Dumukot ako sa baul ng aking mga litrato para sa edisyong ito ng Litratong Pinoy. Ang paksa sa linggong ito ay “Ihip ng Hangin”. Pagpasensiyahan na kung naparami ang aking lahok, natuwa lamang ako na marami-rami rin pala akong nakuhanan gamit ang aking nasirang point-and-shoot na Konica. Mga litrato ng tag-lagas (autumn) kung kailan maraming nalalagas na dahon dala ng ihip ng hangin.
Ang aking kaibigan na si Anna Banana. Natiyempuhan ko ang kanyang tuwa sa mga nalagas na dahon sa isla ng Nami (kung saan kinunan ang palabas na “Winter Sonata”)
Tag-lagas sa isla ng Nami
Si Ivan Mayrina, nakuhanan ko habang ginagaya ang litrato sa likod ni Bae Yong Joon.
Sa Ellis Island sa New York noong bumisita ako kasama ang aking ate.
The total number of foreign spouses in Korea is more than 116,000, or 160,000 if those who have acquired Korean citizenship are included. And I know more than 40 of them personally. The number of Filipino men and women who are married to Koreans is 5,306. It’s a little less than I expected but then that figure doesn’t include those who are now Korean citizens. What surprised me is the increasing number of Cambodian spouses.
By county, Chinese formed the biggest group of foreign spouses with 66,115 or 57 percent, followed by Cambodia with 25,640 and Vietnam with 23,301. Filipinos and Japanese numbered 5,306 and 5,711, respectively.
The Chinese as the biggest group of foreign spouses is not surprising at all. This number includes those who are of Korean descent. My sister-in-law’s brother is married to one, a Chinese national with purely Korean heritage.
Some 86 percent of them have lived in Korea less than four years and more than 30 percent of them lived in Gyeonggi Province including Incheon. Seoul has about 25 percent of the foreign spouses, South Gyeongsang Province including Busan has 12 percent, while 10 percent of them live in Jeolla Province including Gwangju.
I didn’t expect to know that more than half of the foreign spouses live in urban areas like Seoul, Incheon, Gwangju and Busan, considering that 96 percent are Asian. There’s a preconceived notion that if you’re an Asian here, you must have come from a poor background and that you’re married to a Korean farmer living in a rural area.
My son is almost two years old. I gave birth on May 24th, 2006. My original EDD was June 13th. Here’s my birth story…
I was just supposed to have a NST (non stress test) and routine checkup for my 37th week of pregnancy. I arrived at the hospital a little over 11 in the morning, but I was late as usual for my 10:30 appointment. The nurse immediately told me to go in the NST room. After the NST, I had a biophysical profile test for the baby. Then, I proceeded to the self-testing room where I took my blood pressure and checked my weight (gained 900 grams in a week). I gave the nurse my numbers and she was shocked to find that my BP is very high.
My BP that morning was 170/100. The nurses were alarmed and told me to take my BP again after I meet the doctor. Doctor Choi told me that the baby’s fine according to the tests I took earlier and said that he’ll see me a week after. So after meeting the doctor, I checked my BP again and it was terribly higher at 190/110. The nurses informed the doctor and he decided that I should not be allowed to go home and to have the baby in the afternoon. I panicked!
The nurse called my husband on the phone and explained everything. She told me not to go home but I pleaded and I said that I’ll be back in an hour. I went to another building of the hospital and talked to my husband. I went home and bought kimbap (rice roll) for my lunch.
Back home, I prepared my bag, ate, read a book while on the toilet, showered and took pictures of myself! I emailed some of my friends and relatives informing them that i was going to be induced in the afternoon. I arrived at the hospital before 4 PM. I had myself admitted and called my husband afterwards. I told him not to come yet since from what I’d heard first time labors usually take hours!
I proceeded to the delivery room. The nurses asked me several times on who’s accompanying me. I told them that I came to the hospital by myself. They asked me again and again as if I didn’t understand their question!
I changed to a white hospital gown at the delivery room. They checked my BP, shaved me down there and gave me an enema (terrible!). By 445 PM, I was in the bed where my doctor checked me and found out I was already 5cm dilated. I’d been dilated 3cm since my 32nd week appointment.
The nurses asked me again if I have any family with me and I said no, but my husband will come at around 8PM. They hooked me up to a fetal monitor. At 5PM, they broke my water and hooked me up on pitocin. After that i started to feel contractions. Four minutes apart at first and then two minutes apart later. That was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.
The nurse told me how to breathe through the contractions and it really did help. However the pain was really tremendous. It was like riding a scary roller coaster. You know when you’ll be on the scariest part and when you’re there you wanted to get off but you couldn’t. The contractions also felt like the worst menstrual pain ever but multiplied a million times, I guess. At that moment, I thought about all the women throughout the ages who had to go through labor without any medication.
At around 5:35 PM, I remember asking the nurses for a painkiller. One of them checked me and said i was almost fully dilated so they refused to give me any. So I just had to endure all the pain and I remember that it was almost 6PM when the nurse said that I was fully dilated and I should start pushing. The pushing helped ease the pain, so I just pushed vigorously.
When then the baby’s head started coming out, the nurses told me not to push anymore. I felt one of the nurses’ hand holding or pushing back the baby’s head. Then they wheeled me to the main delivery room.
