VIETNAMESE BRIDES AND MARRIAGE MIGRATION TO SINGAPORE

PROLOGUE Bèo dạt, mây trôi, chốn xa xôi Anh ơi, em vẫn đợi vẫn chờ (Like floating duckweed amidst fleeting clouds, Far and far away, My love, I am still holding on) (Vietnamese folk song) The first encounter On a summer’s day in May 2007, I stepped into the ―paradise of matchmaking agencies‖ at Golden Mile Tower (GMT) next to Singapore’s ―Little Thailand‖ for the first time. Holding a piece of paper with both the address of ―Vietnamese wives’ club‖ and the directions to get there by bus,1 I walked through the main entrance of the old mall. I still remember the suffocating atmosphere inside GMT as I tried to make my way through the dark and narrow escalator of the mall. This escalator is typical of escalators found in older, dying out shopping malls located in the heartland neighborhoods of Singapore.2 The smell was the first thing that hit me, promising something unpleasant in exchange. Even as it was extremely hot outside, I was shivering as I looked around, bewildered, trying to locate the club. I suppose it was the popular image of these matchmaking agencies as sites for displaying young Vietnamese girls as sex workers for the consumption of Singaporean men (Today, 14 March 2005) that made me particularly uneasy. More precisely, being a young Vietnamese woman myself, I was petrified by the thought of being mistaken for a Vietnamese bride, to be looked down upon as a sexually immoral and materialistic woman ―selling‖ herself abroad as a ―foreign bride.‖ I wanted to distinguish myself, a 1 I heard of this particular matchmaking agency through the article ―Welcome to the Vietnamese wives’ club‖, Her World, November 2006, pp. 145-147. 2 See Chapter 2. 1 professional woman, from the brides who are commonly regarded as young, uneducated girls who come over Singapore to ―hunt‖ for husbands. It is undeniable that I was struggling to overcome my sense of ―self‖ as a professional researcher as I proceeded to my field site longing to understand the real lives of the women who are socially stigmatized as ―Vietnamese brides.‖ It was my very first, fleeting encounter, more than four years ago, with five Vietnamese brides and their boss in an anonymous matchmaking agency at GMT inspired me to work on this topic. I did not, on that occasion, find the particular agency whose address was on that slip of paper, but I nonetheless overcame my trepidation and walked into one such office. Although at the time I could barely speak to the Vietnamese bride-wannabes under the watchful eye of their ―boss,‖ this first encounter tremendously challenged my previous stereotypes of these Vietnamese women. Like a lost traveler coming across an oasis in the desert, I found myself unexpectedly fascinated by the transnational journeys that Vietnamese brides make from the rural Mekong Delta to cosmopolitan Singapore, and by their struggle to survive in Singapore after securing their marriages. In the end, I was quite surprised to find quite a few commonalities between ―myself‖ and ―them.‖ This was perhaps the precious gift of doing anthropology, as for me, working with my research subjects is not simply a part of my job but it is indeed a way of life. Vietnamese brides in Singapore Since the 1990s, a regular cohort of Vietnamese women migrants commonly known as ―Vietnamese brides,‖ mostly from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, have been settling in Singapore through marriage with local men arranged by commercial 2 matchmaking agencies. The Vietnamese Embassy in Singapore estimated that, in 2004, more than 300 Vietnamese brides arrived in Singapore (The Straits Times, 4 March 2005). It is entirely possible that the actual statistics are higher than what has been estimated by the Vietnamese Embassy: one matchmaking agency specializing in Vietnamese brides, Mr. Cupid International Matchmakers, reported that it successfully paired 360 Vietnamese women with Singaporean men (The New Paper, 4 September 2005). While updated statistics of Singaporean-Vietnamese intermarriages are not readily available in Singapore, the situation in Taiwan and South Korea is different. In these countries, in response to the rise of intermarriages between local men and foreign brides, social organizations and government institutions have conducted several large-scale surveys on the marital lives of the couples and the demographical patterns of the new migrants.3 When I first embarked on this research, I was frequently confronted by the question of why I choose to study Vietnamese-Singaporean intermarriages in particular and whether there were really enough Vietnamese brides in Singapore to warrant such a study. It has been a simple yet difficult question for me to answer. Looking at the statistics of Vietnamese brides in Singapore, it may not seem to be a significant number: 300 Vietnamese brides out of 753, 400 nonresidents in 2004 or that number out of 1.25 million in 2010 (Singapore Department of Statistics 2007 & 2010). These low numbers would not attract the attention of most academic scholars, or the Singapore government for that matter. However, Vietnamese brides are definitely becoming a cultural phenomenon in Singapore, and to date there is a lack of meaningful research on the topic. I was also motivated to bridge the gap between the literature of intermarriages between Vietnamese women and Asian men. Even though 3 See Bibliography for a list of reports on Vietnamese brides in Taiwan and South Korea. 3 the number of Vietnamese brides in Singapore appears minimal in comparison, the topic itself deserves special attention from social researchers, especially from Vietnamese researchers like me. There have nevertheless been some vital earlier studies related to this topic (Ng 2005; Yeoh 2006; AWARE 2006). Besides, in 2009, during my affiliation with the NUS Department of Southeast Asian Studies as a Master’s Candidate, a group of feminist researchers from the Asia Research Institute (ARI) launched a project to document intermarriages between Singaporean men and foreign brides from China, Malaysia and Vietnam. The ARI research team organized several conferences in 2010 and 2011 to present their preliminary findings.4 This project signaled a great change of public perception towards the topic of Vietnamese brides in Singapore. The completion of this project by end of 2011 coincided with the completion of my Master’s thesis and urged me to rethink how I could contribute to studies of marriage migration by investigating the case of Vietnamese brides in Singapore. Despite having been neglected by other scholars, this topic is absolutely relevant in several ways, beginning with the political-geographical relationship between Vietnam and Singapore. Given that economic disparities are the main ―pull‖ factors for international migration, this new pattern of migration – migration for marriage within Southeast Asian region – suggests that Singapore is catching up with the more powerful East Asian and Middle East countries that used to be the major receiving countries for migrant workers and brides from Vietnam. Clearly, Singapore is gradually emerging as a new ideal destination for Vietnamese migrant women who 4 For details on these conferences, please refer to the website www.ari.nus.edu.sg. 4 aim primarily to be wives of local men, as opposed to being typical migrant workers. 5 Moreover, the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Visa Exemption between Vietnam and other members of ASEAN, which allows Southeast Asians to travel and remain in other countries within the region for up to two weeks without obtaining a visa,6 now fosters transnational movement between Vietnam and Singapore. Not surprisingly, it is also now more difficult for authorities in these two countries to control the flows of migrants. The line also appears to be blurred between Vietnamese female migrants who migrate to find husbands through matchmaking agencies and those who migrate to work as entertainers and sex workers. Vietnamese brides are often stereotyped as sex workers when they try to enter Singapore using a tourist visa. This unfortunate characteristic of migration flows from Vietnam to Singapore adds some colour to the situation of Vietnamese brides in Singapore because of its underlying social implications and consequences. This study is additionally relevant in that there are specific differences between Singapore and other East Asian countries in terms of how the adaptation process of Vietnamese brides is facilitated once they marry their local husbands. It is these differences that make the case of Singapore more interesting. On the one hand, Singapore is known for its ―multiculturalism‖ policy and its dependence on migrants to maintain and grow the national economy. Singapore is widely regarded as an openminded and tolerant society that easily accepts new migrants. This sharply contrasts to the case of Taiwan or South Korea, which purport to be ethnically homogeneous. Not surprisingly, immigrants to these countries often face social and racial discrimination 5 There are, however, many Vietnamese women who temporarily migrate to Singapore to work as sex workers in Geylang and Joo Chiat. However, this group is rarely considered as ―migrant workers‖ due to their short-time migration and their illegal working status in Singapore. 6 See Article 1, ASEAN Framework Agreement on Visa Exemption, Kuala Lumpur, 25 July 2006 (www.asean.org/18570.htm retrieved on 14 April 2012). 5 from the host society. Singapore also contrasts with Taiwan and South Korea in that it has no significant agricultural or rural sector. This means that Vietnamese brides in Singapore are not expected to work in the fields and live in the remote villages, unlike the typical scenario for foreign brides in Taiwan and South Korea. Since many Vietnamese brides marry abroad specifically to escape the difficulties of rural life in Vietnam, it is easy to see why the image of Singapore as a model of nation-city feeds their imaginations. These urban expectations predictably relate to the increase in Vietnamese brides focusing on Singapore. I have captured the spirit of these aspirations in the title of my study. In exploring the life stories of Vietnamese women who have married Singaporean men through commercial matchmaking agencies and personal networks, I seek to address four issues I consider the most salient to this phenomenon. First, I am concerned with the motivations for marriage migration of women from the Mekong Delta in Southern Vietnam within the context of globalization. Second, I analyse how social stereotypes and cultural differences influence the adaptation process of Vietnamese brides in their new host society. Third, through the joint struggle of Vietnamese brides and their Singaporean husbands to culturally accommodate with each other, I attempt to show how the lived experience of intercultural marriage shapes the perceptions of individual stakeholders with regard to love, marriage, and culture. Finally, I seek to contextualize this research within the literature of Vietnamese boat people in order to explore how it might contribute to our understanding of the broader phenomenon of the Vietnamese diaspora. Thesis argument In this research, I argue that understanding transnational intermarriage between brides from relatively poor economies and grooms from relatively rich ones 6 must begin with an informed perspective that looks beyond an oversimplified view of presumably materialistic women escaping poverty at home to seek a more comfortable or even ―luxurious‖ life abroad. Money and high living standard do not offer a complete answer and human agency should not be overlooked. This research suggests that the emerging intermarriages between Vietnamese brides from Mekong Delta and Singaporean men are an institutionalized form of transnational marriage migration inspired by gendered aspirations for socio-economic mobility, and an everstrong sense of filial piety as much as economic incentives. Intermarriage through a matchmaking agency is not merely an instrument for Vietnamese girls to break out of their poverty for a ticket to social mobility in a First World country. Even though economic incentives are often cited as the primary motivation of Vietnamese brides to engage in intermarriages, we cannot neglect the many other possible factors at play. In fact, marriage migration to Singapore does not automatically offer these Vietnamese brides a comfortable life, especially if they cannot overcome the tough process of adaptation. As such, it is insufficient to rely solely on economic incentives with regard to the aspirations of Mekong Delta girls. I will argue that marriage migration by Vietnamese brides is motivated by a combination of personal aspirations for financial affluence, a modern lifestyle overseas, and self-fulfillment on the one hand, and by broader changes in economic circumstances in the era of globalization. The dynamics of non-economic incentives of Vietnamese brides’ marriage migration is closely linked to their marital lives in their new urban environment. The transnational journey from the Mekong Delta to Singapore not only gives them access to a lucrative labor market and a relatively cosmopolitan life, it also channels them towards a new process of cultural adaptation and soul searching in a foreign country. 7 Through this process, they must learn to integrate themselves into unfamiliar social structures and pursue ―happiness‖ within the context of their intermarriages. By inviting these foreign men into their lives, Vietnamese brides gain much more than monetary rewards such as bride dowries or remittances. Intermarriage, as a human journey and social institution, has become a platform for Vietnamese brides to experience a mutual exchange of emotions, culturally sensitive appreciation, knowledge, and love. Marriage to Singaporean men also transforms these Vietnamese women physically and spiritually, in terms of their social skills and mindsets, to their perceptions of love. Intermarriages with Singapore men therefore engender for Vietnamese brides the process of crafting a new self-identity. Existing literature on international migration has examined similar motivations of young girls from developing countries to more economically developed ones. It is therefore important to clarify how Vietnamese brides are distinct from other Vietnamese women who engage in wage labour migration. First and foremost, marriage migration is permanent in nature, unlike wage labour migration which is typically temporary in nature. Vietnamese brides are more specifically migrant wives, daughter in-laws, and mothers. Their migration and process of adaptation in the host society is much more complex because it involves the prospect of permanent settlement and lifelong intimacy. This is especially so in the context of the Chinese-influenced cultures in Singapore and Vietnam, where marriage is regarded as an important institution for individuals and for society at large. Second, most of intermarriages between Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms are arranged marriages. In this kind of marriage, the process of getting to know their spouses, for both brides and grooms, does not take place until after they marry and settle down in Singapore. Studies of arranged marriages in other Southeast Asian 8 countries also note the differences of ―love marriages‖ and ―arranged marriages,‖ for example, ―(arranged) marriages are thought of a process, a transition from rather formal or even potentially hostile exchanges first, of words then of food and finally of sexuality. While in a marriage sought equally by both partners, these stages blend smoothly into one another, in an arranged marriage, the transition is much less easy‖ (Cannell, 1999: 42). Foreign brides therefore require considerably more time and effort to adapt culturally and emotionally to their new life and new living environment, when compared to a temporary migrant labourer. With this research, I attempt to bring to light this aspect of commercially arranged marriage migration by compiling life stories of Vietnamese brides regarding their experiences and perspectives prior to and after marrying their Singaporean. In presenting my respondents’ narratives, I interweave particular metaphors grounded in Vietnamese literature such as floating duckweed and fleeting clouds to structure my main chapters. These metaphors are associated with the fate of women in pre-modern Vietnamese society, which corresponds to the pervading feminist approaches to the issue of Vietnamese brides but in a more nuanced and culturally appropriate manner. The metaphors of floating duckweed and fleeting clouds are inspired by the geographical and cultural landscapes of ―miền Tây,‖ the homeland of many of these Vietnamese brides. For “miền Tây” women and for Southeast Asians generally, life is like a river, and the interconnection between duckweed and river is akin to the responses of ―miền Tây‖ women to the currents of transnational marriage migration. Rather than fighting against the current, “miền Tây” women see themselves as actively adapting themselves to the flows, like duckweed, and searching for natural channels of mobility. Within these channels of mobility, intermarriage is perceived as the most convenient entry point for “miền Tây” women. 9 In choosing intermarriage, “miền Tây” women become duckweed floating along to transnational currents in a lifelong journey to their promised land. Grounding the conceptualization framework: Key concepts in studies of intermarriage Transnational marriage migration has been a major topic in the literature of migration. This section addresses four key concepts that address the issues I introduced above: gender strategy, emotional labour, agency, and state regulations. In the final part of this section, I also discuss the conceptualization of ―cultural encounters‖ and explore its relevance to my study. Gender strategy Gender (or more specifically, women) is generally considered the main subject in marriage migration studies. Historically, migration studies have referred to women as ―dependent migrants‖ who migrate primarily to join their husbands for ―family reunification‖ (Boyd & Grieco 2003; Zlotnik 2003; Morokvasic 1984). However, more recently, studies on marriage migrant women have been more inclined to speak of flows of ―foreign brides‖ (Kim 2008; Yang & Lu 2009; Wang & Hsiao 2009). They analyse why unmarried women from poorer countries migrate to richer countries in Asia to marry local men who, by local standards, appear socially disadvantaged in that they have difficulty finding wives in their own country through the mediation of matchmaking agencies. Gender strategy becomes a broadly relevant concept to this study for two reasons. First, it acknowledges that, in the era of globalization, women may have some advantages over men in terms of their ability to migrate overseas simply by engaging in intermarriage. This reflects the supply and demand aspect of the 10 international marriage market. On the one hand, it is the ―male marriage squeeze‖ (Hugo & Nguyen 2004) in developed countries that demands them to import foreign brides from less developed countries. On the other hand, for uneducated women from less developed countries, marriage is perhaps the only legal way to migrate and settle down in a foreign country (Tseng 2009). Accordingly, there is a gendered selective process taking place in marriage migration in which women occupy the more advantaged position. The concept of gender strategy is employed here to compare the opportunities and constraints of globalization experienced by women and men in the course of international marriage migration. Second, gender strategy is linked to the expectations imposed by rural families on migrant daughters and sons with regard to their duty to financially support the household members left behind. Classical theories of migration refer to a ―family strategy of migration‖ (Harbison, 1981:231) in which a household will send out an individual member to migrate so that he or she may contribute to financially household income, through remittances. To maximize the chance of receiving remittances, the family unit therefore has to decide whether women or men, daughters or sons, should be encouraged and invested to migrate (Chant 1992). In Southeast Asia, daughters are more likely to shoulder the task of providing financial support to their families because they are ―brought up to the sense of duty or moral obligation to earn money to repay the care and protection given to them by their parents‖ (Lim, 1998:12). In the matter of foreign brides in Southeast Asia, the household might be more willing to let young women migrate for marriage if they are seen as being potentially more reliable with regard to sending remittances back home. Conversely, women might be more willing to migrate in exchange for monetary rewards for the purpose of supplementing their families’ income. Studies on women’s intra-national 11 and international migration, for both working and marrying, such as those by Mills (1999) and by Piper and Roses (2003), have provided important case studies in support of this hypothesis. In this study, I ―localize‖ the concept of gender strategy in terms of the sociocultural backgrounds of my respondents. I argue that the socio-cultural contexts of the Mekong Delta play an important role in shaping the perception of young Vietnamese young as being not only forever indebted to their parents but also as being adventurous yet sacrificial women who have to leave home and find husbands abroad in order to provide for her immediate family back home. Questions of gender strategy can be better understood through the comparison of two alternating flows of migration taking place in the South: out-migration by women to marry foreigners and the return migration by overseas Vietnamese men to marry local Vietnamese women. For example, marriage migration by young girls from the Mekong Delta is inspired by their admiration for Singapore, the only ―First World‖ country in Southeast Asia. This journey indirectly fulfills their aspirations of being ―modern women.