The HanPil (한필) Occasional Paper Series on Korea and the Philippines is published electronically by the University of the Philippines Korea Research Center. All papers included in the current volume underwent a single-blind peer review process. The HanPil is published annually. Published by UP Korea Research Center Printed in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines Editor-in-chief Aldrin P. Lee, PhD Assistant Editor Kyung Min Bae Layout Assistant Pamela Jacar, Reini Evangelista Cover design Elsie Marie Or Copyright © 2019 by the UP KRC and authors All rights reserved, except that authorization is given herewith to academic institutions and educators to reproduce the articles herein for academic use as long as appropriate credit is given both to the authors and to this publication. The views expressed in each paper are those of the authors of the paper. They do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the UP KRC, its Editorial Committee, or of the University of the Philippines. ISSN (Online) 2546-0234 ISSN (Print) 2546-0226

The papers were prepared for the research project of the Korea Research Center at the University of the Philippines (UP KRC) supported by the Academy of Korean Studies Grant (AKS-2015-INC-2230012). Earlier version of the papers was presented at the 2018 UP KRC Workshop and Roundtable held at UP-CIDS Conference Hall, Ang Bahay ng Alumni, Lower Ground Floor, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City on June 15, 2018. UP Korea Research Center Address: University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines Email : pkrc@up.edu.ph Facebook: www.facebook.com/UPKRC Website: https://uprkrc.wordpress.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword 1

Research Papers

Bribe as Business: Corruption, Culture, and Investment 05 Behavior among Asian Economies Rogelio Alicor L. Panao

Decontextualization and Recontextualization of Language, 31 Literature, and Culture: An Analysis of Korean Relay Translation of Noli Me Tangere into Korean from the English Language Ronel O. Laranjo

Narratives of Filipino Bride Returnees from South Korea: 53 Implications to Research and Policy Jean Encinas-Franco, Raisa Lumampao, and Kyung Min Bae

UP KRC Korea Essay Contest Grand Prize Winners (2017-2018)

A Reminder For Love 83 Anika Castañeda

Through Our Literature 87 Jesus C. Deytiquez

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FOREWORD

This is the third and the last issue of HanPil as an Occasional Paper Series on Korea and the Philippines— the official publication of the University of the Philippines Korea Research Center (henceafter, UP-KRC) before it transitions into a full-fledged peer-reviewed academic journal, which we now call HanPil: Studies on Korea and the Philippines starting 2019. The Occasional Paper Series was meant to serve as a repository for the research outputs of the recipients of the UP-KRC core research grant that we started to award to select proposals in 2016. In this volume, we are happy and proud to present three excellent papers whose primary authors were UP -KRC research grant recipients in 2018— Dr. Jean Encinas-Franco and Dr. Rogelio Alicor L. Panao from the UP Department of Political Science and Assistant Professor Ronel O. Laranjo from the UP Departamento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas. Dr. Encinas-Franco co-wrote her contribution in this volume with Asst. Prof. Raisa Lumampao, also from the UP Department of Political Science and Asst. Prof. Kyung Min Bae from the UP Department of Linguistics and the UP-KRC. Dr. Panao’s paper entitled Bribe as Business: Corruption, Culture and Investment Behavior among Asian Economies investigates whether the views on corruption of people in an investing economy is a robust determinant of choice of investment location(s). Using a dyadic dataset containing data on one hundred eighty (180) states and their foreign direct investments (FDIs) from 2001 to 2012, and by assigning political and socioeconomic variables to each state in a dyad, Dr. Panao examined the level of influence that an investing state’s view on corruption renders upon (its) investment behavior. Interestingly, Dr. Panao found that it is actually the trust on the quality of institutions in prospect investment locations that matters, irrespective of the way people in investing states view corruption. Dr. Panao’s findings in this paper do not only merit the attention of policymaking bodies but could also directly explain why the Philippines, for instance, still attract foreign investors in spite of its consistently low performance in the Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International). Asst. Prof. Laranjo’s work entitled Decontextualization and Recontextualization of Language, Literature, and Culture: An Analysis of Korean Relay Translation of Noli Me Tangere into Korean from the English Language looks into the lone Korean translation of Jose Rizal’s

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Noli Me Tangere, focusing on the translation methodology and the ways undertaken by the translator, Dong Yeob Kim, in his attempt to turn some of the elements in Rizal’s work appropriate to the Korean context. Asst. Prof. Laranjo’s interest in Kim’s translation was also driven by the fact that the latter was a “relay translation”, i.e. translation of an existing translation and not of the original text. Utilizing Schriever’s framework, Asst. Prof. Laranjo examined how the translator decontextualized and recontextualized language, literature, and culture in the Korean translation, providing specific examples in each domain. Dr. Encinas-Franco, Asst. Prof. Lumampao & Asst. Prof. Bae’s paper entitled Narratives of Filipino Bride Returnees from South Korea: Implications to Research and Policy examines the life stories of Filipino women marriage migrant returnees and how their narratives could potentially contribute to a more refined understanding of marriage migration and the formulation of policies that take into account such lived experiences, often ignored, of the Filipino bride returnees. The study presented elaborate life histories of three migrant bride returnees, providing insights into the various roles, agency, and struggles that these women faced as they attempt to pursue successful married life with their Korean husbands in Korea, and back in the Philippines. This work highlights the importance of how narratives of lived experiences could capture the fine distinctions and unique patterns that are hardly revealed in quantitative investigations of the same social phenomenon. While the three abovementioned works comprise the core of this volume, we have also decided to publish in this issue the two essays that won the Grand Prize in the UP KRC Essay Writing Contests in 2017 and in 2018. The essays by Anika Castañeda entitled A Reminder for Love and by Jesus Deytiquez entitled Through Our Literature both speak about how they find themselves connected with Korea, something that we hope could inspire more Filipinos to build interest in discovering the many interesting facets of Korean culture and society. If you have been following our publications at the UP-KRC, you might have noticed that the publication of this volume has been quite delayed— and I sincerely apologize to both the authors and the readers for this shortcoming. We try our best to maintain the quality of the papers published in HanPil by continuing to employ blind review to all articles, including the ones in this issue, thus adding to the layers that we have to go through in the production of this volume. Further, and as indicated on the back of the cover of this issue, we appreciate

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the support extended by the Academy of Korean Studies through the Grant that they have awarded to the UP-KRC in the incubation stage of the Center (AKS-2015-INC-2230012). The funds provided to the researchers who carried out the abovementioned research projects came from this AKS grant. I would also like to thank our reviewers, who devoted their precious time in perusing the manuscripts that we initially considered for publication in this volume, my hardworking peers at the UP KRC, and Asst. Prof. Elsie Marie T. Or of the UP Department of Linguistics who designed the beautiful cover of this volume. I hope that you will also look forward to the first issue of HanPil: Studies on Korea and the Philippines, now the official peer-reviewed journal of the UP KRC.

Matamang salamat! 감사합니다!

ALDRIN P. LEE, PhD Editor

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Bribe as Business: Corruption, Culture, and Investment Behavior Among Asian Economies

Rogelio Alicor L. Panao

Department of Political Science, College of Social Science and Philosophy

University of the Philippines, Diliman

Abstract

Do states care about corruption when doing business overseas? The relationship between corruption and capital has long

preoccupied academic investigations in economics and international political economy. In scholarly debates, corruption is largely perceived as adding financial barriers to the entry of foreign investment, if not incompatible with numerous business models.

The study investigates whether how people in an investing economy regard corruption influences the selection of investment locations. We argue that states where people are culturally permissive of acts otherwise considered corrupt—such as a number of Asian and Southeast Asian economies—investments are less likely to be deterred by corruption incidence as they view corruption as either necessary “grease”, a mutually-beneficial relationship with corrupt governments, or as a continuation of conventional practices in their home countries.

To test our conjecture, we construct a dyadic dataset that contains information on 180 states and their foreign direct investments (FDI) from 2001 to 2012. For each state in the dyad we attach political and socioeconomic characteristics pertaining to the country of origin and country of operation. The political variables include public and expert perceptions of corruption, views on institutional quality, as well as traditional gravity indicators such as population and per capita gross domestic output. We construe investment preferences as FDI ties between states, which we estimate using exponential random graph models (ERGM) for networks. As robustness test we then estimated Heckman selection models to examine the extent to which investing states’ view of corruption mediates investment behavior.

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Our findings suggest that high institutional confidence is a more robust determinant of investment inclination, regardless of how people in investing states view corruption. On the other hand, confidence on the quality of institutions in target economies make them attractive locations, irrespective of people’s tendency to condone or tolerate acts otherwise regarded as corrupt in other cultures. Overall, it is the people’s trust of institutions and not necessarily how they view corruption that predicts a state’s propensity to locate and attract foreign direct investments. Keywords: corruption, culture, Foreign Direct Investment, Korea, Philippines Do states care about corruption when doing business overseas?

The relationship between corruption and capital has long preoccupied academic investigations in economics and international political economy. In scholarly debates, that corruption deters foreign investment is becoming the accepted norm among scholars, and it figures why. Besides adding financial barriers to the entry of foreign investment (Shleifer and Vishny 1993), corruption is seen as incompatible with a number of established business models (Habib and Zurawicki 2002; Sandholtz and Koetzle 2000). In other words, businesses are discouraged to invest in corrupt economic or political environments because corruption makes doing business costly, inefficient, and morally-hazardous.

Interestingly, despite the pervasiveness of corruption, economists cannot seem to establish conclusive evidence of its supposed pernicious effects (Svensson 2005). Two out of three econometric studies on corruption surveyed by Campos, Dimova, and Saleh (2010) do not even indicate any negative correlation. Often, the structure of data and choice of measures in many of these studies cast doubt on the validity of their conclusions. As Malesky and colleagues (2014) observe, existing works have failed to clarify numerous, plausible causal mechanisms through which corruption discourages business investment. In many studies, state level aggregation, weakly-operationalized variables, and highly endogenous research designs have made the findings inconclusive, if not susceptible to ecological fallacy. Moreover, while existing works acknowledge the mediating role of a firm’s characteristics (for instance, firm size and firm sector, as in Wu 2009; Sandholtz and Koetzle 2000), they nevertheless ignore other factors that may increase a firm’s propensity to tolerate, if not, initiate corrupt transactions.

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Values are among those factors. They encompass not just accepted customs but permeates companies and sometimes become embedded wittingly or unwittingly in the overall philosophy of the company. Values shapes individuals, including those who make policies for companies regarding which business practices are desirable, appropriate, and allowed. Business practice, by implication, covers those perceived to be corrupt or illicit, such as bribery and co-optation.

Extant literature often assume that firms inherently detest corruption as ethically-undesirable (Habib and Zurawicki 2002). This is problematic because to hold such assumption is to ignore variation in business models across the world and reduces the non-economic—often culture-based—valuation of irregular business practices as a simple modelling issue.

This research project investigates whether public regard of certain practices that are perceived to be corrupt—mediates the supposedly deterrent effect of corruption in foreign investment. In particular, we are keen to find whether states where people are more permissive of corrupt acts are also more likely to locate their businesses in relatively corrupt states.

Much in the literature regarding business culture and its implications to firm behavior is usually set in the context of locally-made investment. In light of increasingly denser networks of cross-border investment and trade, it is interesting to investigate whether and to what extent such business models translate to management practices by firms abroad. Are firms deterred by corruption in the prospective areas of operation? Consequently, by locating business in these supposedly corrupt environments, are they in effect condoning or supporting corrupt practices?

We predict that firms from economies where people view corruption more permissively are also less likely to be deterred from investing in locations where corrupt practices are prevalent. These investment sources are less likely to be dissuaded as they view corruption incidences as either necessary “grease” (Bardhan 1997), a means toward mutually-beneficial relationship with corrupt governments (Kang 2002), or as a continuation of conventional practices in their home countries (Cuervo-Cazurra 2006).

To test our assumption, we analyzed the bilateral foreign direct investment outflows of 180 countries between 2001 and 2012. There are two levels of analysis.

The first hinges on a dyadic or country pair dataset that contains information on states and their foreign direct investments

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(FDI). For each state in the dyad we attached political and socioeconomic characteristics pertaining to the country of origin and country of operation. The political variables include public and expert perception of corruption, public perception of institutional quality, business climate, as well as traditional gravity indicators such as population and per capita gross domestic output. We construe investment preferences as FDI ties between states, which we estimate using exponential random graph models (ERGM) for networks. Controlling for other political and socioeconomic variables, we hypothesize that the probability of FDI ties is by and large a function of corruption levels in target economies.

To test the robustness of the findings we analyze the relationship between investment behavior and the magnitude of FDI outflow using Heckman selection models to show how investing states’ view of corruption mediates investment behavior. We argue that while countries with very little corruption are extremely attractive investment targets, firms from states where people are more permissive of acts otherwise considered corrupt elsewhere, are generally indifferent with respect to corruption in destination economies. We construct several country pair panels containing traditional gravity indicators such as population and gross per capita output, corruption perception, public opinion on the quality of government institutions, business climate and institutional constraints on business. We estimate Heckman selection models to determine how corruption guides investment relationship as well as measure the magnitude of investment outflow. Similarly, we hypothesize that investing firms from Asian states where corruption is perceived as reasonable business practices also tend to be unperturbed about investing in states where corruption is perceived to be rampant. Significance of the research

Corrupt practices are prevalent in much of Southeast Asia. Despite the entry of foreign investments in the region and pressures to adopt anti-corruption policies alongside structural reforms, corruption persists—if not worsened—in recent years. This implies that many transactions considered in the literature as corrupt are actually the norm in many developing economies. More importantly, companies may not necessarily be dissuaded from doing business in corrupt polities—in direct contrast to the conventional notion ascribing a negative relationship between corruption and business attractiveness.

Unraveling this puzzle has both theoretical and practical significance. First, business practices in many countries in East and

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Southeast Asia contradicts the conventional view of corruption echoed in extant literature. If foreign investment indeed compels host countries to reduce or discourage corrupt practices, why does corruption persist in the region—a region that increasingly experiences an influx of foreign investments in recent years? Second, this puzzle suggests that numerous factors mediate the relationship of corruption and foreign investment. This research fills this gap by investigating the role of culture and comparing the inclination of firms—particularly from many industrialized Asian economies—to invest even in corrupt business environments.

Finally, our answers to this puzzle have clear policy implications. By showing how a firm’s characteristics mediate their propensity to tolerate (or even promote) corrupt practices, anti-corruption policies must start acknowledging the subtle side of corruption, that is, the role it plays for bottom line companies that are otherwise unable to compete under Western regulatory standards. It also suggests that corruption, to a certain extent, can be efficient. Business creates employment and catalyzes other economic opportunities. Where bribes facilitate business, corruption solves the need to raise new taxes and allocate government spending—two difficult policy challenges for fledgling economies. Corruption is elusive to measure but is conceptually important due to its economic consequences. The results can help guide our understanding about the robustness of popularly used measures of corruption and better inform policymaking. Ultimately, corruption per se may not necessarily be the root but merely a symptom of a deeper structural or institutional malaise. Corruption and investment in the literature

All over the world, people seem to have an idea of what constitutes illicit acts. Bribery is generally condemned in many modern societies. Abuse of power is generally frowned upon. The more difficult challenge, however, is putting such idea into a common conceptual frame. The latest World Bank Enterprise Survey shows that one in three firms all over the world regard corruption as a major constraint. But what is corruption? A definition that has gained wide acceptance in the development circle looks at corruption as “the abuse of office for illicit ends” (Klitgaard 2015; World Bank 2006). With this definition, cases of bribery involving public officials easily come to mind. The definition, however, encompasses nonmonetary exchanges such as nepotism and influence peddling, as well as forgery and embezzlement (UNDP 2004). One problem with this definition is its tendency to constrain corruption as exclusive to the public sphere. In

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response, Transparency International (2011) has adopted a working definition that looks at corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” Although the definition encompasses both public and private dimensions, it nevertheless fails to take into account the systematic and embedded nature of exchanges that are conventionally construed to be corrupt (Mungiu-Pippidi 2006).

Disch, Vigeland, Sundet and Gibson’s (2009) define corruption as “the abuse of entrusted authority for illicit gain.” Entrusted authority here covers all parties who draw legitimacy from either formal power or informal institutions such as custom or norm. The modifier illicit, on the other hand, implies that not all acts regarded as corrupt are necessarily unlawful. Finally, the term gain connotes that one or both parties are able to draw some economic or financial leverage in a corrupt transaction.

The latter definition is important in light of theoretical and empirical examinations in extant literature. If corruption is vague as a concept, so are its supposed implications on business and development. Regarding its effect on foreign direct investments, for instance, scholars usually distinguish between corruption as a grabbing hand and as a helping hand.

The common and arguably dominant view of corruption regards it as a grabbing hand that reduces profits and dissuades investment due to bribery and rent-seeking in target economies (Applebaum and Katz 1987; Murphy et al. 1991; Shleifer and Vishny 1993). Corruption also disincentivizes foreign investments by lowering the productivity of public infrastructure (Bardhan, 1997; Rose-Ackermann, 1999; Lambsdorff, 2003). Corruption can also decrease the effective protection of investors’ intangible assets and lowers the probability of fair adjudication of disputes between foreign and local partners. This discourages joint ventures in corrupt countries, reducing inward FDI, especially among more sophisticated technologically advanced firms (Smarzynska and Wei 2000). One caveat to make though is that this observation seems to be limited to transition economies, even though data in Smarzynska and Wei’s study cover projects undertaken in twenty-two (22) economies by investors from all over the world. Corruption in general also hampers international trade, while bribe paying to custom officials enhances imports (Jong and Bogmans 2011). This effect is particularly observed in importing countries with inefficient customs.

However, corruption can also have a helping hand effect on some firms (Barassi and Zhou 2012). Corruption is seen as facilitating transactions and bypassing circuitous procedures that slow down

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economic engagements (Huntington 1968). In business environments that are constricted by excessive regulation, corruption acts as a mechanism for introducing market procedures and breaking monopolistic controls (Leff 1989). Bribes, for instance, are known to induce efficiency when the prospect of side payments make officials speed up public services and turn service delivery into a sort of piece rate payment system (Shleifer and Vishny 1993; Lui 1985). Where governments are weak or the bureaucracy undermined, corruption can also be efficiency enhancing (Bardhan, 1997; Aidt, 2003) and profit maximizing (Tanzi and Davoodi 2000).

