Byeon Gwang-su, Honorary Professor of Scandinavian Language, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

Without realizing it we have become a multi-racial, multicultural society with a million foreign residents. Twelve percent of marriages registered in 2006 were international marriages and 4 out of every 10 farm country bachelors are marrying foreign women, leading observers to predict that in a few years one quarter of the elementary students in agricultural regions are going to be children from international marriages, so Korea should no longer boast about being a homogeneous people or having a pure blood line. Most of these people have come from Southeast Asia and are simultaneously foreign visitors, who arrived with dreams of Korea as a land of opportunity, and precious workers and neighbors who help power our industrial society. As hosts, we have an obligation to provide them with emotional and structural support so that they may adapt to our society and weave new lives here without discomfort.

The most difficult thing one encounters upon arriving in an unfamiliar land is the language problem. Language is the basic tool with which humans communicate and collaborate, so there is no way to have harmonious married life, interaction with your husband's family or work at your place of employment if there is not adequate communication ability. The domestic abuse towards foreign wives by Korean husbands and the violence towards foreign workers you see in the media originates from this kind of lack of communication.

Here I would like to introduce readers to the language policy for foreigners in Sweden, a country known as a welfare society. To begin with, once they are registered as residents, all foreigners have the same legal rights and obligations as Swedish nationals. Foreign immigrants who cannot speak Swedish have the right to 700 hours of language education, the equivalent of six hours a day for six months. In the course of their language study, immigrants also learn Swedish social customs and about professional life, so that they begin their jobs with the basic knowledge they need in order to go through everyday life. This period of education is recognized as work leave. In the past it was employers who bore the burden, but since 1986 it has been paid for by the government. The result is that you can gradually and smoothly begin life in an unfamiliar land just by working hard at studying language, and without worrying about your livelihood.

As many as 10,000 Vietnamese brides enter Korea each year, and with an ageing population and low birth rates the country’s dependence on foreign labor is going to intensify. We should not look down on these people because our economy is better off. These are pillars of the Korean economy who work in the “three D” (difficult, dangerous and dirty) areas of Korean industry, working hard for low wages without complaint. Is it not overly cruel to put them to work, directing them with body language, the day after they arrive still confused? They are not slaves sold here for low wages. We need a mature attitude that recognizes their human dignity and individuality.

I propose that each local government be responsible for the Korean language education that foreign residents most urgently and desperately need. If they are given just a few weeks of basic Korean they can begin unfamiliar and uneasy foreign life far more composed than they do now. This would help both increase work productivity and prevent the various social problems that arise as a result of inadequate communication.

The method could be to pay assistant teachers or university students a small amount and have it work like a yahak, a night school, during evening hours, and have the local or national government budget for this as part of its policy on foreign residents. With an increasing number of foreigners becoming naturalized Koreans, this would not be wasting money on other peoples, it would be a healthy investment in new members of the family and a concrete way to implement the “racial discrimination prohibition law” that will take effect in the not so distant future.

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