‖ Marriage migration by returning overseas Vietnamese men, on the other hand, affirms and re-affirms their masculinity through marrying and providing for an idealized submissive and feminine local woman, the type of women who would be difficult for them to find outside of Vietnam. Emotional labour The term ―emotional labour‖ refers to work done that incorporates feelings as part of paid employment, originating from Hochschild’s (1983) research on women working as airline stewardesses in America. In her research, she suggests that women tend to choose jobs that involve emotional labour as ―women more than men are more aware about the personal costs of a job‖ (Hochschild, 1983:11). Hochschild later 12 develops the idea of women as the main providers of emotional labour in her studies concerning the migration of nannies, maids, and sex workers from Third World countries to developed ones. She proposes that ―emotional labour‖ in the form of love and care is like gold that it can be commodified and transferred to the developed countries for profit (Hochschild 2002). ―Emotional labour‖ (as opposed to ―physical labour‖) is typically identified with women’s labour, and therefore creates greater opportunities for women in employment requiring love, care, and emotion. Hochschild’s idea of women’s ―emotional work‖ in turn has inspired studies of marriage migration. For instance, Faier’s (2007) study of Filipina bar hostesses posits that Filipina women are required to ―sell their emotions‖ to get repayment as favor and love from Japanese men. Instead of questioning whether these women also treat their husbands like customers by managing their true feelings and emotion, she shows how these Filipinas’ professions of love ―serve to construct themselves as cosmopolitan, modern and moral women to counteract the stigma of their occupation‖ (Faier 2007). In my view, the most significant contribution of Faier’s work is that she skillfully illustrates the transition of love and care as ―emotional labour‖ in public spaces to love and care as part of their intimate feelings in domestic spaces. The term ―emotional labour‖ is also relevant in studies of intermarriage as it seeks to understand how communication takes place between a husband and wife in such private spaces as their matrimonial home. ―Emotional labour,‖ however, should not be employed to equate entertainers with brides. This is not to say that such brides perform ―emotional labour‖ solely, or even primarily, for monetary exchange. In fact, they consciously perform emotional labour in order to receive their husbands’ protection, in terms of legal status, financial support, and emotional support. Since marriage involves intimacy, we can also assume that bridal migrants manage their 13 emotions to maintain the balance of their intermarriage relationship. Given that many such marriages originate as a type of arranged marriage, as such, the brides (and husbands) must actively negotiate and manage their emotions as they undergo the process of learning to love their new partners. Therefore, monetary exchange or financial security is just one part of the marriage package, and not its primary characteristic. Agency Since the type of intermarriage I discuss in this research are mostly mediated through commercial matchmaking agencies, it is worthwhile to bring into play the subject of agency and structure. The predominant depiction of ―foreign brides,‖ primarily put forward by feminist scholars and the mass media, is that they are trafficked by matchmaking agencies and their male clients (Truong 1996; Yamazaki 1987; Park 1996). This tendency leads to the perception that ―foreign brides‖ are helplessly victimized and that they have no agency in terms of making key decisions with regard to marriage migration. However, in her excellent review of recent studies on the ―commodification of intimacy,‖ Constable (2009: 56) suggests that ―ethnographic researchers provided numerous examples of migrant women’s activism, their subtle or explicit protests and their resistance and agency within the context of structural factors that limit the opportunities and often disempowers foreign brides, migrant domestic workers, and sex workers.‖ I find this discussion on agency useful specifically for the cultural context of the protagonists in my stories. As defined by Parker (2005:4), ―agency is the action of the individual who seeks to escape the constraints of society, and is often taken as free will.‖ Parker’s definition locates agency in relation to structure (i.e., the constraints of society) and calls for an action of ―escape.‖ In this study, however, I do not place as 14 much emphasis on the societal emancipation aspect of women’s agency. Rather, I focus on whether women are capable of taking action in accordance with their needs and the manner in which they negotiate their unique circumstances to exercise their own form of agency. As a socio-cultural concept, the notion of agency is further explored in this research through a detailed analysis of the pre-departure negotiation process among various family members of Vietnamese brides and the negotiation of the likely conflict of interest between the bride’s extant role as a dutiful daughter (vis-à-vis the natal family) and her future role as wife and daughter-in-law (vis-à-vis her new family in Singapore).7 State regulations As intermarriage involves marriage and international migration, it is vital to discuss the role of the state in both the sending and receiving countries. State intervention, specifically through each country’s immigration laws and citizenship regimes, provides a macro framework for analysing the dynamics of matchmaking and marriage migration. Studies of state regulations, mostly from the destination countries, cover three main issues: state discourses on intermarriage and foreign brides, the influence of state regulations on cultural adaptation by foreign brides, and the international diplomatic relationship between sending and receiving countries. Regarding state discourses, researchers and social activists have long been concerned with the fact that destination countries such as Taiwan and South Korea are inclined to ―utilize women’s bodies to serve the goals of the states‖ (Freeman, 2005:85). On the one hand, some governments may consider international marriage and the practice of importing foreign brides viable as a ―solution to low fertility rates 7 See Chapter 3. 15 and shortages of wives and reproductive labour‖ (Yang & Lu, 2009: 17). Government authorities in the two countries mentioned above nonetheless also express their societal anxieties over the sudden presence of ―foreign brides‖ in terms of ―biological reproduction, social harmony and welfare system in the host societies‖ (Kung, 2009: 179-181). As a result, they promote various social programs that are designed to assimilate this new group of migrants into the social structures of the host society (Chang & Belanger 2006). However, there is a big gap between what the foreign brides (as new migrants) and their children may need and what the state is willing to provide, especially in such areas as access to education, healthcare, and citizenship rights, with the latter posing the most acute problem. As reported by Sheu (2007), Taiwan, like other East Asian countries, still continues a spousal sponsorship regime in which the legal status of foreign brides is bound up with their husbands’ financial and social standing. The foreign brides are therefore more legally vulnerable in that the spousal sponsorship regime ―exacerbate(es) their unequal status within the marriage, diminishing their dignity and degree of independence‖ (Côté et al. 2001). Comparing state policies on Vietnamese brides between East Asian and Southeast Asian allows policy-makers to gain a better understanding of why certain policies are not effective in principle and how they could be modified to meet the needs and expectations of new migrants. In doing so, both the sending and receiving countries would be better enabled to regulate and benefit in a sustainable manner from the flows of migrants. Cultural encounter as a broader concept for studying intermarriage The usefulness of the cultural encounter as a concept within this study is inspired by Faier’s study (2009) of the Filipina wives of Japanese men in Central Kiso, Japan. The term refers specifically to the ―coming together of different 16 discourses, genealogies of meaning, and forms of desire‖ (Faier, 2009: 1). However, whereas Faier’s larger project concentrates on cultural encounters between individuals and cultural groups in the context of international interactions between the Philippines and Japan (with additional reference to the United States), I am more concerned with the cultural encounters between Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms on a dayto-day basis. Specifically, I interpret “cultural encounters‖ as the interactions or exchanges taking place between two actors or two cultures on the level of language, custom, practice and value systems. There are different platforms that facilitate cultural encounters such as diplomatic relations, business relations, and of course, migration, and marriage. Diplomatic relations and business relations are often used as platforms to promote cultural encounters among different sets of actors on a macro-level, whether national or international. These cultural encounters are not necessarily associated with intensive interactions amongst individuals. In contrast, cultural encounters that take place through migration and marriage normally involve intensive and micro-level interactions between two sides. Transnational marriage, or marriage migration, serves as one platform for cultural encounters between the Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms. This form of cultural encounter has two notable characteristics. First, both parties have to be involved in this cultural interaction on a daily basis. As brides first enter their marriages, they will likely face the problem of communication. Beyond this, if there is a common language used to communicate with their husbands, there will remain considerable differences in their culture and worldview that have to be dealt with. In ―free choice‖ or ―love‖ marriages, brides and grooms usually have certain amount of time to get to know each other culturally and socially before they begin 17 married life. In these marriages, therefore, the cultural encounter is first and foremost a process of cultural accommodation. Regardless of where they go to live after the wedding, both the bride and groom will have the opportunity to adapt to one another before they get married. The situation is rather different in the case of commercially arranged intermarriages. As Vietnamese wives living in Singapore, they have no choice but to learn to live like a Singaporean from the very beginning of the relationship. In this context, cultural encounters in commercially arranged marriages appears on the surface to be a harsh, one-way process of assimilation. However, I argue that, just as with ―free choice‖ marriages, transnational marriages negotiated through matchmaking agencies are also a form of cultural encounter that involves a mutual exchange, one in which the wife attempts to adapt to her husband’s way of life in Singapore, and in return, the husband also learns to adapt to the Vietnamese ways of his wife. Reflexivity and positionality within this study The concept of ―cultural encounter‖ is also crucial to understanding the interactions between the ethnographer and the research subject. In other words, it links to the issue of the researcher’s positionality in ethnographic studies. In this section, I would like to discuss briefly the relevance of reflexivity in both ethnography and feminist-oriented studies. Reflexivity refers to the ways in which ―the products of research are affected by the personnel and process of doing research‖ (Davies, 2008:4). Acknowledging the role of reflexivity in doing ethnography helps the ethnographers to produce ―highly individually reflexive works‖ focusing on ―how fieldwork affected the ethnographers‖ (Davies, 2008:16). As such, rather than staking out a fixed positionality, I find it more analytically useful to acknowledge throughout this study how my own experience of doing research on Vietnamese brides and 18 marriage migration to Singapore has transformed my own preconceived notions of marriage, migration, and womanhood. Adding to this discussion on the role of reflectivity in ethnography, feminist researchers emphasize that reflexivity is a ―holistic process that takes place along all stages of the research process from the formulation of the research problem to the shifting positionalities of the researchers and participants through interpretation and writing‖ (Hesse-Biber, 2007:496). In feminist-oriented studies, ―the research act sometimes is viewed as an explicit attempt to reduce the distance between the woman researcher and female subjects‖ (Fonow & Cook, 1991:3). The female researcher seeks to examine lives of the research subjects at ―structural rapture moments‖ or ―click moments‖ where she can immerse herself into certain circumstances of her respondents (Fonow & Cook 1991). By doing so, the female researcher can bring in her own voice and biographies into her ethnographical work. Reflexivity can also help researchers to explore ―how their theoretical positions and biographies shape what they choose to be studied and the approach to study it‖ (Hesse-Biber, 2007:496). The researcher, therefore, should question her own personal and cultural biases as she collects data and produces ethnographies. As for me, being a Vietnamese from the North (người miền Bắc) studying women from the South (miền Nam), there were moments when I caught myself engaging in stereotypes as I described Southern Vietnamese cultural models. However, being a Vietnamese from the North (người miền Bắc) studying about both women from the South (miền Nam) and about Singapore, I learned to come to terms with my own identity and my own changing socio-cultural settings vis-à-vis both Singapore and Southern Vietnam. In fact, along the way, I was surprised to uncover a few more cultural issues beyond my original research concerns, issues that were 19 nonetheless relevant to the larger story of transnational marriage. The process of putting my reflexive observations to paper and further weaving them into the thesis was an interesting pedagogical experience for me, one that I hope my readers can benefit from as well. Research Methodology and Data Collection I carried out my research utilizing a combination of library and archival analyses, as well as field observations and ethnographic interviews. Library and archival document analysis in this study drew from such primary sources as print media (i.e., daily newspapers) and multimedia products such as films, drama series, and talk shows, as well as online news media (i.e., Temasek Review, The Online Citizens in Singapore), and promotional materials from various matchmaking agencies (i.e., brochures, business cards, advertising banners, websites, etc.). Secondary sources included academic studies and reports from governmental institutions (i.e., Vietnam Association of Women Union, Singapore Registry of Marriage (ROM), Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) and various family service centres in Singapore), NGOs and matchmaking agencies. I employed both qualitative and quantitative methods in my field observations and ethnographic interviews. In particular, I conducted in-depth interviews with my respondents to record their life stories and whenever possible, also conducted focus group discussions to generate additional responses. I used the ―snowball‖ sampling method, based on my existing personal networks, to locate respondents. As this method notably limited my research sample by excluding former Vietnamese brides who had divorced or returned to Vietnam during my research period, I also opted to undertake fieldwork beyond Singapore, traveling to Vietnam to locate additional respondents to mitigate the sample bias. I began my short-term fieldwork in 20 Singapore in June 2010, conducting research until September 2010, then moved to Southern Vietnam, where I conducted interviews from October to November 2010. While in Singapore, my two main sources for recruiting respondents were through Archdiocesan Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants & Itinerant People (ACMI), where I do volunteer work, and through the Vietnam Brides International Matchmaker (VBIM) in Orchard Plaza. I also contacted through email and subsequently interviewed several social workers in Singapore – mainly from the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) and the Hougang Family Service Centre. In total, I conducted in-depth interviews with ten Vietnamese brides, three Singaporean grooms, three matchmakers, three social workers, one researcher and one movie director in Singapore. Whilst I conducted formal interviews with the social workers, matchmakers, the researcher and the movie director, I used an unstructured interview framework when talking to the Vietnamese-Singaporean couples. In my interviews with Vietnamese-Singaporean couples, and during observations of their interactions at home, I relied on the less invasive procedure of using written field notes (instead of audio or video recordings) in order to facilitate the sharing of potentially sensitive personal details that might not have been forthcoming otherwise. Their identities have also been changed in this study in order to protect their privacy. In some cases, I was able to conduct extended interviews and repeat interviews to record their life stories in greater detail. Through the mediation of my respondents in Singapore, I was also able to contact their family members in Vietnam and conduct field visits in Vietnam, together with the Singapore-based respondent. I stayed with two families of Vietnamese brides in Cần Thơ and Tây Ninh, with one family in Đồng Tháp, and one family in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) to interview their family members and neighbors. I also visited 21 offices of the Women Union Association in HCMC, Cần Thơ, and Đồng Tháp provinces to interview five Vietnamese social workers. Thesis Originality The issue of intermarriage has a significant socio-cultural impact in both Singapore and Vietnam but studies on Vietnamese brides to date, including the ARI team project, have focused only on the destination country of Singapore. My project has gone beyond these previous studies by providing data from multiple sites in both the sending and receiving countries. Given that Vietnamese wives do return to visit their families and stay closely in touch with them, an appreciation of the panoramic landscape of transnational love and marriage clearly necessitates a multi-sited approach, in my view. This study also required an investment in rapport-building, social familiarity, and the cultivation of friendship and trust, given the extremely personal nature of the data I collected about emotions and marital relationships. The protagonists in this study, whether the Vietnamese women or the Singaporean men, would not have confided their inner thoughts and feelings about their marriage, their dreams, etc., if they did not see me as someone who could sympathize with their situations and translate their experiences in an appropriate manner. Working on this issue therefore became less about obtaining sufficient field material for fulfilling the requirements of a Master’s thesis. It became, for me, about bringing the voices of these protagonists to the forefront. It also changed my own understanding of the plight of the women who I had initially perceived as mere victims of commodification. In the final analysis, it was about not merely balancing but coming to terms with two kinds of sensitivities inherent in field research: an empathy for my new friends and an objective 22 responsibility as a researcher.8 As such, I was able to appreciate the world of the Vietnamese wives and their Singaporean husbands through ―tâm sự,‖ which in Vietnamese means to connect with each other through a combination of confiding, gossiping, confessing, and also through simple eye contact or gestures to convey one’s emotions. In practical terms, it is an exchange of trust. From the very beginning, I played with the idea of writing a life-story, using one or two case studies to serve as the backbone of the story. Love, after all, cannot and should not be reduced to mere statistics or independent and dependent variables. It simply does not make human sense. An ethnographic study of everyday marital lives of Vietnamese brides-Singaporean husbands demands a greater descriptive indulgence, and less presumed fixity, with regard to a couple’s lived experiences, and their homes, hometowns, villages, relationships and life encounters before and after marriage and relocation to Singapore, as well as the hope and hard work involved in their realization of an idealized life-long marriage. Moreover, in my studies of the cultural exchanges and culturally embedded perceptions of life philosophy, love, marriage and migration, I have been deeply influenced by novels written by Vietnamese and Singaporean authors, and also by related films and cultural metaphors in literature. I refer to these sources several times in the chapters that follow, employed the aforementioned analogy of duckweed floating on the surface of a river and clouds fleeting over the rainbow to portray the transnational journeys of Vietnamese brides. Each chapter opens and sometimes closes with a short paragraph from my own personal field diary to expound on concepts and descriptions used in the different chapters. Taking a leaf from Georges Condominas’s We Have Eaten the Forest: The 8 These conflicts, as Marcus (1995: 12) suggests, ―are resolved in being a sort of ethnographer-activist‖ or a ―circumstantial activist.‖ 23 Story of a Montagnard village in the Central Highlands of Vietnam (1994), I have also tried to made use of endnotes, footnotes and appendices to provide some additional academic structure for this thesis without overwhelming the main narrative. A Story in Chapters This thesis is structured into five chapters: a prologue, three main chapters, and an epilogue. The prologue relates how I discovered and approached this topic, my aims and objectives for this study, and my efforts towards realizing these objectives. The first main chapter weaves the story on my fieldwork in Vietnam, focusing on the socioeconomic context of the Mekong Delta and of marriage migration through matchmaking agencies. The second main chapter deals with the marital lives of Vietnamese brides in Singapore and their struggle to adapt and to rediscover themselves. The third main chapter is simply a ―conversation‖ about the plight of these Vietnamese brides, written from the perspective of a Vietnamese woman, a researcher, a friend, and an alien in a new town. Finally, the epilogue provides a quick recollection of this interesting journey and what I learned from it. 24 Figure 1.Golden Mile Tower entrance 25 CHAPTER 1. “MIỀN TÂY” GIRLS AS FLOATING DUCKWEED An October night in Cần Thơ, 2010. It started out as another ordinary night during my stay in Cần Thơ with Ah Thuy’s family. It would have remained so if I had not heard her story. It was a story so touching that it would be carved forever in my memory. As we rode along the lonely dirt road from her house to the township, through the darkness and the chilly wind, my teardrops fell like rain as I listened to the story of the marital breakdown with her ex-husband, about her guilt towards her son, and her aspirations for a new life. At that moment, I realized that my research trip back to her hometown would not be in vain, for it was this trip that broke down the barriers between us. It was this trip that finally let me into her world. Since that night, I have been preoccupied with the vision of floating duckweed on the surface of the Mekong River. As previously mentioned, duckweed is a powerful metaphor in Vietnamese culture, and originally representing Vietnamese women who lived in pre-modern society and did not have the agency to control their own fates. Like duckweed floating along with the currents, those women appeared to be entirely at the mercy of the social circumstances that befell them. That night moved me to think of the destiny of ―miền Tây‖ (Mekong Delta) girls like Ah Thuy, who sought a better life in Singapore through marriage migration, and made me wonder whether they were not also like those hapless pre-modern women, floating like duckweed along the river of life? A travelogue of the Mekong Delta region (miền Tây) As its title suggests, this chapter takes the reader on a journey to a typical village in the Mekong Delta, from where Ah Thuy, one of my key respondents, hails. Set against the background of the Mekong Delta’s economic and socio-cultural 26 landscapes, this chapter highlights the push factors that spur ―miền Tây‖ girls to join the wave of marriage migration to the richer East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. In this chapter I employ the motif of a newly built house, an image that haunted my respondents, to show how the aspiration for economic affluence and high social status motivates the practice of marrying abroad, and also how it shapes public opinion about intermarriage through matchmaking agencies in the original ―sending‖ communities. This chapter uncovers the subtle but critical linkage between the economic incentives of intermarriage and the traditional cultural values of Mekong Delta residents that are embedded in Vietnamese brides’ feelings of dutiful selfsacrifice and indebtedness towards their natal families. A comprehensive look at one particular community in the Mekong Delta region reveals the impact of globalization on the everyday lives of peasant communities in a developing country like Vietnam. 