Breaking through cultural barriers

Kazakhstan national Amanova Jamjagol wears her country’s traditional costume as she gives a lecture about her culture to sixth graders at Dongguro Elementary School in Guro-dong, southwestern Seoul, last Tuesday as part of a multicultural lecture program conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Arts and Culture Education Service. [Newsis]

“My 5-year-old boy is far behind the other children in kindergarten largely due to lack of language ability,” said Jin Ying-ran, 32, a Korean Chinese woman who came to live in Korea in September 2005 after she married a Korean.

“He doesn’t speak fluent Korean like the other kids and often fails to make himself understood. It is unfortunate that there is no adequate place for my child to learn Korean, while immigrants like me are not proficient in Korean and can’t teach our children the language as other Korean mothers do,” Jin said.

The language difficulties are not exclusive to children, either.

“Language is one of the biggest problems for me in Korea. I get easily nervous and sometimes I feel I’m being victimized when I cannot express myself well,” Jin said.

She is hardly alone in her struggles.

A recent survey has found that a large number of immigrants in Korea, particularly women who came to the country after marriage, put the language barrier on the top of their list of problems here.

In a poll of 842 immigrants and 177 Korean spouses conducted by the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family, a research and education institute funded by the Seoul city government, 75.8 percent of the surveyed immigrants said they had experienced difficulties in their intercultural marriage. Of this group, 78.1 percent said it was because of language.

The next biggest concerns were insecurity about their new environment (35.4 percent), opposition from family members (16.8 percent) and Korea’s strict immigration laws (13.3 percent).

The survey was conducted separately on immigrants and their Korean spouses who visited multicultural family support centers and other welfare facilities across the city between July 23 and Oct. 12 this year.

More than 85 percent of 158 surveyed immigrants who currently have a job in Korea described working here as “tough.”

The primary reason, again according to the respondents, was language.

Communication problems were also the main cause of domestic strife in multicultural families.

The survey revealed that 38.4 percent of the surveyed immigrants and 48.9 percent of Korean spouses cited verbal misunderstandings as a source of discord.

“I hope the government will come up with proper measures to help immigrants settle in this country,” Jin added.

Her wishes might pan out.

The Seoul metropolitan government is currently mapping out new plans to help immigrants and multicultural families, particularly those suffering from difficulties associated to language.

“As part of the new projects to support immigrants and multicultural families next year, we will invite the private sector to conduct a dual-language education program, particularly for children from multicultural families,” said Park Geun-su, the director in charge of women and family affairs and policies with the Seoul metropolitan government.

“While the government has so far carried out similar programs through the Multicultural Family Support Center, we have concluded that private companies that have some experience in this kind of work would be better at carrying out the task,” she added.

“On the basis of the law to support multicultural families that took effect in September, we will formulate ordinances so that we can carry out the aforementioned project as well as provide systems and conditions to assist multicultural families in leading a more stable life in Korea,” Park said.

Meanwhile, a simultaneous survey conducted on native Korean citizens in Seoul regarding their perception of immigrants and multicultural families revealed the dichotomy in Koreans’ views of outsiders.

In the poll, 1,000 Seoulites aged between 15 and 69 were questioned via telephone in November.

Of those, 79.6 percent said they support the plan to recognize immigrants in mixed Korean families as Korean nationals, and 68.9 percent said they would willingly accept immigrants as co-workers.

However, only 33.2 percent answered yes when asked if the government should collect more taxes from citizens to support immigrants and multicultural families.

“Korea is rapidly changing into a multicultural society, with increasing numbers of intercultural marriages,” said Jang Myung-sun, a researcher at the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family who conducted the survey.

“However, as the survey has revealed, it is as important for Koreans to change the way they regard immigrants and view them as equals.

“Enlightening Korean people on the importance of living in harmony with immigrants is crucial, and systematic preparations led by the central government to devise measures to assist multicultural families in Korea are also called for urgently.

“Otherwise, with an increase in the number of immigrants and multicultural families in Korea, there will be more social problems in the future,” Jang said.

Foreign experts agreed it is important to make immigrants feel that they belong.

On a recent visit to Korea to share his experience of multicultural policies, Stewart Foster of the Multicultural Affairs Branch at Australia’s immigration ministry, said, “Basic policies are needed to help migrants settle in the country, but more than that, implanting the feeling that you belong ... and you are engaged in the community is really important.”

By Park Sun-young Staff Reporter [spark0320@joongang.co.kr]