Tongue-tied
The saying goes that it's easy to fall in love but hard to get along, but for this kind of agency-arranged transnational marriage, one can say that getting married is easy but life is hard. The first barrier that confronts foreign brides coming to Taiwan is that of not being able to speak or read the language.
Spoken and written language are the most basic means for obtaining information and extending the scope of one's life, so in 1999 the Ministry of the Interior announced a plan to assist foreign brides in adapting to life in Taiwan. Twenty-three courses for foreign brides were put on in 2000, and 37 in 2001, in 14 counties.
In Chiayi County, from September 2000 the community education department of the county education bureau selected 17 adult literacy schools as venues for "Chiayi Daughter-in-Law Literacy and Life Classes." Assistant Professor Chiu Chu-wen of Nanhua University's Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies says that these classes do more than boosting foreign brides' self-confidence. In terms of their role as mothers, being able to read and write Chinese will also be of great help for their children's education. Indeed, many foreign brides' motivation for studying is for the good of their children.
Shihlin was the first municipal district in Taipei City to offer literacy classes for foreign brides. Lin Kuo-tai of the Shihlin District Office says that since the courses began in August 1999, over 400 foreign brides have attended them.
Last year, the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Taipei also put on Chinese language evening classes for foreign brides at three Taipei City elementary schools-Tunghu, Heti and Minchuan-and these have been attended by almost 50 foreign brides.
News from home
Apart from their educational purpose, literacy classes also give foreign brides a chance to meet other people from their own country and to exchange information, so that they no longer feel lonely and helpless. One husband who accompanies his wife to the classes says that in the past his wife would stare out of the window every day and weep, and he never saw her smile. But since he enrolled her in the class, her life has had a focus and she has gradually grown more cheerful.
Another husband says that the classes, on three evenings a week, are the most important thing in his wife's life, and when he is too busy to drive her there, she still insists on going even if she has to take a bus alone.
But in fact, few foreign brides receive their husbands' support and assistance in getting out of the house to attend classes. When Chiu Chu-wen made a survey of the willingness of foreign brides in Chiayi to attend literacy classes, as many as 75% said they were willing to attend them, yet less than 4% said they were actually able to attend. The main reasons they cited for not attending were that they had to look after the children, and that the classes were too far away from their homes.
With Chinese language classes failing to reach most foreign brides and with many of them unable to get out of the house, watching television becomes an important way for Vietnamese brides to understand Taiwanese life and customs and learn the language.
"I'm really thankful for TV-for me as a Vietnamese bride it's been my life teacher." Juan Yen-chuan, who now acts as a counselor at a foreign brides' guidance camp, came to Taiwan as a bride eight years ago. Today she often works as a volunteer and interpreter to help other women from her home country.
A survey that Chiu Chu-wen once made of around 400 Vietnamese brides showed that apart from learning the language, their most pressing needs were to have the right to work, and to be able to receive news about their country. But because of government regulations, at the time of the survey foreign brides who had lived in Taiwan less than five years (now changed to three years under the new Nationality Law) could not acquire ROC citizenship, and so were not allowed to work. Thus they could only stay at home to do housework, look after the children and wait on their parents-in-law. Also, Taiwan's media did not provide them with any information about events in their home countries, nor had the government set up any support networks to help them live in Taiwan.
The luck of the draw
Even people who marry for love need time to adjust to each other after marriage, let alone two complete strangers from different countries. Basically, whether foreign brides end up being happy really does depend largely on luck.
Naturally, there are plenty of examples of happy international marriages. Generally speaking, if the bridegroom is sincere and considerate, then his bride will settle in fine, and if the husband's family are open-minded, then things can go very well.
Twenty-four-year-old Weng Mei-liang, who came to Taiwan from Cambodia as a bride nearly two years ago, now not only speaks Mandarin, but also understands Taiwanese. Her 42-year-old husband Pai Yuan-tsung is a plumber and electrician. Two years ago, on a trip to Cambodia with some friends, he married Weng Mei-liang on the spur of the moment. Weng, who is always smiling, has become the darling of her husband's family. Not only are the couple themselves very affectionate, but her brothers- and sisters-in-law also take good care of her. Every day after her husband goes to work, Weng Mei-liang takes their four-month-old daughter to her sister-in-law's noodle shop where she helps out, and in the evenings her sister-in-law looks after the baby for her while she sets off by bicycle for Taipei's Minchuan Elementary School to attend foreign brides classes. In class, Weng is an outstanding student and has even been elected class leader.
However, there are also many foreign wives who do not adapt well to life in Taiwan.
On average, the Vietnamese brides are in their early twenties-little more than children. It is only after coming to Taiwan that they discover that their much older husbands are "not the least bit romantic," and one hears frequently of arguments and demands for divorce. Juan Yen-chuan, who has been in Taiwan nearly eight years, is often "summoned" to act as translator and mediator for her compatriots. Juan says that in her latest case, after less than a year of marriage the Vietnamese wife discovered that her husband had heart disease and also needed kidney dialysis, so that he was unable to maintain normal marital relations. The bride felt she had been tricked, wept every day and wanted a divorce. In these difficult circumstances, Juan Yen-chuen could only urge her to put up with the situation for a little longer, and see if things would improve after her husband got a kidney transplant.
Another bride who lives in Kaohsiung could not bear how her husband spent all day playing mahjong and expected her to wait on his mahjong-playing friends. In a fit of rage she threw herself out of a fifth-floor window, but amazingly was completely unhurt. After a period of adjustment and mediation, this new bride has now come to terms with her situation and is content as long as her husband gives her enough spending money.
The graveyard of dreams?
If a marriage is not built on a solid foundation to begin with, and the environment in which it then has to exist is also out of balance, this makes it doubly difficult for foreign brides to adapt.