27 Figure 2. A map of “Miền Tây” (Source: www.websrv.ctu.edu.vn) 28 “Miền Tây” from a panoramic angle ―Miền Tây‖ (or the Mekong Delta region), can be conceptualized in many different ways. To travelers, ―miền Tây‖ is a paradise of canals and tropical products. To economists, ―miền Tây‖ is the major agricultural region that supplies rice for the whole country.9 ―Miền Tây‖ also attracts much attention from foreign investors and investment projects from Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia geared towards building industrial zones within the region.10 To me, however, ―miền Tây‖ is not associated merely with surreal sceneries on screen11 or monotonous statistics representing the abundance of economic resources in the region. To me, ―miền Tây‖ has become an emotional debt that I can never hope to repay, for I am in debt to ―miền Tây‖ and the ―người miền Tây‖ (Mekong Delta residents) who have taught me that one’s life cannot be complete until you learn to understand and appreciate a culture other than your own. In fact, in a roundabout way, I had already been to ―miền Tây‖ long before I ever set foot on its soil. My childhood was filled with vivid visions of ―miền Tây‖ thanks to my father’s memoirs of his army days during the Vietnam-Cambodia border conflict. My father’s fascinating stories kindled my interest, and I knew that I had to journey there myself, at least once in my life. This research finally gave me the chance to travel to ―miền Tây‖ and walk in my father’s footsteps during my twomonth field visit to the Mekong Delta. 9 In 2009, Mekong Delta region produced 20,483,400 tons of rice, making up 52,7% of the national total output of 38,895,500 tons (www.gso.gov.vn/default.aspx?tabid=390&idmid=3&ItemID=11632, retrieved on 14 April 2012). 10 During the twenty two-year period of 1988-2010, the Mekong Delta Region attracted 565 investment projects (equal to 9439,4 million USD) from foreign investors and ranked fourth among the eight major economic regions in Vietnam (www.gso.gov.vn/default.aspx?tabid=392&idmid=3&ItemID=11370, retrieved on 14 April 2012). 11 There have been many movies filmed in the Mekong Delta and some that have won important prizes at international film festivals, such as Indochina (1992), The Lover (1992), Buffalo Boy (2004), and Boundless Field (2010), to name a few. 29 Zooming in on a village of Vietnamese brides Ah Thuy, the woman mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, was the first Vietnamese bride I ever talked to on the phone during my volunteer work at ACMI. After our conversation, her Singaporean husband brought her to the ACMI offices to enroll in English class for foreign spouses in Singapore. Sometimes, in the classes, I would meet up with Ah Thuy and her cousin Ah Lan, who was the one who brought Ah Thuy to Singapore to find husband. Through this acquaintance, I found out that Ah Thuy had already been married to a Vietnamese man from her village before coming to Singapore, and that they had a son together. For me, Ah Thuy was not just a respondent, but also a friend. Therefore, when she invited me to visit her hometown in Cần Thơ, I agreed without hesitation. Her hometown was my first destination upon arriving in HCMC, followed only later by visits to other provinces, like Đồng Tháp and Tây Ninh. I was greeted at the entrance of the village by a Khmer pagoda gate. 12 A dirt road along the canal bank connected the National Road with a smaller road near Ba Sê market (Trường Lạc district, Ô Môn Township). As I got off the minibus from HCMC, it started to rain.13 Probably because of rainy season in ―miền Tây,‖ the unpaved dirt road was slushy, and the wheels of Ah Thuy’s motorbike were caked with mud. Sitting on the back of her Honda, cloaked in a dense curtain of rain, the scenery along the road was blurred away in front of me. Water coconut groves and the bridges were swallowed in the distance. At last, we stopped by a cement-roofed 12 Apart from Viet people, there are many ethnic minorities in the Mekong Delta region, such as Khmer, Chinese, etc. Ah Thuy’s village is close to the border region with Cambodia, so there is also a small community of Khmer people blending with Kinh people. 13 In the Mekong Delta region, there are two main seasons: dry and rainy. During rainy seasons, almost every province in the Mekong Delta, especially Đồng Tháp is affected by flooding because they do not have an irrigation system like in the Red River Delta. The rain usually lasts a long time, sometimes for a whole week, which makes traveling by motorbike on dirt roads in the countryside quite a challenging experience. 30 house. It was her second uncle’s house, where she had arranged for me to stay during my visit. Ah Thuy had said she could not let me stay in her own house, which was once the house of her maternal grandparents, and where she lives with her mother and son, because it was too old and poorly equipped. This area of land had once belonged to Ah Thuy’s maternal grandfather. After her grandfather passed away, it was distributed among Ah Thuy’s mother’s siblings to build their own houses. The biggest house belongs to her second uncle, who is a Communist Party Secretary in the local government, and the most respected man among the siblings of Ah Thuy’s mother. Meanwhile, her cousin Ah Lan is the second daughter of her third aunt and uncle, who also live nearby. Ah Lan’s house was built a long time ago, but recently, thanks to remittances from Ah Lan and her Singaporean husband Jimmy, her parents were in the midst of renovating their old house through the addition of a cement roof as well as a modern-style interior bathroom. Ah Lan’s parents were therefore staying temporarily in a shack nearby during that time and could not accommodate visitors. Opposite Ah Lan’s house, about 500 meters from the river wharf, stood the house of Ah Thuy’s mother’s youngest sibling (dì Út). Almost all the siblings of Ah Thuy’s mother live near the canal which was originally a tributary of the big river running from Ô Môn Township. The practice of building houses by the canal has been influenced by one of the unique features of the ―miền Tây‖ landscape. The terrain of ―miền Tây‖ is structured by a complex system of rivers and canals, and the latter are the ―backbone‖ of its ecosystem. The distribution of canals determines the pattern in which ―miền Tây‖ residents build their houses, establish their villages, and situate their agricultural fields. 31 The typical house in ―miền Tây,‖ including Ah Thuy’s house, is very simply built. If a household is not wealthy enough to build a cement-roofed house, they will use natural building materials, such as straw, which is then mixed with mud to frame walls, and thatch or water coconut leaves to cover the roof. Houses typically extend in a horizontal direction, and bordered by sparse hedges or fences. This means one can easily walk directly into their neighbor’s homes without passing through a property’s main entrance. Sometimes, people build shelters to keep their sampans and boats, which used to be the primary means of transportation in ―miền Tây.‖ In some areas, however, thanks in part to changing water levels during flood season and the lack of funding for paved roads, local residents still travel often by sampan and boat. The formerly picturesque landscapes of Đồng Tháp Mười (Đồng Tháp province) during flood season are preserved in the travelogues of Northerners who visited ―miền Tây‖ during the 1950s. For example, Nguyễn Hiến Lê (1954) wrote: ―When the flood season comes, the landscape looks very beautiful. Green and red stilt houses reflect on the hazy streams, boats and sampans busily travel back and forth, fishes swim lively right under your house’s window, you can count at less ten fish per square meter. Over here, you can see a young boy staring attentively in the river, waiting to stab a fish. Over there, you see an old man holding his fishing rod as he sits on the bridge. Under the coconut tree, the vibrant green field is dotted by several white or light purple water lilies. In front and behind the houses, carpets of điên điển are hanging like brilliant green curtains adorned by yellow dots, swinging as willows‖. Today, these romantic descriptions of the Mekong Delta contrast starkly with the poor, thatch-roof houses in Cần Thơ and Đồng Tháp, like the home of dì Út. Among 32 Ah Thuy’s mother siblings, dì Út’s family is the poorest; her whole family still lives in their old simply built house by the canal. Dì Út’s house reminded me very much of Nhanh’s house in the documentary movie Matchmade.14 In the movie, the family of Nhanh, the protagonist, lived in the rural Mekong Delta region, in a thatch-roof and mud-wall house with no furnishings of notable value. I have always wondered how people can survive in such poor conditions. In Vietnamese tradition, a house is the single most precious property of a household. Therefore, no matter how poor a household can be, it is expected that they will attempt to build a solid house to last a long time. In the movie, Nhanh’s house sheltered about ten family members but was an empty shell after being destroyed by flooding. The movie made me wonder whether poverty pushed Nhanh to follow the urging of the local matchmaker (má nuôi) 15 to sign up for an illegal agency screening session in Saigon. The screening subsequently led to her marriage to a Singaporean man named Ricky, only to be sent back to Vietnam within three months of her wedding.16 A family’s house is a natural indicator of the economic circumstances and social status of a household in ―miền Tây.‖ However, it is also a representation of the financial and emotional burden that befalls many young girls in ―miền Tây,‖ because it is often built upon the backs of dutiful daughters who, like Nhanh in the documentary film and my respondent Ah Thuy, have undertaken for marriage as a 14 Matchmade (2006, Mirabella Ang) is a documentary film describing the matchmaking process of one matchmaking agency in Singapore. The director followed the man and the matchmaker to HCMC on the ―package tour.‖ She also met up with Nhanh’s family in Đồng Tháp province. I met the director, Mirabella Ang, for a short interview in August of 2010. 15 Má nuôi refers to the undercover matchmaker based in the villages to look for potential brides and take them to HCMC. 16 Technically, the matchmaking business is illegal in Vietnam. Those matchmakers in Vietnam who cooperated with foreign matchmakers from Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore or Malaysia to bring in the clients and organized the viewing session for them to choose Vietnamese brides had to bribe the local policemen, so they would not be arrested and accused of being human traffickers. 33 form of self-sacrifice for the well-being of the household. It is not difficult to find houses like dì Út’s and Nhanh’s in Cần Thơ, Đồng Tháp or anywhere else in the rural Mekong Delta, and many of the Vietnamese brides I spoke to at the Vietnam Brides International Matchmaker (VBIM) mentioned very similar situations. One of these respondents, Ah Lien from Đồng Tháp province, related a story that underlined her own household’s poverty. ―During my husband’s first trip to my hometown, we slept inside my parents’ house. My hubby later told me that he felt like he was lying out on the padi field because if he poked a small hole on the wall framed by straw mixed with mud, he could see a carpet of stars outside.‖ 17 With this endearing story, I could not help but admire Ah Lien and her husband: Ah Lien did not feel ashamed of her poor background, and her Singaporean husband did not look down on the thatch house where his wife grew up. But did this story mean that Ah Lien’s husband could sympathize with his wife’s motivation to marry him as a way to break out her poverty back in Vietnam? If so, then could Ah Thuy’s husband also be as sympathetic as Ah Lien’s husband when he visits his wife’s hometown and experiences the same extreme simplicity? Would Ah Thuy feel confident enough to let her husband stay in her own house even in its current condition? Or would she arrange for him to stay elsewhere because she worries that urban-dwellers like her husband would be unable to tolerate the rough conditions of her home province? Agricultural spaces: The river wharf and a piece of padi field during rainy season During my stay in Ah Thuy’s uncle’s house, I took special notice of the river wharfs distributed along the canal bank. About ten steps away from dì Út’s house lies a small river wharf where I could observe the local barges, loaded with sand and 17 Interview with various Vietnamese brides, July 2010. 34 construction materials, traveling back and forth when the water level was high. In ―miền Tây,‖ to make a simple river wharf, people only need to position a few coconut tree trunks along the canal bank for a spot to stand on or to place buckets. Since the day I arrived, I observed Ah Thuy going to the river wharf on a regular basis, whether to wash her clothes in the morning, wash vegetables before cooking, wash the dishes after cooking in the afternoon, scoop water into her bucket to wash her dirty Honda, or to bathe in the evening. There was no shortage of water that necessitated her family to make regular use of river water. In her kitchen, there were several giant earthenware urns containing rain water, but her family did not use it for everyday consumption. Instead, during the rainy season they saved rainwater for later use in the dry season. More recently, some households in Ah Thuy’s village have begun to install water pipe systems and no longer use river water. The river wharf near Ah Thuy’s house thus was used exclusively by her family because other households had already made the switch to piped water. The utilization of river water in Ah Thuy’s family helped me to understand the important role of the river in the everyday lives of Mekong Delta residents. According to Ah Thuy, the road we travelled on had been built quite recently. Before that, there was one long canal running through her house and transportation was only by boat and sampan. Several years ago, when this area began to be urbanized, the villagers donated their land and money to build bridges and roads to facilitate the circulation of vehicles from the National Road to the Provincial Road near Ba Sê market. The rapid urbanization of Ah Thuy’s village thus benefited certain households including her family. When Ah Thuy showed me the padi field covered by rain water behind her house, she said that the local government would be retrieving this land to 35 widen the Provincial Road, for which her mother would be monetarily compensated. With the anticipated cash, she had advised her mother to renovate their current house, because it was built a long time ago. She had planned to send remittances home to supplement the additional costs. Despite these renovation plans, I could see that the already renovated house of her cousin Ah Lan’s family generated feelings of self-pity in Ah Thuy, for being poorer in comparison. She once admitted that even though both of them married Singaporean men, their situations were quite different. Ah Lan had already sent money to her parents to renovate their house while Ah Thuy still did not have enough to send home. These Mekong Delta women seem haunted by traditional cultural norms. For Ah Thuy, she was filled with shame because she chose to marry abroad to improve her economic conditions, but after she migrated, she ended up being dependent on her husband financially, with no money to send home to renovate her mother’s house. A glimpse of local economic landscapes and food culture: touring Ba Sê market In every village or town that I visited, I was always fascinated by the local markets. For a researcher like me, a local market reflects the economic and socio-cultural landscapes of a community.18 If one wants to study the consumption patterns or lifestyles of rural people, especially in comparison to city dwellers, one only needs to spend time observing and studying the local markets. With this in mind, I went along with Ah Thuy to Ba Sê market. Ba Sê market is a small market very close to Ah Thuy’s house. In contrast to my image of village markets as female-dominated spaces, there was quite a number of 18 For studies on the role of local markets in economic landscapes in rural Vietnam, see Phan (1992) and Nguyen (1999). 36 local men mingling in the vicinity of the market gate. A series of popular cafeterias19 (cafe bình dân) were located along either side of the Ba Sê market gate, where local men gathered to sip cups of morning coffee before heading out to work. Cafeterias in small towns and villages are surprising for being occupied so predominantly by men. It seems these public spaces do not commonly cater to women, whose main duties are regarded as housework and child care. The main part of the market, however, was indeed a female-dominated space, and there were barely any men there. This market was divided into two areas: indoor and outdoor. The outdoor area was for groceries, meat, and fresh seafood stalls, with the latter located near the canal. Apparently, these products were fresh, having just been transported by boat to the market early that morning. Ah Thuy explained to me that it would be better to transport goods by boat because they could transport an entire shipment in one single trip. The hawkers in seafood stalls placed the live fish, prawns and other marine creatures to swim in basins, and displayed crabs or shells, scallops, oysters on a piece of plastic sheeting on the ground. Meanwhile, in grocery stalls, the fruits and vegetables were displayed on shelves. Apart from the vegetables already familiar to me in the North, I could see other, unfamiliar kinds of vegetables here, most of which were grown naturally in local gardens, such as water lily blossoms (bông súng), elephant-ear leaves (tai tượng), young mango leaves (đọt xoài). A typical meal in the Mekong Delta includes these fresh vegetables dipped in raw ―mắm.‖20 Marine products such as freshwater fish and shrimp play an important role in the food culture 19 Similar to kopitiams in Singapore. A special sauce made from salted fishes or shrimps, which can be heated to eat directly, seasoned meat to cook or used to make soup. 20 37 of this region. Most of ―miền Tây‖ delicacies are made from marine products, especially ―mắm.‖ Other kinds of meat such as pork and beef are not very popular here. The way ―người miền Tây‖ cook meat is strongly influenced by other ethnic minority communities in the region such as the Chinese or Khmer. Beef is not the main material for home-cooked meals, partly because many ―người miền Tây‖ are Buddhists who worship Guan Yin (the Goddess of Mercy) and do not eat beef as a result. For the rest, beef seems to be too expensive for daily meals. This possibly why they only buy beef for special occasions, such as when they invite friends or relatives for a meal. I learned about this when dì Tư (Ah Lan’s mother) asked Ah Thuy if she had bought beef for my welcome dinner. Ah Lan told her that her family had cooked beef as a special treat for her husband Jimmy and that he had really loved it. However, on that particular market day, Ah Thuy had instead planned to buy ingredients to treat me with a local delight called ―bánh xèo.‖ To cook this dish, she bought flour, pork, prawn, bean spout, jicama, and several green vegetables. ―Bánh xèo‖ seems to be an important dish for ―miền Tây‖ residents, including Ah Thuy, who always misses it when she is in Singapore. For me, the ―bánh xèo‖ made by Ah Thuy and her mother was the best ―bánh xèo‖ I have ever eaten in my life. Perhaps this is not due to the actual taste of the ―bánh xèo‖ itself but instead because I appreciated the warm hospitality of Ah Thuy, and her mother’s simple happiness as she told me how much her foreign in-laws had enjoyed her homemade ―bánh xèo.‖ All these social ingredients enhanced the taste of the ―bánh xèo‖ for me in their own unique way. Back in Singapore, when we had gathered at Ah Thuy’s home to cook ―bánh xèo,‖ she commented that ―bánh xèo‖ in ―miền Tây‖ was more delicious because it 38 was cooked with the fresh and abundant vegetables of rural ―miền Tây.‖ I gradually discerned why the taste of ―bánh xèo‖ made elsewhere rather than in ―miền Tây‖ would never measure up in terms of culinary quality. It was the taste of nostalgia blended in every bite of ―bánh xèo‖ I ate in ―miền Tây‖ that enchanted me. Broadly speaking, it was the minor aspects of everyday life, such as food, that haunted women like Ah Thuy and me who were far away from home and urged us to come back to the so-called ―nest of familiarity‖ (Shau, 1999:127). Living in the village and overseas: Ah Thuy’s stories Like other Vietnamese brides who went back home after spending time overseas, Ah Thuy spent most of her time visiting her neighbors and updating about her life in Singapore. As I followed her to these gatherings, sitting down and chatting with other villagers became the most exciting activities for me in the village. It helped me to understand why ―miền Tây‖ girls their hometowns to search for the kind of men they dream of. Even though many of them openly acknowledged that they marry foreigners because they need money to support their families, I discerned in our interviews, and in these gatherings, that economic incentives were not the sole motivation for engaging in transnational marriages. It is instead a combination of various factors – including poverty, the traditional perceptions of daughters’ obligations in Vietnamese culture, and fantasies of a cosmopolitan lifestyle – that contributes to this particular phenomenon. Due to the predominance of foreign intermarriage in Ah Thuy’s village, it was commonplace to hear women gossiping about foreign sons-in-law like Jimmy, who married her cousin Ah Lan. Within this gossip emerges an indirect comparison of the wealth of different foreign husbands and how well they treat their wives. This is done in part by calculating the sum of remittances known and noting the changes in 39 economic circumstances within particular brides’ families. The gossip, on the one hand, reinforces a deceptive image of a better life overseas – one factor that motivated Ah Thuy to get married again, this time to a Singaporean husband. On the other hand, the same gossip also served to deepen Ah Thuy’s sense of self-pity in light of her current situation of financial dependence. I remember a conversation with Ah Thuy after she visited one Vietnamese bride had married a South Korean. When I asked her about the visit, she almost burst into tears, telling me how upset and envious she was when she heard the woman talk about her new life as a bride in South Korea. The woman had told her she was working in a vegetable farm, which required a lot of physical labour but was a wellpaid job. Ah Thuy likely saw with her own eyes how well-off her family had become after the woman migrated to South Korea. She was so envious that she thought about migrating to South Korea herself, to find a similar job. At that moment, I realized the futility of the public awareness programs that were targeted by local governments to potential Vietnamese brides.21 I also realized that these brides had very specific expectations when they entered the international marriage market. For Ah Thuy, she was looking for particular factors that would bring her joy and satisfaction within a so-called ―marriage of convenience.‖ For her, marrying a Singaporean was about finding a channel to go abroad to earn for living (mượn đường làm ăn), or what Freeman (2005: 91) termed ―a legal entrée into the working world of a major metropolitan city.