Le Thi Tuyet Hanh, 36, from Vietnam, narrates “Tteom and Kkam,” a Vietnamese folk tale similar to the Korean “Kongjwi and Padjwi” story, with puppets. / Courtesy of Multicultural Library Modoo |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
Le Thi Tuyet Hanh, 36, is from Vietnam and the mother of a six-year-old daughter. She is a popular puppeteer of a marionette show featuring folk tales of various countries including her homeland, Vietnam, at the Multicultural Library Modoo in Imun-dong, Seoul.
Le came to Korea more than 10 years ago to work and married her Korean husband seven years ago. She has narrated ``Tteom and Kkam,'' a Vietnamese Cinderella story similar to the Korean tale ``Kongjwi and Padjwi,'' to audiences made up of local children and their mothers. All the dolls, costumes and stage settings are handmade by married immigrants engaged in the library's programs.
``My daughter didn't like Vietnam previously, but she became interested after listening to Vietnamese tales,'' Le said. ``She can tell the story by herself now as she practiced it at home. Sometimes, she asks me to read Vietnamese stories. I think she is proud of having a Vietnamese mother.''
The multicultural library opened on Sept. 29 last year and has just celebrated its first anniversary. During the past year, it has progressed both externally and internally, achieving a collection of 14,000 volumes ― 9,000 Korean books and 5,000 books from overseas.
The library was founded by Purun Citizen Community. The local community-based civic group started teaching Korean for married immigrants about six years ago. ``The authorities began language courses for married immigrants about three years ago,'' said Kim Jeong-yeon, a librarian and activist at the facility, said.
``There were other libraries stocked with some multicultural books, but Modoo library is the first in the nation to specialize in multicultural books and has a book-lending system.''
As of June, an average of 1,400 people had visited the library monthly and borrowed some 2,000 books. In addition, 322 families joined the supporters' association. A supporter has to pay at least 5,000 won per month and can borrow books.
``This place rents for 2 million won a month. We aim to raise money for the rent from our members,'' Kim said.
Only two regular staff work at Modoo, but many volunteers help them run what is the first multicultural library in Korea. ``Volunteers literally set up the library over the last year. They classified, labeled and arranged books. The married immigrants gave a helping hand to translate foreign books,'' the librarian said. ``Before the translation, the immigrants thanked us for our language course and the library. However, the situation changed and they have much higher esteem now.''
Though the library started out as community-based, visitors now come from all over Seoul. Kwak Bo-mi, 12, half-Korean and half-Bangladeshi, came to the library with her mother, who is from the South Asian nation. She lived in Bangladesh for a long time and spoke poor Korean. A volunteer partner reads books to her and she said it helps her learn the language.
Modoo is sponsored by the STX Group. ``As the company's main business is trading and shipbuilding, some 90 percent of our sales come from abroad. As a result, we decided to support children in multicultural families,'' a group official said. ``We have an overseas branch and network and collected books from 12 countries which are hard to find in Korea.''
The STX Group opened another multicultural library in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, in September and plans more libraries for immigrants and multicultural families.
The library offers several programs for multicultural children and married immigrants. The most popular is ``Animation from Moms,'' in which married immigrants read tales from their country in their own language.
Kim elaborated that most married immigrants suffer a loss of self-esteem as they don't get respect from their Korean families. ``Their mother tongue is ignored and they are forced to use Korean. The children speak Korean awkwardly because they learn from their mother's poor Korean,'' she said. ``We are campaigning for nurturing in their mother tongue. They are perfect circumstances to become bilingual, but married immigrants are forced to use broken Korean. They can restore their self-respect by raising their sons and daughters with the language they are fluent in.''
During the story narration, children call the presenter a ``teacher.'' The title not only re-establishes a mother's self-esteem, but also changes the children's attitude. ``Multicultural children started to be interested in their mother's homeland and its culture. As they saw their mother called teacher, they re-thought their mother's position,'' Kim said.
The program extended itself to a puppet show and now the immigrant mothers are invited to perform the show at local schools. They also make art books transcribing foreign traditional stories.
The library is not exclusively for multicultural families but Koreans as well. ``Fundamentally, we aim to blend multicultural families with Korean families without preconceptions,'' the librarian said. ``Cultures are different from each other, but neither of them is wrong. Koreans and multicultural families joining together harmoniously will be the first step in globalization.''
Increasing Multicultural Families
Modoo aims to establish long-term relationships with its visitors. ``We emphasize the connection between people. Married immigrants do not have many people to communicate with in Korea. We want to offer them concrete relationships, not only with us but also among them, so they can feel stable and a belonging to Korea,'' Kim said.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), there are 1.1 million foreigners, including undocumented and naturalized, living in Korea, constituting 2 percent of the total population. Interracial marriage is also on a steep growth curve. Only 3.2 percent of married couples were interracial in 1997, but the ratio jumped to 11 percent in 2007.
However, these multicultural families' living conditions are poor. More than half, or 53 percent, of multicultural households earn less than the minimum cost of living and 14 percent are basic livelihood security recipients. The employment rate of married immigrants is 34 percent, much lower than that of Korean women at 53 percent.
Huh Hyun-joo, a professor in the department of photography and video at Joongbu University, is holding a photo exhibition of multicultural families titled ``Yes, We Are... We Are Happy Koreans.''
Huh sees the hardships of married immigrants here as similar to the difficulties Korean women went through as immigrants in the United States some 20 years ago. ``It is like a vicious cycle. I wanted to cut the cycle and focused on the bright side of immigrant women. If their bright sides are shown through media, their life will get better and people will have different views on them,'' Huh said.
She also pointed out that the term ``multicultural'' might lock up the married immigrants and their children in the frame of being from what they see as an ``other'' culture. ``In Korea, culture is differentiated in each region and it also is a multicultural society. I think we don't have to draw a distinction because of nationalities,'' the professor added.
meeyoo@koreatimes.co.kr
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