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Even in Japan, Korean telenovelas have been the staple of TV-viewing Japanese housewives in the last few years. When Bae Yong Joon visited Japan for commercial shoots about two years ago after Winter Sonata became a mammoth hit here, he was welcomed by more than 5,000 female fans, mostly matrons, at the airport and accorded greater adulation than even Hollywood's demigods... But Filipinas, it seems, are altogether different. They are enamored to the Koreans more than just as starstruck fans. They are actually marrying Korean men!

Pinay wives living out Korean telenovellas


by JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO
www.ofwjournalism.net


(Editor’s note: The identities of women interviewed are protected in this story.)

QUEZON CITY (OFW Journalism Consortium)–FOR nearly a decade, more than six thousand Filipino women are living out what’re usually depicted in Korean romance telenovellas.
It is life imitating art, according to the latest study on cross-border marital arrangements in Korea or inter-racial marriages between Koreans and other nationalities.
A 443-respondent survey done last September that covered various nationalities, including some 73 Filipina spouses, bared that “love” was the primary reason for the women acceding to marriage.
Nine women in a center here run by Catholic nuns reflect that survey’s notions.
The women were participating in a workshop to help them in their marriage to their Korean husbands.
On a brown Manila paper, they wrote that Koreans work hard, budget their money, save, and are conscious of their hygiene.
These they gathered from watching Korean soaps on local television stations.
A study by Hye Kyung-Lee of Pai Chai University says something different about their mates.
Hye’s study noted that “lower class” Korean men seek “more submissive, obedient, and traditional (foreign) wives to serve them and take care of their parents” –especially by Filipina and Vietnamese wives.
The Koreans’ motivations already contrast those of the Filipino women, Hye’s recent paper found.
When asked why marry foreign women, Korean spouses –including 91 Korean men who married Filipino women– ranked submissiveness and obedience to Korean parents as primary reason.
Since 1990, the Korean National Statistics Office recorded some 6,216 Filipino wives of Koreans. In the 16-year period, that means every year, an average 388 Filipino women were getting married to Koreans.
Among nationalities, such as Japanese, Vietnamese, and natives of mainland China, Koreans with Filipina spouses had the highest percentage of responses saying they married their foreign wives due to parental obedience.
Hye’s Korean male respondents bared that the submissiveness, obedience, and traditionalist family practices of their Filipino and Vietnamese wives are the “most important reasons” why they married them.

Soaps
THE numbers, however, don’t reflect the conflict running deep between the two cultures carried by the couple and the compromises they give to sustain their relationship.
The women interviewed by the OFW Journalism Consortium said they will rely on “love” to know their spouses better.
Commission on Filipinos Overseas director Minda Valencia, however, said love couldn’t conquer all.
Their entry into a society with a rich Confucian tradition –but which allows online matchmaking– is seen to be a burden for the Filipino woman.
The women’s limited knowledge of Korean language and culture may cause some marital problems, Valencia said.
For some Korean men, such as those who are of lower social status and who come from the provinces, their marriage with Filipinos may “renegotiate their social status,” Valencia says.
But the husband as the primary breadwinner “is considerably lowered” as a consequence of their marriage, Valencia adds in a paper she wrote on Filipina marriages to Koreans.
CFO registration records show that the average age of the Filipino spouses is 28 and that of the Koreans’ is 35, as there are more Filipino women than Koreans who have completed college education.
Valencia said while Filipino women use tenacity and resolve to prove to Korean spouses they are no pushovers, Filipino women sometimes feel “they have to work doubly hard to have a successful marriage”.
This means not just additional responsibilities for the Filipino women; their Korean spouses and families-in-law find hope in these Filipino women.
These are women like Rita and Tricia. They were part of the nine women who said they only learned Koreans expect submissive wives during a pre-departure orientation seminar that the Religious of the Good Shepherd-run nonprofit Center for Overseas Workers organized.

To read more, check out http://www.philippinestoday.net/index.php?module=article&view=762

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