‖ I found it notable that she did not try to conceal the economic incentives surrounding her marriage. It is, however, worthwhile to consider the socio-cultural dynamics underlying the practical aspects of her motivating factors. Ah Thuy, in fact, did not expect to rely on her husband financially. Instead, she had 21 For details on these awareness programs, see Chapter 3. 40 actively searched for opportunities to work and accumulated her earnings by herself in Singapore. In her imagination, Singapore is a highly lucrative market and ―if you work one month, you can earn as much as when you work in Vietnam for the whole year‖ (làm một tháng bằng mình làm trong nước cả năm trời). Moreover, she was not thinking of her own needs when she made decision to marry abroad. She had always been concerned first and foremost for her mother who raised her as a single parent, after her father eloped with another woman. Her family, although still in Vietnam, has been with her, in a very real way, ever since she left her hometown to seek a new life. The convertibility of currency between Singapore Dollar and Vietnam Dong, 22 the illusion of a profitable labor market in Singapore (and other developed countries in East Asia), and the flows of foreign currency have dramatically transformed the economic landscapes and consumption patterns in Ah Thuy’s quiet village, and have motivated more young girls like Ah Thuy to try their luck overseas. In Ah Thuy’s village, only Auntie Hai, whose daughters also married Singaporean men, sympathizes with Ah Thuy’s situation. While other villagers mocked Ah Thuy for taking on a low-paid side job packing candy23 to ―collect every penny‖ (kiếm từng đồng bạc cắc) when she was already married to a foreigner, Auntie Hai always defended. She explained to the villagers that Ah Thuy was not legally allowed to work in Singapore. Therefore, she could not send remittances home like other brides in Taiwan and South Korea. As Ah Thuy recalled what Auntie Hai said, she showed me the newly built house of Auntie Hai’s daughters, a bungalow nestled 22 Southerners used to value money through bars of gold to avoid the devaluation of Vietnam Dong, but during my fieldwork in Mekong Delta, I learned that they started to use other foreign currencies such as Korean won or Singaporean dollar. This is apparently due to the presence of foreign sons-in-law and their national currencies in the village. 23 During Ah Thuy’s visit in Mekong Delta, she used to help her mother to pack candy for the neighbor’s candy mill. 41 between fruit gardens next to the Provincial Road. It has also been a dream of hers to provide for a new, spacious and well-furnished house for her mother and her son. Though Ah Thuy sometimes felt that her neighbors looked down on her, she still managed to maintain a significant position within her extended family thanks to her intermarriage with a Singaporean man. Her marriage connected her to the international marriage market and she did not want to miss that chance. She then planned to bring her cousin Ah Duyen to Singapore and introduced to her husband’s friend. In her view, this negotiation benefited both sides. It offered a way for her female cousin to escape from the routines of countryside life. It also provided Ah Thuy with sufficient capital for her trip back home.24 A comprehensive look at the wave of marrying foreigners in “miền Tây” Snippets of Ah Thuy’s stories about her life in the village and in Singapore actually reflect the larger phenomenon of marrying foreigners in ―miền Tây‖ as a whole. Waves of foreign intermarriage have stirred up the Mekong Delta region since the 1990s. This tendency initiated with the flows of Vietnamese brides to the United States, Australia, and France to marry overseas Vietnamese men (Việt kiều). Mekong Delta girls and overseas Vietnamese men basically share the same culture. However, their intermarriages can still be considered the first flow of marriage migration in ―miền Tây.‖ After the 2000s, when Taiwanese businessmen and grooms followed illegal matchmaking agencies to Vietnam to work, travel, and find wives, the phenomenon of marrying abroad slowly became more commercialized. The second flow of marriage migration, to Taiwan, lasted from the early 2000s until very 24 In exchange for the match with Ah Thuy’s cousin, the Singaporean man gave her 1000 SGD to cover the airfare expenses for both of them. The rest amount, after deducting the airfares, is ―coffee money,‖ a sort of informal matchmaking fee for Ah Thuy. 42 recently. Ah Lan and other Vietnamese brides I met in Singapore had apparently intended to join this flow of marriage migration at first. Some of them, in fact, were married earlier to Taiwanese men. When their marriages did not work out, they went back to Vietnam and tried to marry Singaporean men through other matchmaking agencies. Since 2004, marriage migration in ―miền Tây‖ seems to have been redirected to South Korea. The third flow of intermarriage, to South Korea, was fostered by both illegal matchmaking agencies and governmental institutions. When I was doing my short-term fieldwork in Southern Vietnam, discourses of Vietnamese brides marrying South Koreans dominated Ah Thuy’s recollections of her cousins’ husbands, including media reports of a murdered Vietnamese bride in South Korea, as well as pilot assistance programs by the Women Union Association in HCMC and the Mekong Delta region.25 Recently, coupled with the opening of regional markets and the ASEAN Framework Agreement, transnational movements within the Southeast Asia region, including marriage migration, appear to be flourishing. The marriage squeeze within Chinese diaspora communities in Southeast Asia region also offers new opportunities and new destinations for Vietnamese girls who are keen on marrying foreigners. The fourth flow of marriage migration that now seems to be taking shape appears to be following the routes of matchmakers and Vietnamese brides to Singapore and Malaysia. Duckweed following currents: Ah Lan’s tales Ah Lan is one example of Vietnamese brides in Singapore. Her story sheds light on the shuffling life of ―miền Tây‖ women caught in the complex currents of 25 See Chapter 3. 43 marriage migration for economic purposes. After finishing secondary school, she worked in a kindergarten in her hometown and struggled to survive on her modest wages. One day, the storm of marrying abroad swept over her small village with the arrival of a matchmaker from HCMC known as cô Chín. In the old days, traditional matchmaking used to be socially acceptable in rural Mekong Delta and ―ông/bà mai‖ (matchmakers) played a vital role in the matchmaking process. Some of these traditional matchmakers received many gifts in the form of food or money when they assisted the families in finding a good match. Nowadays, however, with the complex networks of the commercial matchmaking industry, village-based matchmakers like cô Chín are what link together rural girls and the matchmaking agencies in HCMC. In HCMC, village girls like Ah Lan would be handed over to another woman who is in charge of matching sessions and immigration paperwork for the girls before they are able to go to their new husbands abroad. Ah Lan, according to her mother, was picked up shortly after joining the matchmaking agencies in HCMC. She was engaged to a Taiwanese man and they even took pre-wedding pictures to send her future parents-in-law in Taiwan. Despite the engagement falling through, her mother still kept Ah Lan’s pre-wedding pictures in their house.26 Ah Lan’s life seemed to be settled, but one week before her scheduled visa interview for Taiwan, she eloped with a married man she had met in HCMC and backed out of her match-made marriage. That incident hurt her mother badly. After that, Ah Lan secretly migrated to Singapore to work. There, she met and married Jimmy (her current Singaporean husband). It is apparent that Ah Lan did not marry Jimmy to escape from her hard life in Vietnam. Jimmy initially was her regular 26 In rural Vietnam, these marriage artifacts as pre-wedding photo album were very important to the family of the bride, even later they divorced or separated, because they were sources of pride. 44 customer when she worked as a masseuse in Singapore. He was, obviously, not a good choice for those who sought for a ―marriage of convenience.‖ He had been in prison, and a criminal record related to drug use. As a result, Ah Lan encountered many problems when Jimmy tried to apply for her long term visit pass. During the first year of their marriage, she often had to fly back and forth between Singapore and Vietnam because she could only get one month social visit passes. Ah Lan, however, accepted all of these obstacles and persevered with her marriage. Perhaps she had married Jimmy for other reasons, and perhaps in her mind, their marriage fulfilled the aspirations of having a happy family shared by two marginalized individuals, two lonely souls in Singapore. Ah Lan’s tale also illustrates the dilemma of young girls in ―miền Tây‖ as they have to choose between two seemingly predetermined options: to remain in Vietnam and lead a normal life with the man you marry for love or to go abroad to search for a good life with the man you do not love yet he can support you in the future. In the end, Ah Lan chose the latter and became a Vietnamese bride in Singapore. Is Singapore a final destination? Ah Thuy, Ah Lan and many young girls from Mekong Delta have been heading to Singapore to realize their dreams of marrying foreigners. The flow of marriage migration to Singapore is linked to the participation of Singapore in the Vietnamese economy, especially after the Economic Reforms of 1986. The economic trade relationship established early on between Vietnam and Singapore resulted in the regular presence of Singaporean businessmen in Southern Vietnam either as independent entrepreneurs or expatriates posted by their companies to Vietnam. These businessmen gradually learned the language and sometimes married local girls to facilitate their business in Vietnam. They were the first generation of Singaporean 45 grooms before Vietnamese-Singaporean intermarriages started to flourish with the involvement of matchmaking agencies. To marry Singaporean men, these ―miền Tây‖ girls did not need to interview for visas or produce their single status certificates. They were able to simply enter Singapore on tourist visas and through different forms of matchmaking, meet and quickly register for marriage with Singaporean men. That was the way Ah Lan, Ah Thuy, and Ah Duyen gained their tickets to their ―promised land.‖ However, will Singapore, a country where the laws pertaining to marriage with foreigners are supposedly less strict, be the final destination for these floating duckweed from rural Mekong Delta? This inquiry brings me back to the concerns I expressed at the beginning of this chapter. I had asked whether these ―miền Tây‖ girls indeed have the agency to make the decision to marry abroad or whether they are merely victimized by their own circumstances. What I learned in my Mekong Delta trip directly challenged the old stereotypes I had of Vietnamese brides and the culturally embedded interpretations of duckweed metaphor in Vietnamese literature. The author Dương Thu Hương has powerfully described the frustration of living in rural Vietnam through the metaphor of duckweed stuck in small ponds. She wrote: ―...A certain vision of duckweed floating on the surface of a pond. An ordinary pond, like the kind at home. A pond lost in some godforsaken village, in a place where the honking of cars and the whistling of trains is something mysterious, exotic. A place where young women bend like slaves at their husband’s feet. A place where a man whips his wife with a flail if she dares lend a few baskets of grain or a few bricks to relatives in need. A strip of land somewhere in my country, in the 1980s... ‖ (1993: 130). 46 This probably fits the context of Vietnamese women living in Northern Vietnam during previous generations. Vietnamese brides from Mekong Delta, however, are no longer the embodiment of duckweed that Dương Thu Hương bemoaned. In contrast, they are like duckweed floating on the Mekong River, traversing across many different terrains, erasing the boundaries of physical and emotional territories and standing up for themselves in the course of their transnational marriage and migration. The question of women’s agency and the reality of their non-economic incentives vis-à-vis their intermarriages with Singaporean men will be further explored in the next chapter, which features the voices of both Vietnamese brides and their Singaporean grooms as they relate their joint journeys in search of love and their struggle to create viable intercultural families in Singapore. After this travelogue of my encounters of Vietnamese brides and rural culture in ―miền Tây,‖ the next chapter will bring the reader to yet another landscape. 47 Figure 3. Ah Thuy’s house Figure 4. The river wharf 48 Figure 5. A corner of Ba Sê market Figure 6. “Bánh xèo” in “Miền Tây 49 CHAPTER 2. VIETNAMESE SPOUSES AS FLEETING CLOUDS Budget Terminal, Changi Airport, July 2007 I was waiting for my flight to Vietnam while being surrounded by a group of young girls. I quickly realized that the girls were Vietnamese from the Mekong Delta as I heard them talking among themselves. A few minutes later, a Singaporean man joined the Vietnamese women and talked to one of them whom he called ―bà xã‖ (my wife) in Mandarin. For many Singaporean men married to Vietnamese women, ―bà xã‖ might be the only Vietnamese word they have ever learnt. Curious, I observed the Vietnamese woman who was translating what her Singaporean husband said to the rest. She was quite young, spoke Mandarin fluently, but I could tell her place of origin in Vietnam from her typical accent and dressing style. The rest of the Vietnamese girls looked ill at ease as they followed the couple to the taxi stand outside. Years ago,―bà xã‖ of the Singaporean man might have felt the same as her friends when she walked out of the waiting lounge of the Budget Terminal. Of the four terminals of Changi Airport in Singapore, Budget Terminal is a small terminal but it is usually packed with tourists, brides and migrant workers from Southeast Asian countries. This is so especially from the 2000s up to the present day. From here, many Vietnamese girls from the Mekong Delta saw Singapore, their promised land, for the first time. Some stayed and became spouses of Singaporean men. Others returned home or sought their luck elsewhere. Nevertheless, the flow of marriage migration from the Mekong Delta to Singapore still continues... 50 Part 1. Starting the life of fleeting clouds The routes of Vietnamese brides to Singapore remind me of fleeting clouds over the rainbow. The flexible mobility of ―miền Tây‖ girls and their destiny in the host society corresponds to the nature of clouds. If clouds are dependent on the movement of wind to shape and reshape their figures, these ―miền Tây‖ girls rely on their personal experiences to cope with and to maintain their perpetuating vitality in the face of changing environments. Like clouds, they will transform their identities under the effects of external forces in Singapore. Like clouds, they will long for the beautiful rainbow of a better life in their promised land. To some extent, certain aspects of that beautiful rainbow are successfully captured in Chapter 1 through the constructive imaginations of original community regarding Vietnamese brides’ overseas lives. Chapter 2 takes a closer look at that beautiful rainbow. This chapter, in other words, will lead the reader through the journey of Mekong Delta girls in Singapore from the moment they walk out of Budget Terminal in Changi Airport till they merge into the landscapes of Singapore’s heartlands as foreign spouses. Chapter 2 begins with a brief overview of the matchmaking industry in Singapore which facilitates the marital process of Vietnamese-Singaporean couples. It then addresses a set of challenges imposed on marital everyday lives of Vietnamese brides in the destination. Chapter 2 moves back and forth between the challenges of the new environment and narratives of ―miền Tây‖ women to uncover the continued struggle of Vietnamese brides to adapt and to reconstruct their identity as they marry into an alien culture and country. It is, however, not to say that Chapter 2 is concerned with the narratives of women alone. Locating the narratives of Vietnamese brides in line with the voices of Singaporean men, Chapter 2 suggests that Singaporean grooms indeed play an important role in 51 speeding up the adaptation process of Vietnamese brides. Accordingly, intermarriage through matchmaking agency serves as a platform for mutual cultural exchange between the two parties involved. The Singapore matchmaking industry at a glance Intermarriages between local men and foreign brides mediated by commercial matchmaking agencies are not new in Singapore. As the wave of marrying abroad roused the surface of the Mekong River, destination countries of these marriage migration flows, including Singapore, appeared to be tremendously ―shaken‖ by the conspicuous presence of foreign brides from Southeast Asia and mainland China. At first, most of these foreign brides came from China. More recently, the marriage market in Singapore seems to ―favor‖ Vietnamese women as an alternative source of brides. Vietnamese-Singaporean intermarriage through matchmaking agencies was so prevalent in Singapore that during the 2000s, major newspapers in Singapore often reserved their front pages for reports on ―Vietnamese brides.‖ The flood of reports on Vietnamese brides in Singapore-based mass media was one of the immediate responses to this phenomenon. In 2004, The Strait Times estimated that there were about ten agencies specializing in introducing Vietnamese women to Singaporean men (The Straits Times, 19 October 2004). However, a report of the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority in 2004 (AWARE 2006) suggested an amazingly high number of 70 foreign bride matchmaking agencies in Singapore. The gap between the two sources of information on the actual number of matchmaking agencies illustrates the blooming yet under regulated nature of the matchmaking industry in Singapore. This situation partly results from the legislation discrepancy between Vietnam and Singapore concerning matchmaking services. While matchmaking is considered as a 52 legal business in Singapore, it is labeled as illegal by Vietnamese laws and matchmakers can be accused of ―human trafficking‖ (Asiaone News, 18 August 2010). International matchmaking agencies based in Singapore, apparently, are not governed by a common legislation platform between the two countries. Commercial matchmaking agencies from Singapore offer two packages of matchmaking for local men. The most popular package, known as ―bride search tours,‖ brings Singaporean men to Vietnam to look for their prospective brides. Alternatively, some agencies fly the Vietnamese women to Singapore and Singaporean men can pick the girls from the agencies. The Singapore-based matchmaking agencies always have ―bride-finders in Vietnam to shortlist the women or give a list to the Singapore agencies to make their choices‖ (The Straits Times, 27 November 2005). The agencies pay for airfare tickets, meals and accommodation for the girls during their stay in Singapore. When these girls are picked up, the matchmaking agencies use the matchmaking fee from their husbands-to-be to cover these expenses. The normal fee for matchmaking varies from SGD 8,000 to 22, 000 for a match. Matchmaking agencies have their own certain criteria to select the women, such as physical and mental attributes. Therefore, the shortlisted brides tend to be young and share the same social background: poorly educated and from villages in Vietnam (The Straits Times, 27 November 2005). Meanwhile, most potential clients of these matchmaking agencies are Chinese-speaking Singaporean men aged from 30 to 50. They are normally blue-collar workers, earning from SGD1,500 to 2,000 per month. With this range of income, these Singaporean men are categorized into the 53 middle and low income groups in Singapore.27 It is relatively difficult for this group to look for a Singaporean wife. Others experience several failed relationships with local girls and therefore, turn to foreign brides as an alternative choice. Transitional spaces: Matchmaking agencies and geographic locations of Vietnamese brides If one has to map out the daily routine of a typical Vietnamese bride during her first days in Singapore, there are two locations that one would not skip. The first one is the office of the matchmaking agency. The other is the matchmaker’s house where she temporarily stays. A typical day of one Vietnamese bride begins at 10 a.m. After she gets up and puts on her make-up, the matchmaker will accompany her and her peers to the office. The matchmaking agency office and the house of the matchmaker, naturally, become the transitional spaces to connect Vietnamese brides as new migrants with Singaporean society and prepare them to be foreign spouses. There, they learn basic Mandarin Chinese to communicate with their potential suitors. There, they meet with Singaporean men through interviewing and dating sessions. There, they attempt to get rid of their countryside habits to adapt to urban lifestyles in Singapore. Moreover, they can access information pertaining to the does and don’ts in the context of Singapore, especially for young Vietnamese girls. Geographically speaking, it is not difficult to name several places in Singapore where one can see many matchmaking agencies. Taking Vietnam Brides International Matchmaker as an example, I learned that it was relocated at least three times. It was originally located at Golden Mile Tower on Middle Road. As mentioned in the 27 For blue-collar workers in Singapore, the average salary is SGD 1,200-1,500 per month. If they work overtime, they can earn up to SGD 2,000 per month. For those who own small shops in the markets or hawker centres, they also earn around SGD 2,000 per month. This is considered as ―low income‖ in Singapore, because normally, the offered salary for a Bachelor holder in a Singapore-based company is expected to be from SGD 2,500 to 3,000. 54 Prologue, Golden Mile Tower has been long considered as a paradise of matchmaking agencies in Singapore since there are always seven to ten agencies active. After that, the agency moved to Katong Shopping Centre on Mountbatten Road and finally, it was relocated in Orchard Shopping Plaza on Orchard Road. The second place that used to house many matchmaking agencies in Singapore was the China Town area, especially People Park Complex on Park Road. My field observations suggest that these places share certain characteristics. For instance, they must be located next to the Chinese-originated community in Singapore and sometimes in the same places as other maid agencies or migrant worker agencies. Therefore, these places are perceived as spaces of lower-class people or unskilled migrants where most Singaporeans will avoid hanging out. The geographic spaces of Vietnamese brides during their first days in Singapore embrace certain social attributes. Matchmaking agencies in Golden Mile Tower, Katong Shopping Centre and People Park Complex are often associated with the stigmatized images of young girls from Vietnam being ―put on display.