The number of marriages involving brides from China in the first five months of this year was up sharply from the year-earlier level, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.According to DGBAS tallies, one out of every 4.9 marriages during the January-May period were intermarriages, with Chinese brides making up the lion's share of foreign spouses.
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Among the new foreign spouses, Chinese nationals accounted for 5,737 and those from other countries totaled 6,845. The number of Chinese brides rose 56.3 percent from the figure for the same period last year.
Taiwan is doing a middling job of handling the influx of foreign brides. One thing that is fascinating to watch is how marriage trends are turning Taiwan into an even more multicultural state, something that got little recognition under the old KMT regime, which posited Taiwan as an idealized Chinese society. One of the bright spots of DPP policy is this recognition, however awkwardly, that Taiwan hosts more than one view of the world. But it seems society at large is ill-prepared, and has been ill--prepared by its leaders, to accept all these kids whose mothers come from other societies. Looking at the above stats, more than one in five marriages now involve a foreigner, and one in three births last year was to a foreign mother.
This article from two years ago brought up some other issues involving foreign mothers and babies in Taiwan, pointing out that:
A recent study indicates that babies born to immigrant mothers from Vietnam are more likely to be underweight than those born to Taiwanese mothers.
According to records collected from 1998 to 2002, roughly 30 percent of babies born to Taiwanese mothers weighed less than 3kg, while the corresponding figure was more than 40 percent for babies born to Vietnamese mothers.
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Indeed, according to the Ministry of the Interior's records from last year, Taiwanese women get married at an average age of 28 while immigrants from Southeast Asia get married around the age of 23. In addition, only five percent of Taiwanese women marry between the ages of 15 and 19, compared with 32 percent of immigrants from Southeast Asia.
Two years ago a hospital established a service center for pregnant foreign brides, almost a third of whom are under 20. It seems incredible that the government is permitting the marriage of brides so young. It will be interesting to see, given the massive shortage of females in China, how Taiwan's demand for women will play out there as a political issue (note that less than 6,000 marriages in the period above involved Chinese women) or whether it will even show up on the radar.
Technorati: [Taiwan]
I believe they are increasing the requirements (on things like minimum education level and literacy) for giving visas based on marriage. In particular increasing the required number of years of education should increase the minimum age of overseas brides.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would like to see more emphasis on providing support to the spouses (especially for when things go wrong). I don't understand the talk about 'disadvantaged' kids ... why is one parent not speaking chinese natively such a disadvantage? Apart from often coming from poor homes, and maybe some discrimination at school, the kids should do just fine.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to see your comments on how students seem pulled into this issue. Student in my classes never seem to tire of this issue. They seem deeply troubled by this "trend"-- as they call it and everything that seems a bit threatening. I always answer that the "Taiwan" that we "know"-- i.e., that KMT crapola spewed to this day in textbooks, no?-- is vanishing, if it every existed. But this fact is very unsettling. Have you similar responses from students? And by responses here, I'm not saying that I bring this question up. It is they who do so, especially in night sections.
Nick
Wonderful, informative stuff here, Michael!
ReplyDeleteAlthough my inquiry is a bit off the subject of this particular post, I thought you might be a good person to ask.
My Taiwanese girlfriend (of two years) and I plan on getting married in a few months. I currently reside in the states, where we plan on being officially married. She is not an American citizen, so naturally I receive a lot of advice as to how we should go about doing all of the paperwork. Unfortunately, each person I speak with has a totally different theory on how to do it (i.e. some say get it done in Taiwan first, some say have her come over on a visitor visa and do it all at once, ....).
What's your take on this subject? Is there a good way of setting things up now so as to avoid problems in the future? (After a few years here, we plan on transitioning to Taiwan. I sure hope my work status, etc. will be ok at that time) Also, what kind of fees did you run into when you were married? I've heard several different stories on that issue. Does there have to be any lawyers involved?
Thanks a bunch for your time.
Let's see....we got married in the US in 1991. When we applied for the visa we told the AIT people we were engaged and going over to get married. No problem for them. We didn't use a lawyer. The only worry is that you'll have to translate the marriage license into Chinese for the ARC, no real biggie. All in all, the paperwork hassle is a lot less if you go over to the US and get married, I believe. After all, you can always have a ceremony in Taiwan and then NOT register the marriage, but go to the US and have another ceremony -- and collect 2X the gifts. Nice deal, eh?
ReplyDeleteThe loophole you exploit is that immigration is federal, but marriage is state, so you can get married by any state and the feds have to recognize it.
Michael