Glass and Wu (2002) found that corruption is not necessarily bad for investments and may even foster inward foreign direct investments in some cases. Godinez and Liu (2015) share similar findings and observed that corruption are the least of firms’ concerns when investing overseas. For Cuervo-Cazzura (2008), it is not the level but the type of corruption that deters or facilitates foreign investments in many economies. This is similar to Belgibayeva and Plekhanov (2015) who argue that FDI itself is not homogenous: FDI from different countries may increase at different rates, depending on the level of corruption in the host country, and in fact an overall increase in FDI may sometimes represent an increase in FDI from low-corruption countries accompanied by a smaller decrease in FDI from more corrupt states. This change in the volume and mix of FDI may lead to improvements in the quality of management, corporate governance and business conduct in the host country and further reinforce the strengthening of institutions that limit corruption (see, for instance, Long et al 2015). This view finds support in firm level studies that suggest a positive correlation between corruption and foreign direct investments (Caves 1982; Kogut and Singh 1988; Froot 1993). Corruption and values

Before we proceed, we clarify that by values we refer to beliefs or ideals that are shared by members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable regarding habits, and practices. When societies recognize a practice we do not make an assumption of whether it is right or wrong. Anthropologists are generally lukewarm about studies that tie corruption to culture to avoid mislabeling cultures or blaming them for problems that have deeper historical or political roots (Smith 2018). They remind that just because something is referred in one society as corrupt should not be presumed to mean the same thing or functions the same way everywhere.

In Nigeria, for instance, the term corruption is a widely

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accepted, polyvalent signifier for a range of political, social, and cultural practices related to the reproduction of inequality, about which Nigerians are highly ambivalent (Smith 2007). Meanwhile in many Asian polities, gift giving is customary as a way to congeal not just social but business relationships. In China, in particular, the ancient practice of reciprocal and continuous gift giving to facilitate smooth relationships (guanxi) is regarded as acceptable. Guanxi culture does not exempt anyone. However, this practice is viewed with trepidation from the outside especially when the beneficiary to such transaction is a public official (Harding 2014). Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to label Chinese culture as corrupt on this basis. Li (2010) explains that corruption in China is “not due to some haphazard aggregation of sporadic acts but follows certain rules and codes of conduct, which should be seen as an informal institutional mechanism facilitating the contracting process of corrupt exchange. Guanxi, he argues, embodies such rules and codes of conduct by removing the legal, moral and cognitive barriers impeding the contracting process of corrupt exchange, and thus, can actually be welfare enhancing. It is not that the participants of corruption are compelled to corrupt conduct because of the existence of the guanxi. Instead, guanxi is adopted as an alternative to transaction mechanisms that facilitate corruption.

We recognize that cultural and social contexts give shape and meaning to practices that some refer to as corrupt, in much the same way as they provide a peek into some dimensions of a community’s social dynamics. Like Seleim and Bontis (2009), we are also interested in a nuanced understanding of corruption while controlling for economic indicators.

Although the study covers 180 states across the world, we are particularly interested in the implications of certain culture-based predilections or perception on investment behavior. Asia, in particular, is an interesting case when it comes to corruption. The average Transparency International corruption score in Asia is 41 but the range varies from one as high as 90 in Singapore to one as low as 17 in Iraq. Some may claim that widespread conflict in the Middle East accounts for the low score in this region. Government’s ability for regulatory enforcement after all can be seriously undermined by unstable political institutions. Interestingly, even in areas that are not mired by conflict corruption nonetheless appears to be prevalent. India, the largest democracy in the world, and most countries in South Asia are cases in point. Meanwhile in China, informal rules have overtaken competition processes and mechanisms under the guise of formal rules. Consequently, public procurement in China displays the structural

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outlook of market competition, but not its essential substance (Gong and Zhou 2014).

A number of countries in Asia also figure out occasionally in corruption reports. The latest OECD (2017) data, for instance, shows that between 1999 and 2016, 19 individuals in Korea have been sanctioned for criminal foreign bribery cases. The record is among the highest among OECD member states. The Philippines, on the other hand, slipped 10 places earlier this year, sliding to its lowest in the global corruption ranking in five years. According to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the Philippines placed 111th out of 180 countries surveyed in 2017, with a score of 34 out of 100. The last time the country scored this low was in 2012. In 2016, the Philippines placed 101st with a CPI score of 35. Method and measures To assess how corruption impacts on investment behavior, we analyzed bilateral foreign direct investment data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from 2001 to 2012. A common approach in the analysis of foreign direct investments in the literature is to model investment patterns into several gravity equations and test the impact of known economic and geographic indicators on investment flows (Liu, Xu, Wang and Akamavi 2016; Schmeiser 2013; Kahouli and Omri 2017). One well-known issue with this approach is its tendency to overestimate effects, owing to the nature of available data (see Zwinkels and Beugelsdijk 2010 and their proposed solution). Incomplete, omitted and undisclosed entries are typical in bilateral trade data, even those reported by reputable international agencies such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Our own data suffers from these omissions. As a turnaround, we constructed a dyadic dataset that contains information on states and their foreign direct investments (FDI). As with traditional gravity models, for each state in the dyad we attached political and socioeconomic characteristics pertaining to the country of origin and country of operation. The political variables include business’ perception of corruption, corruption levels, growth rate, and institutional factors such as business climate and the cost of crime and violence on investments, among others.

However, we digress from conventional literature by construing investment preferences as FDI ties between states, which

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we estimate using exponential random graph models (ERGM) for networks. Controlling for other political and socioeconomic variables, we hypothesize the probability of FDI ties as largely a function of investing states’ normative orientation and the extent by which investing states consider certain illicit acts as reasonable. The probability of the observed network and the conditional log-odds of an investment tie is computed as a stochastic graph with the following specification (Krivitsky 2012):

Pr(Y = y) = exp[θʹg(y)]/k(θ), (1)

where: Y is a network; g(y) is a vector of network stats; θʹ is the vector

of coefficients; and k(θ), is a normalizing constant. Below, we discuss our variables of interest and the measures

adopted to empirically estimate their effects.

a. Foreign direct investments (FDI) We adopt UNCTAD’s definition and construe foreign direct

investment (FDI) as “a category of investment that reflects the objective of establishing a lasting interest by a resident enterprise in one economy (direct investor) in an enterprise (direct investment enterprise) that is resident in an economy other than that of the direct investor.” Interest is typically evidenced by direct or indirect ownership of 10% or more of the voting power of an enterprise resident in one economy by an investor resident in another economy. As the definition does not discriminate on the origin of investment, investments can be made either by buying a company in the target country (as may be allowed by antitrust legislations) or by expanding the operation of an existing business in that country.

We use the direction of a country’s foreign direct investment outward flows—the value of outward direct investment from a home economy to target economies in current US dollars—as our proxy for investment ties. International agencies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) usually report outward flows as representing transactions that increase the investment of home economies such as through the purchase of equity or reinvestment of earnings, minus any transactions that decrease investment, such as sales of equity or borrowing by the resident investor from the foreign enterprise. We omit the details of these transactions as our interest is the development of investment ties.

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b. Corruption Given the difficulty of defining corruption as a concept, we employ

several measures but we make no claim that they hold across cultures or time. While corruption has been around for a long time and societies might share a similar understanding of good and bad (Dimant 2013), we reiterate that an activity can either be natural or corrupt depending on societal and normative contexts. We adopt two operational measures for corruption. The first is a continuous variable based on the score in the Transparency International corruption perception index (CPI) for countries in our sample between 2001 and 2012.

We recognize early on the limitations in the use of the aforementioned measure. We are aware of the methodological questions raised in the literature, such as the wisdom in aggregating and averaging indices, the reliability of the sources on which the measures are based, as well as the often conflicting conceptualizations employed. By including in our statistical models these same measures, we are admittedly complicit to their flaws. For example, the CPI has been the focus of much criticism regarding its methodology (Arndt and Oman 2006; Galtung 2006) and experts have long aired their concerns about perception based indices (Byrne, Arnold and Nagano 2010). For instance, new survey reports are almost often based on previous survey results as response come from experts who rely on previously published reports. The indices combine several measurements based on experts’ evaluation of a country’s situation to produce a single number. Unfortunately, rarely do these measures reflect the concepts accurately so it is hard to tell what the TI is measuring exactly.

As an alternative, some research organizations opt to survey firms in lieu of experts. Measures that utilize firm-level survey methodologies include the World Development Indicators, published by the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum which produces the Global Competitiveness Report.

c. Value-based corruption typology Problems with existing corruption indicators prompted us to adopt

a values-based alternative derived from how individuals from different polities view corruption, and on their level of trust of government institutions. This measure is based on two components—individual level corruption perception and faith in government institutions. The corruption component is an index computed via principal component

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analysis of the following World Values Survey questions which asked people if they think it is justifiable to:1

F114_01: Steal property F115: Avoid fare on public transport F116: Cheat on taxes F117: Accept a bribe

The measure’s trust component is similarly computed via principal

component analysis of the following World Values Survey questions which gauged people’s confidence on:2

E069_06: Confidence: The police E069_08: Confidence: The civil service E069_11: Confidence: The government E069_17: Confidence: The justice system/courts

We construe societies as falling into one of four typologies

illustrated in Figure 1. High corruption high confidence societies are those where people

are more permissive of activities otherwise viewed as corrupt elsewhere, but at the same time have high confidence on their government institutions.

High corruption low confidence societies are those where people are more permissive of corrupt activities but also look at their government institutions with low esteem.

Low corruption high confidence societies are those where people are less tolerant of corrupt behavior and look at their government institutions with high regard.

Low corruption low confidence societies are those where people are generally intolerant of corrupt behavior and have low confidence on their government institutions.

1 All four questions asked respondents to rate from 1 to 10 whether it is justifiable (1 = never justifiable; 10 = always justifiable) 2 Respondents rate their level of confidence as: 1 – a great deal; 2 – quite a lot; 3 – not very much; 4 – not at all.

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Figure 1. Corruption permissiveness and government trust

Source: World Values Survey, 2017

The cutoff is based on the median score in the corruption and confidence indices. For instance, corruption permissive societies that are confident about their institutions are those which fall above the median score in our corruption index, and below the median in the trust index (note that a higher score in the confidence index means lower confidence). We hypothesize that institutional reliability more than anything else determines the attractiveness of economies as investment locations. Hence, it does not matter whether or not societies are permissive of behavior regarded in some cultures as corrupt. They will remain to be viable investment targets as long as their regulatory institutions can be relied upon to ensure that business can operate and thrive.

d. Controls We also control for variables which in the literature are known to affect investment flows or are found to be determinants of FDI. In the literature, there are two main types of determinants of investments. The first type—the gravity factors—include gross domestic product, population, as well as geographic and historical contexts. The second type—the policy related factors—include business climate and the degree of regional integration. We use gross domestic product per

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capita in current dollar value for GDP. We also categorized countries into geographic zones as proxy for regional integration. It is likely that investment ties are more prominent among similarly situated economies so we control for the relationship of investing states by income group, as well as among countries with a common colonial history. For business climate, we adopt the World Economic Forum’s (WE) index of global competitiveness. Results Table 1 gives a descriptive summary of continuous variables in the study. All 180 countries in the study have rankings based on the Transparency International (TI) corruption perception score. The mean corruption index for the study sample with 180 countries is 40.82. We note that the index perceives countries which score lower as more corrupt.

The WE global competitiveness index, in contrast, adopts a ranking metric, hence, countries that score high are construed to suffer from institutional or political barriers that hamper global economic competitiveness. We note also that not all countries have data for some of the measures. This omission also limited the analytic power of our estimation approach. For instance, the WE global competitiveness index was not included in the ERGM models because missing values produce unstable models that fail to converge. However, these variables were included in the validation estimates utilizing Heckman selection models. Table 1. Descriptive summary of corruption variables and other indicators

Table 2 elaborates further on the TI corruption perception index and shows the 10 most corrupt as well as the 10 least corrupt countries based on their average between 1995 and 2016. It is interesting to note that most of the ten countries perceived to be highly corrupt are African states. Three countries in the list are from Asia (Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Iraq). There is a bit of variability in

Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

GDP per capita 2,141 1150989 5003678 133.4945 96 million

FDI received 2,138 9.14 billion 3.42E+10 -29.7 billion 734 billion

TI corruption perception 2,160 40.82315 20.86912 4 99 WE global competitiveness (2018) 2,160 94.06667 55.19526 1 190 year 2,160 2006.5 3.452852 2001 2012

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terms of income although most fall under the low income and lower middle income categories. The composition of countries perceived to be least corrupt is also interesting in that all, except Singapore, are high income Western states. Five economies in the list also belong to the so-called Scandinavian welfare countries.

Table 2. TI’s 10 most corrupt and least corrupt countries

Note: TI-CPI – Transparency International’s corruption perception index; WE-GC – World

Economic Forum global competitiveness rank.

South Korea is somewhere in the middle with an average corruption perception index of 48.76. Its next door neighbor Japan is 71.3. China and Taiwan scored 33.7 and 56.9 respectively. In fact, China’s average perceived level of corruption is not that far from the Philippines’ 28.72. Interestingly, the corruption index we computed based on the World Values Survey also classifies South Korea, China, and the Philippines as countries where people are more permissive of acts considered as corrupt elsewhere. In fact, Singapore and Malaysia, also fall under this typology. Japan, a country that seemingly has little tolerance for corruption based on Transparency International’s CPI, also appears to embody such intolerance as a collective habit. Our index indicates that the Japanese generally frown upon corrupt

10 most corrupt states Ave CPI WE-GC region Income group

Somalia 10.9 190 Sub-Saharan Africa Low income

Afghanistan 13.9 183 South Asia Low income

Sudan 16.46 170 Sub-Saharan Africa Lower middle income

Myanmar 16.85 171 East Asia & Pacific Lower middle income

Iraq 17.38 168 Middle East & North Africa Upper middle income

Haiti 17.86 181 Latin America & Caribbean Low income

Chad 18.58 180 Sub-Saharan Africa Low income

Equatorial Guinea 19 173 Sub-Saharan Africa Upper middle income

Angola 19.47 175 Sub-Saharan Africa Lower middle income

Nigeria 19.78 145 Sub-Saharan Africa Lower middle income

10 least corrupt states Ave CPI WE-GC region Income group

Norway 87.19 8 High income: OECD High income

Canada 87.2 18 High income: OECD High income

Netherlands 87.73 32 High income: OECD High income

Switzerland 87.78 33 High income: OECD High income

Iceland 88.89 23 High income: OECD High income

Singapore 90.68 2 East Asia & Pacific High income

Sweden 91.62 10 High income: OECD High income

New Zealand 93.58 1 High income: OECD High income

Finland 93.79 13 High income: OECD High income

Denmark 94.52 3 High income: OECD High income

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practices that are considered acceptable elsewhere. What binds China, South Korea, and Japan together, however, is their citizens’ relatively high confidence on institutions of governance. We note that unlike Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, respondents in the WVS are not select experts but ordinary survey respondents. Moreover, the survey does not make any assumption about countries being more corrupt or less corrupt based on the score. It simply construes that people in the states that score higher in our WVS believe that acts perceived to be corrupt (i.e., bribery, not paying taxes, avoiding fare in public transport) are justified to a certain extent. We note also that only 96 out of 180 countries in this study were included in the World Values Survey.

How do people’s collective regard of corrupt practices influence states’ investment behavior? Table 3 summarizes the result of three homophily models generated from stochastic random networks of investment ties. The probability of forming an investment tie is negative, as is expected of sparse networks such as this. However, we also see that investment inclinations are generally mutual and that states chosen as investment locations are also likely to invest in host economies.

Model 1 and Model 2 both indicate the probability of investment ties between and among states belonging to the same corruption/institution typology we introduced in Figure 1. We do not find evidence that corruption permissive states with high regard for institutional quality necessarily prefer doing business with states that are equally permissive. However, investment ties appear more likely between states who are both intolerant of corruption and have high regards about the quality of their institutions. Interestingly, whether or not people are permissive of corruption, investment ties are less likely between states that have low institutional credibility.

Evidence as to whether investment preferences are geographically determined is not consistent. Nevertheless, it can be deduced that the probability of investment ties is more likely among developing states (e.g. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa) and less likely among already affluent economies. In other words, it is more likely for fledgling economies to invest in one another than for developed economies to exhaust their own saturated markets.

Models 1 and 3 indicate that GDP per capita and the population size are significant determinant of investment location. Corruption is significant in Model 1 but not in Model 3, suggesting that its effect is not consistent in the presence of other factors. Model 2 tests the effect of absolute difference in corruption, GDP per capita,

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and population size between host and target economies. The positive coefficient for corruption suggests that investment ties is more likely between states with different corruption levels and that generally are unfettered by perceived corruption in potential investment locations.

Model 3 applies the corruption/institution typology to two categorical variables that capture the directional nature of FDI networks. Inclination to invest connotes the likelihood of a host state to invest in an investment location if the investing state falls in one of the four typologies under the category (e.g. high corruption, high institutional confidence; low corruption, low institutional confidence, etc.). Attractiveness to foreign investment, on the other hand, pertains to the allure as an investment target of a state that falls in one of the four typologies. High institutional confidence appears to be the more important determinant of investment inclination, regardless of how people in investing states view corruption. In the same vein, confidence on the quality of institutions in target economies make them attractive locations, irrespective of people’s tendency to condone or tolerate acts otherwise regarded as corrupt in other cultures. Overall, it is the people’s trust of institutions and not necessarily how they view corruption that predicts a state’s propensity to locate and attract foreign direct investments.

To test the robustness of the findings we run Heckman’s two step selection models estimating the impact of corruption on investment yield. The selection components of these models allow us to account for missing data due to non-reporting or non-disclosure, which is not unusual in bilateral FDI data. The estimates are summarized in Table 4.

