Korean engineer decides to marry Vietnamese girl despite mother's objection

When her son brought a Vietnamese girl home to meet his parents, engineer Bin's mother strongly objected but she lost.

Mr. Hong Soo Bin (45 years old, Korean construction engineer) studied architecture in Japan and worked there for many years. In 2007, after many events, he came to Ho Chi Minh City to start a career. At that time, Ms. Trang (34 years old, from Nam Dinh) was a third-year student of the Russian-English Literature Department, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City. They met on the stairs of the school library.

She was impressed by the tall, bald Korean man who studied on the stairs very early every day. One time, when the exam was near, she went to the library to study until 8-9 pm and came back. She saw him sitting there, holding a book, reading attentively, so she ventured to ask him. “When I asked him if he knew Vietnamese, his face turned red and he answered in a mixture of Korean, Vietnamese and English. I could only nod my head and didn’t understand anything, even though I was fluent in all three languages,” she said.

As for him, he liked the short, chubby but clever and intelligent Vietnamese girl from the first time they met, but he didn't dare to show it, so he pretended to ask for the email of the girl who played with her group. "Korean guys who come here to study only like to flirt with pretty girls, I'm short and chubby, so surely no one will pay attention to me", she thought.

Ms. Trang and her Korean partner.

In her fourth year, she went on an internship in Vung Tau for a week, and he followed her. Looking at the foreign man with a lost face, she wanted to care for him but was afraid that his friend would be jealous. “He went down there because of his girlfriend, and it would be rude of me to be so bold,” she said.

That night, he invited her out to dinner and she agreed. “I was good at Korean, I thought he invited me to be a bridge and not to mean anything, so I happily accepted,” she said. When she arrived, she was surprised, it was their first date, held in a restaurant by the beach.

There, he told her many stories about himself. He came to Vietnam to start over after the shock of seeing his lover die in a traffic accident and having an accident at work. “I turned to alcohol, got into fights and attempted suicide three times. Once, I was beaten until I passed out. When I woke up, I saw my mother sitting in the corner of the house crying, her eyes swollen. I felt guilty and promised to start over,” he said.

At that time, the older brother intended to develop a business in Vietnam, so he told Bin to go first to research the market and learn Vietnamese... After the conversation, she was convinced by that guy. Returning from Vung Tau, they went to drink coffee together, went to the movies, went out to eat, went to the library to study and spent hours talking on the phone without getting bored.

But suddenly, he ignored her. When they met at school, he turned away when he saw her. He didn't even look at her when she greeted him, he didn't reply to her texts, he didn't answer her calls. "I was shocked. Maybe because I agreed to go to the movies and hold hands, people thought I was easy," she thought.

After trying to hold on for a month, she let go and stopped caring. “I met a scammer, so there’s no need to linger. If people ignore me, I can do the same.” Thinking is doing. When she got to school, she saw him going one way, she turned another way. When they met at the library, the cafeteria, or anywhere else, he called her and she ignored him.

After more than three months, it seemed like their relationship had ended. He tried his best to hold on, apologized and hoped she would give him a chance. "I love her very much but I definitely cannot be easy," she said. Until she heard him explain that he had ignored his girlfriend to spend time thinking about whether to return home or stay, because his brother had decided not to invest in Vietnam anymore. Not wanting her to be sad, he deliberately tried to be cold, but the more he did so, the more he loved her and realized that he had to stay and start a business to be with his girlfriend. She listened and could not hold back her tears.

Ms. Trang with her husband and 2 children.

After dating for more than a year, they introduced each other to their families. At that time, there was bad news in the village about Vietnamese women marrying Korean men, which made her parents very concerned. When they saw that their future son-in-law was 11 years older than their daughter, they thought that he would be married anyway, so they strongly objected. She tried her best to protect her lover, even showing him his single certificate to prove it, but it was still not accepted, so she left home.

In Korea, his mother also refused to let her son marry a Vietnamese woman. According to her, these girls came here to marry not only for economic reasons but also for a purpose. “If you have a proper education and a stable job, you must marry a decent person,” she said. He disobeyed his mother and took his girlfriend back to Vietnam.

In the end, he won over his wife's parents with his honesty and humor. As for her, she was respected by the groom's family for her level and ability to communicate in English. In 2009, he brought his family to Vietnam to hold a wedding, then settled in Ho Chi Minh City.

A year later, they welcomed their first son. The following year, a daughter. Now, the children are 6-7 years old and attend an international school. They have their own construction company. Bin travels between construction sites every day to supervise, while she helps her husband with the business and is studying for a law degree to develop the family economy.

They still love each other after 8 years, although life is sometimes stormy due to language and cultural barriers.

Over the past 8 years, there were times when their marriage fell into the abyss because of language and cultural differences, and they just wanted to let go and go their separate ways, but then, both of them realized that their love for each other was too great. She still loved the tall, bald-headed, patriarchal Korean guy who was always gallant with his wife and loved his children very much.

As for him, he always loved her, the girl who was "intelligent, witty, and individualistic but had extraordinary endurance and sacrificed for her husband and children" in his eyes. "Once she asked for a divorce, I said, go ahead, I will give you 1,000 USD a month to raise the children, but she refused. So I had to give in," he said happily.

According to VNE