'Vietnamese brides guidelines' fuel debate

Captured image of the post which wrote the guidelines of Vietnames brides. (Online community)

An online post uploaded by an international marriage agency on the guidelines of "bride education" stirred up fierce debate on X, formerly known as Twitter, Tuesday for containing potentially sexist and degrading remarks about Vietnamese women living in Korea through arranged international marriages.

The post under the title "We offer dormitory education," listed seven topics the agency conducts classes on for Vietnamese brides-to-be, such as "do not lie," "avoid Vietnamese in Korea," "your husband is the only one to trust and he is the best when you are in Korea."

The agency that arranges marriages between Korean and Vietnamese women also wrote the "pros and cons" of a Vietnamese woman. For the "merits," the post wrote that Vietnamese women "have long straight hair," "have a good figure," and "surprisingly, many women have pale skin." For "disadvantages," the post claimed "women who are obedient are rare," "they don't reveal their true feelings and stab you in the back," and "husbands live under control when married."

One online comment said the original post was promoting "an abnormal buy-and-sell marriage that goes against time." Some other comments called for systematic countermeasures that can help foreigners "appropriately settle down in Korea," as the number of international marriages is increasing year by year.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of international marriages was 17,428 in 2022, a 25.1 percent increase from the previous year. This was the largest increase since 2008 when the statistics began to be collected. Multicultural marriages also accounted for over 9 percent of all marriages, making one out of 10 married couples in the nation multicultural.

Meanwhile, albeit the increasing number of international marriages, nearly 30 percent of female marriage migrants in South Korea reported experiencing depression, nearly double the rate observed among married Korean women, according to Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency in early January.

By Choi Jeong-yoon(jychoi@heraldcorp.com)