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Table 3. Homophily network of bilateral foreign direct investments

The Heckman estimator requires at least one selection model

that is not in the outcome model. Here, we assume that common colonial history and common geographic location (belonging to the same region) induce the probability of investment ties between states, but not the magnitude of foreign direct investment. Investment partners share a common colonial history when an investment tie is between a former colonial master and a colony, or among colonies of the same colonial master. Similarly, given the directional nature of investment networks, it is assumed that FDI ties are more likely

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

FDI ties -3.374 (0.215)*** -2.831 (0.042)*** -3.459 (0.217)***

Reciprocated FDI ties 2.998 (0.054)*** 2.975 (0.054)*** 2.980 (0.056)***

Corruption/institution typology (same ties)

High corruption Low inst. confidence -1.374 (0.561)* -1.205 (0.503)*

High corruption High inst. confidence 0.736 (0.392) 0.645 (0.364)

Low corruption Low inst. confidence -0.930 (0.228)*** -0.815 (0.229)***

Low corruption High inst. confidence 0.412 (0.082)*** 0.464 (0.080)***

Other types -0.032 (0.032) 0.000 (0.028)

Inclination to invest if state is:

High corruption Low inst. confidence -0.047 (0.087)

High corruption High inst. confidence 0.457 (0.103)***

Low corruption Low inst. confidence 0.037 (0.071)

Low corruption High inst. confidence 0.253 (0.055)***

Attractiveness to investment if state is:

High corruption Low inst. confidence -0.531 (0.092)***

High corruption High inst. confidence 0.422 (0.101)***

Low corruption Low inst. confidence -0.916 (0.082)***

Low corruption High inst. confidence 0.233 (0.054)***

Ties among states from the same region

East Asia & Pacific 0.254 (0.114)* 0.162 (0.112) 0.311 (0.120)**

Europe & Central Asia 0.351 (0.215) 0.446 (0.207)* 0.426 (0.228)

OECD -0.367 (0.096)*** -0.140 (0.092) -0.380 (0.096)***

Latin America & Caribbean -0.351 (0.073)*** -0.357 (0.071)*** -0.201 (0.075)**

Middle East & North Africa -0.270 (0.195) -0.203 (0.188) -0.524 (0.196)**

South Asia 0.332 (0.132)* 0.315 (0.136)* 0.396 (0.134)**

Sub-Saharan Africa 0.195 (0.049)*** 0.233 (0.051)*** 0.162 (0.049)***

Other factors

GDP per capita 0.014 (0.004)*** 0.010 (0.004)**

Corruption Index (TI) 0.002 (0.001)*** 0.001 (0.001)

Population size 0.012 (0.006)* 0.019 (0.006)**

Absolute difference in GDP per capita 0.001 (0.005)

Absolute difference in Corruption Index 0.005 (0.001)***

Absolute difference in population size 0.087 (0.008)***

AIC 22367.196 22247.807 21995.114

BIC 22508.111 22388.722 22160.897

Log Likelihood -11166.598 -11106.903 -10977.557 ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05

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between and among states in the same region. The selection component of the Heckman models tests for the

probability of an investment tie between an investing economy and a partner country. FDI flow can be construed to be the dollar amount that firms in a source economy are willing to invest in a target economy. We assume, however, that an FDI flow can only be observed if there is an investment relationship between two countries. To model FDI as an elasticity of some other economic variable, it is conventional to derive its natural log before running estimates. But since the natural logarithm function ln(x) is defined only for x>0 (the log of a negative number is undefined) we resort to inverse hyperbolic sine transformation. As FDI ties are bilateral, negative FDI values denote cases where the target economy has invested more than the host economy. There are, in fact, a number of investment relationships where one party reaps more benefits than the rest of its partner economies. Lee and Huh (2009), for instance, observed that while Korean FDI into China has helped Korean firms increase exports, this came at the expense of domestic employment, particularly in labor intensive industries.

The models’ selection components give a nuanced perspective on investment behavior. Model 1 indicates, for instance, that while corruption-intolerant states would opt to invest in investment locations that share similar views on illicit activities, investments that do not discriminate based on corruption permissiveness yields greater returns. As can be seen in the estimates, the return to investment of an investment pattern that excludes corrupt states is statistically no different from zero.

If normative views on corruption does not influence investment, what does? Model 2 integrates institutional variables and gauges if prevailing views on institutional quality impacts on outward investment behavior. The estimate suggests that investments are more likely between and among states which have relatively high confidence on their institutions. Investment relationships also yield better returns if it is between states with well-functioning institutions of governance. Model 2 suggests that by and large, it is institutional quality that guides the selection of investments. The quality of institution likewise guarantees future returns from these investment decisions.

Model 3 includes both corruption permissiveness and institutional quality in the estimate. The estimate refines what we deduced from the two previous models and shows that while corruption permissiveness influences the selection of investment targets, it is not significant in defining overall investment output.

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However, as in Model 2, the estimate confirms the role of institutional confidence not only in the selection of prospective investment targets but also in predicting future returns.

How states put premium on institutional quality may also explain the negative, albeit minimal, but statistically significant effect of absolute difference in corruption perception in the main component of all three models. Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is based largely on experts and business people’s assessment of public sector corruption. In other words, its criteria for measuring corruption are those used to evaluate the quality of the institutions of governance.

The negative but almost negligible coefficient for the variable measuring the absolute difference in GDP per capita indicates that bilateral investment ties are more likely between states with comparable levels of economic development. The positive coefficient for population size, on the other hand, is consistent with the view that states locate their investments on emerging markets.

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Table 4. Heckman’s two step model of investment outflow among Asian economies

Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

Conclusion This study examined whether culture mediates the supposedly

deterrent effect of corruption on foreign investment. Using data on bilateral foreign direct investments for 180 countries from 2001 to 2012, we analyzed whether investment sources are more likely to locate their businesses in corrupt localities than their global counterparts. Our theoretical workhorse assumes that many business firms are less likely to be deterred by the prevalence of practices in investment targets that are otherwise considered corrupt elsewhere as they see these as either necessary “grease” (Bardhan 1997), means to forge mutually-beneficial relationships with corrupt governments (Kang 2002), or as a continuation of conventional practices in their home countries (Cuervo-Cazurra 2006). To test our assumptions empirically, we examined dyadic bilateral foreign direct investment

(Model 1) (Model 2) (Model 3)

arcsinh of FDI arcsinh of FDI arcsinh of FDI

Main

Corruption permissiveness

Between corruption permissive states 0.137*(0.0615) 0.0888 (0.0610)

Between corruption intolerant states 0.0742 (0.0692) 0.128 (0.0686)

Abs. diff. in corruption perception -0.0106*** (0.00146) -0.00975*** (0.00145) -0.0103*** (0.00145)

Abs. diff. in GDP -0.00448 (0.0117) -0.00615 (0.0118) -0.00551 (0.0118)

Abs. diff. in Global Competitiveness -0.00178* (0.000800) -0.00167* (0.000801) -0.00176* (0.000795)

Abs. diff. in population size 0.0298 (0.0162) 0.0321* (0.0161) 0.0330* (0.0162)

Confidence in institutions

Between high confidence states 0.165*(0.0741) 0.149*(0.0741)

Between low confidence states -0.0679 (0.0675) -0.0833 (0.0674)

Constant 4.000***(0.110) 3.958***(0.106) 3.917***(0.109)

Selection

Between states with colonial relationships 0.628***(0.0308) 0.561***(0.0309) 0.579***(0.0310)

Corruption permissiveness

Between corruption-permissive states 0.193***(0.0140) 0.122***(0.0143)

Between corruption-intolerant states -0.242***(0.0139) -0.145***(0.0143)

Abs. diff. in corruption perception 0.00516***(0.000328) 0.00417***(0.000329) 0.00451***(0.000331)

Abs. diff. in GDP -0.0247***(0.00253) -0.0312***(0.00255) -0.0312***(0.00256)

Abs. diff. in Global Competitiveness -0.00298***(0.00015) -0.00294***(0.00015) -0.00291***(0.00015)

Abs. diff. in population size 0.0158***(0.00357) 0.00691(0.00358) 0.0105**(0.00360)

Same region 0.546***(0.0139) 0.548***(0.0141) 0.556***(0.0141)

Confidence in institutions

Between high confidence states 0.321***(0.0172) 0.294***(0.0174)

Between low confidence states -0.358***(0.0126) -0.311***(0.0130)

Constant 0.0428*(0.0181) 0.172***(0.0184) 0.142***(0.0195)

mills

lambda -2.187***(0.171) -2.140***(0.176) -2.129***(0.173)

N 52417 52417 52417

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outflows using stochastic random graph models and Heckman selection estimators as econometric approaches.

As contribution, we introduce an alternative value-based typology of corruption based on how individuals from different polities view corruption, and on their level of trust of government institutions in the World Values Survey. In this typology, high corruption high confidence societies are those where people are more permissive of activities otherwise viewed as corrupt elsewhere, but at the same time have high confidence on their government institutions. Some of the most dynamic economies in Asia such as South Korea, China, Singapore and Malaysia, fall to this typology. Vietnam and the Philippines, two of Southeast Asia’s top performing economies in 2018, also belong to this category. We argue that it is not the per se a culture’s permissiveness of certain acts otherwise considered illicit or corrupt that dissuades investment, but the extent by which institutions of governance can be relied upon to protect and promote returns on investments.

Our findings suggest that high institutional confidence is a more robust determinant of investment inclination, regardless of how people in investing states view corruption. Confidence on the quality of institutions in target economies, on the other hand, make them attractive locations, irrespective of people’s tendency to condone or tolerate acts otherwise regarded as corrupt in other cultures. Overall, it is the people’s trust of institutions and not necessarily how they view corruption that predicts a state’s propensity to locate and attract foreign direct investments.

Our results also explain why investing states are rarely dissuaded by the prevalence of illicit practices in target economies. If, say, bribery and tax fraud are typical business practices, investors more likely would opt to adapt as long as institutions can be relied upon to ensure the protection and growth of business. In turn, middle income economies with moderate levels of corruption also create a predictive environment attractive to foreign investors used to illicit or irregular practices when doing business back home. Firms conscious of, or are used to illicit dealings in the country of operation can predict the timing and magnitude of bribes, and be induced to account for corruption simply as a business expense in the cost-benefit calculus. This lends credence to the view that corruption can be welfare enhancing for developing economies, at least in the short run (Freckleton, Wright and Craigwell 2012).

While we find our value-based measure of corruption to be a more robust alternative, it has its share of limitations. Our typology, for

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instance, applies to only about half of the 180 countries in the study, owing to the limited coverage of the World Values Survey. Moreover, even with the inclusion of several controls, the focus on corruption as a determinant of investment inclination is still simplistic. Individual firms, for instance, may opt to invest in relatively corrupt investment locations in search of strategic commodities, or even as part of statecraft or a larger national economic or foreign policy.

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Decontextualization and Recontextualization of Language, Literature, and Culture: An Analysis of Korean Relay Translation of Noli Me Tangere into Korean from the English Language

Ronel O. Laranjo

Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature, College of Arts & Letters

University of the Philippines, Diliman

Abstract Noli Me Tangere is one of the most translated texts in the Philippines. The latest society that the novel was able to live, through translation, is the Republic of Korea. The novel was translated into the Korean

language and given the title 나를 만지지 마라 (nareul manjiji mara) in

2015 by Dong Yeob Kim. It is a relay translation because the Korean translator used Leon Ma. Guerrero’s English translation of the original work. This study examined the formal and functional aspect of the relay translation using Schriever’s framework. In product-oriented analysis, the translator decontextualized and recontextualized the novel in terms of language, literature and culture of the Philippine and Korean society. In terms of its function, the translation addresses the issue of multiculturalism by introducing a Filipino classic novel that inspired nationalism to the Filipinos to the Korean readers. This will help in fostering better understanding of Filipino history, literature, and culture to Korean general public. Keywords: relay translation, Noli Me Tangere, Jose Rizal, Korean language, translation studies, Philippine-Korean studies Introduction

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Noli Me Tangere is one of the most translated texts in the Philippines. It is a political novel depicting the condition of the Philippines during the Spanish colonization and written by Jose Rizal in Spanish language. It has been called the first Filipino novel and considered to be the most important literary work produced by a Filipino writer. According to Testa de-Ocampo, (2011), Noli Me Tangere though rarely read in Spanish [by Filipino readers] lives on in translation like a second life or afterlife. True enough, it was first translated to the Tagalog language by the author’s brother, Paciano Rizal but the translation was not retrieved. Because of its impact in Philippine society, various Filipino writers also translated the novel into the national language, Pilipino/Filipino and into vernaculars such as Pampango, Ilocano, Bicolano, Cebuano, Waray, Pangasinense and Hiligaynon. The novel came to life in other societies as well, the novel was translated to English (1900, 1902, 1912, 1926, 1933, 1956, 1961, 1967, 1989, 1996, 2004 and 2006), French (1903), Chinese (1957), Bahasa Indonesia (1975), Japanese (1976) and German (1987). The latest society that the novel was able to live, through translation, is the Republic of Korea. The novel was translated in Korean language and

given the title 나를 만지지 마라 (nareul manjiji mara) in 2015 by Dong

Yeob Kim, a professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Busan University of Foreign Studies. But unlike the other translations, the Korean edition is a relay translation because the translator did not refer to the original novel written in Spanish but rely on the English translation done by Leon Ma. Guerrero. This paper will examine the formal and functional aspect of the translation by answering the following questions:

1. Why was Noli Me Tangere translated to the Korean language?

2. How was Noli Me Tangere translated to the Korean language from the original text?

3. What are the functions of the translation to Korean society?

In the field of Korean studies in the Philippines, there is a gap in research about translation studies. There are Filipino texts which were translated to the Korean language like Rizal’s work and there are also Korean texts translated to Filipino/English but there are no studies evaluating their formal translation and their function in both societies. This research will try to address the problem and in doing so, the

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scope of Korean studies in the Philippines may also expand in the field of literature and translation studies. Methodology Translation studies is to be understood as a collective and inclusive designation for all research activities taking the phenomena of translation and translation as their basis or focus (Holmes 2004, 184). It has two main objectives: 1) to describe the phenomena of translating and translations as they manifest themselves in the world of our experience, and 2) to establish general principles by means of which these phenomena can be explained and predicted. The field has two branches according to the objectives: 1) descriptive translation studies (DTS) or translation description and 2) theoretical translation studies (ThTS) or translation theory. The descriptive translation studies’ approach is product-oriented, function-oriented and process-oriented. The theoretical translation studies or translation theory formulates principles, theories, and models using the results of the descriptive translation studies to explain and predict what translating and translations are and will be. The research will adopt the descriptive translation studies.

The second research question focuses on the formal aspect of the translation, hence, product-oriented DTS will be utilized to address this. It describes existing translations which focuses on the form or text or text-focused translation description. The researcher will read the two-volume book of the Korean translation and evaluate the text using Schriever’s (1994) proposed framework in evaluating a relay translation which focuses on language, literature and culture. In answering the first and third research questions, function-oriented DTS will be employed. Function-oriented DTS focuses on the function of the translation to the recipient socio-cultural situation and the emphasis of the analysis is on the context rather than the text. This research will try to answer the reason for translating Jose Rizal’s texts to Korean language and its implication to Korean society, particularly in Korean-style multiculturalism. To realize these objectives, the researcher will conduct personal interview to the translator. Furthermore, main and secondary articles, connected to the context of the source texts and the translated texts will be collected and read to situate the text in a larger context.

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Analyzing a Relay Translation In her dissertation entitled “The cultural dimension of translation: an analysis of the relay translation of selected French texts into Tagalog/P/Filipino from the English language,” Schriever attempted to contribute to the understanding and interpretation of relay translation. Schriever defines relay translation as:

… a literary phenomenon which is possible across several languages but in general it is done across two languages, thus: the translation process has three terms of reference or texts-contexts relations, the first of which is often completely unknown to the translator, who, on the basis of the intermediate or “relay” text, creates (or rather, recreates; reformulates) the third text and this within his own cultural, linguistic and literary context (Schriever 1994, 28)

It requires three semiotic levels or meaning context analysis which is (1) the “source”; (2) the “relay” and (3) the receptor in terms of culture, language and literature. At each level, there is at least two processes of interpretation that are involved: decontextualization and recontextualization. Decontextualization is the process of identifying the possible meanings (in varied contexts) of given terms, ideas, concepts, expressions, etc. in order to fix the meaning in the particular usage or instance (Schriever 1994, 29). Recontextualization, on the other hand, is the process of putting meaning identified into the context of the receptor language and culture. This process also requires the identification of all of the possible translation equivalents in the cultural context in order to select the exact ones to match with the decontextualized meanings. These processes of translation are also called understanding and interpretation. Schriever (1994, 34) gives a diagram of transcultural translation and its processes as (Diagram 1):

Diagram 1: Schriever’s framework

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The paper will adopt this framework formulated by Schriever in evaluating the formal translation of Noli Me Tangere to Korean language. This could be represented in the following diagram (2):

Diagram 2: Adaptation of Schriever’s framework

However, this paper will just limit its analysis on the English to Korean translation. Benedict Anderson’s critique of Guerrero’s translation of Noli Me Tangere will be cited to present a sample analysis from Spanish to English. This analysis is an important reference on how decontextualization and recontextualization took place in the Spanish to English translation. The original work in Spanish will also be mentioned as needed. Noli Me Tangere: The Original Text and Guerrero’s Translation

Noli Me Tangere is not just an ordinary novel but is considered as one of the catalysts of Filipino nationalism. It is a political novel depicting the condition of the Philippines during the Spanish colonization and written in 1886 by Jose Rizal, the Philippines’ national hero. The main plot of the novel centers on the life and personalities related to Crisostomo Ibarra, a Filipino who studied in Europe. Upon his return to his hometown in the Philippines, he discovered the ills of the government and parochial systems, which the novel calls as the “social cancer”. Noli Me Tangere is a Latin phrase meaning “touch me not” which can also be seen in one of the passages in the bible, John 20:17. In the author’s message To My Country he states the connection of the title to the social cancer:

In the catalogue of human ills there is to be found a cancer so malignant that the least touch inflames it and causes agonizing pains; afflicted with such a cancer, a social cancer, has your dear image appeared to me... (Rizal 1886)

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Rizal used realism and satire as literary devices in describing and narrating the situation in the colony under the rule of Roman Catholic priests and Spanish government officials. El Filibusterismo is the sequel of Noli Me Tangere. Writing and popularization of these novels lead to Rizal’s execution, which also give him the reputation of being, not just a propagandist, but a hero and forerunner of Philippine independence. According to Guerrero (2006, xvii), the Filipino, inspired by Rizal, made the first nationalist revolution in Asia in 1896, established its first democratic republic, which survived until 1901, and in 1946, exactly half a century after Rizal’s execution became the first Asians to win independence from western colonialism.

