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Not a very happy story reported by the Munhwa Ilbo recently.
It is the afternoon of January 15 at the Sangrok Orphanage (상록보육원) in Namhyeon-dong, Gwanajk-gu, Seoul. Five-year-old Eun-ji (a pseudonym) was sleeping. Her teacher said, "she's been sleeping for quite a while because she was playing so energetically." Our conversation woke up Eun-ji, who said, "imo", and snuggled up to the teacher. The teacher said, "her mother is Mongolian and only when she comes here she does she say 'imo' and recently she has been saying it a lot less." With the increasing number of divorces in multicultural families, Kosian children (mixed-race children with one Korean parent and one parent from another Asian country) such as Eun-ji are rapidly increasing as well.In 2008 there were 11,255 multicultural divorces, 9.7 percent of total divorces. In 2002 there were 144,910 divorces of which 1.2% (1,744) were multicultural, so in comparison the total number has increased 6.3 times and the percentage has increased 8.1 times. In May of 2009 there were 167,090 multicultural households nationwide, just 1% of the 2008 total of 16,917,000, showing that the situation of divorce in multicultural families is serious. It is not known how many Kosian children are being neglected due to break-ups of mulitcultural families. There are only estimates. Of the 21,551 mulitcultural couples who divorced from 2004 to 2008 some 2,004 had children who were still minors. Experts believe many of them have been neglected. The children of multicultural broken homes may wait all day at home for their mothers to come home from work, or be placed in the hands of their grandparents, or stay in an orphanage. They might also go back to the home countries of their mothers, with whom they do not communicate, as illegal immigrants. Eun-ji was born in 2006 to a Mongolian mother and Korean father. But not long after Eun-ji was born her father suffered a stroke and bad times set in. Her father asked his mother to take care of her and her mother , but Eun-ji's grandmother refused, calling them "an unlucky mother and daughter". There are 63 Koasians like Eun-ji who have been sent to live in the orphanage. Most orphanages do not allow reporters in, fearing they would disturb the children, so it is very likely there are many more. A, born to a Southeast Asian mother and a Korean father with mental and physical disabilities, was placed in an orphanage in Yeongnam in 2006, when her mother fled. B, born in March of 2005 to a Vietnamese mother and a Korean father with a physical disability, was taken away from her troubled parents after eight months and palced in an orphanage in Chungcheong. C, who lives in an orphanage in Honam, was placed there after her Filipina mother returned home when she began showing symptoms of mental illness. At the 18 women's shelters nationwide there are 232 marriage immigrants and their children, who were unable to deal with the husband's violence any longer. Most children from broken multicultural homes are unable to receive proper education or medical treatment due to poverty, showing the urgent need for policies to rescue them from neglect. Gwon Mi-suk, counselling head at the Women Migrants Humanrights Center (한국이주여성인권센터), said, "migrant women who have children with Korean citizenship must be allowed to more easily take Korean citizenship." Gwon Oh-hui, mother superior at the Bethlehem Children's Center (베들레헴어린이집), said, "there needs to be a large increase in the facilities and caregivers available for children from multicultural families that have fallen apart." Learn more from the Kosians blog.
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Interesting story. Mongols have their own word for Korea: Солонгос (Solongos). The etymology of Solongos is believed to be the Mongol Solon tribe living in Manchuria, a tribe culturally and ethnically related to the Korean people. So while Koreans see Mongol-Korean as mixed race, some Mongols see them as pure Mongols.
There is an insane ammount of speculation and generalizations in that article. "They might also go back to the home countries of their mothers, with whom they do not communicate, as illegal immigrants." What does that even mean?
I understand that most Koreans see themselves as ethnically distinct from other Asian groups, but why do they consider these kinds of relationships "mixed-race"? Isn't a Korean/Mongolian pairing comparable to a Spanish/Swedish one, or even an Irish-American with a Serb or a Croatian? These kinds of couples would be considered "multicultural," of course, but calling them "mixed-race" seems to be splitting hairs. Is this truly the extent of Korean ethnic pride, or is it just a sign of the difficulty of precisely translating Korean to English?
"Multicultural" is very frequently a euphemism for mixed-race. The actual word for mixed-race is, at least in the media, used rarely. But as far as I know, Kosians are considered mixed-race.