The doctor came a few minutes later (and he’s one good looking doctor!) and he started to ask me to push the moment he sat down. It wasn’t difficult. I think my baby came out after three pushes. That was at 6:17 PM. I heard the baby’s cry about a minute later…
After the baby, I had to push again to deliver the placenta while hearing my baby cry. The doctor stitched me… I remember feeling the needle as he did so and I heard myself say “aww!” a couple of times.
When everything was done. The doctor looked at me and said “all done” (in Korean of course) and I said “thank you”. They transferred me to the post-partum room, where I was hooked up to a BP monitor and magnesium. The nurse massaged my abdomen. I think about 15 minutes later, my husband came. I’m so sorry for him that the birth didn’t take long, I could read that he wanted to be there (he told me to call him before I deliver). I didn’t expect to deliver that early though…
I spent about three hours at the post-partum recovery room. After that they told me that they will bring me to the ICU because my blood pressure was high. I was well taken care of at the ICU until I was discharged at 3PM the following day. I didn’t think that hospital food could be delicious. There were two other patients at the ICU but they weren’t allowed to eat solid food yet.
I was transferred to Rm 219 of the main building of the hospital. That night, my husband stayed with me. The following morning, my doctor said I could go home in the afternoon. My husband asked if I could stay one more day at the hospital. The doctor said it’s better that I go home. With the help of my first sister-in-law (keun hyeongnim) and my mother-in-law, I was able to go home that same day. I spent a total of 49 hours in the hospital from the time of admission till discharge.
Have you ever heard of this song? It was popular several years ago. When I had my son two years ago, I listened to this almost every day.
I HOPE YOU DANCE
Lee Ann Womack
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you’ll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances
But they’re worth taking
Lovin’ might be a mistake
But it’s worth making
Don’t let some hell bent heart
Leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out
Reconsider
Give the heavens above
More than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone)
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you’ll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
Dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
I hope you dance
(Where those years have gone)
(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone)
May 21st is celebrated as Couple’s Day in Korea. The hangeul is 부부의날 (bubu-ui nal). 부부 means couple; 날 means day. May is a family month. We had Children’s Day on the 5th and Parents’ Day on the 8th.
Korea started celebrating Couple’s Day in 1995 so this year marks its 14th year of celebrations. It was initiated by a pastor in Changwon City in South Gyeongsang province. Its aim is to promote the importance of domestic harmony.
When I first created this blog, I thought of writing more about life in Korea as a foreign wife, daughter-in-law and a mother. However, I’d been too busy the past few weeks but I’m not going to abandon the original idea.
Last year, I joined a Korean language class sponsored by the Korean government at the Women Migrants’ Center in Sungin-dong, Jongro-gu. I was introduced to the center by a Filipina friend I met online. She has been studying the language at the center for almost a year that time. The place is just sooooo near my residence but I didn’t know about it until then. I guess the government needs to step up their information campaign.
I could already converse in basic Korean that time. I could also read Korean well but I was assigned to the elementary (초) class since I didn’t ace the evaluation test that they gave. It was a little harder than I expected.
The class is totally free. The textbook and its accompanying workbook are also free, and so are the snacks. In my class are two other Filipinas, six Vietnamese, six Chinese, two Bolivians and a Japanese. The elementary class ran for six months. It was a once-a-week two hour class every Thursday afternoon. If you have a child, the people at the center would even take care of your son or daughter so you could concentrate on the class. I liked my class a lot, but the Vietnamese are just soooo noisy! They would talk to themselves in their language even while were having a class. So the teacher almost always complain. LOL
The intermediate classes started on the third week of January, while I was on vacation in the Philippines. This time, they increased the frequency of the class to three. The class meets on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning at 10:30 AM. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the classes because of my son who sleeps for 14 hours a night. He almost always wake up beyond ten in the morning!
I hope to join the next class this fall. I’ll be attending the intermediate classes and hopefully I’ll be able to learn enough Korean for me to be able to guide my husband’s family when they go to the Philippines. Everyone in the family wants to travel to my country but my father-in-law insists that we’re not going there until I can be their tour guide. Oh well!
Anyway, the Women Migrants’ Center doesn’t only offer Korean language class to foreign women married to Korean men. They also have Vietnamese classes for the Korean husbands of Vietnamese women. Isn’t that nice? They also have classes for cooking Korean dishes. (I can cook Korean dishes really well, according to my mother-in-law, so I didn’t think I needed it.) And of course, counseling and help to those who need it.
Last year, we had special activities like an introduction to “hanji” or Korean paper. We had several parties and excursions, all paid for by the Korean government! Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend the Christmas party where I was tasked to sing the first stanza of Wonder Girls’ Tell Me. I had the flu and I didn’t want to infect the people at the party.
Here are some pictures of my class. Not everybody was around at that time. It was just our practice session for the Christmas party last year. I’m the one in the beige jacket.
Umaapoy na baga (o uling) ang ginagamit sa pagluto ng isa sa pinakapaborito kong pagkain dito sa Korea. Ito ay ang “sut bul wang kalbi” o malaking tadyang ng baboy na binabad sa espesyal na sarsa at niluluto sa ibabaw ng apoy na mula sa uling. Napakasarap! May mga bisita ako na galing ng Pilipinas at Amerika at nasarapan din sila sa pagkaing ito. Samahan pa ng hilaw na hiwa ng bawang o kaya’y isang malaking sili at tiyak na aapoy sa iyong mga dila ang pinagsamang sarap ng pagkaing ito.
I took this picture of an ostrich roaming freely in Nami Island, South Korea last Thursday, May 8th. I love seeing animals running freely (as long as they’re not too wild that they could hurt people).