Rizal’s two novels are widely read in the Philippines because the law mandates it through Republic Act 1425 or the Rizal Law. This law states that every Filipino student should study the life, works and writings of Jose Rizal, particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo to instill patriotism during their formative and decisive years in school. Even before this law was enacted, Rizal’s novels, particularly Noli Me Tangere are largely read by the public not just in its original language, Spanish but also through its translations into English and French languages. After the law was enacted in 1956, more translations were made into the national language (Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino) and into local languages like Pampango, Ilocano, Bicolano, Cebuano, Waray, Pangasinense and Hiligaynon. Leon Ma. Guerrero’s translation of Noli Me Tangere in English language is probably the most read translation of the novel in Philippine context. It was published in 1961 and given the title The Lost Eden—Completely New Translation for Contemporary Readers but was changed to the original title of the novel perhaps for marketing purposes. As the original title suggests, it is a translation for contemporary readers of Guerrero’s time, according to the translator’s note:

The present version is an attempt to make it palatable to a new generation of English-speaking Filipinos and give it, beyond them, a wider audience among other English-speaking peoples on the first centenary of Rizal’s birth in 1961. (Guerrero 2006: xiii)

The translator, rather than just merely translating, rewrote or recontextualized the novel as if the original author, Rizal wrote the novel in 1960s, 100 years after the author’s birth. The translator manipulated the original based on his purpose and target audience. Guerrero is a known lawyer, government official, ambassador and a prolific writer in Spanish and English. He also wrote the award-winning

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biography of Jose Rizal entitled the First Filipino and because of his fame in the literary field, Guerrero’s version was widely read by the Filipino public during the time of its publication. According to de Ocampo (2011, 516), this translation was the one widely used in Catholic schools, in the wake of the uproar during the deliberations on the Rizal Bill which saw the hierarchy of the Catholic Church arguing that Catholic students should not be compelled to read the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo in full. Even after the law was passed, private Catholic schools used Guerrero’s translation as they deem it more acceptable than any other translations.

Guerrero’s strategies in the translation of Noli Me Tangere were analyzed by Benedict Anderson. Based on his analysis, Anderson pointed out that the translator was not able to “update” the novel as it was stated in his goal; rather, Guerrero did the opposite and applied demodernization in the translation. Andersen also observed that the translator changed Rizal’s style of talking to the reader of the novel and many Tagalog words were also removed such as exclamation phrases, and words that even English-speaking Filipinos can easily understand. Guerrero’s translation was also freed from swear words, as Anderson (2004, 41) puts it: It is plain that Guerrero bowdlerized many passages which made him uncomfortable- passages alluding to political or religious matters as well as swear words and references to bodily functions.

Guerrero also adapted delocalization and de-Europeanization in his translation due to his American education and as a result, in his translation Guerrero, though known for his anti-American sentiments, was able to Americanized Rizal. According to Anderson (2004, 237), [the translation] were caused mainly by a fundamental change in nationalist consciousness between the 1890s and the 1950s, and also by the halting rise in Manila, after independence, of “official nationalism.” In line with these arguments, it could be inferred that the translator decontextualized Rizal’s work and recontextualized it based on Guerrero’s milieu and his target readers. Based on the interview done by the researcher, the Korean translator is also aware of this recontextualization but still chose to rely on this because of its popularity to Filipino readers and its accessibility. The Korean relay translation: Product-Oriented Analysis Dong Yeob Kim, the translator of Noli Me Tangere to Korean language is a professor in Busan University of Foreign Studies (BUFS) where he teaches and researches topics related to Southeast Asian

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studies. He earned his masters and doctorate degree in political science at the University of the Philippines. Given this background, it is now clear why he chose to translate a Filipino novel. The translator’s objective in translating the novel is to show the Filipino culture, history and politics to the Korean public. The translator has experienced translating academic documents about history and culture of the Philippines, as well as Southeast Asian studies. This is the first time that the author attempted to translate a literary work. Before the official publication of the translation, the translator published in parts his works in the website of his university for public access. The translator also asked for suggestions from the students and faculty who were able to read the works in the internet. His translation was published in 2015 in two volumes by the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in BUFS.

In this section, the Korean translation will be analyzed formally using Schriever’s framework on decontextualization and recontextualization of relay translation. The researcher will examine how the Korean translation decontextualized and recontextualized the novel from the relay language which is English in terms of language, culture and literature. Schriever explains that the semantic interplay of relay translation can be examined in relation to the three categories of culture, language and literature. Culture is at the very base, with language containing and expressing its meanings and intentions and literature being an instance -- the expressive one -- of language use (Schriever 1994, 233). Culture is the basis of the translator in selecting several meanings of the foreign word(s) in the course of translation. That meaning is then decontextualized or literally taken out of its original cultural context and recontextualized into the other cultural context, again by a similar process of selecting the meaning which is warranted by the usage of that target culture (Schriever 1994, 30). One aspect of culture is language and each culture has its differences as manifested in the linguistic characteristics such as sounds, words, sentences and meanings. The linguistic characteristics of the relay and target language are also factors to be considered in the decontextualization and recontextualization process of translation. Literature cannot exist without either culture or language because it is rooted and gets its essence from both. Literature is also the outcome of the use of language as to style and rhetoric, and depending on the genre, literary devices come into play which show the differences between cultures when the translation process is initiated (Schriever 1994, 32).

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English translation Korean translation

… Ibarra saw him (Don Santiago) smiling

satisfaction on the scene, and called out:

‘What’s this? Aren’t you joining us, Don

Santiago?

…’No, no, stay where you are, don’t get up,’

he said, his hand firmly on the young man’s

shoulder. ‘I am giving this dinner party

precisely in thanksgiving for your safe

arrival…’ (p.18)

…이베라는 이 광격을 너그러운 미소로

바라보고 있는 주인 카피탄 티아고에게

물었다. “이게 어찌된 일입니까? 당신은

우리와 함께 하지 않으십니까, 돈

티아고?”

…”아니,아니, 그냥 있게나. 일어나지

말고.” 그는 이렇게 말하며 젊은이의

어깨에 묵직한 손을 얹었다. “오늘 특졀히

자네의 완전한 도착을 축하하기 위헤

마련한 자리라네…” (p.46, vol. 1)

Language The Korean language, is an honorific language, in that the

sentences can hardly be uttered without the speaker’s approximate knowledge of his social relationship with his addressee and referent in terms of age category (adult, adolescent, or child), social status, kinship, in-or out-groupness, and/or speech act situation (Sohn 1999, 16). This characteristics of the Korean language is also grammaticalized – it has six speech level based on the speaker-addressee perspective which is expressed in the declarative endings of the verb, adjective or noun: 1)

deferential level -(seu)bnida ~(스)ㅂ니다; 2) polite level (-eoyo/ayo)

~어/아요; 3) blunt level -so or -o ~소/오; 4) familiar level (-ne) ~네; 5)I

intimate level (-eo/a) ~어/아; and 6) plain level (-da) ~다. These endings

were utilized by the translator to recontextualize the relationship of the characters to each other. For example, when Crisostomo Ibarra, the protagonist, talked to Don Santiago or Capitan Tiago, a close friend of his father and father of his girlfriend; he used the deferential level while Capitan Tiago answered back using the familiar and intimate level. The plain level is used in the narration, as seen in this example.

Table 1.

In the English translation, the relationship between the

characters is signified by certain terms and how direct or indirect they address their interlocutors. On the other hand, in the Korean translation, the power relations and hierarchy of the characters are

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more obvious since it is recontextualized in the declarative, interrogative and imperative ending of the sentences in Korean.

The Korean translation is written in Korean script, called

Hangeul 한글. This script is based on the phonology of Korean

language. In translating the novel to Korean language, the translator also recontextualized the name of the characters based on the phonological characteristics of the language as shown below: Table 2.

The English translation adopted the original names of the characters from the Spanish novel because the two languages share some phonological and orthographical characteristics and the translator wanted to keep the established identity of the characters. But in translating the names to Korean, it could be observed that it was adjusted to the phonological constraints of the language.

Another observation is that aside from the Korean script, the

translator also used Chinese characters or 한자 and Roman alphabet, in

the novel. It is a common practice in written text to incorporate Chinese characters especially for Sino-Korean words. Korean has borrowed a large number of Chinese words and characters throughout the course of its long historical contacts with various Chinese dynasties (Sohn 1999, 12). Many of these words become integral part of the Korean language but their pronunciation and way of writing greatly diverge from the original Chinese character. The pronunciation of the Chinese characters became neutralized (loss of tone) in Korean so there are words that become homographic or same way of writing or spelling in Hangeul but have different meanings. So writers, especially in newspapers and literary works, write the Chinese characters after the Korean word like the example below:

English Korean Romanized Korean

Crisostomo Ibarra 크리소스토모 이베라 Kheurisoseuthomo Ibera

Maria Clara 마리아 클라라 Maria Kheullara

Saturnino 사츄리노 Sachurino

Consolacion 콘솔라시온 Khonsollasion

Crispin 크리스핀 Kheurisphin

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Table 3.

Hangeul Chinese

Character (한자)

Meaning

성인 聖人 saint or holy man

홀 笏 scepter

기음 氣音 aspirate (linguistic term)

In the case of 성인, it can mean two things if the translator does

not specify the Chinese character, one is an adult or grown-up and the other is saint or holy man. The inclusion of Chinese characters by the translator actually made the meaning of the words more precise for the readers.

Kim also used Roman alphabet in some words after the Hangeul spelling like in the example below. It could be observed that these words are proper names. This could be traced back to the influence of English to the Korean language and society in the present.

Table 4.

Hangeul Roman alphabet

발타자르 Baltazar

성녀 루트가르다 St. Lutgarda

비가 biga

띠카스-띠카스 tikas-tikas

(아주 부유한) V.R 은 Very Rich

판야나무 cotton tree

In connection with the use of Roman alphabet, in Kim’s

translation note, he intended to translate the novel for the general Korean readers but if we look at his translation where he used Koreanized English words and put the Roman alphabet equivalent of Tagalog words, one can infer that his target readers are the contemporary Koreans who can read and understand not just Hangeul and Korean but also the Roman alphabet and the English language.

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Table 5.

English translation Korean translation

...some were loading their heavy carts with firewood, others with fruits and the forest’s rarest orchids; still others, with broad-leaved biga and tikas-tikas with flame-coloured flowers to decorate the doors. (p.141-142)

일부는 무거운 수레에 장작을 가득

싣거나, 일부는 과일과 야생의 희귀한

난초를 싣고 또 다른 이들은 대문을

장식할때 쓰는 잎이 넓은 비가 biga 와

물꽃 색깔의 피어 있는 띠카스-따카스

tikas-tikas 를 실었다. (p. 282, vol. 1)

1 A Party 7 Love on a Balcony (Table of contents)

파티 (pa(r)ti)

발코니에서의 사랑 (balkoni)

Although, contrary to his usual practice, he had let it be known only on the afternoon of the same day, it was soon the topic of conversation in Binondo, where he lived, in other districts of Manila, and even in the Spanish walled city of Intramuros. (p.1)

평소와는 달리 당일 오후가 돼서야

토대장을 돌렸지만, 차이나타운인

(Chainataun) 그의 거주지 비논도는

물론 스페인 사람들이 모여사는

인트라무로스 (성벽안_옮긴이)에도

파티에 대한 소문이 빠르게 퍼졌다. (p.

21, vol.1)

In the English translation, Latin phrases were maintained by

Guerrero which is in the original work of Rizal. Guerrero consistently retained the Latin phrases and gave its meaning inside the sentence or dialogue. The Korean translation, however, is not consistent in using the Latin phrases. There are instances that the translator removed the Latin phrases and directly give its translation to Korean like in the example below. Table 6.

English translation Korean translation

Father Damaso began slowly, intoning in a hushed voice: ‘Et spiritum tuum bonum dedisti, qui doceret eos, et manna tuum non prohibuisti ab ore eorum, et aquam dedisti eis in siti. And thou gavest thy good Spirit to

다마소 신부는 쉰 목소리로 천천히

성경 구절을 낭독했다. 당신의 선한

영을 낼기시어 그들을 가르치시고

귿르에게 당신의 만나를 끊지

않으셨으며 귿르의 목마름을

보시고 그들에게 물을 주셨습니다.’

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teach them, and thy manna thou didst not withhold from their mouth, and thou gavest them water for their thirst.’ (p. 215)

(p. 332, vol. 1)

But there are cases where Kim preserved the Latin phrases and

give its translation in Korean especially when it is part of a dialogue like the example below: Table 7.

English translation Korean translation

‘And to make the celebration really great, I move that the suitable instructions be given to Brother Cook and the Father Administrator. Gaudeamus, let us rejoice for three days!’ (p. 416)

‘이 일을 크게 경축하기 위해 행정 담당

신부님께 적절한 지시를 내리길

제안합니다. 가우데아무스 (‘자!

즐겨보라’ 라는 뜻의 라틴어로 축제

때에 흥겹게 부르는 노래다._옮긴이),

3 일간 축하연을 엽시다!” (p.266, vol.

2)

In the original novel, Latin phrases were used because in the Roman Catholic religion, it is considered the language of God and is associated with the sermon of the priests. Kim deleted some of the Latin phrases because the said context is not applicable to the Korean society. The novel’s title Noli Me Tangere is also a Latin phrase which

was translated literally to Korean as 나를 만지지 마라 or Do not touch

me. Literature

In terms of idiom, there are instances that the translator was able to decontextualize English idiomatic expression and recontextualize it to Korean expression to sound more natural like the example below.

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Table 8.

English translation Korean translation

‘This is all Greek to me,’ said one of the two irreverent Manilans to his companion. ‘I’m going. (p. 223)

두 불경스러운 마닐라 사람 중 한 명이

다른 이에세 말했다.

“저게 도대체 무슨 말인지 모르겠네”

“난 가야겠다.” (p.331, vol. 2)

‘Five holes! ¡Jesus! Do you want us all to drown?’ exclaimed the women in a fright. (p. 143)

‘구멍이 다섯 개나 된다고, 맙소사! 우리

모두 빠져 죽게 만들려는 거야?”

여자들은 부려워하며 소리쳤다. (p.218,

vol. 1)

However, some of the phrases were just translated literally which could have been better if recontextualized in the Korean language just like the phrase Jesus, Mary, Joseph! Table 9.

English translation Korean translation

‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph! exclaimed the women. ‘Something awful’s going to happen! Jesus, Mary, Joseph!’ (p.150)

‘예수님, 성모님, 요셉! 무시무시한 일이

벌어질 것 같아! 예수님, 성모님, 요셉!

(p.228, vol. 2)

The mentioned phrase which becomes Susmaryosep in Filipino language, is an expression of anger, frustration or disbelief, thus this

could also be translated to Korean expression like 맙소사 (mapsosa),

어머나 (eomeona), 어머 이런 (eomeo ireon) or the likes.

In terms of literary style, Kim was able to translate not just the message of the kundiman or traditional Filipino love song in the form of a poem but also was able to recontextualize the poetic style in Korean as shown below: Table 10.

English translation Korean translation

The cheerless clammy cold That night-time skies enfold In their descending cloak (p. 282)

그 음산하고 칙칙한 냉기를

밤하늘의 망토가

고이 감싸 안는다. (p. 74)

In the example, we could see the difference in the poetic style of the English and the Korean language. In the English language, a poem consists of several lines with rhyming words at the end of each line. On the other hand, Korean poem is consisting of one sentence, of

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which this sentence will be cut into several lines without the consideration of the rhyme. Dr. Kim consistently translated the poetic literary style in his work.

However, the translator was not able to translate the rhetoric and literary style used by Guerrero in the characters of Doña Victorina and Doña Consolacion as illustrated below: Table 11.

English translation Korean translation

Then turning back to Doña Consolacion she (Doña Victorina) warned: ‘Be careful only with whom you are talking! Maybe you think I am from the province or a hootchie-kootchie of the soldiers! In my house in Manila, if only lieutenant, no entrance, but must waiting by the door! ‘Excuse me, Your Excellency Madame Sanamabits! Maybe lieutenants are not entering, but physically unfit like that can entering!’ And Doña Consolacion let out a roar of laughter. (p.338-339)

그리고 그녀 (도냐 빅토리나) 는 도냐

콘솔라시온에게 얼굴을 돌려

경고했다.

“지금 당신이 누구와 상대하고

있는지 알기나 해? 내가 그저

시골뜨기나 군인들의 노리갯감인 줄

알아! 마닐라에 있는 우리 집에서는

당신 남편 같은 중위 따위는 아예

들어오지도 못하고 문 밖에서

기다려야 한다고!”

“실례합니다만 고귀하신 부인!

아마도 중위는 들어가지 못하겠지만

저 절름발이 병신은 들어갈 수

있겠군요!

이렇게 말하고 도냐 콘솔라시온은

크게 웃음을 터뜨렸다. (p. 157, vol.

2)

It could be observed that the English translation is full of grammatical errors because it is also like that in the original novel in Spanish. Doña Victorina and Doña Consolacion are native indigenous people of the Philippines who upon marrying their Spanish husband, pretend to be native Spaniards speaking broken Spanish and disowning their native language. These characters are symbolism of colonial mentality that permeated the Philippine society during the Spanish colonization, embracing the Spanish language and culture while renouncing their own. This mentality was strengthened during the American colonization especially, upon their arrival in the country; they ordered to use the English language as medium of instruction in the public education. As a result, it reinforced the high status of American culture to the native Filipinos during that time up to present day. Although,

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Korean society has also experienced many years of contact with Chinese culture and colonization under the Japanese, this kind of colonial mentality is not as prevalent as it is in the Philippines.