‖ The biased viewpoint which emphasizes the sexuality of Vietnamese brides sometimes leads to a perception that Vietnamese brides are identical to Vietnamese prostitutes or bar entertainers in Geylang and Joo Chiat. Vietnamese brides, therefore, consider Geylang and Joo Chiat as a place to stay away from, in order not to be looked down on by locals. Dating and the marital process of intermarriages through matchmaking agencies Within the expiry duration of their tourist visas, which normally lasts one month, the Vietnamese girls need to be successfully matched with Singaporean clients. Therefore, the most important tasks for these Vietnamese brides are to sit in 55 the matchmaking agency and to go out dating with the Singaporean clients. During the ―Golden Time‖ of the matchmaking industry in Singapore (early 2000s), the matchmakers used to ask their clients to pay the full amount of the matchmaking fee (around SGD 13,000) to sign up for the matchmaking service. If the clients could not afford the full fee, the matchmaker would ask them to pay the deposit (approximately SGD 2,000) before he could be introduced to the girls from the matchmaking agency. However, recently, due to economic crisis during 20042005 and the competition among various matchmaking agencies, the matchmakers attempt to offer more payment options for their clients. In particular, the Singaporean man just needs to pay a non-refundable registration fee (from SGD 50 to 200) and he can take as many girls as he wants for dating (The Straits Times, 25 December 2006). This is a tactic for the matchmakers to earn more profit in cases where the man cannot find a suitable girl from one agency and changes to another agency or withdraws from the matchmaking deal. According to the matchmaker from VBIM, he lately received several emails from his clients to discontinue the matchmaking services.28 In cases where the man is serious about getting married, he will pay the deposit to book the girl and subsequently date her. Most of the matchmakers in Singapore claim that their matchmaking service is a mutually beneficial agreement for both parties. If the man wants to take a girl out but she does not agree, the man has to choose another girl. It means that the girls also have their own agency to choose their husbands-to-be. Some of them refuse to marry their suitors when they feel that the men are too old. From my field observations, the courtship period is normally divided into two different stages. During the early stage, the man has to fetch the Vietnamese girl at the matchmaker’s 28 Since the matchmaker was Taiwanese-originated and he could not speak English very well, I volunteered to help him to write emails to his clients in English. Therefore, I got to know about his deals with the clients and the gloomy situation of his business recently. 56 house, take her out and send her home on the same day. After that, the man can take the girl home so she can learn how to do housework and take care of his parents like a real wife. When the girl agrees to move in with the Singaporean man, the matchmaker does not intervene further in the relationship between the two parties. In some cases, the couples can have sex during their courtship if the girl agrees to do so. This practice is employed by mass media to criticize the commodification aspect of the matchmaking agencies in Singapore. Under the biased perspective of the mass media, matchmaking agencies are taking advantage of these Vietnamese girls by letting the Singaporean clients take them out to test if they are still virgins (The Straits Times, 31 December 2005). My interviews with the Vietnamese brides to-be, contrastingly, revealed that they were not obligated to move in or have sex with the Singaporean men if they did not want to. They seemed to be well aware of what they were doing and how they could protect themselves. Interestingly, some of them commented that the Singaporean clients who sought for marriage through matchmaking agencies were quite well-mannered during their courtship. The Vietnamese-Singaporean couples matched by commercial agencies in Singapore are provided certain time to get to know each other before their actual marriage, even though it might not be sufficient due to the limited validation of the brides’ visas. After the man settles on his final choice of wife, he will have to pay the full matchmaking fee and the matchmaker will have to confirm by booking for marriage solemnization on the ROM website. It takes three months for ROM to process their marriage registration. Therefore, after booking for marriage solemnization, the bride has to fly back to Vietnam and wait for the interview session at ROM. About one week before the stipulated date for marriage solemnization, the couples will have to be presented at ROM office to verify their documentations. When the bride reenters 57 Singapore this time, she has to show the proof of appointment with ROM to pass the immigration checkpoint. The documentation verification at ROM does not take a long time to complete. If the bride is under 21 years old, she will have to invite her parents from Vietnam to Singapore to sign the written consent and to witness the solemnization. The solemnization usually takes place in the matchmaking agency office with the matchmaker and the Vietnamese interpreter as legal witnesses. The solemnization is followed by a tea party to congratulate the newlywed couples and to show gratitude to friends, relatives and the matchmakers. From that moment on, the Vietnamese bride officially becomes the foreign spouse of the Singaporean man. Searching for the beautiful rainbow in the heartlands: Living spaces of Vietnamese brides in Singapore Being foreign spouses of Singaporean men signals a new stage in Mekong Delta girls’ lives. They are gradually transferred from the transitional spaces of matchmaking agencies and matchmakers’ houses to their matrimonial houses where they focus on the dream of a better life in Singapore. The images of a better life behind the splendid landscapes of Singapore, which I term as the beautiful rainbow, seem to be more adequate to the Central Business District (CBD) and cosmopolitan neighborhood in Singapore. However, those are spaces reserved for workplace and recreation activities. It is the Heartland neighborhoods that represent the real living spaces of ordinary Singaporeans, including the Singaporean grooms. It is in the Heartland neighborhoods that Vietnamese brides lead their marital lives in Singapore. The Heartland neighborhoods of Singapore are, to a certain extent, a similar category to a sub-region such as ―miền Tây‖ in Vietnam. The heartland neighborhoods in Singapore include Housing and Development Board (HDB) blocks stretching along the MRT (Mass Rapid Transportation, a kind of 58 subway) stations of the North South Line from Choa Chu Kang-Woodlands-Ang Mo Kio-Toa Payoh, the North West Line from Kovan-Hougang, and the East West Line from Kallang-Eunos-Bedok. Most of these HDB blocks were built from the mid1960s until the mid-1980s and even the early 1990s. During this period, ―there was a massive urban renewal as well as countryside and farm resettlement under which the HDB was tasked with meeting Singapore land’s redevelopment and with resettling populations from overcrowded or dilapidated urban areas, slums, squatters and villages into newly constructed high-rise blocks of flats in what has come to be known as HDB housing estates/new towns or heartlands‖ (Lai, 2010:10). Heartland areas are bordered by a series of kopitiams, foodcourts running 24 hours and shopping malls. HDB blocks are extended to both sides of the central MRT stations and are closely connected to MRT stations by a convenient public transportation system of buses. The landscapes of the Singapore heartlands are sometimes decorated by small wet markets selling fresh items, opening from early morning to noon. Due to the hygiene issues, there have been several projects proposed to replace wet markets by air-conditioned markets in heartland areas, such as in Sembawang. However, these projects receive negative responses from Singaporeans as ―to wipe it (wet market) out from the face of Singapore portends means that we would lose something dear to our hearts, raising a generation further adrift from their roots.‖29 This geographic residence of Singaporean-Vietnamese couples is due to the housing policy of Singapore.30 Technically, every male Singaporean citizen will be eligible to apply for an HDB flat after they get married or after they reach 35 years old with at least two citizens’ names endorsed on the application papers. At the time 29 30 See www.theonlinecitizen.com/2009/10/the-disappearing-wet-market, retrieved on 15 April 2012. For details on public housing policies in Singapore, see Fong (2005) and Cheong (2010). 59 these Singaporean men get married to Vietnamese women, most of them already have their own houses. My encounters with the heartland neighborhoods of Singapore during my touring around Singapore and my periodic visits to my respondents’ houses bring in contrasting impressions. Initially, as I only knew about the majestic structures and airconditioned environments of the cosmopolitan neighborhood, I was disappointed by the landscapes of the so-called heartlands where Vietnamese brides were living. Despite being surrounded by green spaces of trees and flower hedges, these HDB blocks fail to hide their aging and untidy outlook. The unmonitored environment results in dirty spaces near stairs and void-decks. Moreover, to promote a ―multicultural‖ atmosphere in Singapore, there are usually different races living together in one HDB block. Sometimes, it gives me an impression that one HDB block is simply an extension of a previous village (or kampung in Malay) where each household leads their own way of living, praying and interacting. Lastly, these HDB blocks only become lively either early in the morning or late at night when the working residents come back from their schools or workplaces. The rest of the time on weekdays, the Vietnamese brides can only pass by old uncles and aunties or domestic maids from the Philippines or Indonesia. During weekends, these HDB blocks suddenly become too noisy to take a rest. Void decks and open stages downstairs are always fully booked for entertainment shows, residential community activities and sometimes, ethnicity ceremonies. With their own characteristics and routines, the heartland neighborhoods of Singapore are not the living spaces Vietnamese brides dream of, and it is not easy for them to adapt to life here. 60 When the road is not carpeted with roses: Challenges of living in the new environment The wearying landscapes of heartland neighborhoods, however, are not the only aspect of real lives in Singapore that disillusion the Vietnamese brides. Living in Singapore as foreign spouses of Singaporean men does not simply mean that the Vietnamese brides move into the same house with their husbands and fulfill their duty of traditional wives. They are pushed to learn to cope with a wide range of challenges from the new environment such as the biased stereotypes of the host society, the vulnerable status of low skilled migrants and the differences in culture and lifestyle in Singapore. Despite these obstacles, the Vietnamese brides, including my respondents, silently make efforts to overcome the differences, to integrate themselves into society and to counter social prejudices of the surrounding society. By featuring the struggle of Vietnamese brides to adapt, I will eventually come back to the question of how the metaphor of fleeting clouds make sense to these rural girls in the midst of cosmopolitan Singapore. Do they welcome us? The stigmatized images of Vietnamese brides in Singapore-based mass media The representations of conventional mass media in Singapore contribute greatly to promoting the public discourses on Vietnamese brides. These socially constructive discourses influence the way Singaporeans, including in-laws and neighbors of Vietnamese brides, perceive them. In some cases, these stereotypes cause much frustration for the Vietnamese brides in dealing with their surrounding society and even slow down their entire adaptation process. The descriptions of mass media tend to portray the two contrasting images of Vietnamese brides as young, simple girls lured by the Singapore dream on the one 61 hand and opportunist, money-oriented girls running away from their Singaporean husbands on the other. These descriptions exhibit two stages in the ―degeneration‖ process of Vietnamese brides in Singapore. The simple and innocent image only fits well with Vietnamese brides who first come to Singapore and wait to be picked up at the matchmaking agencies. It is immediately replaced by the image of materialistic and tricky spouses who are willing to run away from their husbands, have love affairs with younger men or try to blackmail their husbands after they get married. Stereotypes of Vietnamese brides in the mass media, in general, are concerned with the immorality of Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms and the question of love in intermarriages through matchmaking agencies. For Vietnamese brides, economic incentives are usually listed as their main motivation to marry Singaporean men. Seemingly, with these girls, it is not a difficult choice between staying in Vietnam and joining the matchmaking agencies overseas. As one girl smartly points out “if I had stayed in my village, I will be a rice farmer all my life. It's a very tiring and difficult life, since planting rice is backbreaking work‖ (The Straits Times, 19 October 2004). Moreover, they need money to improve the poor situation of their family. This source of income comes from the bride dowry since ―if a foreign man picks her, the dowry may let her family buy more land, or feed them for at least a year‖ (The Straits Times, 19 October 2004). However, Vietnamese brides are not the only party to suffer the stigma of being ethically immoral. The reflections of mass media also point to the dark sides of Singaporean grooms. In some cases, Singaporean grooms come to matchmaking agencies while they are already married or do not intend to marry. They just want to take advantage of poor and innocent girls to have sex with them and then disappear. As reported by The New Paper, ―the 64-year-old man, who met Mary (not her real 62 name) at the agency, took her to a small hotel room in Geylang where she had to submit to his sexual demands over five days. After that, he took Mary back to the agency and left her there (The New Paper, 21 November 2005). Others think that they pay money to buy the brides, so they can do anything with their wives. Therefore, there is relatively high percentage of Vietnamese brides reported as being mentally and physically abused. Some foreign brides are ―locked up‖ and not given money to spend. Others say they are ―treated like maids‖ or ―expendable objects‖ (The Straits Times, 16 September 2009). On the other hand, the mass media in Singapore questions the stability of intermarriage in which the fundamental elements of a conventional marriage such as love, mutual understanding and affection between two parties do not seem to exist. Frequently, the mass media assumes that for Vietnamese brides, intermarriage is a strategy to fulfill their dreams of a better life for themselves and their left behind families. For Singaporean grooms, it offers them a family with a traditional wife who is willing to take good care of them and their aging parents. In short, the mass media presents a skeptical perspective regarding the involvement of ―love‖ in this kind of marriage. It is relatively understated to say that the representations of mass media do not capture a certain aspect of reality. The wide spread public discourses on Vietnamese brides propagandized by mass media, however, only reflect one side of the story. Unfortunately, the negative images of Vietnamese brides in the mass media result in a hostile view of locals towards them. Some Singaporeans even look down on all Vietnamese women married to Singaporean men regardless of various platforms through which they get to know their husbands. Vietnamese brides, therefore, are not 63 warmly welcomed by their surrounding communities. This fact seriously challenges their illusions of ―a better life‖ in Singapore. Crying in the dark: the disadvantages of being low skilled migrants Apart from the unreceptive point of view of Singaporean society, Vietnamese brides in Singapore are also vulnerable due to their legal dependence on their husbands. Since Vietnamese brides who marry Singaporean men are supposed to settle down in Singapore, they need relevant papers to remain in the host society. Upon having completed marriage registration, technically, these Vietnamese brides can apply for long-term visit passes (LTVP). The expiry duration of their LTVP varies according to their husbands’ financial and employment status. Sometimes, their applications are rejected by Singapore Immigration and Checkpoint Authority (ICA). It means that the Vietnamese brides are still on social visit passes and every month the husbands have to accompany their wives to ICA to renew the passes. Otherwise, the wives have to fly back and forth between Vietnam and Singapore because she cannot stay in Singapore for more than 30 days. Vietnamese brides, in this case, are dependent on their husbands legally and financially since they cannot work with social visit passes. Moreover, these women dare not to report to the policemen if they are abused by their husbands. If they do so, they will risk losing the sole sponsorship in Singapore. When they have children, the babies will have Singaporean citizenship but the mothers, possibly, are still on short-term social passes. In case the marriage turns sour and Vietnamese brides want to file for divorce, they will be deported and separated from their own children as they do not have PR or citizenship. They, therefore, do not have any privilege to fight for child custody and cannot bring their children with them back to Vietnam since these children do not have Vietnamese citizenship. 64 The vulnerable status of Vietnamese brides results from the biased perception of the Singaporean government towards low skilled migrants. Vietnamese brides are often stereotyped as poorly educated girls using marriage as a channel to enter Singapore. Therefore, they potentially cause social burdens for the host society. On the one hand, the pressure of the low fertility rate and number of Chinese Singaporean male bachelors pushes the Singaporean government to close one eye on the matchmaking industry and loosen the regulations pertaining to intermarriages between Singaporean and non-Singaporean citizens. On the other hand, the government attempts to tighten the requirements for low skilled migrants like Vietnamese brides to get PRs or citizenships. This is to detect the suspicious cases of ―sham marriage‖ conspired by Vietnamese brides and to protect the rights of Singaporean citizens. The prudence of the Singaporean government in dealing with low skilled migrants does not leave many options for Vietnamese brides to secure their legal status in Singapore. The host society, evidently, not only looks down on the Vietnamese brides but also implements certain policies to prevent them from settling down in Singapore. A battlefield is right in your house: Facing and resolving the cultural differences in the host society The frustration of being discriminated against by the host society is not the most challenging obstacle for Vietnamese brides. It is the language and cultural differences between their husbands and themselves that affects their experiences of living in a cosmopolitan country such as Singapore. A comprehensive look at the ―battlefield right in their houses‖ will reveal how Vietnamese brides mobilize their cultural and social capital to adapt and craft their identity under pressures of the host society. 65 A note on Singapore culture and society Most Vietnamese brides from matchmaking agencies are married to Chinesespeaking Singaporeans. Therefore, they usually have intensive exposure to Singaporean Chinese and Chinese-influenced culture in Singapore. Although Chinese makes up the largest group of residents by race in Singapore (74.2 per cent of total population),31 they are not a homogenous group. Within the Singaporean Chinese community itself, there are many subgroups with their own dialects such as Hokkien, Tewcheow, Hakka, Cantonese, etc. Since it is relatively superficial to come to terms with a specific definition of authentic Singaporean culture, I assume that there is a Singapore culture established and accepted by Singaporeans, which I can still observe every day in Singapore. In the following section, I only focus on two crucial points of Singaporean culture to analyze: language and food. Lost in translation the painstaking process of learning to communicate in Mandarin, English and so-called Singlish Before coming to Singapore, Vietnamese brides marrying through matchmaking agencies generally cannot speak Mandarin or English. During their waiting time at the matchmaking agency, the matchmaker sometimes conducts a short language course to help them to communicate in basic Mandarin or English with Singaporean clients. However, the intensive process of language learning only starts after the couples officially live in the same house. Since the Vietnamese brides are not familiar with street directions in Singapore and their husbands do not have time to send them to and pick them up from language centers, most of Singaporean grooms choose to let the brides stay at home and learn Mandarin by themselves. Therefore, there is no formal language class for 31 See www.pressrun.net/weblog/2010/07/how-many-indians-chinese-malays-and-people-from-otherraces-in-singapores-total-population.html, retrieved on 15 April 2012. 66 Vietnamese brides. They have to learn Mandarin through two channels: direct communication with husbands and watching T.V. It is surprising that after only six months to one year, these Vietnamese brides can speak Mandarin fluently. Knowing Mandarin, however, is not enough to communicate effectively in Singapore. Mandarin is the communication language within the Chinese-speaking Singaporean community. If they want to sign up for skills courses, apply for a well-paid job and integrate into broader Singaporean society, they must know how to speak English. All of my respondents who are fluent in Mandarin express their aspiration to learn English. It is, however, really challenging for them. This is due to the gap between learning English and using English to communicate with Singaporeans in the context of Singapore. I realized this from my own experiences and field observations during my volunteer work at an English class for foreign spouses (ACMI). Trying to memorize all the standard English sentences in class, getting excited to practice them with locals and realizing that it does not work, are common experiences of my respondents when using their English in Singapore. It should be noted that ordinary Singaporeans and even foreigners who live in Singapore for a long time use a typical variety of English termed as Singlish. Singlish spoken by ordinary Singaporeans is a mixture of the rhythm of Chinese, thick vocabularies of Bahasa Malayu, other sub-dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese, etc and broken English words. Singlish is another version of English with poor grammar and articulation. