호치민 한인 공장매니저의 초국적인 삶 : 일터와 거주생활공간을 중심으로

Abstract

1978년에 무작정 상경하여 배낭공장에서 일을 시작했다. 생산관리부장으로 승진하며 1996년 결혼을 했는데 1999년 후반부터 월급이 나오지 않았다. 가방업체가 줄어 일자리 찾기가 힘들었는데 방글라데시로 가볼 생각 있느냐라는 제안을 받고 10일 만에 짐을 쌌다. 공장이 영세하고 생활이 힘들었지만 참고 지냈는데 3년 만에 사장이 뇌졸중으로 세상을 떴다. … 서울로 돌아와 15일 만에 면접을 보고 2003년 베트남 가방공장으로 왔다. … 떠돈 지 15년이지만 여름과 구정에 한국으로 휴가가면 공항부터 가슴이 뛴다. 하지만 막상 지내다보면 낯설고 불편하다. 고등학생 아들이 공부 잘하고 아빠 고마워라고 카톡할 때가 가장 행복하다. 성남의 단독주택이 전 재산이고, 장남 역할 못한다는 불평도 듣고, 일도 힘들지만 요즘 세상에 주말에 기숙사에서 나와 한국식당에서 반주도 한잔 하고 가족을 먹여 살릴 수 있는 게 어딘가? (가방공장 T 부장) 세계생산체계(global production system)가 값싼 노동력을 활용하여 이윤을 극대화하기 위하여 자본과 노동의 이동을 유연하게 만들면서 생산기지 이전이나 이주노동자의 수입이 일상화되고 있다. 이에 따라 80년대 중반 이후 정주(settlement)를 목적으로 하지 않고 귀국을 염두에 둔 일시적 체재자(sojourner)가 늘고 있으며(Kim and Lee 1983: 34) 이들이 조국과 체재국을 오가며 만들어내는 초국적(transnational) 삶에 대한 관심도 증가하고 있다(윤인진 2008). 특히 초국적 방향전환(transnational turn)'(Vertovec 2007: 966)이라고 명명될 만큼, 가속화되는 전지구화(globalization)'가 초래한 이주민의 삶의 변화를 초국가주의의 틀 안에서 해석하려는 인류학계의 움직임이 활발하게 전개되고 있다.

This ethnographic study attempts to understand the transnational life of the factory managers working in Korean owned multinational factories in pan-HCMC (Ho Chi Minh city) area. For the purpose, this study examines three transnational aspects of the Korean factory managers' lives as follows. First, this study explains why and how the Korean factory managers have immigrated into the city and what is their social economic status in the Korean community there. Second, the Korean managers' transnational lives in the workplace(s) are explored in terms of their working conditions, class consciousness, and national or ethnic identity. Lastly, this study interprets the transnational characteristics of their lives in dwelling-living places in association with their social relations as well as the way how they care their own families. The structural reasons why the Korean managers needed and could live and work in the factories in pan-HCMC is evident. As the global production system has been restructured, Korean labor intensive factories had to move into new areas in search of cheap labors. In addition, the global labor market of skilled managers were regionalized and differentiated in line with ethnic or national identity; The Korean factories in East Asia still preferred Korean skilled managers to control the native workers. Under the circumstances, the Korean skilled managers should and could move into the new working places such as the factories in pan-HCMC area. The main transnational characteristics that the Korean managers reveal in the transnational workplace(s) are their contradictory class consciousness derived from their own dual and flexible positions. On one hand, they are only skilled workers whose political economic interests are not consistent with or against those of capitals. On the other hand, they need to control the native(Vietnamese) female workers and serve for the interests of capitals as foreign male managers who have same nationality with capitals. In the context, the Korean managers engage in politics of national or ethnic identity rather than politics of interests and thereby mystify their own class consciousness.

The transnational characteristics of the Korean factory managers' lives found in their dwelling-living places are also deeply associated with their political economic conditions. They manage to reproduce their households economically and socially as a working class. In so doing, they experience complex and contradictory emotions as a male patriarch who need to take care of their own transnational families under the tough political economic conditions. In conclusion, this study predicts that the transnational lives of the Korean factory managers working in pan-HCMC area can be aggravated as the future of their factories are uncertain under the incessantly transforming global production regime and their factories' constant attempts to localize their managements as a response to it.