Thus, the Korean translator recontextualized this rhetoric and literary style using a common literary style.

In analyzing the translation titles of each chapter, which is also part of literary style, it can be observed that generally, Kim’s translation is faithful to the English translation. But Kim also did some recontextualization in the titles. The translator removed the word town in chapter 10 in the Korean translation and wrote San Diego in Hangeul; in chapter 15, while the English translation focuses on the people (bell-ringers), the Korean translation was more focused on the act of ringing the bell rather than the people doing it. The translator

also added the word 조교 or religion in the Korean translation of

Chapter 39, the procession. It is also observed that the translator used

contemporary Korean words borrowed from English like 파티, 발코니

and 크리스마스 이브 in chapter 1, 7 and 64 respectively. The English

title of chapter 29, Letters is plural while in Korean it is just singular,

편지 it should have been translated as 편지들 because the chapter

contains three different mails. It is also noteworthy that the Korean translation is more accurate in terms of literal translation of the title of chapter 42 than in the English translation because the original title in

Spanish is Dos visitas or two visitors or 두 방문자.

Table 12.

Culture Filipino culture is recontextualized in the Korean society in the novel through the translator. The translator wrote explanation inside a

parenthesis with the _옮긴이/ translator. It could be observed that the

English translation Korean translation

1 A Party 파티

7 Love on a Balcony 발코니에서의 사랑

10 The Town of San Diego 산디에고

15 The Bell-ringers 종치기

29 Letters 편지

39 The Procession 조교 행렬

42 Two Callers 두 방문자

64 Christmas Eve 크리스마스 이브

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translator notes function as cultural and explanatory notes, as shown in the table:

Table 13.

Aside from the Philippine culture mentioned in the novel, there are also socio-cultural European elements. For the Philippine culture, the translator Koreanized but maintained the terminology such as tinola, sinigang, ilang-ilang, sampaguita, kundiman and other material culture as well as place names like Intramuros, Pampanga, Malacañang and Tondo. The translator also preserved the names, places and material culture of Europe like Lucullus, Minerva, Suez Canal and Mephisto. Most of the translations in terms of cultural references are accurate, except for one. In chapter 31, Kim gave the equivalent of

교회에서 for the English translation In Church. The term 교회 as an

equivalent to the church should have been 성당 because the novel is

clear that it is the Catholic church that is in the center of the story and

not the Protestant church which is the equivalent of 교회 in the Korean

context. The novel is also a critic of the abuse of power of the Catholic Church in the Philippines during the Spanish colonization. There is also a mistranslation for the term godfather. In page

80 (vol.1), it was translated as 할아버지 but it is the Korean word for

grandfather but in page 100, 대부 which is the correct equivalent of

godfather is used. In page 306 (vol.2), 바토 인근 or around the bato or

rock was used as equivalence for Malapad-na-bato (p.443) in the English translation. Malapad-na-bato is a Tagalog word meaning “wide

rock” so in Korean, it should be translated as 넓은돌.

English translation Korean translation

“We must get the sinigang ready first so the fish can go directly from the water to the broth.” (p.109)

1. Cultural Note

“시니강 (신맛이 나는 국의

일종_옮긴이)을 먼저 준비한 후에

고기를 건져 올려야해. 그래야 싱싱한

고기를 바로 국어 넣을 수 있으니까.”

(p.222, vol. 1)

But the people who understand these things best and have try read the human heart are surely the native of Dahomey. (p.50)

2. Explanatory note

그러나 이러한 의식들은 진정으로

이해하고 이간의 마음을 읽을 줄 아는

이들은 다호매이 (아프라카 서부에 있는

베넴의 옛 이름_옮긴이) (p.112, vol. 1)

48

Lastly, there is a mis-decontextualization and mis-

recontextualization of the word 필리핀인 for the word Tagalog as

shown below. Table 14.

The term Tagalog (or tagala in the original novel) refers to the people who live in the Tagalog region of the Philippines. The word

필리핀인 or Filipino is erroneous in this context, because when Rizal

wrote the novel, the term Filipino only pertains to the Spaniards who were born in the Philippine islands or the insulares. The native of the Philippines in Spanish era were collectively called indios or by their ethnolinguistic group like Tagalog, Visaya, Ilocano, Pampango, etc. But eventually, it is also Rizal who proposed to use the term Filipino to pertain to all the people living in the Philippines. The recontextualization in the Korean society of the word Tagalog should

be 타갈로그인 and not 필리핀인.

Some typographical errors were also found like 삐나 (p. 107,

vol. 2) instead of 삐냐, 도나 (p.156, vol.1) instead of 도냐 and 발락 (p.

235, vol. 2) instead of 발랏.

The Korean translator also preserved the titles of the people

like Don/ 돈, Doña/ 도냐. Many characters in the recontextualization of

the novel in Korean has 돈 or 도냐 in front of their names like Don

Santiago (돈 산티아고), Don Filipino (돈필리포), Don Rafael (돈 라파엘)

and Doña Consolacion (도냐 콘솔라시온에게) and Doña Victorina (도냐

빅토리나) but it was not explained in any part of the novel that it is a

title given to people with high status in Philippine society in that time. Noli Me Tangere in the Korean Society: Function-oriented Analysis According to Ryu (2002), the history of Korean translation can

be divided into three. First is the age of 한자-찬자-법 (Hanja-chanja-

beob) (the phonetic system of Chinese characters used in Korean old kingdoms such as Shilla, Koryeo and Yi dynasties) translation which is translation from Korean oral literature to Chinese characters. From 1146-1894, is the age of Eun-mun translation when Chinese characters

English translation Korean translation 한국어 번역

It was the house of a Tagalog family of hunters and woodcutters (p.451)

“ 여기는 사냥과 벌목을 업으로 삼은

필리핀인 가적 집이었다.” (p.316, vol.

2)

49

were translated to Korean Eun-mun or script. And finally, from 1894 to present is the Hangeul translation which is translation ‘from Western languages into Korean Hangeul (Ryu 2002, 34). The translation of Noli Me Tangere can be situated in the last era of Korean translation. Aside from the novel, Rizal’s poem entitled Mi Ultimo Adios was also

translated to Korean by Yong Tae Min and was given the title 마지막

인사/ My Last Farewell in 1998 as of Korean embassy to the Philippines

for the commemoration of 100th year of Rizal’s death. Most recently, in 2013, the National Korean Language Institute also published a Korean translation of children story entitled The Turtle and the Monkey

(거북이와 원숭이), which was also first translated by Rizal from German

to Tagalog. These days, Korea is fast becoming a multicultural society from being a homogenous one. To date, Korea’s population consists of 3% foreign population, of which more than 50,000 are Filipinos. Based on the 2016 Korean Immigration data, Filipinos rank fifth in terms of number after Chinese, Korean-Chinese, Americans, Vietnamese, and Japanese. However, this concept of multiculturalism in Korea seems problematic. According to Watson (2010, 338), state-led multiculturalism is an expedient policy of cultural assimilation into a privileged and homogeneous Korean culture. As a result, foreign residents need to assimilate to Korea rather than keep their identity. It was observed that Tagalog/Filipino language is used in the textbooks produced by different Korean government agencies to facilitate in mastering the Korean language, imbibe the Korean culture, acculturate, assimilate and integrate the marriage migrants to different institutions of the Republic of Korea (Laranjo, 2017). On the other hand, the present study somewhat addresses the gap in multiculturalism, by translating a novel written by a Filipino to Korean language, Koreans can now have access to a culture that they are not familiar with and recontextualized by the translator for them. Based on the translator’s note, Kim translated the novel to introduce the Korean reader to one of the well translated novels from the Philippines, where lots of Korean tourists visit. Kim stated his goal as:

호세 리살의 ‘나를 만지지 마라’ 한국어판은 필리핀의 대표적인

민족주의 소설을 소개하는 의미를 넘어 우리와 밀접한 관련을 맺고 있는

필리핀 국민들에 대한 올바른 이해를 돕고자 하는데 목적이 있다. (p.

341).

The Korean version of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere aims to not just introduce

the novel representing Philippine nationalism but also for us to bind a closer tie

50

with Filipinos and to help them understand better. [Translation mine]

Kim also included in his work Guerrero’s introduction to the English translation entitled Two Novels that made a Revolution

혁명으로 이끈 두 소설 which explains the historical background of the

novel and its effect to Philippine society. The inclusion of Guerrero’s introduction will give the Korean readers more understanding about the colonial past of the Philippines and may even connect to their own colonial experience.

It is also worth mentioning that Busan University of Foreign Studies, where the translator teaches, is specializing in Southeast Asian Studies and developing a Philippine track for its students. BUFS is also teaching Filipino language as part of their curriculum and offering a Philippine track for its student to major in. The students who will be majoring in Philippine track will benefit from the translation of Noli Me Tangere in Korean as they will be able to read and study about the Philippine history, politics, literature and culture through this novel. Conclusion The translation of Noli Me Tangere into the Korean language is the latest “life” of the novel. It was translated by Dong Yeob Kim not just to introduce the novel representing Philippine nationalism but also for Koreans to bind a closer tie with Filipinos and to help them understand each other better. It is also an important text in the phenomenon of multiculturalism in Korea and in studying Philippine studies track in Busan University of Foreign Studies. This translation addresses the issue of multiculturalism by introducing a Filipino classic novel that inspired nationalism to the Filipinos to the Korean readers. This will help in fostering better understanding of Filipino history, literature, and culture to the Korean general public. Kim utilized Leon Ma. Guerrero’s English translation as the main text in translating the novel to the Korean language. And as shown in the analysis, using Schriever’s framework on examining relay translation, Kim decontextualized and recontextualized the novel in terms of language, literature and culture.

51

References

유명우 ｢한국의 번역과 번역학｣, 번역학연구 1(1): 229-248, 2000.

김동엽｢나를 만지지 마라 Noli Me Tangere 1-2｣ 서울: 도서출판 눌민, 2015.

민용태｢마지막 인사｣ 마닐라, 1998.

국립국어원｢거북이와 원숭이｣ 서울: 루덴스, 2013.

Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. In Spectre of comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the world. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2004.

Bánhegyi, Mátyás. “Translation and Political Discourse.” Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 6, (2), p. 139–158, 2014.

Bernad, Miguel. “The Nature of Rizal’s Farewell Poem.” Budhi, 3, p.191-206, 2002. Coates, Austin. Rizal: Philippine nationalist and martyr. Manila: Solidaridad Publishing

House, 1992. Guerrero, León Ma (translator). Noli me tangere. Guerrero Publishing, Manila, 2010. Holmes, James. “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies.” in Venuti, L. The

Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2004. Laranjo, Ronel. Politics of Language in “Korean style Multiculturalism”: Utilization of

Filipino Language in Korean Language Textbooks for Marriage Migrants. Plaridel Journal 14, no. 1 (2017): 53-70. http://www.plarideljournal.org/ article/politics-language-korean-style-multiculturalism-utilization-filipino-language-korean-language-textbooks-marriage-migrants/

Lefevere, André. Translation, rewriting and the manipulation of literary fame. London: Routledge, 1992.

Munday, Jeremy. Introducing Translation Studies: theories and application. London: Routledge, 2008.

Rizal, Jose. Noli Me Tangere: novella tagala. Manila: P. Sayo Bookstore, 1950. Schriever, Josefa B. “The cultural dimension of translation: an analysis of the relay

translation of selected French texts into Tagalog/P/Filipino from the English language” PhD Dissertation. University of the Philippines Diliman: College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, 1994.

Testa-de Ocampo, Ana Melinda. “The Afterlives of the Noli Me Tangere.” Philippine Studies, 59, no. 4 (2011):495–527.

Venuti, Lawrence (ed). The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2004. Vinay, J. and Darbelnet, J. “A Methodology for Translation.” in Venuti, L. The Translation

Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2004. Watson, I. “Multiculturalism in South Korea: A critical assessment.” Journal of

Contemporary Asia, 40, vol. 2 (2010): 337-346. DOI: 10.1080/00472331003600549.

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53

Narratives of Filipino Bride Returnees from South Korea: Implications to Research and Policy

Jean Encinas-Franco

Raisa Lumampao, and Kyung Min Bae Department of Political Science and Department of Linguistics

University of the Philippines, Diliman

Introduction Marriage migration is the process through which a woman from a lower income country marries a man from a higher income country where the couple eventually settle (UN Women 2011, p.5-6). Recent migrant flows, specifically of women, from Southeast Asia to East Asia especially in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea exhibit this trend. In the Philippines, South Korea (hereinafter referred to as Korea) belongs to the top ten destinations of where Filipino marriage migrants. Latest data from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO, 2017) indicate that from 1989 to 2016, a cumulative total of 16, 519 Filipino marriage migrants went to Korea. Nearly all of them are women. The academic literature on marriage migration has been rising in recent years. A variety of perspectives and disciplinary lenses explain this phenomenon. So far, most examine the lives of marriage migrants as they navigate exclusion and inclusion in receiving societies based on gender, citizenship, race, and ethnicity. These analyses suggest that marriage migration is much more complicated than how it is conventionally understood. Early accounts indicate the privileging of a ‘victim’ frame. In particular, because marriage migrants have become interconnected with issues of trafficking and some transnational syndicates brokering fake marriages, the women involved have been portrayed as ‘victims’ in need of protection (Piper and Roces, 2003; Constable, 2003). However, others (Hsia 2014, 132) argue that the portrayal of brides as victims is problematic given that it enhances their stereotype as “inferior others.” In a sense, such portrayals produce a “shallow, distorted, incomplete” image which “promo[tes] the idea that

54

[these] deviances characterize the norm” (Beck-Gernsheim 2001, 73). Indeed, some marriage migrants fall prey to human trafficking. Others experience violence and abuse from their husbands. However, overly framing them as ‘victims’ hampers a nuanced understanding of women’s multiple positions, lived experiences and the fluidity and complexity of marriage migration. Unfortunately, such dominant accounts become the basis of policies and programs that may not fully capture their plight. In response to this, feminist scholars have turned to agency accounts of the marriage migrant experience. Their arguments focus on marriage migrants themselves and how they transform themselves and experience family life in destination countries. Literature has emerged suggesting that women are far more agential. Resistance and negotiations come in the form of strategies making the “home as a safe space,” constructing communities, and transforming the body as a “site of resistance and self-imagination” (Jung 2012, 193). Others stress their Filipino-ness (through language, culture, participation in ethnic events) or more general forms (looking for physical and financial autonomy, refusing to be naturalized as a Korean citizen [Kim 2013]. However, though studies on marriage migration have dealt with victimization and empowerment, there is little analysis for instance, on those who opted to return home in the Philippines with their Korean-Filipino children or with their husbands. Likewise, there is scant knowledge about the lives, experiences, and well-being of those whose relationships have gone awry or those who have just opted to return for other reasons, with the exception of Kim et al’s (2017) work on Mongolian and Vietnamese bride returnees from Korea. None so far have looked at Filipino bride returnees in the way this paper aims to do. Generating such knowledge and empirical armory is important for theorizing about the spatial and temporal dimensions of migration and return, and about the nature of marriage migration itself. Though there is research on migrant returnees, there is generally a dearth of information on Filipino women married to foreigners who returned alone or with their mixed-race children and husbands. At the policy and program levels, it can also provide valuable information about the design of interventions that are more attuned to the lived experiences of migrant bride returnees. In addressing this gap, the paper asks: How can the life stories of marriage migrant returnees contribute to a nuanced understanding of marriage migration and the design of future policies and programs and bilateral support?

55

Using the life history approach, it finds that returnees, though faced with various forms and degrees of the precarious situation in Korea, manage to return for different reasons. While typically, returnees are those with failed marriages or those who were victims of trafficking, two accounts in the paper show that husbands accompany migrant brides in their return for various reasons. Nonetheless, the invisibility of this situation in program design indicates that there is a need to understand marriage migration better to enhance previous analyses and policies. The paper has four parts. The first part briefly discusses the background, which is then followed by a discussion on the feminization of migration from the Philippines and the context of marriage migration of Filipino women to Korea. The third part narrates the life histories of three migrant bride returnees. Finally, the paper concludes with some recommendations and a call for further studies. The Context of Marriage Migration from the Philippines As a phenomenon among Filipino women, this paper locates marriage migration in the so-called feminization of migration. Nicola Piper (2008, 1292) argues that “feminization of migration” can be varied as it “can refer to a number of different issues, such as the absolute number of female migrants as out-going migrants or incoming migrants, the increasing participation rate of women (whereby the absolute number of male migrants might still be higher or the balance between the two sexes almost equal, such as in Cambodia and Vietnam), their dominance in certain sectors or specific migration streams, etc.” Indeed, Filipino women are dominant in low-skilled jobs such as domestic work and caregiving. Economic restructuring in the Philippines and host countries paved the way for the entry of more Filipino women into labor out-migration. Immigration policies as part of new labor market demands and aging population in some countries also profoundly influenced the feminized composition of migration patterns from the Philippines, starting in the 1980s when a marked shift in labor outflows was observed due to the massive demand for gendered labor (Oishi, 2005). Marriage migration from the Philippines initially gained full public and policy attention in the 1980s. Initially, reports were of Western men courting Filipino women (they have not met) through snail mail, hence, the moniker, “mail-order brides” (Cabigon, 1995). Unfortunate stories of migrant brides such as experiences of domestic

56

violence, among others, prompted legislators in 1990 to ban ‘mail-order brides.’ Soon after, the labor department required would-be marriage migrants to attend guidance counseling services. Currently, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) undertakes this task and all other procedural requirements on marriage migrants, on a daily basis. The country’s anti-trafficking law likewise includes marriage brokering as punishable by law and considered an act of human trafficking. In the 1980s, East Asia’s rapid economic growth changed the migration trend of Filipino women. Suddenly, Filipino women were no longer just marrying white Caucasian males from North America, Europe, and Australia, but also Japanese and Koreans. From 1989 to 2016, the total number of recorded Filipino spouses and partners of foreign nationals is more than 500,000 (CFO 2017). The United States of America (USA), Japan, Australia, Canada, and Korea are the top five countries where spouses originate (CFO 2017). Meanwhile, specific marriage migration trends to Korea can be argued to be part of the overall bilateral relationship between the two countries, and the migration corridor that followed, along with current trends in mobility. Korea and the Philippines established formal bilateral relations between Korea and the Philippines in 1949. The Philippines was the fifth in the world to have recognized its sovereignty as a member of the international community. During the Cold War, when Korea was still a struggling economy, military ties with the Philippines was strong, mainly due to their shared alliance with the United States. The Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea (PEFTOK) during the Korean War was a crucial milestone in sealing good relations between the two countries. In recent years, due to the threat of Chinese incursion in Philippine sovereignty, military alliance remains strong. Trade and economic relations encouraged several avenues of cooperation. In 2017 alone, Korean investments to the Philippines amounted to USD15 billion, mainly through infrastructure and engineering projects, which the current Korean ambassador hopes to augment in 2018 (PhilStar Online 2018). Korea is also one of the major trading partners of the Philippines among the countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries (PSA 2016). Tourism has also generated revenues for the two countries. Current data indicate that Koreans tops foreign arrivals in the Philippines (CIFAL 2018). Koreans living in the country are also increasing for various reasons: low cost of living, learning English, and to work (CIFAL 2018).