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for Vietnamese brides who have just learnt English to understand Singaporeans and to be understood by Singaporeans as they speak English. Meanwhile, when talking to foreigners, Singaporeans will not listen to them patiently and respond negatively with those who do not speak English well or do not speak English as typical Singaporeans do (i.e. Singlish). The unreceptive responses of 67 locals gradually let them down because it seems like no matter how hard they try, they cannot make any progress in speaking English. Some of them end up in two ambivalent scenarios: able to speak Chinese but unable to write and read Chinese, and able to write and read English but unable to speak English. Given that these Vietnamese brides only finished secondary schools in the rural Mekong Delta and never had the chance to attend a language class in Vietnam, will they deserve to be respected because of their efforts to learn two languages and appropriate them in the multicultural and multilingual context of Singapore? Singaporeans and the Singapore mass media always propagandize that Vietnamese brides come to Singapore to seek a better life. By doing so, they intentionally overlook the fact that the Vietnamese brides have been trying to be accepted by the host society. I, personally, have not seen how beautiful the rainbow of a better life could be in Singapore. That beautiful rainbow might be eternally a dream and a destination for Vietnamese brides to long for. Vietnamese kitchens in Singapore Besides the language barrier, intermarriages between Vietnamese and Singaporeans involve a set of differences in culture and lifestyles. Since the couples usually share the same house with their in-laws, the kitchen is sometimes seen as a potential domestic site for conflict and accommodation for involved parties. This is where most Vietnamese brides keep charge because they have to cook for their husbands and in-laws. Cooking in Singapore requires the Vietnamese brides to adjust their previous cooking styles. Ah Thuy had to undergo a short cooking course conducted by her sister-in-law to properly perform her duty as a chef for the whole family. Eventually, she learned to cook in the Singaporean style. There is no more steamed or raw 68 vegetables dipped in ―mắm‖ for her daily meal in Singapore. Fish sauce, the main sauce of Vietnamese cooking, was taken over by Chinese style soybean sauce. Sambal (Malay-style chili sauce), and ikan bilis (sundry small fishes, or cá cơm in Vietnamese) are used in fried and stirred vegetables. Soup made from tubers and pork ribs is not salty and the tasteless soup will be eaten alone. Living with her in-laws led Ah Thuy to memorize all of these recipes. She was getting accustomed to the new way of cooking and eating so well that I think she only ate Vietnamese food when she visited her hometown. However, while other family members ate out, she prepared Vietnamese food and shared with her husband. She could name some Vietnamese food that her husband loved to eat, such as fresh spring roll (gỏi cuốn), tofu with bean spout (đậu phụ xào giá). Ah Mai, unlike Ah Thuy, told me that when she first came to Singapore, she could barely eat Singaporean food at hawker centers except for Hainanese chicken rice. Later, she asked her husband to let her cook instead of eating out. Since then, she began to cook Vietnamese food at home and gradually got her appetite back. Moreover, she seemed to know how to customize her husband’s taste as he quickly adapted to the Vietnamese and even expressed his interest in certain specialties of Vietnamese food. Ah Mai or Ah Thuy, like other Vietnamese brides in Taiwan, are trying “to smuggle the Vietnamese flavor into the local dish and transform the local appetite and taste‖ (Lim 2009). They manage to preserve their original culture and furthermore, to ―advertise‖ it to Singaporeans within the domestic realm through cooking Vietnamese food and fusing it with local tastes. 69 Reconstructing Vietnamese identity in Singapore: Vietnamese restaurants and Vietnamese House Nails Art in Singapore As I mentioned in Chapter 1, for Ah Thuy and me, food seems to be the most sacred cultural aspect that evokes the fond memories of our homeland. We, however, are able to adapt to the local food, unlike Ah Van. She used to struggle with her craving for Vietnamese food when she was pregnant. This motivated her to open her own restaurants where she can cook and introduce Vietnamese food to locals. In this case, the process of adaptation of Vietnamese brides goes hand in hand with the process of reconstitution of Vietnamese identity through food. Ah Van recalled that when she migrated to Singapore with her husband seven years ago, it was difficult to find a Vietnamese restaurant and Vietnamese food. Therefore, during her pregnancy, her husband had to bring her to the only Vietnamese restaurant he knew in Marina Bay to eat Vietnamese food. Her personal experiences helped her to realize the potential profit of a Vietnamese restaurant business in Singapore. After giving birth, she eagerly sought for an opportunity to fulfill her dream. She met another Vietnamese woman and formed a partnership to establish a small Vietnamese food stall in the downtown area. Her partner eventually withdrew because she could not afford to invest. Without the partnership, Ah Van borrowed from her husband half of the necessary capital and set up her small Vietnamese eatery in one university’s canteen. Her small eatery became a gathering site for Vietnamese students in the university as well as many Singaporeans and foreigners working and studying in Singapore. Recently, thanks to the flourish of Vietnamese restaurants in Joo Chiat, Vietnamese brides in Singapore do not find it as difficult to get Vietnamese food as Ah Van did seven years ago. Even though Joo Chiat is more well-known as a red- 70 light district, it is impossible to neglect the presence of many good and cheap Vietnamese restaurants in this area. Most of these Vietnamese restaurants’ owners are Vietnamese women married to Singaporean men. They revealed that they opened the restaurants initially to serve the Vietnamese bar hostesses around Joo Chiat (The Straits Times, 22 October 2010). Later, Vietnamese students and locals also heard about the authentic Vietnamese food in these restaurants and began to patronize them. The Vietnamese kitchen is not only bound with the domestic space inside Singaporean-Vietnamese couples’ houses. It is also brought out to public spaces and becomes a symbol for the presence of Vietnamese community and Vietnamese migrant women in Singapore. The reconstitution of Vietnamese identity tends to go beyond the presence of Vietnamese restaurants in Singapore. Vietnamese brides, with their skillful hands, actively participate in beauty and wellness services in Singapore. Vietnamese brides working as nails artists are able to acquire good reputation thanks to the service that they provide for local customers. Vietnam House Nails Art (VHNA), a nail shop run by Vietnamese brides in Yishun, seems to be a good example. At first, I heard about VHNA from my friend at ACMI. When I finally had the chance to visit the shop, I realized why she liked the service here. VHNA was not a big shop, but it was clean and packed with customers, mostly Singaporeans. The owner, a Vietnamese woman who is married to a Singaporean man and has been living in Singapore for more than ten years, seemingly, was well aware of promoting Vietnamese culture through the interior decoration. Apart from some decorative ornaments from Vietnam such as the little dolls in Vietnamese traditional dresses (áo dài) and the Vietnamese map-shaped wall clock, the Vietnamese staff were also requested to wear the traditional dress of 71 Southern Vietnamese women (áo bà ba).32 According to the owner, they used to sell some souvenirs from Vietnam for their customers, but recently they only focused on nails services. All staff at VHNA are married to Singaporean men and successfully obtained their long-term passes or PRs. Besides, they had undergone a professional training course before they joined the shop as employees. VHNA, unlike Vietnam Brides International Matchmaker, offers a different perception about Vietnamese brides in Singapore. It illustrates the efforts of Vietnamese women in mobilizing their cultural and social capital to earn a living in the host society. Furthermore, thanks to their job at the shop, most of Vietnamese brides can speak fluently both Chinese and English, learn to provide good services for their clients and effectively integrate into Singapore society. Working in the nail shop does not only provide the Vietnamese brides with necessary income and speed up their adaptation process, but it also serves as a source of emotional support for those homesick spouses. This is where they can chat with their female fellows in their own mother tongue, share their experiences of marital lives and release their stress of living far away from home. However, VHNA, is not merely a social gathering site for Vietnamese brides. It can be considered as an informal platform to nourish Vietnamese identity and popularize it to local Singaporeans. The Vietnamese-flavor filling the shop, from the visual effect of decorative ornaments to personal contact with skillful Vietnamese nails artists, helps the locals to reconsider their stereotypes of Vietnamese brides and furthermore, gain a better understanding of Vietnamese people in general. It is also interesting to tackle the question of agency through the involvement of Vietnamese brides in Singapore’s workforce. Taking up jobs in Singapore as nail 32 This is different from Vietnamese national custom called as ―áo dài‖. 72 artists in VHNA to earn money and remit home is important for Vietnamese brides, but this might conflict with the expectation of supposedly dutiful daughters-in-law. By working outside, Vietnamese brides are likely to engage in the negotiation of conflicts between the roles of dutiful daughter and daughter-in-law. It is relatively simplistic to argue that all Vietnamese wives want to marry Singaporean to gain access to Singapore labour market. However, most of my respondents, both working and not working at the point of being interviewed, expressed their aspiration to find a good job in Singapore. For those who choose to work outside, it seems that emotional attachment to their country of origin contributes to their prioritizing the role of daughter to the role of daughter-in-law. Moreover, considering the financial contribution of the newlywedded couples to the husband’s family, working outside is a more favorable option for Vietnamese wives. It also depends on the premarital (verbal) agreement between husband and wife. Some Vietnamese brides accept to marry their Singaporean husbands because the husbands promise to give her money to send home after they get married. Failing this, the wives will be inclined to resist. For instance, instead of staying at home and serving the whole family as a helper without being paid, she would rather find a job outside. One more practical aspect of working outside is the currency convertibility between the Singapore Dollar and Vietnam Dong which allows the Vietnamese brides to support their families in Vietnam with their modest salary while working in Singapore. More recently, the new immigration law of the Singaporean government seems to open more opportunities for foreign spouses who are on LTVP. The Vietnamese wife can convert the LTVP to a Work Permit to work if she finds a job. After her Work Permit expires, she still can convert it back to an LTVP. Therefore she does not have to totally depend on the husband to sponsor her 73 pass during her working period. And secondly, since employers who recruit foreign wives on an LTVP do not have to pay the levy (for foreign workers), more employers prefer to hire these group of migrants. For those who choose to stay at home, it does not mean they are willing to be housewives. Some of them are pregnant or give birth during the first year of marriage migration and mother-child bonding keeps them at home rather than working outside. For the rest, their husband’s family might engage in a small family business and the new daughter in law is likely to be mobilized to help out as a source of cheap labour. This group of ―reluctant‖ housewives, due to their incapacity to send money home, seem to experience more pressure over financial issues and therefore, are more concerned with finding a job and working outside. Part 2. Finding the final destination Behind the scenes: Singaporean grooms’ representations through Vietnamese brides’ narratives Local spouses of Vietnamese brides appear to be invisible in studies of intermarriages through matchmaking agencies. Initially, I intended to focus solely on Vietnamese brides’ narratives. Nevertheless, tracing along the narratives of Vietnamese brides regarding their adaptation process in the host society, I realize that they are not alone in this journey. Singaporean grooms have been walking together with their wives to provide them with subtle or explicit assistances. Therefore, I am especially concerned with the images of Singaporean men depicted by Vietnamese brides.33 My perception of Singaporean men, however, is projected through Vietnamese brides’ perspectives and autobiographies. In this research, I do not expect 33 During my fieldwork, I spent most of my time talking to Vietnamese brides. I did not, unfortunately, have many chances to interview the husbands. Most of them were busy with their job and normally did not stay at home when I visited the wives. 74 to present the parallel narratives of Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms. Instead, I will give space for both sides to contribute their voices to the harmony of intermarriage melody by locating their stories side by side. By doing so, I seek to acknowledge the role of Singaporean men in assisting their wives’ adaptation to Singapore society. I also propose that the perception of love and marriage in commercially arranged intermarriages needs to be reexamined. Intermarriages are not necessarily filled with conflicts and sufferings. Intermarriages can bring out the best in the involved parties. The following section, hopefully, will be able to convey that message to the readers. Marry me, marry my circumstances The first impression of Singaporean grooms comes from my conversation with Vietnamese brides regarding why they choose their husbands. Despite various reasons that bring them to their current marriages, I will say that intermarriages between two individuals from different cultures through fleeting courtship mediated by matchmaking agencies do not have much to do with ―love‖ in the modern (Westernized) perception. Instead of using ―love,‖ it might be more relevant to refer to this emotional tie as a kind of sympathy sentiment, which only insiders in intermarriage can understand. Ah Thuy might be the one who understands the importance of this sympathy sentiment in her intermarriage. Ah Thuy’s husband is the poorest in his family. Therefore, they do not have their own house and temporarily stay with her brother-inlaw. Ah Thuy volunteers to do all the house works in the house. This leads to her being treated by her in-laws as a temporary maid. The only person trying to speak up for Ah Thuy is her husband. One day, Ah Thuy, three Vietnamese students from English class and I planned to cook Vietnamese food at Ah Thuy’s house. 75 Coincidentally, her husband’s family was celebrating the annual memorial feast for her father-in-law on the same day. Therefore, everyone expected her to show up and prepare the meals. Ah Thuy intended to cancel our gathering to attend the family event. However, her husband heard about our stipulated gathering, and he wanted Ah Thuy to have the chance to hang out with other Vietnamese friends. He came to the family gathering first and told everyone that his wife had to stay at home to welcome her own friends and that she was not supposed to be here to serve the whole family because she was not their maid. Ah Thuy’s husband empathizes with his wife’s feelings because he is also illtreated in his own family. Even though the couple struggles to maintain themselves with a modest monthly salary, Ah Thuy’s husband is always sensitive with his wife’s emotions. For instance, he manages to understand the ―face‖ issue Ah Thuy comes across every time she goes back to Vietnam. Therefore, before Ah Thuy went home last October, her husband took her to a shopping mall and bought a silver bracelet for her. He told her that she should wear some jewelry to ―show off‖ with her neighbors. In case of Ah Ngoc, it was Ah Ngoc’s experiences during her childhood and her husband’s failures in his previous relationships that bound them to each other. Ah Ngoc was born into an ―incomplete‖ family in which the father passed away when she was very little. She grew up into a stubborn, self-respecting girl. After breaking up with her boyfriend, the 19-year-old girl Ah Ngoc followed one Vietnamese matchmaker to HCMC and from there, she flew to Singapore. When Ah Ngoc met her current husband, he was almost 40 years old. Initially, he did not intend to get married after two failed relationships with Singaporean and Malaysian girls. His marriage with the 19-year-old Vietnamese girl unexpectedly changed his perception toward marriage commitment. Marrying a younger wife from the Mekong Delta, Ah Ngoc’s 76 husband has been learning to sympathize with Ah Ngoc’s family situation and her anxiety over her family members’ well-being in Vietnam. He also understands that Ah Ngoc will never ask him for money. Therefore, when Ah Ngoc wants to go home, he gives her some money to pay for airfare tickets and to bring home. When I visited Ah Ngoc’s house in Tay Ninh, her mother had just had their house built on a new piece of land thanks to Ah Ngoc and her husband’s remittances. That was a cementroofed house, costing almost 80 million VND.34 It was not painted yet, because her mother had used the stipulated budget for house painting to pay for her younger brother’s hospitalization expenses. Ah Ngoc was about to stay in Tay Ninh with her mother and younger brother for one month, but she finally left earlier. When I came to her house a couple of weeks later, I was told that Ah Ngoc decided to come back to Singapore because her husband called her every day and told her that he missed her. Clearly, there is a certain emotional tie that binds these ―miền Tây‖ girls with their foreign husbands, crossing the boundaries of language, culture or lifestyles. Ah Ngoc’s stories shed light on this statement. In Vietnam, this emotional tie is termed as ―nghĩa,‖ a sentiment blossoming between a man and a woman who are willing to sympathize with each other and overcome all the hardships to maintain their marriage. Marry me, marry my language As noted earlier, Vietnamese brides generally do not have the chance to attend any formal language classes after they get married. Language learning for them is a self-study process. Their initial instructors, surprisingly, are the Singaporean grooms. Singaporean grooms have been joining with their Vietnamese wives in the journey of adaptation from the first stage. This can be viewed from Ah Ngoc’s case. When her husband first took her home during their courtship, he bought a Chinese textbook for 34 This amount equals to SGD 5000. 77 her to learn Mandarin. Before heading to his workplace in the morning, he taught her several Chinese words and practiced them with her when he got home at night. Thanks to their mutual efforts, six months later, Ah Ngoc could communicate in Mandarin with him and his friends. Her progress in learning Mandarin even surprised all of his friends. Recently, Ah Ngoc’s husband encouraged her to learn English to attend the skills course in Singapore. He was looking for a Vietnamese person to teach her English when he saw me hanging out at the matchmaking agency. It was he who asked me to conduct English tuition for his wife and facilitated my frequent visits to the couple’s house. Ah Tran’s stories, however, impressed me in a different way. When I met her at the matchmaking agency, I did not think she was a Vietnamese bride. Probably, it’s her status that equipped her with a different outlook from other Vietnamese girls, a kind of self-confident and educated woman. Ah Tran had been married for 5 years, had PR and was working for NTUC. It was not only her appearance that surprised me. I was more amazed when she told me that her husband was 99% a good man, only 1% not very good. Her stories about how she mastered her Chinese explained to me why she could save such sweet words for her husband. Ah Tran recalled that on the first day she moved in to live with her husband, he gave her a small notebook in which he drew sketches of simple items and noted down their pronunciations in Mandarin so she could learn the language by herself. Ah Tran told me happily that she still kept the notebook as a souvenir and that she even found a sketch of her portrait drawn by her husband in her house. Language, apparently, is not only a medium of communication between two parties in intermarriage. I will argue that in cases of Vietnamese-Singaporean intermarriages, the process of language learning is not, and never will be, the matter 78 of one side trying to assimilate another side, culturally speaking. It demonstrates the efforts of both Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms to adapt to the cultural differences between them. Furthermore, through the little things these Singaporean husbands do to help Vietnamese brides to cope with life in Singapore, we can see how they express their love and care to their wives. This reminds me of Ah Tran’s husband who attempted to learn Vietnamese by himself. The first Vietnamese sentence the husband asked Ah Tran was ―Có mệt không?‖ (Are you tired?) after she got back from work. Even though her husband’s pronunciation was far from correct, the first Vietnamese sentence spoken by her foreign husband seemed like music to her ears. At that moment, she felt like she ―was going to faint‖ (suýt ngất).35 In Vietnamese, ―going to faint‖ refers to a complex mixture of surprising, touching, happiness and panic sentiments. Maybe it was the happiness part that seized her and me, as a researcher, intensely. For Vietnamese brides like Ah Tran, I believe, this simple happiness means a lot more than soothing their painful experiences of being discriminated against in Singapore. Marry me, marry my culture Up to now I have not described the way Singaporean grooms gain access to Vietnamese culture through their encounters with their Vietnamese brides. Vietnamese ―color‖ or snippets of Vietnamese culture such as language and food were transferred from the Mekong Delta and introduced to Singaporean grooms within both domestic and public spaces. This section further explores the encounters of Singaporean grooms with Vietnamese culture from these local men’s perspectives. Ah Ngoc’s husband was the first case that came to my mind as I recalled how Singaporean grooms expressed their interest in learning about their wives’ culture. 35 Interview with Ah Tran, July 2010. 79 During my second meeting with Ah Ngoc and her husband to buy an English book for her, Ah Ngoc’s husband told me that he had already downloaded some e-books about Vietnamese language and culture to read whenever he was free from work. Ah Ngoc also told me that he was so excited during his trip to Southern Vietnam with her and wanted to check out as many museums as he could to learn about Vietnamese culture. Probably, his appreciation of his wife’s culture helps him to understand the importance of the wedding ceremony to a Vietnamese woman. Therefore, after they signed the certificate of marriage at ROM, Ah Ngoc’s husband attempted to fulfill all the necessary formalities for a conventional marriage36 such as introducing her to relatives and friends, taking pre-wedding photos, organizing a wedding feast at the restaurant. In Vietnamese culture, marriage is a life time event, and the prestige of the bride, sometimes, was valued by the luxury and extravagance of the wedding ceremonies that her husband and her husband’s family dedicated to her. What Ah Ngoc’s husband had done for the wedding showed that he really appreciated his Vietnamese wife and warmly welcomed her home. His respect towards Ah Ngoc and Vietnamese culture made her proud. When she showed me her pre-wedding album featuring their pictures taken in different places in Singapore and the wedding card with the blessings written by the guests in the wedding feast, her face was brimming over with joy and pride. Marrying through matchmaking agencies, for Ah Ngoc and her husband, is not necessarily associated with being disrespectful of their spouses’ dignities, just because one party has to pay the matchmaking fee while the other party does not. Contrastingly, my respondents expressed that they were keen on establishing a true, life-long marriage. To do so, both parties, especially those who remain in their 36 What I mean by a conventional marriage is a marriage between a bride and a groom who meet each other by their personal networks, not by matchmaking agencies. 