Misery Story of a Vietnamese Bride Married To Korean

Over the past year, one Vietnamese bride was beaten to death by her South Korean husband, another jumped out a 14th-story window and a third hanged herself on Valentine's Day, leaving behind a diary full of misery.
"A marriage that is not based on love often brings problems," said Hoang Thi Thanh Ha of the Vietnam Women's Union. "How can you live happily ever after when you met your husband three weeks before the wedding?" Most Vietnamese bride seek material comfort,money and, most important, a way to save their parents from destitution in old age, which many Vietnamese consider their greatest duty. Not all the marriages work out, of course.




A South Korean and his Vietnamese bride. Half the brides in such marriages are younger than 21; half the grooms are 40 to 60.

Through a match-making agency, Vien (Not her real name) met a South Korean man with the family name of Kwon in his 50s. He said he was a construction engineer with a monthly salary of US$7,000 and had been divorced once.
In South Korea, Vien and her husband lived in a two-bedroom apartment and Kwon bought her a telephone and a computer for her room.
But she soon learnt from neighbors that she was the fourth wife of the man who had previously married two Korean women and later a Vietnamese wife.
She also discovered that his previous Vietnamese wife had spent less than a month with him, and also escaped.
And the “construction engineer” was always at home, never going out to work. He told her he had been given time off to enjoy his new life with Vien.
She got panicky as her husband made incessant demands for sex.

"A marriage that is not based on love often brings problems"
Marriage shouldn't be about money. It should be about love."

He wanted it everyday and sometimes engaged in “queer acts” with her at home, in the elevator, car and on way to visit their friends’, Vien said. He even abused her when he was watching television, not allowing her to return to her room.
He showed no concern for his partner’s feelings and was willing to have sex immediately after a quarrel, Vien said.
Once, after a few days of living together, Vien refused him because she was tired, and he immediately grew angry.
He uninstalled all the equipment in her room, including the telephone, the computer and even took away her clay piggy bank that she kept to save small change.
The following day, he came to apologize and requested Vien to agree to have sex with him once every two days.

“It was very painful.”

During one of their frequent quarrels, he threatened to strangle her. Vien then drew out a knife from the kitchen box, gave it him and told him to kill her if he can’t respect her as a human being.
She knew then that she had to get away from him.
She approached the South Korea-based match-making agency (PIM) that had arranged the meeting between her and Kwon, and insisted on the divorce despite all their efforts to effect a reconciliation.
Finally, they threatened that Vien had to give back all her wedding gifts including jewelry, mobile phone, and souvenirs that her husband gave her, in “accordance with Korean customs.”
In the days she waited for the trial, Vien was cut off from the telephone and banned from cooking. She survived in the apartment with a package of instant noodles she had brought there from Vietnam.
After court ruled on the divorce, Vien was forbidden from entering the apartment by security staff of the apartment building.