57

Meanwhile, the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Korea’s overseas development assistance arm, established in 1994 in the Philippines, has been actively supporting development projects. Its focus is on rural development, health, and sanitation, transport, and disaster prevention and preparedness. KOICA also sends government employees and academics for fellowships and training in Korea. Such a situation manifests the robust and enduring bilateral relationship. Nonetheless, this partly foregrounds increasing migration and emigration between the two countries. As of 2011, there are 16 bilateral ties on social security and labor cooperation (Dela Cruz 2013, 8). The Employment Permit System (EPS), which preceded the Industrial Trainee System in the 1990s, is the current framework of Korea’s labor migration system in which the employment of foreign workers as “trainees” in its manufacturing sector paved the way for predominantly male Filipinos to work in Korea. In 2004-2016, 46,000 Filipinos work under the EPS (POEA 2016). Korea’s fast rise to a newly industrialized country transformed its labor market in many ways, with far-reaching consequences for society. It necessitated an army of workers in its construction and manufacturing industries (Park 2017), thus paving the way to relax the government’s reluctance to hire foreign workers. At the same time, women from rural areas flocked to the cities with newfound jobs available for them, a phenomenon that happened among newly-industrialized economies in Asia in the 70s and 80s (Oishi 2005). With the rising labor participation of women in cities, a “marriage squeeze” followed whereby male farmers tasked to tend the land ran out of brides, who are tasked by tradition with social reproduction activities such as caring for the nuclear family and aging in-laws, and helping out in the farm. Such tasks prompt Choi (2012, 4) to refer to migrant brides in Korea as “unpaid reproductive workers.” Meanwhile, despite the apparent care deficit, Korea has long been generally reluctant to institute a domestic worker migration corridor, partly due to its Confucian gender ideology (Nho and Lee, 2016,19). Such thinking stems from the belief that married women are supposed to take care of their husband and in-laws’ needs personally. In the meantime, coupled with the bride and care deficit, rural areas and the rest of the country suffer from alarmingly low population growth which is projected to be about 41 million in 2060, from 51 million in 2015 (Statistics Korea 2015), threatening its economy and pension system in the coming years (Choi 2007, 6).

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The Korean government initially encouraged rural bachelors to acquire brides in China (ethnic Koreans) and eventually in Southeast Asia, as a way to address this dilemma (Kim and Kilkey 2017, 5). Such a situation created the initial push for marriage migration to Korea. The rise of international marriage brokers also contributed to the increase of foreign brides (Yang and Chia-Wen Lu 2010, 16-17; Le et al. 2014). These so-called ‘marriage brokers,’ even as it is prohibited by law in the Philippines, facilitates the flow and pace of migration for marriage. In the meantime, policies, or the lack of it, can also induce international marriages. For instance, the government’s rejection of foreign domestic labor has become an impetus for migrants to marry nationals from countries like Japan and Korea (Jones 2012). Thus, due to these restrictive immigration policies, foreign women resort to marrying locals in receiving societies to legalize their residency (Yang and Lu 2010, 18). Local government policies providing benefits for acquiring brides (Kim and Kilkey 2017, 6) are also drivers of this trend. Meanwhile, reports of human trafficking and fake marriages (de Jesus, 2015) and domestic abuses have alarmed both the Korean and Philippine governments. Currently, the Philippines’ anti-trafficking law bans matchmaking to foreigners for marriage. Further, as a means to resolve this, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) established a memorandum of agreement with the Ministry of Gender and Family (MOGEF) of Korea to conduct training modules on Korean language, culture, and society as a pre-departure orientation for brides. The MOGEF likewise handles the multicultural [damunwha] centers around Korea where brides can learn more about Korean culture and language. Currently, there are 16, 519 Filipino women married to Koreans since 1989 (Table 1).

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Table 1. Number of Filipino Spouses and Other Partners of Selected Foreign Nationals

Source: Data from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas obtained by the authors

According to Jones (2012: 9), Filipino brides are usually better educated compared to their Vietnamese and Chinese counterparts. They are also generally better educated than their Korean husbands. Though the government does not have specific data of the age of Filipino women marriage migrants to Koreans, CFO data shows that more than half of Filipino marriage migrants are within the 20-29-year-old age group and more than 40 percent are college level or college graduate (CFO, 2011). Methods The paper discusses three life histories of migrant bride returnees. Life history is a qualitative approach to research that allows the exposition of a life usually devalued by society, such as in the case of migrant brides, and how they traverse their subjectivities and agency in their

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

9,000

10,000

Japan South Korea Taiwan

60

everyday lives. It also paves the way for a better understanding of how politico-economic structures provides limitations and possibilities in their experiences. According to Asia (2002, 74), life stories “are powerful not only in providing a voice but also in appreciating other people’s experiences from their standpoint.” The task of looking for marriage migrants who have returned was difficult. Respondents were selected via snowball sampling method. The criteria were as follows: female, married to a Korean male, a returnee and currently living in the Philippines. No criterion was indicated as to the date of return to the Philippines so that the researchers can have as much information as possible on the returnees, their reasons, and motivations. Although the Philippines is a “model” in migration management, migrant return is not accounted for in the government’s database. For this reason, it is difficult to look for migrant returnees, particularly, marriage migrant returnees from Korea. The researchers looked for returnees from organizations that work around Korean-Filipino children and other Korean centers in the country. Eventually, the researchers found three marriage migrant returnees from Korea, with different stories but with shared experiences. The semi-structured interviews were recorded with the permission of the respondents. The audio recordings were then transcribed and read carefully. Great care was employed to ensure confidentiality through anonymity of the respondents, and their informed consent to being interviewed. Each returnee was asked to read and review a draft of her written life history in which comments and additional inputs and corrections were added. Alma's Story Alma hails from Mindanao, the southern part of the Philippines. She is 48, the youngest in a brood of nine (9) children, and a high school graduate. She was helping in the family farm in the late 1990s when one day, someone asked her if she wants to marry a foreigner. To be able to do this, however, she had to convert to a religious organization and relinquish her Catholic faith. According to her, several neighbors joined what she calls as Unification Church indicating that at the time, the said organization was already deeply operating in that part of Mindanao. Referring to the process of meeting a foreign husband as “international matching,” she narrates that a certain “Reverend” initially “picture-matched” her with a Korean whom she chose. All the new members were required to undergo training for 21 days, consisting of religion, taekwondo, and socialization which includes selling

61

accessories and asking for food, which according to her, was meant to make them “mapagkumbaba” (humble). However, to be able to be a full-fledged member, she has to ask three more people to join, which she did. When asked whether the process was complicated, she replied negatively and said that only the training was a requirement. As can be gleaned from Alma’s initial story before she met her husband, her membership to the Unification Church facilitated their meeting. Clearly, despite news reports during the mid-1990s of the said organization and their activities, and the unfortunate lives of marriage migrants, the church was still actively operating in Mindanao. During the interview, Alma downplays the economic motivation, but rather the desire to have a foreigner as a husband. In her words, a neighbor asked her, “... gusto mo bang mag-asawa ng ganyan ganyan. Sabi ko, subukan ko.” (…do you wish to marry [a foreigner]..then I said, I will try.) Though this is the case, marrying a foreigner is generally regarded as a passport to upward mobility in the Philippines, and a means of living a ‘better life.’ Thus, ‘marrying a foreigner’ can be said to be Alma’s euphemism for a much-improved life compared to what she has in Mindanao, during that time. Alma and her townmates traveled to Manila to meet their prospective husbands. In the midst of prayers, their ‘applications’ were matched with those of the Korean men, after which, the match was announced, and marriage follows. They were allowed to talk for two days but according to her ‘nothing happened’ alluding to sexual intimacy. Subsequently, the husband left for Korea while she and the rest went back to the province. It took quite a while before she was able to travel to Korea because the processing of documents for visa purposes took a while. Meanwhile, she would talk to her husband by phone through a Filipino woman who is based in the Korean husband’s town. This situation went on for a year until her husband already sought the help of the church so that she can expedite her travel to Korea. She lived in Chonnam with her husband and her in-laws, who are ginseng farmers. Initially, she did not know that her husband had to pay PhP150, 000 to the faith-based organization to acquire her as a bride. She only learned about this when she was already in Korea. Both her husband and mother-in-law told her that she was ‘sold’: “Tapos ‘yung biyenan ko, habang magkasama kami, parang naintindihan ko na, ‘yung kapitbahay kasi sabi niya, “ah, nag-asawa pala

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ng Pilipina ‘yung panganay mo.” Sabi niya, “bisa… bisayo” [unclear]... so naintindihan ko, mahal daw. Mahal pala ang Pilipino, kasi nanuhan ko, sinumbong ko sa Pilipina, sabi ko, binen- binen- binenta pala kami. Sabi niya, “parang gan’un nga, ‘te.” (Then my in-law, while we were together one time, I understood from her conversation with a neighbor when the latter said, ‘ah, so your eldest married a Filipina.’ My in-law remarked that ‘bisa’..bisayo (unclear)..which I understood to be expensive. Filipinos are expensive, so I asked through a fellow Filipina, and told them that indeed we were sold. She said that is somehow the case.”) [Translation ours] While she was shocked upon knowing this, it is interesting that it was this issue that made her stay for months before running away while she was pregnant. Since her husband paid for her, she felt that she owed it to him and his family to stay. Episodes of jealousy and attempted violence compelled her to risk her life and limb to get away from Chonnam and her husband. What triggered this was when she learned from a friend that her husband no longer wants her to contact Alma. She narrates,

“Ayun, ta’s sinabi n’ung Pilipina, “paano kung bugbugin ka diyan? Eh wala kaming alam kasi bawal ka na naming contact-in eh, bawal ka na naming anuhan. So doon na, nag-struggle na naman ako kasi mahirap na sa- sa language palang, unang-una, naiyak na ‘ko n’on. Ta’s lalo na ‘pag sinabihan na ako na ano… parang time na ‘yon, nag-isip na akong tumakas.” (Then a Filipina mentioned that what if, he hits you? Then we will not be able to find out since we are no longer allowed to contact you. It was then that I struggled, it is difficult, with the language, then I started to cry. Also, what that Filipina told me…it was then that I thought about running away.”) [Translation by the authors]

Alma worked in a factory as an undocumented migrant for months until she was able to earn enough money to return to the Philippines. Because she failed to be with her husband for two years, Alma was not able to complete the residency required for a marriage migrant to be a resident in Korea which disables her from working legally. Indeed, what happened to Alma was the case for other marriage migrants to Korea at that time, either through facilitation by Unification Church or international matchmaking agencies. Currently, the Philippine government bans matchmaking or marriage brokering under its anti-trafficking legislation and its anti-mail-order bride law.

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The demand for brides has spawned this industry in Korea but is also a by-product of the campaign by the Korean government among rural bachelors to acquire brides, in some cases, with a grant from the local government. Upon her return to the Philippines, Alma went back to her nuclear family. According to her, her family felt relieved that she was not harmed despite attempts by her husband to beat her. This also made them accept that their daughter is a single mother and jobless. Initially, she helped in their farm, but she eventually landed odd jobs in a relative’s house in the south of Manila.

Her husband and her in-laws attempted thrice to get her back to Korea. They feared that she would not be able to give her daughter a future. The husband even went back briefly to the Philippines at one point. When they were trying to process the papers in the Korean embassy, it was also then that she found out that her marriage is already considered void upon learning that her husband already married a Mongolian who ran away. The Unification Church which tried to facilitate her return to the family in Korea told her that her brothers-in-law were doubtful whether the daughter is their blood, which implicates Alma of infidelity. This situation prevented her from returning to Korea. One time, a neighbor in Mindanao referred her to an NGO, the Kopino Center, which takes care of Kopino children. She brought her daughter there, and when the Center ran out of a caretaker, she eventually applied for a job. Gina’s Story Hailing from Ifugao, a province in the Cordillera Administrative Region of Northern Philippines, Gina moved to Manila to earn her degree in computer science in Adamson University. She then taught at the United Doctors Medical Center. However, poor health condition briefly kept her from pursuing a career in teaching. In 1997, at the age of 22, Gina left for Taiwan to work with an industrial manufacturing company. After her three-year contract expired, she went back to the Philippines and worked in an insurance agency. While working as a trainee at the insurance company, Gina applied for a work and study program in London. With a penchant for business, she wanted to earn her master’s degree in business administration. It was also the time when a colleague in the insurance firm invited her to teach at an English academy in Quezon City. Gina’s part-time employment at the English academy was her first

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encounter with Koreans. She worked at the academy for a few months where she eventually befriended a Korean pastor. Hired as a private tutor, Gina taught the pastor on weekends, while working full-time at the insurance agency on weekdays. Awaiting the results of her graduate studies application in London, the pastor extended her an invitation to spend Chuseok or Thanksgiving in Korea. Gina’s visit to Korea was unexpected. Before meeting the pastor, a student at the English academy once invited her to visit Korea and teach English in a language academy in Seoul. The plan was put to a halt when she was not granted a visa. Having been denied a visa once, Gina was not too keen on going to Korea but thought of giving it another try. This time, the Korean pastor assisted her from the processing of her visa to making her feel comfortable in his hometown in Suwon. Although Gina was never encouraged to convert to Protestantism, she occasionally attended their worship services. When the pastor took Gina farther south in the Jeolla province, she thought Korea resembled so much like Taiwan. The rice fields, the transport system, and the peace reminded her of the years she spent in Taipei. As the vacation days went on, Gina started to feel the boredom. Her adventurous nature took her to explore sites outside Suwon and meet former students at the English academy. Worried that she might not find her way back, the pastor and his family lent her a mobile phone which she used to reconnect with former students and friends in Seoul. As her vacation neared its end, Gina thought why not study in Korea instead of London. She believed the opportunity to be in Korea was similar to what she applied for in London. Determined to stay, Gina sought the assistance of the Korean pastor in extending her visa. Pooling all her resources, she applied for the business administration program at the Seoul National University (SNU). However, the prerequisite of the course was at least four semesters of the Korean language program. Resolved to be part of the business program, Gina started her Korean language classes at SNU in December 2002, staying on for seven semesters. While earning her language requirement, she also prepared for the entrance to the business program, into which she eventually failed to get. Alternatively, she passed the master’s program in international commerce and completed it in March 2005. After the pastor left, Gina’s former student at the language academy took her in and allowed her to reside briefly at his place. Another former student introduced her to an acquaintance who gave

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her part-time work as an English tutor by phone in Seoul. All these happened as she was preparing to enroll in the Korean language program at Seoul National University. For the next two years, Gina found herself frequently moving from one place to another. A struggling student with no fixed income, Gina was housed by some friends. Whenever she felt her prolonged stay became too cumbersome, she rented spaces in a goshiwon, a small box-type room often rented by students to study for exams. On the last semester of her language course, she was awarded a partial scholarship for perfect attendance in class for the previous three semesters. Gina went on with her part-time job as an English tutor by phone even after she enrolled in her graduate classes. She would wake up early in the morning, call a student, and teach English. At night before going to bed, Gina would make another call. She did this every day for the next two years until she completed her master’s degree. While working at the English academy in the Philippines, Gina was introduced to Gio, a Korean in his mid-20s. The two entered into a relationship, but Gio’s return to Korea cut their relations short, although there was never a formal break-up. Occasionally, Gina would send letters to Gio whenever friends and former students visited Korea. Gio, however, never responded to these letters. When Gina arrived in Korea in 2002, the Korean pastor encouraged her to reconnect with Gio. With the prodding of some Korean friends, Gina visited Gio at the university, which was coincidentally located in Suwon. Although the two reconnected ties, Gio was no knight in shining armor to Gina. He was not too appreciative of Gina’s efforts whenever she came to see him. In December 2003, the couple officially parted ways. At some point during Gina’s stay in Korea, she sought Gio’s help to secure a post-paid mobile phone as she was yet ineligible to apply for one. The mobile phone kept them bound together even after they have broken up. As Gina approached her graduation from the master’s program, Gio rekindled his presence in her life. She eventually found a job in research and development of a business consulting firm. Gio was kind enough to assist her in unpacking her things in her new apartment. Her stay at the business consulting firm, however, did not last long. Her superior wanted to open a cosmetics distribution business in Manila and wanted her to be part of the team. After five years of staying in Korea, Gina returned to the Philippines. Gina became occupied with the business she started with her

