Article

A study on an acculturation model for the realization of a Korea Multicultural Community among Japanese, Chinese, Korean-Chinese, Vietnamese, and Philippine female marriage-based immigrants living in Gwangju City and Jeollanam-do province

Author

남순현

Information

pp. 19~51 / 2010 Vol.17 No.4

Abstract

This study sought to develop an acculturation model for the realization of a Korea MulticulturalCommunity. A total of 54 female marriage-based immigrants, composed of 12 Japanese, 10 Chinese, 11Korean-Chinese(‘Chosun tribe’ residing in northern China, that is, Koreans who were born in China), 10Vietnamese, 11 Filipinos living in Gwangju City and Jeollanam-do regions, all participated in focus groupinterviews from April 17 to May 7, 2009. They were divided into two groups from each country,according to their period of residence(±2 years), and the content of their interviews were analyzed bymeans of the Giorgi phenomenological method. Our results indicated that, firstly, psychological adjustmentprocesses across residence for the five ethnic groups are studied in terms of their general difficultiesexperienced in terms of living, family conflict, parenting, gender roles etc. Secondly, the various degreesand levels of culture shock experienced by female marriage-based immigrants in Korea were Koreantraditional religious rituals('jesa' in Korean), food, use of public baths, and lifestyle habits according toregional climate. Lastly, the indigenous psychological cultural emotions of Koreans(eg. Weness,In-group/Out-group, Chemyon, Cheong, Han, Noonchi) were compared with females from 5 countries inEast Asia. Our results suggested that interpreting them from a cross-cultural indigenous approach was themost appropriate method to use.

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