This study examined the Korean working holiday experience of Taiwanese female youths. As globalization accelerates and the form of mobility is diversified, Working Holiday, an international youth migration visa agreement has been created. Since 2010 T...
This study examined the Korean working holiday experience of Taiwanese female youths. As globalization accelerates and the form of mobility is diversified, Working Holiday, an international youth migration visa agreement has been created. Since 2010 Taiwan – Korea Working Holiday Visa Program had started, the Taiwanese women participants have been rapidly growing. Furthermore, it shows highly gender imbalanced state since women participants take over 90% of all Taiwanese participants. This phenomenon, however, can not be explained with prior studies about women's migration such as labor migration or marriage migration for economic purpose, nor can it be seen as youth movement or simply consumption of the Korean wave. This study focused on how the new mobility system, Working Holiday, intertwined with Taiwan's youth problems and Korean wave as a contemporary cultural phenomenon in Asia with the development of media, creating a special scene of female youth's mobility.
Qualitative method was conducted by interviewing in-depth Taiwanese female youths who participate Korea Working Holiday and other ordinary Taiwanese female youths to observe the context of Taiwan. The main findings are as follows.
First, Working Holiday, as a youth mobility program gives young people a chance to experience abroad at a low cost. It produces the effect of releasing a surplus population abroad. Meanwhile, Taiwan is suffering from an economic downturn in the wake of China's rise and neo-liberalism, becoming internationally isolated. At this time, Working Holiday is becoming a channel for young Taiwanese to escape the reality who suffer from high unemployment. Taiwanese youth, who grew up seeing the image of Korea due to the spread of the Korean Wave, considers Korea a familiar and close country. This has been one of the major factors that Taiwanese female youths choose Korea working holiday.
Second, this study largely divided the Korea Working holiday life of Taiwanese female youths into 'working' and 'holiday'. In Korea, they are involved in the Korean tourism service industry which mainly deal with Chinese speaking tourists. In particular, their status of Chinese-speaking locals can be a big advantage in that Chinese customers accounts for a large portion in Korean tourism industry. However as temporary migrants, foreigners, and young women, they are also vulnerable flexible labor market in Korea. Taiwanese female youths struggle with and resist this, creating new niches that cross production and consumption.
Third, Taiwanese female youths who participated in Korea Working Holiday tends to identify themselves as a traveler than a worker. They are used to "experience" Korea in the places in Korean dramas they have seen and display themselves on social media. Their life in Korea is seen as fancy and luxurious. This tends to reduce their Korea working holiday experiences to nothing but consumption of "fancy overseas cultural experience". This became worse when these kind of images are overlapped with the gendered image of Korea such as Korean “Oppa”, cosmetics and fashion.
Taiwanese female youths choose Korea Working Holiday as their “low cost”mobility strategy. However, due to the one-year temporary working holiday visa, they return to Taiwan and face unresolved realities. The working holiday labor experience in Korea, which is centered on de-skilled labor, is not recognized as a career in Taiwan. The experience of working in the tourism industry which mainly deal with Chinese customers also remains an “global experience that was not enough” After all, insufficient experience leaves the possibility of another way of escape and drifting.
This study is meaningful in that it reveals the new experiences of young women's mobility. At the same time, however, this study tried to reveal that these experiences were not merely an example of a new mobility, but rather a obvious sign of a dynamic on “now, here.”This is because the Korea working holiday mobility and experience of Taiwanese female youth can be explained amid of the impact of neo-liberalism, the newly reshaped dynamics of East Asia due to the rise of China, Korean wave as the cultural phenomenon that has spread to Asia and a new youth mobility scheme in globalization. Further studies will be necessary to continue research on what female subjects will be born within such a flexible and new kind of mobility.