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former superior. She traveled neighboring cities in the metro to distribute cosmetics to malls and business establishments. Meanwhile, she has kept her connection with Gio. At some point, she invited her to visit Manila once again. Gio heeded Gina’s invite. Few weeks after his return to Seoul, Gina called him to inform she was pregnant. At that moment, Gio decided that they should get married. He eventually flew to Manila to ask for Gina’s hand in marriage. Pregnant with their first child and working on the new business in Manila, Gina left all the planning and wedding preparations to Gio. He would call her from Korea to consult on the details about the food, the wedding hall, and the guests. In 2009, Gina and Gio married in Jeonju, Korea. During the months of Gina’s pregnancy, Gio would travel monthly to the Philippines to check on his wife. Gina chose to stay in Manila given her sensitive pregnancy and the business she was handling at that time. Later on, Gina, along with her two children, frequently flew to Korea to spend a few days with Gio. Alternatively, when the latter’s schedule permits, he would visit his wife and children in Manila. This kind of family arrangement continued for years until Gina’s third pregnancy. Pregnant with their third child, Gina spent the holidays in Seoul along with her two children. The initial week-long vacation plan turned out to be a month for Gina due to hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition of severe nausea, vomiting and weight loss during pregnancy. Without any family member capable of attending to the two children, Gio flew them to Manila so that their maternal grandmother could take care of them. Although Gio’s mother is still alive, old age kept her from attending to the children. Gina, meanwhile, was left alone at the hospital in Korea. Her frail health lasted for weeks. Without his family to return to after a long day’s work and exhausted with their family arrangement, frustration slowly consumed Gio. While his wife was still confined at the hospital, he decided to throw their things away and give up their apartment. At first, this was unknown to Gina until the days leading to her discharge from the hospital. On the day Gina left the hospital, they did not return home. Instead, they headed to the airport and flew to Manila. Looking back, Gina felt a pang of annoyance as her husband never consulted her. The initial months of their return to the Philippines were still

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blissful. Gio had savings for their daily expenses. However, months of unemployment and, consequently, unproductive business ventures became a challenge to the couple. As Gina would describe her husband, he became “too complacent.” She attributed her husband’s complacent character to the grueling work conditions he used to have in Korea. Now with four children, Gina wishes to go back and settle in Korea. She believes her children can have better lives and avail better education in their father’s homeland. In contrast, Gio wishes to retire in the Philippines. He worries that his children might be subject to bullying given that they come from a multicultural family. Gio is also doubtful that he’d still land a profitable job in Korea, and even if he does, he will have to rise from the ranks again. At present, Gio works for a business process outsourcing firm in Taguig City, while Gina is a human resource support officer in a multi-national company in Paranaque City. They live with their four children. Mona’s Story Mona resides in the central business district of Ortigas with her Korean husband and two children. She has lived in Korea with her family for six years before deciding to settle down in Manila. With a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management in one of the universities in Quezon City, Mona used to work in a luxury hotel in Makati City, a central business district. In 2010, she decided to leave the Philippines to work as an Assistant Supervisor at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. She was 23. The eldest of two siblings, Mona hails from a middle-class family in Caloocan City. Her familiarity with Korea started with her fascination with the Korean drama. She likened her husband to the lead protagonist in ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ a popular Korean drama series in the early 2000s that swept many countries across Asia and Latin America. It was also during this period when the Korean Wave started to spread in Asia.

With her growing interest in Korean drama, Mona decided to learn the Korean language. She was able to find a Korean language exchange partner through the internet. Alex, aged 28, was looking for an English language exchange partner so he could further improve his English proficiency. Although the two have yet to meet in person, Mona recalled that she felt an instant attraction towards Alex. Their daily communication allowed her to learn more about him and contribute to his progress in English.

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Meanwhile, Alex had the same growing affection for Mona. Three months into their relationship as language exchange partners, he flew to Singapore. The first meeting reaffirmed the fondness the couple had for each other. While Alex had yet to be fluent in English, he was already comfortable engaging Mona in a conversation. The latter also described their first meeting as a sign of sincerity of Alex towards her. He stayed for a week. The visit of Alex to Singapore was not just to meet Mona. He also took it as an opportunity to propose to Mona and convince her to live with him in Korea. The couple eventually decided to take a respite to visit the Philippines and seek the blessing of Mona’s family. Alex was then introduced to her parents. Consequently, Mona returned to Singapore, while Alex was back in Korea. The return to Singapore did not last long. After six months of working, Mona left for the Philippines to prepare for their wedding. She was unable to finish her contract of two years. The couple initially wanted to wed in civil rites. Mona’s family, however, encouraged them to have the church wedding since both of them were Catholic. Alex did not leave the wedding planning alone to Mona. Weeks after Mona arrived in Manila, Alex quit his job in Korea to assist in the wedding preparation. In March 2011, Mona and Alex married in the Catholic church in the Philippines. Since Alex quit his job, he had to fly back to Seoul to find new employment and process their marriage certificate for their nuptials to be legally recognized in Korea. Meanwhile, Mona was occupied preparing for her pre-departure documents in Manila. She recalled attending a seminar at the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), a government agency tasked to promote the welfare and interest of Filipinos by providing pre-departure orientations to emigrants (CFO website). After four months of facilitating and processing her documents, Mona left for Korea to be with her husband. Mona arrived in Korea in July 2011. One of the first impressions that struck her was the order and cleanliness of her new environment in Ilsan, a quiet urban area in the Gyeonggi province. Mona and her husband were joined in the same apartment by her parents-in-law and his younger brother. Before the arrival of Mona in Korea, Alex’s family decided to move to a bigger apartment so all of them can be in one household. According to them, this arrangement will help Mona adjust more quickly to her new surroundings. In her words,

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“Oo, kasi sa Korea, ‘yung parang, lalo na foreigner ako, nagwo-worry sila kung mag-isa lang kami baka hindi pa kayanin. ‘Yun, nagwo-worry sila na pag ako lang mag-isa, baka hindi ko pa kaya, kaya sama-sama daw muna hanggang sa tumagal umabot ng six-year, magkakasama kami.” (Yes, because in Korea, if you are a foreigner, my in-laws were worried, I might not be able to cope if I am alone in the house. So, the arrangement was that we will all be together in one house. However, it lasted for six years...we were all together.) [Translation by the authors] Such arrangement lasted for six years, except for the time when Alex was assigned in Gwangyang, south of Jeolla province, for a year. Since Alex was at work on weekdays, Mona’s father-in-law, who was quite knowledgeable of the English language, took time to tour her around and acquaint her with the neighborhood. She had limited interaction with her mother-in-law due to the latter’s unfamiliarity with the English language. Before coming to Korea, Mona enrolled in basic Korean classes for three months in a private language school in Quezon City. These lessons helped her significantly in adjusting to her new routine, especially when using the transport system and moving around the city on her own. One of the significant adjustments Mona went through was the living arrangements with her in-laws, even her brother-in-law. Contrary to the modern practice in the Philippines, where married children live independently from their parents, Mona and her husband stayed with their parents-in-law. Her in-laws were in-charge of running the household, specifically with budgeting the expenses. According to Mona, her in-laws never demanded or asked anything from them, compared with other Korean in-laws as told by her friends. Her in-laws, she added, understood that she and Alex were starting to build a family and wanted to assist them in all means possible. When Mona eventually found a job, they would occasionally prod her to treat them out to a good meal. Mona regarded the first two years in Korea as her most significant period of adjustment. She was not easily fond of Korean food. Many times, she would cook her meals. Her in-laws were also very understanding of her predicament. They would encourage her to prepare Filipino dishes and join her in fast food restaurants to which they are not accustomed to. On weekends, her husband would take her to Filipino restaurants available in the city. Living with her in-laws was not the best of times for Mona, despite their being kind, as the situation robbed her of her autonomy:

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“Syempre, pag diba, pag married ka na, gusto mo na rin ng separate space mo para sa sarili mong desisyon, sa pag-aayos pa lang ng bahay, ano kakainin ...ganyan. Parang hindi mo wino-worry ‘yung sasabihin n’ung kasama mo sa bahay. Although mabait sila, pero syempre ‘yun lang naman, ‘yung gusto mo may sarili ka ng—kasi ‘yung feeling na pag may kasama kang in-laws, parents mo pa rin ‘yun eh so pag lalabas ka, kailangan mo magpaalam.., hindi pwedeng hindi ka magpapaalam...” (Indeed, when you are already married, you want a separate space so you can decide for yourself, how to fix the house, what to eat, things like that. You need not worry about what others living in the house think of you. Although they are nice, what I wanted was that I have my own..because the feeling that when you are with your in-laws, they are also your parents, when you go out, you still need to ask permission from them..it is impossible not to ask permission from them) [Translation by the authors]

She also found it valuable to continue her Korean language education. Mona participated in damunhwa (multiculturalism) activities organized by the Korean government to facilitate the assimilation process of immigrants. It was in damunhwa where Mona met her first friends in Korea. After a year living in Korea, Mona was fortunate to work as a part-time elementary school teacher in a Korean language academy in Hwajeong, a commercial area in Goyang City which was roughly 40 minutes away from their residence. She taught grade school pupils for three hours a day. Here employment in the language academy did not last long due to the low number of enrollees. After four months, the academy closed. Mona eventually worked inside the United States military base in Yongsan-gu. She sold accessories at the mini-mall inside the camp. Although Mona liked the financial independence that came with her job, she found the daily commute to her workplace the most challenging. During winter, she had to brave the cold by walking from the gate to the inside premises of the military camp. She quit her job when she got pregnant with her first child. Pregnant with their first child and not wanting to rely on her husband financially, Mona started selling pre-loved or slightly used items online. It started with her old clothes, shoes, and accessories. Later on, she sold these items on Gmarket, a famous Korean online shopping website where people can buy goods ranging from clothes to gadgets and other services. Mona continues to sell things online up to this day.

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In 2014, Alex was assigned in Gwangyang, a city south of Jeolla province. He was then working with an engineering firm as an engineering consultant. Mona remembered that her husband had to change employment a couple of times due to the bad condition of the Korean economy. When the assignment to Gwangyang came, Mona found it a relief to be away from her in-laws. She enjoyed the liberty designing their own home and deciding on their monthly expenses. It also tested their independence as a couple for the first time since they married. According to her, that was indeed the time she felt “may asawa na pala talaga ako” (I am married). Although Mona was delighted by the freedom and independence they now have as a couple, some practices in the Korean culture took a toll in their relationship. For one, she had to adjust to the constant participation of her husband in hwesik, the Korean culture of building strong camaraderie by bringing colleagues together after work through food and alcohol. Alex, too, was not fond of hwesik since it was depriving him the opportunity to spend time with his family. To avoid conflict with her husband, Mona tried to be more understanding of his situation. During those times, she would bring up the idea of returning to the Philippines. Heeding Mona’s advice, Alex eventually decided to return and settle in the Philippines. Alex thought that wherever he went in Korea, the practice of late night hwesik sessions and long work hours will not change, and he will have to abide by the system even if he did not want to. According to Mona, “...kahit labag sa kalooban niya kasi gusto niya magka-time sa amin, pati sa baby niya pero hindi niya magawa kasi kailangan niya sumunod, and ‘di siya rin drinker pero napapai, napapainom siya (Int: M-mm) kahit ‘di niya gusto. So parang napagod na rin siya sa gan’ung ano, everyday life niya na sobrang work at hinahanap niya ‘yung family time.” (...even if my husband does not like it because he wants to spend more time with us, including the baby, he could not do it, because Alex needs to abide, even if he is not so much of a drinker, he tends to drink, even if he does not always like it. So, he got tired of working so hard every day. He was looking for family time.) Wanting to spend more time with his family, Alex agreed to try settling in Manila. The couple and their daughter lived with Mona’s family for two weeks but eventually moved to a condominium in Ortigas. Alex found a job in a business outsourcing company in Makati through an online agency. Though Alex would complain about the traffic in Manila and the sluggish pace of the system in the Philippines, he prefers his life now as he can see his children grow. He is now

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physically fit and can enjoy personal activities and sports, something he was not able to do when they were still residing in Korea. “Dito, ngayon balik na ‘yung katawan niya, everyday nag-eexercise, nagsiswimming siya. (Int: M-mm) And, then d’un sa condo namin may swimming pool which is favorite niya talagang magswim talaga kaya every day, may time siya sa’min, may time pa siya sa sarili niya. And then financial, almost same lang naman.” (Here, right now, his body is maintained, he swims every day and exercises. We have a pool in the condominium which is his favority. Here, he has the time for himself. Financially, it is almost the same for us.) Mona also prefers to live in the Philippines despite the convenience offered by their life in Korea. In the past, she was worried about how she would understand the academics and activities of her daughter. She also expressed concern that her daughter might be bullied in school given that she comes from a multicultural family and might not be able to adjust well enough to the academic pressure of Korean education. Now that they are in the Philippines, her daughter can compete with her peers.

Early this year, Mona gave birth to their second child. She admits to having disagreements with her husband though she considers most of it as trivial. Often, the difference stems from their opposing views on finances. Mona believes that it is essential for her to have her savings, while Alex thinks that savings and income earned by either of them should be a resource for their family. Her husband regards finances as a collective that should be shared and pooled by the both of them. Key Insights from the Life Histories Although life histories are non-generalizable, the lived experiences shared by migrant bride returnees offer insights into their multiple roles, their agency amidst setbacks, and their strategies as they navigate their relationship with their Korean family and society. Moreover, their narratives demonstrate the manner in which their return is a form of response to legal, cultural and economic practices that constrained their lives in the host country. In other words, marriage migration is hardly ever an individual decision but rather a set of complex choices bounded by the parameters of political economy, and the formal and informal institutions of the migrant-sending and receiving states (Lacaba 2018). Noting Constable’s (2014, 21) observation of a migrant’s life as moving in a “continuum of privilege and precarity,” their stories and shared experiences provide initial, albeit exploratory empirical armory in looking at how those who

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returned look at their lives and journeys in Korea and upon their return. First, the stories of foreign bride returnees in this paper illustrate that the choice to marry a Korean was done not solely for economic reasons, corroborating what previous analyses have argued (Constable, 2003, 2005; Lacaba 2018). Specifically, Mona and Gina’s were shaped by “global imagination” of what Korea is, following Lacaba’s (2018) work on marriage migrants in Korea. Mona’s Korean drama predilection, their previous migration experience and English language and internet skills facilitated their marriage migration route. While Alma may not fall under their category, the desire to be married to a foreigner cannot be unwedded to imaginations of a better quality of life abroad compared the one in the Philippines. Second, even if both Mona and Gina’s situation was different compared to that of Alma, all of them shared experiences of precarity in both Korea and the Philippines brought by the intersection of their multiple identities as migrants, wives, daughters-in-law, and workers in Korea. As migrants, their desire to migrate already indicates the failure of their origin country to provide them decent jobs. As wives and daughters in law in Korea, navigating its cultural arena steeped in Confucian gender ideology renders them vulnerable to “othering” and major personal adjustments as their stories indicate. Moreover, because their husband guarantees their stay in Korea, then running away like Alma did, resulted in irregular migration and low-wage jobs. For Mona and Gina who remained married, their only means to be financially empowered is via part-time jobs. Upon their return to the Philippines, they all had to rebuild their lives amidst the general stigma of failed migration projects. Alma’s additional stigma is her “failed marriage” which is still frowned upon in the Philippines, which has not approved a divorce law to this day. Third, though Alma’s account was a trafficking issue, it is remarkable that she held on for months upon knowing that her husband’s family paid for her. Had there not been any threats of violence from her husband, she might have stayed. Such a situation provides a nuanced lens in looking at trafficking, suggesting that attempts to frame marriage migration within the discourse of human trafficking strips women of any agency they had in deciding to migrate. While some foreign brides may indeed be trafficked, universalizing the process of marriage migration as trafficking may make them more prone to discrimination in sending and receiving states. The cases of Mona and Gina indicate a very different story of how they met their husbands. However, because of the trafficking discourse, it is easy to

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see why they and their children can still get discriminatory treatment. The stories also demonstrate that because Mona and Gina had previous migration experience and are educated, their social network is more extensive compared to Alma. Acquaintances and friendships helped the two navigate their working lives in Korea and the Philippines. For her part, Mona’s ability to use information technology in teaching English was her pathway to meeting her husband. However, it was also this skill that enabled her to be an online entrepreneur. Despite running away from her husband, Alma managed to find odd jobs as an undocumented migrant in various factories in Korea, earning her money for her travel back to the Philippines. The stories manifest that even as the migrant brides responded to the care crisis in Korea and fulfilled familial and societal expectations from them, their return to the Philippines imply their capacity to reclaim their agency, except in the case of Gina whose husband solely decided to live in the Philippines. Nevertheless, because they have four children, Gina can work in multiple jobs upon their return—a situation that would be challenging in Korea given the lack of available childcare support. In the Philippines, childcare support is borne either by relatives or a domestic worker. Mona is now able to tend to her online business and has more time for her family. Alma works in a non-government center where she can care for her Korean-Filipino child as well as other Korean-Filipino children. These narratives of return strategies support Kim et al.’s (2017, 27) claim that marriage migrants normally embark on different coping mechanisms upon return such as “remarrying, securing employment, or in some cases migrating again.” The economic downturn in Korea likewise became a push factor for the husbands of Mona and Gina to be lured to living in the Philippines. Unable to find stable jobs, coupled with the culture of long working hours and corresponding hoesik (regular drinking binges) their husbands maintained a liking to the Philippines’ more relaxed atmosphere. Their current middle-class lifestyle in Manila is hard to maintain in Korea, known for its high standard of living. Interestingly, the boom in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in the country has created jobs for both husbands, and even Gina herself. According to Nho and Lee (2016, 19), Korean men marrying foreign brides are generally not well-off, with some working in low-wage jobs. As such, both Mona and Gina’s husbands are currently in a better position concerning well-being and work, away from cultural expectations of work hours and excessive drinking. The Korean penchant for

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competitiveness and “making it” similarly exerts pressure on families, particularly the husbands. According to Walker (2014, 107), in Korean society, the Confucian ideology of familial duty coupled with its authoritarian past that stressed a strict work ethic resulted in a deep sense of shame when the familial obligation of financial provision is unmet. Finally, the thought that their children will experience bullying in Korea is also one reason identified as to why Gina and Mona’s family returned and wished to live in the Philippines. Because of its strong belief in ethnic homogeneity, foreigners and more so, mixed-race children often experience discrimination and bullying (Lee 2016). While Gina and Mona’s children may less likely be bullied or discriminated against in the middle-class circle they currently inhabit in the Philippines, Alma’s daughter may face discrimination from Filipinos who are knowledgeable about her mother’s past. Conclusion and Some Research and Policy Implications At best, the paper has endeavored to present the life histories of three migrant bride returnees. As mentioned, the article responds to the call to unravel the lived experiences of marriage migrants in ways that surface a non-generic account of their journeys. All three women in the paper are part of the feminized migration characteristic of the Philippines’ long history of labor outflows. In a country where working abroad has become a significant part of everyday life and political economy, their narratives present how migration is hardly “unidirectional” (Kim, et al. 2016, 38). Such a view strengthens the need to look at research, policies, and programs on marriage migration as “transnational” and fluid, rather than taking for granted that foreign brides hardly return to their origin countries and permanently settle abroad. If they do return from abroad, some return not due to failed marriages but could be the result of overall cultural practices, economics, and lifestyle in host countries. Therefore, policies and programs on marriage migration must also acknowledge the transnational nature of international marriages, accounting for emigration as well as return. Interventions that mitigate precarity in this continuum, aside from the current focus on pre-departure orientation and host country programs, must, therefore, be initiated. Return must be a vital component of these programs. In the academic literature, more life histories of return migrants should be collected and analyzed, including the husband’s voices. Toward this end, the MOU of the

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Korean MOGEF and the CFO must be reviewed to make visible migrant bride returnees and their families, especially those with biracial children. Overall, the lives of migrant bride returnees in this paper suggest that they are more empowered than traditional and media accounts portray them. Indeed, they play multiple roles, and to a large extent, their return to the Philippines demonstrates their response to economic and cultural pressures in Korea. While the latter is an economic power, middle-class life remains elusive for some families given the high standard of living. The inter-related cultural expectations of “making it,” binge drinking and overwork remain distinct (Kwon and Field 2018) and creates additional care deficit on the part of husbands. In turn, this results in increased pressure on wives to take on the role of family care. Thus, their return to the Philippines relieves them of this dilemma. Meanwhile, even Alma’s story indicates that trafficked women manage to turn their lives around even without government support. Her story likewise manifests the precariousness of trafficked women’s journey, problems with Korea’s guarantee visa system for foreign spouses, and their strategies to survive. What these narratives suggest is that programs that are reliant on dominant portrayals of foreign brides tend to be one-size-fits-all and thus may result in poor targeting and wastage of resources. In sum, the life histories of return in this paper indicate that marriage migration from the Philippines to Korea is still evolving and warrants further investigation and continual review of policies and programs.