Lai Pei-ling, a social worker with the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, says that some foreign brides come to Taiwan with false expectations, believing they will be able to earn money to send back home to Vietnam, or that their husbands will be able to regularly send money to their families. After their marriage they inevitably find their dreams shattered. Some of the men who go to Southeast Asia to find wives also have a strong streak of male chauvinism, and believe that a foreign wife will be less likely to "get up to any tricks" and will be easier to "control." The fact that the marriage is based on a monetary transaction also means that some husbands regard their wives as "property" or "objects"; and the strong tendency of some mothers-in-law to boss these new brides about makes it harder still for them to adjust.
As his wife had only spent two months studying Chinese and learning about Taiwanese life and customs before coming to Taiwan, Li Ming-hsueh also made a great effort to help her adapt. "At the beginning she had a lot of trouble getting used to living here. The food is completely different and she couldn't eat anything, and she was missing her family too, so she had very big mood swings." Li says that unlike some men who do not let their wives out of the house for fear they will run away, he took the opposite approach and encouraged his wife to get together with other women from Vietnam as much as possible, to chat and let off steam.
However, due to the fact that their marriage was arranged by an agency, his wife could still not escape the psychological shadow of this "transaction." She felt she was merely a piece of merchandise that had been sold, so every time the couple had any kind of argument or difference of opinion, she would say: "You bought me for money, so you can do what you like!" After three years of marriage, Li Ming-hsueh says that although he has started a family, that's as far as it goes-it is difficult enough for people from two different societies to even communicate, let alone build a close and loving relationship.
False expectations
Domestic violence is another problem that can afflict international marriages, especially if communication breaks down due to language difficulties.
Lai Pei-ling, who often visits foreign brides at home, says that when a marriage is built on insufficient foundations, and the language barrier prevents effective communication, violence becomes a means to resolve problems. When this happens, many foreign brides who have just arrived in Taiwan, without friends and in unfamiliar surroundings, have nowhere to turn for help. Their situation is especially worrying.
In the two years since the Taipei City Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Center was set up, it has handled 51 cases of violence against foreign brides, accounting for 3% of its caseload.
Over the past six years the Good Shepherd Sisters, an organization that assists and shelters child prostitutes and battered women, has given refuge to 155 foreign brides. In a survey of over 100 of them, the Sisters discovered that the greatest factor for disharmony in their marriages was "differing attitudes toward the marriage." Executive director Tang Ching-lien said at a practice seminar on working with foreign wives that differing goals at the outset-the man wanting to start a family and the woman wanting to improve her own family's economic situation-have a substantial impact on the later quality of the marriage.
Also, on average the women who come to Taiwan as brides become pregnant within six months of getting married, and then the potential problems of their children's education gradually become apparent. Lai Pei-ling says that how these new brides can cope with bringing up children when they themselves have not yet adapted to life in Taiwan is an issue that deserves attention.
A research report entitled Foreign Brides in Taiwan and the Clinical Presentation of Developmental Milestones in Their Pre-School-Age Children was recently published by Chou Wen-chun, director of the pediatric mental health department at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Hsu Te-yao, director of obstetrics and gynecology at the same hospital, and Yang Ming-jen, director of psychiatry at National Cheng Kung University Hospital. The report states that perhaps because of the stress of unfamiliar surroundings, foreign brides are more likely to have babies with low birth weight than are local mothers; and due to the effects of the home environment, around 60% of their children are late in reaching developmental milestones. The most common problem is retarded language development, with some children unable to say Mummy or Daddy even at age two; the second most common is late overall development.
"Brides" no longer
With the large influx of foreign laborers and foreign brides into Taiwan, Taiwan has changed from being a society from which people only emigrated, into one with a two-way flow of both emigration and immigration. This is a phenomenon that will affect Taiwan's social culture. Assistant Professor Chiu Chu-wen of Nanhua University's Institute of Asia-Pacific Sudies, who also leads the institute's International Migration and Tourist Study Center, says that because foreign brides settle in Taiwan permanently, the issues of citizenship, work and education that emerge after they take up residence here have far-reaching implications.
Chiu says that people should not approach foreign wives merely with prejudice or pity. We should adopt a standpoint of multiculturalism rather than assimilationism, and apply the principles of equality, respect, two-way exchange and mutual coexistence. We should not simply unilaterally require foreign brides to "adapt" to Taiwanese society.
Chiu also takes issue with the term "foreign brides" itself. She says: "'Foreign' means not of the same ethnicity as us: Taiwanese society looks with color-sensitive, prejudiced eyes on these women from countries that are economically less developed than ours. And by calling them 'brides' no matter how many years they have been in Taiwan, Taiwanese people seem to be permanently treating them as new daughters-in-law who have just arrived, and not as members of their own family who are living in the same land as us." Collective social attitudes like these also make it difficult for problems to be resolved.
All the problems that may occur within a marriage may also confront foreign brides. Disadvantaged in terms of both gender and ethnicity, these "doubly disadvantaged" foreign women deserve our concern and attention.
To enable Vietnamese brides to obtain a more accurate understanding of the living environment in the land to which they are about to "devote their lives," Lin Kuo-tai of the Shihlin District Office is preparing a "Handbook for Vietnamese Brides," which will be published in January 2002. It includes practical information about living in Taiwan, and general knowledge for women with young children. Lin says that in future, Vietnamese brides can receive a copy of the handbook from the Taipei representative office in Vietnam.
What is needed is firstly welcoming acceptance, and then an effort at deeper understanding. That is a lesson to be learned not only by foreign brides and their Taiwanese bridegrooms, but also by the whole of the society in which they live. We hope all people whom fate has brought together can value and care for each other.
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