80 original countries, need to open their hearts to sympathize and to nurture a healthy relationship and marriage. In this case, Singaporean grooms have to assist the Vietnamese wives to enter a new circle of life that they might not have experienced before, the life of a migrant, a foreign spouse and hopefully, a new citizen of Singapore. Post script The shocking images of Vietnamese brides ―up for sale‖ behind the glass window of matchmaking agencies described in newspapers in Singapore once made me overcome by anger and embarrassment. My initial aim in this project, therefore, was to challenge the stigmatized representations of Vietnamese brides in the mass media. Back then, it was the shadow of nationalistic sentiments and academic curiosities that brought me closer to my respondents. Along the way, I somehow changed my mind, significantly. I realized that I am not concerned with how the mass media perceive Vietnamese brides, Vietnamese women or Vietnamese people in general. What is more fascinating to me is how my respondents struggle to adapt and to search for love in a foreign country. This chapter, hopefully, is able to provide the answers, if not completely, for the above question. Chapter 2 is weaved by the joint narratives of me, the Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms in Singapore. My own interpretations of intermarriage and its consequences on the involved parties through different scales of analysis are not highlighted in this chapter. This is what the next chapter embarks on. Chapter 3, instead of focusing on one particular geographic and cultural space, attempts to go beyond the case study of Singaporean-Vietnamese intermarriages to disclose the impacts of macro-level forces on individual selfconstruction and the possibility of contribution to the study of Vietnamese overseas communities. 81 Figure 7. The Vietnamese-written signpost inside Budget Terminal, Changi Airport Figure 8. The matchmaking agency in Katong Shopping Centre 82 Figure 9. The wedding solemnization at VBIM Figure 10. Map of MRT Lines in Singapore (Source: www.smrt.com.sg) 83 Figure 11.The English class for Vietnamese and Thai spouses at ACMI Figure 12. Vietnam House Nails Art in Yishun 84 CHAPTER 3. HOLDING ON TO FATE: VIETNAMESE BRIDES ON A TRANSNATIONAL JOURNEY The transnational journeys from the Mekong Delta to Singapore and vice versa are not simply the physical journey to connect the source and the destination countries as termed by migration researchers. For my respondents, it is the journey from the imaginations to realities, from poverty to affluence and from darkness to light. Marriage migration, however, is not a miracle to transform these peasant girls into modern-day Cinderellas. The transnational journey through marriage migration, offers them unpredictable opportunities and risks. It opens a whole new world beyond the confined boundaries of the rural Mekong Delta. At the same time, it uncovers the relentless gap between the presumed imaginations and realities regarding a comfortable life in Singapore. The life in Singapore of Vietnamese brides is not carpeted with roses, but challenges. The challenges of living in the host society, interestingly, enable them to rediscover their identities in the process of ―crafting the selves‖ (Kondo, 1990). For me, this transnational journey is a spiritual journey to connect with my respondents through the collective chills of exile that invisibly fill in our hearts as we, Vietnamese migrant women, lead our everyday lives in Singapore. Like an exhausted yet satisfied traveler who has finished her journey, I would like to dedicate this chapter to my own interpretations of Vietnamese brides from the angles of a Vietnamese woman, a researcher, a friend and an alien in a new town. This chapter will review the main reasons why Vietnamese girls from the Mekong Delta keep migrating abroad for marriage. Instead of emphasizing economic incentives of marriage migration, I seek to appropriate economic incentives in the context of Vietnamese cultural values regarding indebtedness sentiment and act of self-sacrifice. 85 Transnational marriage migration, in this case, not only promises the financial gain but also fulfills these women’s lives through a self-construction process. The next section in Chapter 3 focuses on the way these Vietnamese brides’ experiences of transnational marriage migration shape their identities and perspectives. Chapter 3 then attempts to trace back the historical backgrounds of international migration in Vietnam by linking the recent growth in the presence of Vietnamese brides in Southeast/East Asian countries to the firmly established Vietnamese overseas community (Việt kiều) in Western countries. Lastly, Chapter 3 calls for the need to establish an international collaboration program between Vietnam and Singapore to deal with intermarriages through matchmaking agencies. Are economic incentives the only explanation? Rationalizing motivations of Vietnamese brides in intermarriages During the first part of my journey, living through rivers in the Mekong Delta gave me a unique opportunity to learn about Vietnamese brides. The differences in characters and mindsets of ―người miền Tây‖ in the context of the Mekong Delta’s socio-economic settings are useful elements to explain why the phenomenon of marrying abroad has thrived among young girls in the region. The regional character of Mekong Delta inhabitants is considered as a source of ―cultural capital‖ (Bourdieu, 1973)37 defined by the natural and socio-cultural landscapes of Mekong Delta. Historically speaking, the South region, including the Mekong Delta, was the promised land for those who were homeless, who desperately fled from the government or who were passionate about seeking a better life (Sơn Nam, 2009). Therefore, Southerners are well-known as being open-minded, liberal, adventurous and even risky. Probably, thanks to their characters, it is normal for them 37 Please see Marshall (1994). 86 to marry foreign men and migrate to another country without mastering the local language or culture. When being asked about their feelings before signing up for the matchmaking agencies to Singapore, one of my respondents replied simply that ―marrying here (Singapore) is the matter of bad or good luck like when you buy lottery.‖38 It is likely that Mekong Delta inhabitants strongly believe in ―fated rapport‖ (or yuan fen in Chinese and duyên phận in Vietnamese). Since everything is determined by ―fate,‖ you can only grasp your ―reward‖ if you are risky enough to play the game. The reward of ―fate‖ is so alluring that it makes Mekong Delta inhabitants neglect the accompanying risks of intermarriages through commercial matchmaking agencies. That typically regional character also affects the way ordinary Southerners, and ―người miền Tây‖ manage their livelihood through small businesses. It is always the matter of being instantly rich or being bankrupted and trapped in a loan. In many cases, ―người miền Tây‖ find it extremely difficult to pay the loan back unless they let their daughters marry foreigners in exchange for instant cash from the bride dowry. Ah Thuy’s mother happened to mention this when we were talking about Ah Thuy’s lives prior her second marriage. She told me that they used to run a small eatery but they finally went broke and had to close it down. ―If not because of that debt, Ah Thuy might not have had to travel such a long distance to Singapore to marry,‖ 39 she recalled sadly. My conversation with the mother reveals that financial or emotional debts might be the most important motivation for Vietnamese brides to get involved in intermarriages. Regarding socio-economic settings, Mekong Delta inhabitants also uphold their own social values and norms. The perception of ―người miền Tây‖ towards ―a 38 39 Interview with Vietnamese brides, Singapore, July 2010. Interview with Ah Thuy’s mother, Cần Thơ, October 2010. 87 comfortable life‖ and how to get ―a comfortable life‖ is different from other regional inhabitants, such as in the Red River Delta. In the Red River Delta, after having finished their high school, young (male and female) students will be guided by their parents to work hard to enter university, to obtain a higher degree so they can find a good job in the civil service and enjoy a comfortable life. Meanwhile, in the South, there are normally two options open to young students: stay in their hometown, do their best with farming work and become successful as a rich peasant, or migrate to big cities to find a job. For young girls, they have one more option: sign up with the matchmaking agencies, wait to be picked up by a foreign man to pursue a comfortable life. Being brought up in such socio-economic settings, gradually, the perception of Mekong Delta inhabitants towards the practice of marrying abroad has been changed. Marrying abroad, instead of working hard to get a place in university and in a government institution, is likely to be the sole way for uneducated and young girls to have a bright future. Personal experiences during their childhood are also vital for Mekong Delta girls in making the decision to marry abroad. Reading through profiles of my informants, surprisingly, I realized that many of them were brought up in an ―incomplete‖ family in which their fathers either abandoned them or passed away when they were very young. These Vietnamese brides belong to groups of ―compensators‖ who enter intermarriages to search for not only an economically comfortable life but also ―something which they felt was missing in themselves, something they believed a foreign spouse would be able to provide‖ (Romano, 1988:12). The transnational journey from the Mekong Delta to Singapore is also a journey from the darkness to the light. Darkness and light represent the two separated 88 worlds: the world of godforsaken villages in the Mekong Delta which these Vietnamese brides leave behind and the world of a metropolis of light in Singapore which they long for. In this case, it is not only the lucrative labor market but also a cosmopolitan lifestyle of a First World country that strikingly attracts flows of Vietnamese brides to Singapore. For these “miền Tây” girls, nothing beats the allure of metropolitan neon lights from shopping malls, MRT stations and LED screens in Singapore. It leads them to a different world from the shuffle routines of their hometowns where everything is covered by a heavy curtain of darkness as the night falls. This reminds me of the ―bright lights‖ theory (Du Toit 1990) about the charm of cosmopolitan lifestyle as the main motivation for bridal migrants. Marrying a local man through the mediation of matchmaking agencies or relatives to gain a ticket to Singapore seems like a transaction or modern day human trafficking. However, from the perspective of my respondents, marrying a local man in Singapore is an option to bring them closer to their ―opportunities.‖ Drawing back to the question of woman agency in intermarriage migration, I will argue that these Mekong Delta girls are not desperately seeking for ―a meal ticket out of poverty‖ (The Straits Times, 19 March 2011). Instead, their decisions for marriage migration are actively shaped by their own expectations and the economic and socio-cultural contexts in which they were brought up. Specifically, it is noticeable that most of my respondents made the decision to marry abroad by themselves regardless of their age. My empirical data shows that many Vietnamese brides decide to marry overseas despite their parents’ disapproval or without parents’ knowing about it. It is due to the readily available networks of matchmakers and channels of matchmaking for marrying abroad in the Mekong Delta. As noted, this kind of business is actually banned by the Vietnamese government. However, the fact 89 that it goes underground and is well-connected to the villages, even to the most remote ones, makes it more difficult to be regulated. Some girls who were approached by the matchmakers simply agreed to sign up for the matchmaking agency before consulting their parents’ opinion. Moreover, unlike labour migration, in transnational marriage migration through commercial matchmaking agencies, the household is not likely to invest in order for the girls to join matchmaking agencies since they do not need to have skills training courses and other qualifications. Most of the involved expenses such as transportation, accommodation, food, airfares, visas, and medical check-up fees are borne by the matchmakers in Singapore and later will be charged to the potential clients. Since many parents in the Mekong Delta who either voluntarily or reluctantly allow their daughter to marry overseas are trapped in a loan, marrying off their daughter is the easiest way to settle the loan. In their mindset, even though the family receives monetary rewards from their daughters’ marriages, this is not considered as ―selling their daughters‖ because they believe that the girls are going to live a better life overseas when they marry foreigners. Migration and marriage migration, in this case, is a strategic compromise to balance the expectations of Vietnamese brides themselves and their obligations toward their immediate families in the traditional cultural atmosphere of the rural Mekong Delta. Crafting the selves: Vietnamese brides and their transnational lives The second part of my journey extends to the marital lives of Vietnamese brides in their promised land. It is, however, not as promising as it should be. The bitterness of realities in Singapore does not seem to affect them as dramatically as I predicted. These realities sharpen their spirits to struggle with the challenges of the 90 host society and stick to their ultimate goals of their intermarriages. The continued struggle of adaptation causes frustration for these migrant women but it also spares them spaces for self-construction. For Vietnamese brides, the process of adaptation consists of a complex transformation from learning to cohabit with cultural differences in the host society, exploring the similarities between culture of place of origin and that of host society, and finally, reconstituting the culture of place of origin in the host society. Along that process, the most important thing is to manage their own expectations prior to and upon their arrival in Singapore. The image of a comfortable life in Singapore is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it motivates them to engage in intermarriages. On the other hand, it imposes pressures for them in their adaptation process to the host society. ―Broken dream‖ (vỡ mộng), or disappointment of lives in Singapore, is a usual problem for Vietnamese brides who have too high expectations of a better life overseas and easily turn disappointed as they face realities. However, ―broken dream‖ is not the key element to emphasize when it comes to discussion about Vietnamese brides’ lives in Singapore. It is the idea of love born of sympathy sentiments and gratitude with their left-behind families and local men whom they choose and who choose them that determines the way Vietnamese brides perceive marriage, migration and adaptation. First, these Vietnamese brides persevere with their marriages because they still have many obligations in their home (Vietnam) and house (Singapore). In other words, these are financial and emotional debts that they should pay back. The perception of indebtedness is not shaped by external influences such as public opinions of their original community. Rather, it is a self-imposed sentiment. These 91 debts can only be paid back when they come back as successful women. The socially constructed meaning of being successful women is more important for them back in Vietnam than in Singapore. By marrying abroad, these Vietnamese women are able to explore the other side of their ―selves‖: the strong aspiration for upgrading their economic and social status. However, by marrying abroad, they are also distancing themselves from their original communities since they can hardly share the dark side of living abroad with others due to the ―face‖ issues. These Vietnamese brides are indebted not only to their families in Vietnam but also to their Singaporean husbands. The Singaporean men pay for the matchmaking agencies to take them home, give them a shelter, give them status (as a spouse of a Singaporean citizen) so that they can gain access to the labour market in Singapore. Their husbands also spare a certain amount from their savings for their wives to remit home and support their wives to adapt to the host society. They are, sometimes, sensible enough to share with their wives the painful experiences of being homesick by eating Vietnamese food or learning to speak Vietnamese. The caring Singaporean men gradually change their wives’ perception towards the nature of their marriages. From marrying to escape their poor lives in the Third World country, these Vietnamese brides find themselves attached to their marriages and their Singaporean men by strong and affectionate emotional ties. To a certain extent, these emotional attachments and marriage fulfillment contribute to shaping Vietnamese brides’ sense of womanhood. In this case, marriage union is a fundamental element to transform the social position of Vietnamese brides. As they engage in intermarriages with Singaporean men, they are no longer the outsiders to Singapore and Singaporean culture, these brides become more aware of their obligations to those who take care of them in 92 Singapore. To make up the indebtedness feeling, they are willing to fulfill the duties of a wife, from doing house works, taking care of their aging parents-in-law to bearing and rearing children. The trials and tribulations of the indebtedness feeling towards their place of origin and destination motivate the transnational mobility of Vietnamese brides. Transnational journeys connect their home and house. The concept of ―migrant,‖ somehow, is not a useful concept with which to discuss about Vietnamese brides. When I use the concept ―migrant‖ to refer to Vietnamese brides, it assumes that the mobility of Vietnamese brides are bound within fixity of geographic, cultural and emotional boundaries. Meanwhile, from the narratives of my respondents, it seems that the status of Vietnamese brides during their transnational journeys is more flexible. When possible and when necessary, they travel across the borders to search for what they are lacking: financial affluence, cosmopolitan style or emotional ties. Vietnamese brides and Việt kiều community: the politics of relocation and dislocation Vietnamese brides are not the largest group of Vietnamese-originated people living overseas. As noted earlier, before the mass flows of marriage migration from Southern Vietnam, from 1975 to 1992 a huge number of Southerners, approximately two million people, fled out of Vietnam because of the war and gradually established a significant community of overseas Vietnamese in America, Australia and some European countries. As reported by Zhou and Bankston, ―the exiles who made up the first group of Vietnamese refugees fled at the end of the war in 1975, were predominantly military personnel, professionals, the elite (former South Vietnamese government officials and wealthy business owners) and members of the Catholic Church. Then came the boat people, who entered the United States in two waves, one 93 peaking in 1978 and the other in 1982. The influx of Vietnamese refugees then declined for several years, only to surge again between 1988 and 1992‖ (1956: 2425). The phrase ―boat people‖ refers to Vietnamese refugees ―casts off from Vietnam in overcrowded and leaky boats‖ (Caplan, Whitmore & Choy 1989; Starr and Roberts 1982; Tran 1991). The flight of Vietnamese boat people to other countries seems to be perceived differently by the original community in Vietnam. This is due to the distinctions in motivation for migration of Vietnamese refugees after the war. Furthermore, the social status and political circumstances of the migrants also differentiate the status of Vietnamese brides and Vietnamese boat people. Regarding motivations for migration, while Vietnamese brides migrate to mostly East and Southeast Asian countries for marriage purposes, Vietnamese boat people migrate to Western countries to ask for political asylum. Both flows of migration, however, originate from the South and result in permanent residences in another country rather than Vietnam. It is worthwhile to notice that public opinions regarding the flight of Vietnamese boat people and marriage migration of Vietnamese brides are not identical. After the First Republic of Southern Vietnam fell down, many Southerners who cooperated with the previous regime flew out of Vietnamese territory as they were scared of being punished by the Communist government. Therefore, for the boat people, migration is a mass escape from the political execution of the Communist regime and a selfish pursuit of freedom and happiness for an individual. Meanwhile, for Vietnamese brides, migration is a relatively avant-garde response to the expanding flows of capital, commodities, population and even emotions across borders in the era of globalization. Marriage migration is also a solution to materialize dreams and 94 ambitions of young rural girls regarding cosmopolitan and affluent life abroad, not only for individuals, but also for their families. Clearly, Vietnamese brides’ decisions on marriage migration seem to be socially accepted and supported by their original community. The traditional perception of filial piety and the gendered role of the daughter in supporting their aging parents financially are among two elements contributing to the communal approval of the original community in Vietnam toward the marrying-out practice. This also affects the way ―người miền Tây‖ treat Vietnamese divorced women returning from abroad. As the Vietnamese saying goes, ―you only hit the one who run away from home, not the one who decide to come back‖ (đánh kẻ chạy đi chứ không đánh kẻ chạy lại), the original community always welcomes them to come back, either as a successful woman with a happy marriage overseas or an unlucky divorced woman who does not have any place to go but their hometown. Meanwhile, the perception of Vietnamese in Vietnam toward Vietnamese boat people is more ambiguous. Initially, their flight after the war is stereotyped as a betrayal against the traditional sense of loyalty to their own motherland after Reunification 1975. This betrayal influences not only their situation as political refugee (người tị nạn) in the host society but also their homecoming journey as overseas Vietnamese (Việt kiều). At first, their homecoming journey was not totally unconstrained. Vietnamese boat people only started to return to Vietnam frequently after the economic and political climate in Vietnam slowly changed, especially after the Vietnamese government launched an official repatriation scheme (Chính sách Hồi hương) to call for board people to come back to their hometown.40 However, the transformation of the political and economic situation of Vietnam prior to and after 40 For information on the policies of Vietnamese government regarding oversea Vietnamese, please see Nguyen (1990) and Tran (1997). 95 Economic Reform 1986 led to the changing of Vietnamese boat people’s status. From being considered as ―orphans without a homeland abandoned and rejected by their own country‖ (Nghia Vo, 2006:76), the (previous) boat people were considered as successful overseas Vietnamese as they were strongly backed by European-American capital which they sent back to Vietnam. During the 1990s, the phrase Việt kiều was a symbol for wealth and modernity in Vietnam. Marrying Việt kiều became a dream for many “miền Tây” girls. This sentiment was illustrated vividly in the movie ―The return‖ (Trở về), directed by Đặng Nhật Minh (1996). In this movie, one Southern Vietnamese girl said to a Việt kiều who fled by boat to America and came back to Vietnam as a rich businessman years later ―My friends told me that I have to marry a foreigner, but I only like to marry Việt kiều. Marrying a Việt kiều is marrying both a foreigner and a local at the same time. I am still strongly attached to my motherland. Living abroad permanently is also irritating, right, darling?