*Editor’s note: Vacation, business travel, migrant labor, language study, study abroad, international marriage, immigration—many of us have such experiences of crossing national borders, and there are many immigrants living in our country. Ilda examines the emigrant sensibility we will need in order to live equally and peacefully in the age of globalization. This series is supported by the Korea Press Foundation’s Press Promotion Fund.

 

Marrying a Korean man

 

While I was living a lonely life as an illegal alien after my labor contract ended, I met the man who would become my husband when I was visiting the house of a friend who had married a Korean man. When we first met, I didn’t notice anything special about him, but he liked me and asked me out, and as I spent more time with him, his reliability began to grow on me. The idea of being able to live proudly in Korea without worrying about my visa helped me decide to marry him.

 

We’ve now been married 7 years, and our daughter is already 5 years old. Married life hasn’t always been as happy as I’d imagined it would be. But I think that this is what human life is like, and that we always have to work enthusiastically toward becoming happier.

 

After we got married, I followed my husband to Seoul. At first, at my husband’s suggestion, I worked at the same factory as him. While I was working there, I once made as much as 2 million won in a month by working extra hours. But saying only a few words and doing the same work, the same movements, all day from morning to evening made me think more than once that the life I was living might be too boring.

 

It was at that time that I heard that one of my friends was working as a translator and interpreter. Thinking I would try to do the same work, I took the exam [for translators/interpreters] and passed Level 4 on my first try. I saw a job advertisement for a Vietnamese translator/interpreter at a Multicultural Family Support Center in Seoul and applied for the position. Luckily, because there were no other applicants, I was hired even though I had no idea how to use a computer.

 

3 years as a translator/interpreter for marriage migrants

 

With a happy heart, I started my job as a translator/interpreter for Vietnamese marriage migrants. A translator/interpreter’s main duty is to help a new arrival who has trouble communicating in Korean in her family life (communicating with her husband and in-laws) and public life (going with her to the hospital, bank, court, police, etc. and translating). Besides that, we translate the Multicultural Family Support Center’s newsletters, advertisements, surveys, etc. into our mother tongues and help marriage migrants understand and participate comfortably in the center’s programs.

 

In my 3 years as a translator/interpreter, I learned several things. My experience as a translator/interpreter for marriage migrants allowed me to improve my job skills through training, built up my work history, and gave me many connections, all of which served as a stepping stone to a better job. Since I had only worked at factories before, I had few skills that were useful at an office, but this work taught me about Korean office culture, gave me the knowledge necessary to work in an office, and improved my “white collar” skills like administrative and basic computer skills.

 

▲ Enjoyable conversation with Vietnamese marriage immigrants living in Korea (Author is in the center) ©Nguyen Thi Hien

By my third year I had become pretty good at the work, so I took on additional administrative tasks at the center such as sending and receiving official letters to other government agencies and editing newsletters.  I often had to work overtime because of these new duties. Even though my workload had increased, my pay was the same. Every time I signed the sheet listing center employees’ paychecks on payday, I was upset by the large difference between Korean employees’ pay and mine. I felt like I as a marriage migrant was being looked down on and discriminated against by the Korean government.

 

The center’s translator/interpreters play a large role in all programs - including Korean language education and other kinds of multicultural education - from start to finish, in every part from advertising to enrollment and satisfaction surveys. They are such an important part of the center that without them, all programs would grind to a halt. They may be less skilled in composing formal documents than Korean staff members, but it is a fact that they contribute greatly to the center’s success. This point should be recognized in order for the situation to be fair, but the pay that translator/interpreters receive is incomparably lower than that given to Koreans. I had to bear the injustice of this wage gap even though this was a public organization, not a private company.

 

I wanted to quit rather than receive such discriminatory treatment, but I was afraid. “If I quit this job, will I be able to find work that I like? Can I work at another place with the skills I have?” I pushed the thought of changing jobs aside.

 

Hierarchical Korean organizational culture

 

In 2014, I began an online degree program in order to challenge myself. I planned to continue working as a translator/interpreter until I graduated and then find a different job. However, three weeks before my contract was to end, I was suddenly notified by the center director that it would not be renewed. They unfairly decided not to renew it because I “don’t obey authority.” I was so shocked at this facet of Korean organizational culture that I felt like the sky had fallen down.

 

While I had questioned things that seemed unfair, I had also made efforts to please my boss, and so this result made me feel unspeakably wronged. I realized yet again that even in supposedly progressive Korean organizations there is a definite division between higher- and lower-status workers.

 

The boss asserts his authority, demands loyalty and forces obedience from his subordinates, and the subordinates have to do as he says, unquestioningly. I think that this is quite unfair, and it made me uncomfortable. We are all people, so wouldn’t it be nice if we worked together, helped each other, and acted considerately, which would allow work to get done more effectively and us to enjoy it more? I can’t understand why a boss has to make a show of her authority.

 

It was a disappointing turn of events, but I also have tried to take a positive view of it as an experience good for helping me to live a more developed life. Asking what I did wrong and what points I need to reflect on, I’ve taken a look at myself.  If nothing else, I’m going to work hard to fix my remaining faults, and since I’ve learned the hard way how important interpersonal relationships are, I’m going to approach whomever I meet more cautiously and work harder to make my relationship with that person a harmonious one. 

 

Korea is my destiny

 

A while after being let go from the Multicultural Center, I saw an ad for a Vietnamese counselor at the Seoul Migrant Women Counseling Center. I wasn’t completely qualified, but I gathered my courage and applied anyway. I was very happy when I received the call notifying me that I got the job. I was filled with worry that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my counseling duties well, but luckily, the Seoul Migrant Women Counseling Center is filled with friendly and good-natured people, so I have been working in a family-like atmosphere.

 

Thanks to my colleagues who answer my every question wholeheartedly, I’ve learned a lot. My pay is also much better than before. Being able to work freely is another point that is incomparably better than the Multicultural Center, where I was monitored and controlled every day while I worked. My negative perception of Korean organizational culture has also changed.

 

Multicultural Family Support Centers are operated with government funding, and the Seoul Migrant Women Counseling Center is operated with Seoul city funding, so I think Korean society needs to think hard about why the atmosphere and pay are so different in the two organizations.

 

I know that the Migrant Women Human Rights Center, which the government tasked with operating the SMWCC, kept the personnel expenses allocated for migrant women from being set at minimum wage by advocating strongly against it from the very beginning. I think that we need more places like the Migrant Women Human Rights Center, which always listens to the voices of migrant women and fights for their rights, if Korea, with its diverse migrants, is to become a beautiful society.

 

I’ve now fallen in love with Korea to the point where I can’t return to Vietnam, and I think that I became a Korean person because Korea is my destiny. I want to live in Korean society forever, with my Korean husband and my child. While watching Korean society mature, I want to study endlessly to correct my own shortcomings, always make an effort, and live passionately. [Translated by Marilyn Hook]

 

*Original article: http://ildaro.com/7219 Published: September 4, 2015

 

◆ To see more English-language articles from Ilda, visit our English blog(https://ildaro.blogspot.com).

기사 내용과 관련이 없는 글, 욕설을 사용하는 등 타인의 명예를 훼손하는 글은 관리자에 의해 예고없이 임의 삭제될 수 있으므로 주의하시기 바랍니다. 댓글 작성 시 상대방에 대한 배려와 책임을 담아주세요.

• 닉네임
• 비밀번호
• 
• 도배방지 입력