Thu, Jan 29, 2004 page2

• Universities change spouses' lives

  • By Debby Wu / STAFF REPORTER
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  When daily life in Taiwan becomes hard for foreign spouses in terms of language and culture, community universities seem to have become the ideal place for them to learn local languages and culture.

  Twenty-eight-year-old Lam Kim Hue (林金惠), a Vietnamese who has been married to a Taiwanese man for 7 years, said that some Taiwanese were unfriendly toward foreign spouses.

  "Sometimes when I meet a Taiwanese man, he would say to me, `how much did your husband pay to buy you?'" Lam said.

  "I always feel very sad when I hear that. I want to tell them, `please stop saying that, because my husband married me, he did not buy me,' but I always kept quiet," she said.

  Lam went to night school to learn Chinese when she first came to Taiwan. One-and-a-half years ago she switched to the Panchiao Community University, where a literacy class specially designed for female foreign spouses is presented.

  "Many Taiwanese classmates were hostile to me at night school. Whenever I went into the class, they gave me looks that could kill. Later, when I got to know some of them better and became friends, they told me that at first all classmates did not like foreign spouses because they thought we came to Taiwan to embezzle money," she said.

  Lam said that she did not learn much at night school although she went there for more than four years, because the teachers were reluctant to teach foreign spouses.

  But things changed after she switched to the community university. Her classmates were all foreign spouses and her teachers were friendly.

  "I felt happier after I joined the literacy class. We also had special parental education training classes and after the lessons I have become more patient with my family and children," Lam said.

  Twenty-six-year-old Nguyen Thi Quyen (阮式娟) is another beneficiary of the new literacy class at Yungho Community University.

  "Before I started the literacy class, I knew little Chinese and I didn't dare go out by myself. I always had to wait for my husband or my parents-in-law to take me out," Nguyen said.

  She said that her father-in-law one day read in a newspaper about the literacy classes and sent her to the university.

  "Now I can read a few Chinese words and I am brave enough to go out alone," Nguyen said. She is even able to watch popular Korean television drama now because she can read and understand the Chinese subtitles.

  Her family's support is also an important factor in Nguyen's success.

  "My husband and parents-in-law also teach me some Chinese and my parents-in-law always talk to me slowly so I don't have any problem understanding them," Ngyuen said.

  Both Lam and Ngyuen are examples of lucky women that have the support of their families and did well in the literacy class.

  Cheng Wan-yun, a literacy class teacher in Panchiao, pointed out that foreign spouses usually faced great pressure to come to class along with the burden of looking after their husbands, parents-in-law and children. The university therefore encouraged them to bring their husbands and children along.

  "Literacy may be one part of the class, but the most important thing is to help them understand the culture," Cheng said.

  "It is important for us to help them to stand on their own feet rather than sympathize with them," he said.

  Tu Shu-hsia (杜淑霞), a literacy class teacher from Yungho, said that she had students who had stayed at home for three or four years before they came to the literacy class. They were also bullied by their families.

  "But now they have learned the language, they can finally express their thoughts and cope better," she said.
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