‖ (Bạn em tụi nó nói em phải lấy chồng Tây. Nhưng em chỉ thích lấy Việt kiều thôi. Lấy Việt kiều là lấy một lúc cả Tây lẫn ta. Em vẫn nặng nợ với quê hương lắm. Ở nước ngoài biền biệt hoài cũng chán, có phải không anh?). Probably, the image of Việt kiều met the ideological expectations of Vietnamese who experienced the dramatic transition of Vietnamese society during the Economic Reform period by their economic affluence, modernized mindsets and close connections to the rest of the World (apart from the fixed circle of Communist countries). These expectations resembled what the whole Vietnamese society was lacking and was actively seeking to fulfill after being isolated from the outside by wars, the centralized plan of the Communist government and the Embargo policy of U.S government until 1995. 96 If Vietnamese brides’ motivations to migrate are distinctive from Vietnamese boat people’s, both sides seem to share the same reason to come back. The homecoming journeys of Việt kiều are motivated by a sense of indebtedness to those who still remain in Vietnam, particularly in Southern Vietnam. This relates to the historical characteristics of this migration flow. Most of Vietnamese boat people had to flee by basic transportation such as boat. The flight by boat was organized by certain (illegal) gangs based in HCMC. To occupy a seat on the ship, the boat people had to pay for the organizers bars of gold. For ordinary Southerners, they could only afford to send one family member abroad. In most cases, one or several households would invest their capital for one member to flee abroad in the hope of being sponsored to migrate abroad or to receive remittances from him. Therefore, this particular boat people, upon arrival in the foreign land, always felt ―indebted‖ to his family in Vietnam because they not only invested money in him to migrate but also give him the chance to lead a better life overseas (Nghia Vo 2006). Given that many of the Southerners remaining in Vietnam after the Communists took over the government in the South were sent to reeducation camps and suffered severe discrimination under the new regime, their investments to one member to go abroad were indeed an act of sacrifice. This act of sacrifice serves as an invisible yet strong tie between those who left for abroad and those who stayed. They are bound to each other by the financial and emotional debts which urge them to make their homecoming journey. These journeys are to pay back their debts and to show (off) their gratitude and their success. However, it does not mean the emotional tie between Việt kiều and their left behind families can pull them back to their place of origin. The homecoming journey of Việt kiều is destined to revisit the place where they used to live. Their real life and real home is located in other countries where they 97 have their job, their family and their new legitimate position because most them have already been granted citizenship by the host countries. The key difference between Việt kiều who left during and after the war and Vietnamese brides, after all, is the nature of the relationship between home and house and the way the immigrants related themselves to a place of origin and destination. For Việt kiều, the international migration has dislocated them from their original community. Vietnamese brides, in contrast, are relocated to Singapore through their intermarriage migration. They are not, however, dislocated from their original community emotionally. At first, their migration’s decisions are influenced by their families. Upon their arrival in Singapore, everything they say and do seems to evoke the remembrance of their families. Singapore is solely where these Vietnamese brides find a house to live. Their real home is in Vietnam where they can find a source of emotional support, comfort and inspiration to work hard and to make transnational journeys. Situating the issue of Vietnamese brides in relation to overseas Vietnamese communities offers a broader approach in studying flows of international migration originated from Vietnam. It allows migration researchers to trace back the historical background of migration in Vietnam. Besides, it uncovers the impacts of macro-level forces especially economic-social contexts and political circumstances in shaping an individual’s choice and destiny. Studies of Vietnamese brides and the overseas Vietnamese community can also serve as a useful reference for policy-makers in designing new policies to better engage the overseas Vietnamese community in the economic and socio-cultural landscapes of Vietnam recently. 98 A dialogue between the Vietnamese and Singaporean governments regarding Vietnamese brides The international migration of Vietnamese brides is closely linked to their state in the origin and the destination countries. Does the origin country provide them with capital and resources to cope with the uncertainties and risks of transnational journeys for marriage? How does Singapore, the place where these Vietnamese brides are going to build their new house, respond to the influx of foreign spouses from a less developed country? First, it is noted that both in Vietnam and Singapore, intermarriages through commercial matchmaking agencies are considered as ―social issues‖ due to their negative consequences. Public debates on Vietnamese brides are not simply circulated within academic conferences or journals. These debates are taking into consideration by the governments in Vietnam and other destination countries. My empirical data shows that at least in Vietnam, the government and social organizations actively carry out many programs to reduce the number of intermarriages through illegal matchmaking agencies and lobby for legalizing matchmaking services. On the one hand, social organizations, especially the Women Union Association (WUA), launched a pilot program to introduce Vietnamese women to foreign grooms, provide legal aid and language courses for Vietnamese brides before marriage and cooperate with human rights activists and organizations in the destinations to continually assist Vietnamese brides to adapt to the host society. On the other hand, WUA from local government assigned their staffs to visit villages reported as the main ―bride supply‖ areas for illegal matchmaking agencies in HCMC, organize counseling sessions to alert young and marriageable-aged girls about the risks of marrying foreigners 99 through illegal matchmaking agencies.41 Currently, those programs only target Vietnamese women who are keen on getting married to South Korean men because the cooperative legalization platform between the two countries is relatively formalized, especially that of the visa interview for Vietnamese brides and marriage registration paperwork. This legalization cooperation is influenced greatly by the lobbying activities of non-government organizations in South Korea. Furthermore, in the case of Vietnamese brides in South Korea, the governmental intervention on intermarriage and Vietnamese brides’ issues is necessary after a series of murder crimes committed by South Korean grooms were reported in the mass media.42 Among these programs, the ―legal matchmaking service‖ (Chương trình kết bạn) appears to be the most controversial ones. From the government’s perspective, marrying to a Korean through the mediation of official organization involves less risk for both parties because the two countries can cooperate to establish a legal assistance platform at both ends of the migration chain. However, as a social worker in HCMC revealed, they were also being criticized as attempting to sell off Vietnamese women to foreign men through this newly-designed program.43 The situation of Vietnamese brides in South Korea seems to be different from the case of Singapore. For the first, the official statistics of Vietnamese brides in Singapore are not available. Since there is no restriction for Vietnamese citizens to enter and register for marriage in Singapore, the Vietnamese government cannot document the actual number of Vietnamese brides married to Singaporean men from Vietnam. As reported by WUA based in Cần Thơ and Đồng Tháp Province, 41 Report of Women Union Association and interview with social workers in Cần Thơ Province, November 2010. 42 The latest and the fifth case of Vietnamese brides murdered by their Korean husband was reported on 24 May 2011. The victim is 23 year old and she had just migrated to South Korea in April 2010. 43 Interview with social workers in HCMC, October 2010. 100 intermarriage between Vietnamese women and Singaporean men makes up a small percentage in compared to Taiwanese-Vietnamese or Korean-Vietnamese intermarriages. Moreover, due to the ignorance of the Singaporean government, the only source of information indicating the number of Vietnamese brides in Singapore comes from the Vietnamese Embassy in Singapore. This statistical data, however, is relatively out of date as it was last reported in 2004. When I wrote to ROM to ask for the latest statistics of Vietnamese brides in Singapore, I was told to consult the official website of Singapore’s Department of Statistics (DOS). However, DOS’s report only shows the total number of foreign female spouses in Singapore but not by nationality. Second, government organizations in Singapore do not offer enough supporting structures for foreign spouses. Meanwhile, the weakness of civil society in the domain of human rights in Singapore and the tightening immigration policies for low skilled migrants makes the situation of Vietnamese brides in Singapore more difficult. For example, one of the biggest NGOs dealing with women’s rights in Singapore, AWARE, has been actively lobbying to bring their recommendations for rectifying immigration and marriage laws to government authorities and institutions in Singapore. However, these efforts do not seem to result in significant changes in laws concerning foreign brides. Until recently, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) has taken some steps to regulate intermarriages in Singapore. As reported by The Straits Times, in 2010, MCYS ―roped in three agencies to run marriage preparation courses for couples where one half is a foreigner‖ (The Straits Time, 19 March 2011). A further discussion through email between myself and an MCYS officer reveals that “the Ministry worked with Care Corner Counseling, Hougang Sheng Hong Family Service Centre and Fei Yue Community Services to pilot a 101 Mandarin Marriage Preparation Programme tailored for transnational couples last year...Topics covered include understanding each other's expectations in the marriage, setting common goals, roles and responsibilities in the marriage, coping with cultural differences, relating to in-laws and communication.” According to this source of information, “in 2011, eleven volunteer welfare organizations are offering optional modules for transnational couples as part of mainstream marriage preparation courses.”44 Nonetheless, my fieldwork data shows that these transnational marriage preparation courses were targeted only to Singaporean-Malaysian couples, and they normally did not recruit enough participants to conduct the workshop.45 These pilot courses, even though they are not sufficient, mark a significant transition in the perception of the Singaporean government towards the importance of integration programs for foreign spouses in Singapore. Thanks to these programs, Vietnamese brides, hopefully, will have more sources of supporting structures, apart from their own efforts and their husbands’ assistances, to better adapt to Singaporean society. Since the topic of intermarriages cuts through a multi scale of analysis, Chapter 3 focuses on the concerned issues in the intersection of sub-regional, regional, community and international levels. The first half of chapter 3 recaptures my interpretations of Vietnamese brides along their transnational journeys for marriage from the Mekong Delta to Singapore from the sub-regional and regional scale. The second half, however, attempts to extend the discussion of intermarriages to the community scale to disclose the possible academic contribution of this project in studying the international migration of Vietnamese. However, the analysis does not 44 Email interview with an MCYS officer, June 2011. Interview with a social worker from Hougang Sheng Hong Family Service Centre, Singapore, July 2010. 45 102 end at the scale of community. There is much potential for the resonation at the scale of international relations, in particular, between Vietnam and Singapore. The last section of chapter 3, accordingly, draws on my dialogue with social workers in two countries to examine the policy implications of intermarriages through matchmaking agencies on Vietnamese brides. Even though this research is an ethnographic study of marriage, love and cultural encounters, I believe, a systematic scale of analysis in this chapter is necessary to deliver my main messages on the Vietnamese brides’ issues more effectively. 103 Figure 13. The banner for a transnational marriage preparation course 104 EPILOGUE On my first trip to Singapore four years ago, I was but a twenty-four year old from one of the most vibrant cities in Vietnam, dazzled by the splendor of Singapore, by its fast-paced lifestyle and consumerism. Just like my respondents, a three and a half hour flight from Hanoi had brought me to a whole new world which was far different from what I had imagined things to be. Singapore, back then, captivated me as the perfect replica of the ―Euro-American‖ Modern City draped in Oriental settings. These thoughts of self-reflection pointed me back to the narratives of my respondents. I realized that I shared similar dreams with my correspondents as young Vietnamese girls by pursuing the Singapore dream. As I immersed myself in the world of Vietnamese brides in Singapore, I realized that the Singaporean dream also served as the common emotional bond between the correspondents and me. It is by following these Vietnamese brides—both in my own country and a foreign countrythat I immersed myself in the study of subcultures of ordinary people, in order to explore the multilayered meanings of love, marriage and philosophies of life. This thesis was designed to transmit the richness and sensations of my experiences after this journey to other readers. Within the limited space of three chapters, I attempted to bring the readers to different landscapes to which my respondents are identified. One of these landscapes might very well be a quiet village in the Mekong Delta, where the most popular local conversation topic was about Vietnamese brides and their families’ comfortable lives, thanks to their marriages with foreign men, as I have outlined in Chapter 1. By recording the gossip of the peasantry as well as the personal narratives of one Vietnamese bride coming home from abroad, various 105 economic and socio-cultural factors that influenced the Vietnamese brides’ decision to marry foreigners were explored. The dominating discourse by way of economic incentives which surfaced from the Vietnamese brides’ narratives does not reflect the full story. I argue that the economic incentives of intermarriage migration were inseparable from the weight of familial ―reciprocal obligations,‖ by that, I mean the culturally embedded notion of self-sacrifice and gendered aspiration of having a happy marriage and family. Another landscape which I have tried to bring readers to might be a small corner of a matchmaking agency in Singapore where the adventurous (yet sacrificial) girls are waiting for their Singaporean men, such as in Chapter 2. The stuffy atmosphere behind the glass wall of matchmaking agencies is quickly replaced by the larger but not-always-welcoming spaces of heartlands in Singapore. Chapter 2 sought to sketch out the daily routines of Vietnamese brides as they interact with various geo-social spaces and subjects, such as the matchmakers and Singaporean grooms. Through these intensive interactions, Vietnamese brides gradually developed their own coping mechanisms to rationalize the motivations of their marriage migration. Intermarriage migration to Singapore and with Singaporean men did not simply provide the Vietnamese brides with a roof but also a shelter for their lonely souls as they were away from home. It was vital to frame the spaces and routines of my respondents as the background for my research. However, it was the experiences that my respondents and I shared through the transnational journeys from Mekong Delta to Singapore and vice versa that breathed life into this piece of writing. Therefore, chapter 3 was reserved for my own analysis regarding the real motivations of Vietnamese brides for marrying Singaporean men and the consequences of their intermarriages from a 106 different scale of analysis. This approach was used in order to gain a broader perspective to study the issue of intermarriages. This approach also tried to address the impacts of a political economy framework on the everyday lives of Mekong Delta residents. Throughout the three chapters, I introduced two metaphors grounded in Vietnamese traditional literature (floating duckweed and fleeting clouds) in order to discuss the agency of Vietnamese brides along their transnational journeys from Mekong Delta to Singapore. In particular, I used the metaphors in order to illustrate the way in which Vietnamese brides held on to their fate as they chose to migrate out of Mekong Delta region and struggled to cope with the host society in the establishment of their new home in Singapore. It should be noted that due to time constraints and the limitations of my sample selection, this thesis only focused on Vietnamese-Singaporean couples, and not their children. There is still a need to conduct research that explores the role of mixed children in Vietnamese brides’ adaptation process and in the construction of womanhood. I was not able to discuss the policy implications of intermarriage in depth. However, the short dialogue with social workers in Vietnam and Singapore in Chapter 3 that I included showed that both host and sender countries are being better informed regarding the issues that Vietnamese brides face. The Vietnamese provincial government offices have also launched Vietnamese brides’ adaptation assistance programs so that they are able to adapt to the host society more easily. It is hoped that the stories of the Vietnamese brides that were presented in this research can be circulated among social workers and policy-makers in both Vietnam and Singapore as a kind of informal evaluation report on how the beneficiaries have responded to 107 government policies. Further research on policy implications of Vietnamese brides’ issues as well as recommendations for policy-making will be useful to fill gaps in the larger discourse of transnational marriages. 108 [...]... before and after marriage and relocation to Singapore, as well as the hope and hard work involved in their realization of an idealized life-long marriage Moreover, in my studies of the cultural exchanges and culturally embedded perceptions of life philosophy, love, marriage and migration, I have been deeply influenced by novels written by Vietnamese and Singaporean authors, and also by related films and. .. this topic, my aims and objectives for this study, and my efforts towards realizing these objectives The first main chapter weaves the story on my fieldwork in Vietnam, focusing on the socioeconomic context of the Mekong Delta and of marriage migration through matchmaking agencies The second main chapter deals with the marital lives of Vietnamese brides in Singapore and their struggle to adapt and to. .. her Singaporean husband brought her to the ACMI offices to enroll in English class for foreign spouses in Singapore Sometimes, in the classes, I would meet up with Ah Thuy and her cousin Ah Lan, who was the one who brought Ah Thuy to Singapore to find husband Through this acquaintance, I found out that Ah Thuy had already been married to a Vietnamese man from her village before coming to Singapore, and. .. after all, cannot and should not be reduced to mere statistics or independent and dependent variables It simply does not make human sense An ethnographic study of everyday marital lives of Vietnamese brides- Singaporean husbands demands a greater descriptive indulgence, and less presumed fixity, with regard to a couple’s lived experiences, and their homes, hometowns, villages, relationships and life encounters... in order to protect their privacy In some cases, I was able to conduct extended interviews and repeat interviews to record their life stories in greater detail Through the mediation of my respondents in Singapore, I was also able to contact their family members in Vietnam and conduct field visits in Vietnam, together with the Singapore- based respondent I stayed with two families of Vietnamese brides. .. foreigners and the return migration by overseas Vietnamese men to marry local Vietnamese women For example, marriage migration by young girls from the Mekong Delta is inspired by their admiration for Singapore, the only ―First World‖ country in Southeast Asia This journey indirectly fulfills their aspirations of being ―modern women.‖ Marriage migration by returning overseas Vietnamese men, on the other hand,... between Vietnamese brides and Singaporean grooms on a dayto-day basis Specifically, I interpret “cultural encounters‖ as the interactions or exchanges taking place between two actors or two cultures on the level of language, custom, practice and value systems There are different platforms that facilitate cultural encounters such as diplomatic relations, business relations, and of course, migration, and marriage. .. language used to communicate with their husbands, there will remain considerable differences in their culture and worldview that have to be dealt with In ―free choice‖ or ―love‖ marriages, brides and grooms usually have certain amount of time to get to know each other culturally and socially before they begin 17 married life In these marriages, therefore, the cultural encounter is first and foremost... such, rather than staking out a fixed positionality, I find it more analytically useful to acknowledge throughout this study how my own experience of doing research on Vietnamese brides and 18 marriage migration to Singapore has transformed my own preconceived notions of marriage, migration, and womanhood Adding to this discussion on the role of reflectivity in ethnography, feminist researchers emphasize... contacted through email and subsequently interviewed several social workers in Singapore – mainly from the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) and the Hougang Family Service Centre In total, I conducted in-depth interviews with ten Vietnamese brides, three Singaporean grooms, three matchmakers, three social workers, one researcher and one movie director in Singapore Whilst I conducted ... attempt to bring to light this aspect of commercially arranged marriage migration by compiling life stories of Vietnamese brides regarding their experiences and perspectives prior to and after... foreigners The fourth flow of marriage migration that now seems to be taking shape appears to be following the routes of matchmakers and Vietnamese brides to Singapore and Malaysia Duckweed following... process of Vietnamese brides in their new host society Third, through the joint struggle of Vietnamese brides and their Singaporean husbands to culturally accommodate with each other, I attempt to show