I hate the use of "multi-cultural" in this way. They are multi-ethnic, but I have serious doubts they are multi-cultural. It's possible, depending on the diligence of the the non-Korean spouse, but when you're surrounded by mono-cultural Korea 100% of the time, it's fighting a constant uphill battle to truly be multi-cultural.
RM wrote: I understand that most Koreans see themselves as ethnically distinct from other Asian groups, but why do they consider these kinds of relationships "mixed-race"? ... Is this truly the extent of Korean ethnic pride, or is it just a sign of the difficulty of precisely translating Korean to English? The original Korean article describes "Kosian" as "한국인과 아시아 각국 사람 간에 태어난 혼혈아." It is the English-language translation's author that chose to write honhyŏra as "mixed race" instead of something like "ethnically mixed."
And I agree with Darth Babaganoosh on the use of "multicultural" in that it should be used for people who are in or from multiple cultures (though "multicultural" seems to be used to refer to "bicultural" people as well). A person who is multiethnic (or biethnic) may be monocultural, whereas a monoethnic person (like the children of one or more immigrants in Canada, the US, or even South Korea) could be multicultural (or bicultural). But at least the media is trying to be utilize positive euphemisms, even if they lack precision.
Why translate it as "ethnically mixed"? The dictionary translates 혼혈 as multiracial or mixed-race, and 混血 literally means "mixed-blood". While westerners may conceive of all Asians as being the same race, Koreans don't... as I know you are well aware. I think taking 血 to refer to ethnicity rather than race needs serious justification.
Koreans are just a more inbred (relatively) clan of Chinese people who have been taught to believe otherwise for political reasons. ...or so my gf has told me of late. Mongol dirt on their arses at birth...
I love how someone thought that someone in the government thought that importing wives from another country to help the countryside men (who in many cases are retarded) was some how a good idea that would help out the country. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that meeting. A: Okay so we are going to get some wives from other countries to live with Korean losers. B: Yeah that sounds like a good idea. A: Can anyone think of any problems that this might bring down the road? B: No. A: Okay lets do it.
probably the same people who thought exporting nearly 200,000 kids to western countries (aka international adoption) was a good idea. guess they never thought korea would have one of the lowest birth rates in the world. haha
Korea Beat wrote: Why translate it as "ethnically mixed"? Because that would be appropriate for the context (a child of two different ethnicities, not two different races [in the modern use of "race"]). See below. The dictionary translates 혼혈 as multiracial or mixed-race, and 混血 literally means "mixed-blood". Precisely, the word honhyŏl says nothing about race or ethnicity; it just suggests someone is mixed between two different things, and those could be two different ethnicities (민족, roughly), two different races (인종), or even Muggle and Wizard (like Severus Snape). In the context of, say, a Black person and a White person, multiracial or mixed-race would be appropriate, so that's how it's translated into English. But there's the rub: that is infusing English nuances into a Korean situation. Honhyŏl means "mixed blood," not mixed race or mixed ethnicity. Just two different things mixed. While westerners may conceive of all Asians as being the same race, Koreans don't... as I know you are well aware. I think taking 血 to refer to ethnicity rather than race needs serious justification. Not quite. First off, there is a perfectly good word for race in Korean, injong, that stands apart from ethnicity, minjok. It's used quite a lot, in things like 인종차별 (racial discrimination). And don't forget that English words like "racism," which can refer to ethnic discrimination as well, have their roots in an older English meaning of "race" which saw "ethnicities" as races. Compare the definitions of 3a and 3b against 3c, 4, and 5 at the second meaning of "race" here. These different (and changing) meanings of "race" are reflected in the English translations of Korean words, which distorts their original meaning in Korean. Compare the 국어 definitions of 민족 and 인종 and you'll see what I mean. In the end, translating "혼혈" as "mixed race" in the case of two different ethnicities reflects the opinions, biases, and/or habits of the translator, not the Korean speaker who originally spoke/wrote in Korean.
Setting aside the semantics issue, is there really a problem here that is particularly different from that of Korean-Korean marriages? Mixed marriages involve 9.7% of all divorces, but that is not far from their actual percentage of all marriages. That's like the shocking statistic that one-third of all people are born in months ending in R. Now, if the journalist's goal was too highlight the unique problems of Kosian children so that those children can be helped, that's fine. But if the purpose was to scare people off from such marriages or to marginalize them, then shame on them. |
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