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Destination China pp 67–90Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Educational Desire and Transnationality of South Korean Middle Class Parents in Beijing

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Abstract

This chapter explores the transnational lives of South Korean migrant families in Beijing from a refreshing perspective of education. In contrast to the mainstream view of taking the migrant education as an indication of the extent of assimilation and integration into the host society, this chapter focuses on educational concerns among the migrant families in a destination that they regard as transient. Conceptualising Korean migrants as an anxious middle class, the author outlines the educational environment in Beijing for children of migrant families, based on which a profusion of desire for education can transnationally arise and burgeon. Focusing on the notions of educational desire and transnationality, the author draws attention to understanding the Bourdieusian discussion on class and education from a theoretical perspective of transnational migration and mobile subjectivity. Based on semi-structured interviews with 31 Korean parents and participatory observation, the author elaborates the parents’ “greed” (yokshim) to seek an international education and multilingual acquisition and their “anxiety” (kŏkchŏng) about the local Chinese and overseas Korean schooling with regard to their children’s education. These desires for education substantially reflect the identification generated among migrants vis-à-vis their migration peers, local residents, and those who have never left the home society. The chapter concludes with addressing the metaphor of “pursuit of a transnational badge” by analysing the subjectivities that migrants produce and intensify in an unsettling circumstance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Foreigners here refer to non-Chinese population, excluding the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Chinese and non-PRC ethnic Chinese (e.g. Taiwanese), and other ethnic Chinese and former PRC nationals with a foreign nationality (e.g. Chinese American) (see Pieke 2012, 44–45).

  2. 2.

    A high exchange rate refers to exchanging more Chinese currency by selling one unit of Korean won. During and after the global financial crisis, the exchange rate of Korean Won to Chinese Yuan had plummeted from 1000 won to 8.33 yuan, to 1000 Korean won to 4.44 yuan within less than two years (from the beginning of 2007 to the end of 2008). See XE Currency Charts (CNY/KRW), http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CNY&to=KRW&view=10Y, last accessed February 4, 2016.

  3. 3.

    The official statistics by Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs show the number of overseas Korean nationals in China sharply decreased from 517,762 in 2007 to 413,442 in 2009, with a stable reduction until the lowest point, 350,529 in 2013, despite a slight increase to 369,349 people in 2015. See “Chaeoedongp’o hyŏnhwang (The status quo of overseas Koreans)” (2015; 2013; 2011; 2009; 2007; 2005), Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, last accessed July 1, 2017, http://www.mofa.go.kr.

  4. 4.

    An expat package provided by a Korean large-scale enterprise often includes double income (salary in Korea and expatriate allowance in China), housing allowance (full price but with a maximum in number), children’s education (cover 50%–70% of tuition fee without an upper limit), and, in some cases, a private car.

  5. 5.

    See the ISB website, Our History, International School of Beijing, last accessed December 15, 2015, http://www.isb.bj.edu.cn/page.cfm?p=512.

  6. 6.

    I adopt the exchange rate for December 31, 2014 in this chapter, US $1 is covered to 6.2068CNY. See more details, http://www.exchange-rates.org/Rate/USD/CNY/12-31-2014.

  7. 7.

    See the school’s website, “Beijingshi diwushiwu zhongxue jianjie” (Overview of Beijing No. 55 High School), last accessed June 28, 2017, http://www.bj55.cn/.

  8. 8.

    They are Yanji, Beijing and Shanghai (founded at the end of the 1990s), Tianjin, Yantai, Dalian, Shenyang, Wuxi, and Qingdao (founded in the 2000s), Suzhou and Guangzhou (in the 2010s), and Hong Kong.

  9. 9.

    For instance, the Korean International School in Beijing (KISB) provides elementary pupils with more study hours of English and Chinese language (seven hours English and five hours Chinese per week), compared with the study hours in the domestic schools. Interview with Teacher Kim, the director of the elementary department in KISB, Beijing, November, 2014.

  10. 10.

    See “KISB Ip’agannae” (KISB admission introduction), Korean international school in Beijing, last modified March, 2017, http://kisb.net/54.

  11. 11.

    According to Michel Foucault, “government” refers not only to political structures or to the management of states, but to “the way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed”, for example, the government of children, or of families. In this concept, the “modes of action” is highlighted, in which specific considered or calculated actions can be deployed to exert effective influences on the actions of other people. In this regard, “to govern” designates to “structure the possible field of action of others” (see Foucault 1982 221).

  12. 12.

    Likewise, more recent studies also demonstrate that educational desire of international students (mainly from China) in Singapore is provoked by the ambitious state-sponsored educational projects to attract talent to the city-state. However, students’ desire may turn out to be in an ambivalent position in relation to the national regime’s anticipations (Yang 2016; Collins et al. 2014).

  13. 13.

    Gyeonggi-do is a Korean province surrounding Seoul. Schools in Gyeonggi-do are normally ranked lower or considered by people as inferior to the ones in Seoul.

  14. 14.

    In this sense, Bourdieu suggested “dominated agents … tend to attribute to themselves what the distribution attributes to them, refusing what they are refused (that’s not for the likes of us), adjusting their expectations to their chances ” (Bourdieu 1984, 471).

  15. 15.

    Giddens argued that sentiments of anxiety (insecurity or unsettlement) arise among individuals in the contemporary society as they encounter the revolutionary and overwhelming forces of globalisation (Giddens 2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, The Netherlands

    Xiao Ma

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  1. Xiao Ma
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Xiamen, Xiamen, China

    Angela Lehmann

  2. University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

    Pauline Leonard

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Ma, X. (2019). Educational Desire and Transnationality of South Korean Middle Class Parents in Beijing. In: Lehmann, A., Leonard, P. (eds) Destination China. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54433-9_4

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