in-law'

Pham Thi Huynh Nga from Cho Moi District in An Giang Province is described by her mother-in-law as her 'golden daughter-in-law'.

"We are proud of her and feel lucky to have her", said her mother in law, a resident of Pocheon.

Nga married Pak Dong Chin, 39, five years ago and now has two children, 3 and 4 years old.

In her early days in Korea, she had to try very hard to learn Korean culture, language and tradition and be patient. She said she could not sleep at night, just thinking about her family and relatives, wishing she could help them in some way but never asked her husband for money.

"To help others, I must make sure to create a happy family for my husband, my mother-in-law and myself first", Nga said.

Once a bond of trust was established between her husband's family and her, her parents-in-law began to encourage her to go out to socialize with other Vietnamese women in the region. Knowing she wanted to work part-time to earn some money to send home to her parents, her parents-in-laws took care of her two children from time to time so she could have time for her work.

They even urged Nga to teach her children some Vietnamese language and songs and culture so that they could communicate with their Vietnamese grandparents whom they invited to visit South Korea to see Nga every few years.

The first Viet bride to become a policewoman

Her name is Chinh who is the first Vietnamese wife to become a policewoman in South Korea. Her marriage to South Korean man Song Chung Ho, 43, a staff of Hankyong University, seemed like fate, she told us.

"It would be a mistake to think you can live a life of luxury and leisure after marrying a South Korean man. I have had to work harder than Korean women to survive", Chinh told a Tuoi Tre journalist while she was preparing dinner for her husband in her kitchen after work.

"I was a salesgirl in a shop in Hai Duong. One day, he walked into my shop to buy some cake. The following day, he returned with an interpreter and invited me to lunch with him.

"Months later, he posted my picture on the internet to ask netizens help him find my address. The next year, he came back to Vietnam, visited me in my house and declared his intention to marry me", Chinh said.

"Just to think about my first year in Korea living with my husband's family is enough to strike me with fear.

"In the early days, I couldn't talk to anyone, I have no friends as I knew not a single word of Korean.

"Once I thought of committing suicide. But then I thought I had just one life to live so I must do something to gain the respect for all the Viet brides here".

She applied herself to learning Korean days and nights. She worked hard to win the confidence of her husband's family and root out their prejudices against Vietnamese brides. She took care of every wish of her mother-in-law and stayed up all night next to her bed when she was ill.

Through patience and honesty, in time she won her in-laws over and was allowed to go out and follow Korean language classes, before enrolling in a local police college.

A year after she gave birth to her child, she received news of her admission into the police academy.

Chinh said many times the cruel mockery of her classmates over her pronunciation reduced her to tears, but it only put more steel into her spine, driving her to work harder to master it.

Soon she became well-known for her determination and nerves of steel. Many times she has been invited to appear on television programs to talk about the life and character of Vietnamese brides in Korea.

At the moment she has just one more test to pass to become the first Vietnamese policewoman in the land of Kim chi.

The above story is provided from Tuoi Tre News.
http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/