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Constable, N. (2003). Romance on a global stage: Pen pals, virtual ethnography, and mail-order marriages. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Constable, N. ed. (2005). Cross-border marriages: Gender and mobility in transnational Asia. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Constable, Nicole. (2014). Born out of place: Migrant mothers and the politics of international labor. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Dela Cruz, M.S. (2013). The employment permit system and the Filipino migrant workers in Korea. Master in Public Policy Thesis KDI School of Public Policy and Management.

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De Jesus, Julliane Love. (2015). Korean arrested for duping victims into fake marriages. April 17. Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, .https://newsinfo. inquirer.net/686237/korean-arrested-for-duping-victims-into-fake-marriages

Encinas-Franco, Jean. 2013. A gender and rights-based approach to marriage migration: The case of Filipino brides of Korean men. pp.70-93. Proceedings of a Workshop on Multiculturalism in Korea and ASEAN’s Contribution. 16 May. Seoul.

Hsia, H. (2014). Beyond victimization: The empowerment of ‘foreign brides’ in resisting capitalist globalization. Journal of Social Work 1(2), pp.130-148. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17525090802098054?journalCode=rcsw20

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Jung, H. (2012). Constructing scales and renegotiating identities: Women marriage migrants in Korea. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 21, (2), pp. 193-215.

Kim, M. (2013). Citizenship projects for marriage migrants in Korea: Intersecting motherhood with ethnicity and class. Social Politics 20 (4), pp. 455-481.

Kim, H., S. Park and A. Shukhertei. (2017). Returning home: Marriage migrants’ legal precarity and the experience of divorce. Critical Asian Studies. 49 (1), pp. 38-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2016.1266679

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Piper, N. and S. Lee. 2016. Marriage migration, migrant precarity, and social reproduction in Asia: An overview. Critical Asian Studies. https://doi/full/10.1080/14672715.2016.1226598

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Su, L. (2013). Cross-border marriage migration of Vietnamese women to China. Master’s Thesis, Kansas State University. https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/15663/LianlingSu2013.pdf?sequence=1.

Timmerman, C. (2006). Gender dynamics in the context of Turkish marriage migration: The case of Belgium. Turkish Studies 7(1), pp. 125-143. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14683840500520642?journalCode=ftur20

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Walker, R. (2014). The shame of poverty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yang, W. and M. Lu. (2010). Asian Cross-Border Marriage Migration. 2nd ed.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Yu S., and F. Chen. (2018). Life satisfaction of cross-border marriage migrants in Korea:

Exploring the social network effects. International Migration Review. 52 (2), pp. 597-634. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0197918318781583

Interviews Filipino bride returnee (“Alma”) 23 May 2018, ISSI- UP Diliman, Quezon City. Filipino bride returnee (“Mona”) 26 May 2018, Bonifacio Global City Filipino bride returnee (“Gina”) 28 May 2018. Bonifacio Global City

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UP KRC Korea Essay Contest Grand Prize Winners (2017-2018)

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A Reminder For Love

Anika Castañeda 2017 UP KRC Essay Conntest

Grand Prize Winner

If you were to ask me 10 years ago if I enjoy anything Korean, I would’ve looked at you with an arched brow and a grimace as I scoffed, “No way!” Being a young child back then, I was part of those who questioned the sudden increase of Koreans within the Philippines. They looked, acted and spoke differently. At that time, I wondered what could they possibly be doing in my country and not in theirs. Add 5 years, you’d have me at 15 struggling through high school and puberty. If you asked me if I enjoy anything Korean, I would’ve grasped your hands tightly with beaming eyes and perhaps even squealed a little as I said the words, “Yes! I love all things Korean!” It was the time I had discovered Hallyu, the Korean Wave. At first I treaded lightly in the shallows. But eventually I dove in and swam.

In that span of half a decade, my perception of South Korea had drastically changed. In this era of globalization, with things like social media and the Internet, access to different cultures has become relatively easy. Discovering South Korean pop culture via the Internet was like finding a magical realm. Everything was vibrant, colorful and fun. I enjoyed their crazy bop music and heart-wrenching television dramas. It was a bright escape from the dim reality of academics and social pressures of my adolescent life. But as I dove deeper into the ocean of South Korean culture, I began to forget mine. I had formed a bias. To me, Kamusta turned into Annyeonghaseyo and Mahal Kita into Saranghaeyo. Pancit Bihon became Japchae. Hands, spoons and forks became chopsticks. I listened to nothing but K-Pop and watched nothing but K-Dramas. I even begged my family to have Seoul as our vacation destination. I no longer questioned the growth of the Korean community in the country. I was glad they were here if it meant one step closer to the people I wanted to be and the culture I found more beautiful.

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It became apparent to me that I wasn’t diving deeper but actually swimming aimlessly. This happened when I had read an open letter by Kim Jae-Youn, which I discovered through Facebook, regarding how Filipinos don’t love the Philippines. The open letter made me realize how Filipinos belittle their own country, their own culture. They work hard, but they work hard in order to get out of the country. They criticize everything about the country and focus on only the negatives. And I was definitely part of that then. What I observed is, despite how long Koreans have lived in the Philippines, they never forgot where they came from. Their country and culture was always in their hearts. The Korean community in the Philippines made me realize that, if I could love and see beauty in a different culture, why couldn’t I do the same for mine? I decided to stop diving deeper and swim beyond instead. As I started watching Korean variety shows like One Night Two Days and The Return of Superman, I saw how in tune Koreans were with the richness of their culture and how they even inculcate it to their children.

The Korean community stands as a reminder for Filipinos to never forget their roots. Many Filipinos who settle out of the country refuse to look back and completely adopt a new culture. Despite exposure to something entirely different, the Korean community manages to remain grounded to their motherland. It’s so easy to lose one’s own culture in another, especially in this era of globalization. I believe that the Korean community in the Philippines is an example that it is possible to assimilate into diversities while being able to harmonize with one’s origins. Growing up, I was exposed to ideas that everything is better outside the Philippines—that all the opportunities for a better life lay across the ocean. When I saw the love and pride Koreans had for their peninsula, I wanted to find that same spark with my archipelago. I juxtaposed what I saw in Korea to what I am presented within the Philippines and I saw certain patterns. Then I began to see the magnificence of the Filipino culture. Entering college has also opened me to the deeply-rooted history and variety of literature and folklore the Philippines offers. I began to see how fun the pop culture is too, especially Filipino humor. I had this new drive of learning more about the Philippines from all directions. I wanted to expose myself more to the beauty that had always been there, which I didn’t try hard enough to find before.

All cultures are equal and no culture is perfect. Each has its own limitations and capabilities. You take what you can from one culture and integrate it into your own in a way that improves it. The

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beauty you see in one culture can be found in another. There’s no shame swimming in another ocean. But always remember to swim back home. The Korean community reminds me how wonderful the Philippines is. They inspire me to preserve the wealth of my culture and show it to other people as they do for theirs. I believe Filipinos still have a long way to go, but with lots of effort and love, I know we’ll get there. I know we can have Filipinos be delighted to swim oceans for the Philippines. Filipinos who work hard to go out of the country in order to return in better conditions to help it. Filipinos who know which points to criticize to make way for the real charm the culture has to offer. We’ll hear Kamusta along with Annyeonghaseyo, Ni Hao, and Hello. We’ll see Adobo along Samgyupsal, Kimbap, and pastas. The more Filipinos bring out the beauty of the Philippines, the more the world will see it too. Now you have me living on this big blue globe for 20 years in total. If you ask me if I enjoy anything Korean, I would say, “Yes. I very much do.” But I would also add, “I enjoy all cultures. Especially my own.”

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Through Our Literature

Jesus C. Deytiquez

2018 UP KRC Korea Essay Contest Grand Prize Winner

“I saw thee ne’er before;

I see thee never more;

But love, and help, and pain,

beautiful one,

Have made thee mine, till all

my years are done.”

—George MacDonald, Phantastes

What can be the new channels of mutual interests between

Korea and the Philippines? I believe I can provide one. But let me first tell you my story that happened in our country’s Summer Capital. Let me tell you how I met the lady from The Land of the Morning Calm there.

As the only child of my busy parents, I spent almost all of my life alone in a sleepy and rustic sitio in the middle of the vast expanse of rice fields in Nueva Ecija. And in that place I met beauty first through nature, and then through the books that I read or through literature. Up to this day, these two messengers of beauty never fail to turn countless of lazy or rainy afternoons into ecstatic moments for me. I always think that beauty really winks at me through them. And through the same beauty of nature in Baguio City, and through a World Literature class of a university there, I met one of the countless forms that beauty has; she has the eyes as starry as the evening sky, the hair as black as the tender mother night, the face as white and flawless as alabaster, and the lips as red as a delicate mountain rose in the freshness of the morning.

I was blessed with the privilege of being her seatmate in that

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night class, and the one to answer almost all of her questions concerning some things she didn’t quite understand (most of them were about country-specific ideas). She was one of the top students of that university, but she was humble enough to be the one to approach me and ask for my help if she needed it. Truly, only the childlike can desire for the truth, goodness, and beauty, and consequently, be the one to obtain it. Through the cold and dark lamp-lit sidewalks, and under the rainy night sky of that mountain city, we walked together two times. The two of us also sang a song in front of the class one night; the song was about longing amidst the passage of cold summer nights and is by the well-known Filipino rapper who died many years ago. With her physical loveliness and the beauty of her childlike personality, it was no peculiarity that I was attracted to her. But I never really courted her or confessed to her what I harbor for her; I was too shy and was courting another girl from my hometown back then.

After that single semester of being with her, because of several reasons I will not bother you my dear reader with, I transferred to a college in Manila. I can still remember the last time I saw her. The memory of our time together still haunts that mountain city. I never saw her again after that. I believe she returned to Seoul after she graduated.

But now, after about four years, I am writing countless of stories and poems inspired by her. I am submitting them to different contests and publications local and abroad, in order for me to earn and save enough money to see her once again, and maybe, even be able to give some of my published works to her, if we meet again, as a way for me to let her know what I long to tell her all this time: that I love her. If to love is to will for the good of the beloved, then I truly love her. It was the beauty of nature and literature that enabled me to meet that angel of beauty; I believe the same beauty shall give me wings to follow her one day.

I also believe that besides the blessing of the beauty of nature of Korea and Philippines, the beauty in the literatures of both countries can also be a way for the two to meet halfway. Sadly, excluding the prevalence of K-dramas and the intense interest of Filipinos for them, I perceive that there is almost no sharing of literatures between Korea and the Philippines. Personally, I always visit bookstores, but I cannot find any Korean books in them except the ones for translation purposes, which, of course, is very in demand, probably because of the booming Korean pop culture or job opportunities. To get the view of an academic from Korea, I emailed Professor Myeong Jeong of the Korean Language and Literature department of Yonsei University

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concerning this issue, and he answered that, “Korean Researchers and Writers scarcely know the Philip[pine] literature,” and then added, to my surprise, that, “Only few [Korean] researchers heard the name Jose Rizal through the famous book, ‘The Imagined Community’ of Benedict Anderson”! Imagine that!

Literature helps us to learn and appreciate the culture and history of another country. As a lover also of foreign literatures—especially novels from the United Kingdom—I can attest how I learned many things about different countries through my reading of the literatures from them; accordingly, take also for an example my own bewilderment when I saw through a K-drama that the concept of goblin of Korea is very different from the concept of goblin of the western countries—such bewilderment, I believe, can be avoided if the Korean folklore is more accessible to us through literature. On the other hand, I wonder if Koreans know our folklore? I guess the words of Professor Jeong earlier already answered that question.

America, Japan, and the Philippines are not only connected by economics, politics, or history, but also through their mutual love for comics, especially nowadays when Globalization is strong; meanwhile, Korean comics or “Manhwa” is almost unheard or unread in the Philippines compared to the Japanese comics or “Mangas” and American comics by DC and Marvel. According to John Zamar, an organizer of Komikon which is a convention in the Philippines for comic book enthusiasts, there are no manhwas being showcased or sold in the said convention. Nevertheless, through my reading of “Nineteen, Twenty-one” by John and Jenna, which is the only manhwa that I am familiar with, I learned some Korean honorifics and even saw how very important education is for Koreans.

A country’s literature is a good mirror of its present, past, or even possible future; it follows that literature is also a good way of sparking an even more blazing mutual interests or relationship between two distinct countries, for it enables them to contemplate their differences, and most especially, their sameness; Professor Jeong also said to me in our correspondence that the identical experiences of Korea and the Philippines in the past, may help the potential binding power of literature between the two countries.

So, the translations of works of literature from and for both countries, and the promotion for such sharing by both sides, I believe, will bring much good to strengthen and deepen the relationship between Korea and Philippines. I believe that potential, good, and new channels for mutual interests between Korea and Philippines can be

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found in literature and its numerous forms. The beauty of literature can bring two countries separated by land and seas together, like how it enabled me to meet her in that night class, and perhaps, see her and be with her again, someday, somehow, somewhere.

References Jeong, Myeong K. “Re: Prof. Jeong: Correspondence for an Essay/Paper about Phil-

Korean Lit. Relationship.” Received by Jesus Deytiquez, 23 Apr. 2018. John and Jenna. Nineteen, Twenty-one, Easy Going Scans, Online Manga Viewer. Easy

Going Scans, Online Manga Viewer, read.egscans.com/19-21. Accessed 23 Apr. 2018.

“Komikon.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Apr. 2018. Web. 7 Apr. 2018. <en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komikon>. Accessed 23 Apr. 2018.

MacDonald, George. Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women. Mike Lough and David Widger, Project Gutenberg, 8 Jul. 2008. Project Gutenberg, 8 Jul. 2008. <www.guternberg.org/3/2/325>. Accessed 23 Apr. 2018.

Zamar, John. U. Personal interview. 23 Apr. 2018.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

UP KRC Researchers 2018 Rogelio Alicor L. Panao, PhD is an assistant professor at the department of political science, University of the Philippines Diliman. His research interests are legislative politics, Philippine executive-legislative relations, labor economics, and political economy. He is also a member of the Philippine Bar. E-mail: alicor@gmail.com Ronel Laranjo is a faculty member of Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature in University of the Philippines. He is also a freelance translator, semanticist, and teacher of Filipino language to foreign students. He is currently finishing his coursework in PhD Filipino Language Structure in the same university. He obtained his master’s degree (MA Applied Linguistics) in Korea University and his undergraduate degree (BA Filipino) in UP Diliman. E-mail: ronel_laranjo@yahoo.com

Jean Encinas-Franco, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science. She was a Faculty Associate of the Women and Gender Institute in Miriam College where she also taught at its International Studies Department. Her research interest is on gender and politics, particularly on discourses of gender and migration. E-mail: jeanfranco825@yahoo.com

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On April 27th, 2016, the University of the Philippines launched the Korea Research Center, with the support of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) Korean Studies Promotion Service, aiming to provide Filipino scholars and researchers with opportunities to widen their interest in Korean studies. The Center hopes to be a venue for students and professionals to produce meaningful comparative researches and also to promote collaborative partnerships among Korean and Philippine institutions.

The Center serves as a university-wide hub that helps promote and develop Korean Studies in the University and the country. It sponsors interdisciplinary and inter-college research and education activities on Korean studies, as well as facilitates the training of the next generation of Koreanists in the country.

UP Korea Research Center

Address: University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

Tel : +63 2 981 8500 loc 4266

Email : pkrc@up.edu.ph

Facebook: www.facebook.com/UPKRC

Website: https://upkrc.wordpress.com