Week 8 discussion

Kwon’s The Work of the Waiting described the life status of the working laborers’ wives back at home in China. As discussed in the lecture this week, we found out that under Park Chung Hee’s rule, workers are exploited because of the forsook economic growth. During this time, workers are required to work unbearable long hours and are usually paid unproportionally to the workload they have put in. A lot of Korean workers, therefore, seeked immigration to Europe and other places. To support the workload of the growing economy, Chinese temporary immigrant workers flowed into South Korea leaving their families behind. If I haven’t read Kiwon’s work, I would probably underline these Chinese immigrant workers’ exploitative working situations during such time. Upon reading Kiwon’s work, it adds more negativity and adversity to these Chinese immigrant workers’ situation because such explorative nature of the immigration policy does not only apply to just the workers alone but the whole family that is left behind at home.

Because these Chinese immigrant workers are distant from their family, the whole house chores are landed on just the spouses’ shoulders. With the husband thousands miles away from home, the wife is obliged to take care of the children as well as both sides of the parents by herself. To do this, working is merely possible and thus the wife has to wait for the husband’s remittances every month or so. On top of that, as Kiwon mentioned, sometimes the Chinese immigrant workers will abandon their family back in China and start a new life in Korea by marrying a Korean or Chinese Korean immigrant just like himself. This is especially catastrophic for the “work of waiting” because not only does she lose a husband, she also loses all her income for the family. Such underlying betrayal will create a great constant mental distress for the “work of waiting.”

The range of labor that is put into just one immigrant worker is thus abundant, including not only physical exploitation but also severe mental distress for both the husband and wife. As indicated in the lecture, these Chinese Immigrant workers are paid low but work excessive hours which causes great physical burdens on the worker. In addition to the physical distress, both parties of the family will suffer from mental anxiety that the other can possibly leave them under the condition. Separation in such a long distance will pose a challenge on both people, especially when there is a great workload but no reassurance from the other partner due to the distance.