'Ajumma' find liberation, forgotten dreams on Net
By Kim Mi-hui, Staff reporter
Korea Herald
February 2, 2001Want to get a rise out of a Korean girl under age 30? Just call her "ajumma." Most likely you'll get a stinging glare, a snappy correction, or at very least, a dark scowl.
Half of this, of course, is the age thing: "ajumma" generally refers to women in middle age with a hubby and a string of kids. The other half, however, deals with the negative connotation ajumma has in Korean society.
Think ajumma and you see the crowd who fuss, gossip, penny-pinch and steal seats on subways. Historically, they're most famous for child rearing and housekeeping. Socially, they're responsible for ills like spoiling kids with foreign products in the 1950s, sparking the private lesson boom in the 1970s and churning out selfish, dependent brats in the 1990s.
Well, they're sick of it - being cast in a limited role and then getting chastised for it.
"Today's ajumma are dying to get out of their traditional role," says Cho Do-ja, representative of the Women's News, a news tabloid that began in 1988. "They are sick of all the work that brings them no credit. They want independence, some kind of work of their own that can actually make them feel good about themselves."
No better time to do it then now. If better education and feminism are the reasons for this 21st century attitude in ajumma, it's technology that's actually giving them chances to realize their dreams. "Internet" is becoming synonymous with "independence."
One instance: "Kosumdochi" is a publishing house that was founded by eight women who met on the UNITEL housewife club on the Internet. The club, opened to give Korean housewives their own communication channel, had over 3,000 members, who chatted about everyday matters, shared house-managing tips and pined over unrealized dreams.
It turned out that eight women bemoaned the same lost dream - working for a publishing firm.
"So we decided to get together and just start our own company," said Kim Yoo-kyong, 37, president of Kosumdochi Publishing. "If it wasn't for the Internet, we would have probably never met."
The Internet is also nurturing housewives into prize lecturers. As more middle-aged women are learning to log on and search the engine, a gigantic market for online education is being created. This is because this group of women tend to go for learning something more than entertainment.
Not surprisingly, the most suitable lecturers are thought to be ajumma themselves.
"They can relate to other ajumma better because they know their lifestyle inside out. And there's a certain ajumma sense of humor that other groups of lecturers (men, single women) just don't have," said Park Mi-ae, 32, one of the members of Azoomma.com (www.azoomma.com), an e-college (electronic college) that teaches everything from better housekeeping to how-to-build-your-own-homepage to basic English for ajumma.
Along the same lines, master of ceremony at Internet broadcasting systems is another high-profile dream job for X-generation housewives. Called Web jockeys, these women also target other women their age in addressing their educative programs.
The first generation of ajumma Web jockeys are three young housewives who were hired by EN Home (www.ENHome.co.kr), Internet channel that will specialize in broadcasting helpful programs about housekeeping and other woman's issues. Accordingly, these women's success will determine whether the field will grow or not. The site will be launched on Feb. 4.
Not all women are using the Internet to make professional debuts though. Some do no more than gossip, swap laundry detergent-saving tips and fill out applications to the prize giveaways on various Web sites. But even these women are benefiting.
The best example is a group appropriately named "Gossip Club" who met on a housewives club on the Internet. They began by posting complaints about their in-laws, husbands and children. Then they were scouted to do the same thing on-air, face-to-face on a cable station.
The semi-celebrities won over huge fans who saw their own daily conflicts tossed openly on the table by these talkative women.
Though this housewives-on-Internet trend is fairly new, it's not going by unnoticed. A women's newspaper, the Women's News, for instance, spotted the fad and decided to extend its publication to a Webzine (www.zooma.co.kr) to draw the Netizen ajumma to its online publication.
The Webzine, launched last fall, offers the latest ajumma-related news, let's compliment housewives page, advice on reforming husbands, general discussions, surveys and more.
"We've definitely noticed a big difference in attitude between the women who visit our Webzine and those traditional offline publication readers. The former are much more free-thinking and confident about their wants," said Hwang Eun-jin of the paper.
To keep these women in such postmodern mood and to help others catch up, the Women's Newspaper publishers also hold annual Ajumma Festival. Its second event was staged at 63 Building in Yoido last November and ended up drawing over 800 housewives, many of whom gave special performances that showed that they are no longer the typical ajumma that most Koreans conjure up when they hear the word.
Well, these ajumma have yet another reason to celebrate. There are Internet-related firms that are specifically targeting housewives as their top employee candidates.
One of them is a computer after-service company called Com Doctor (www.ccmart.com), who recently announced that it's going to hire around 10,000 middle-aged women to work for its door-to-door service as computer technicians.
"There is a great demand for computer after-sales service agents because the great many computers that were bought last year are beginning to need program upgrading and some other after services," said Lee Byong-seung, president of Com Doctor. "But a lot of housewives don't feel comfortable letting strange men into their homes to work on their computers. But if it's an ajumma knocking on the door, they feel more relaxed."
The women who are hired for this will be given thorough training in computer technology. Given all these sweeping changes in Korea's older women then, it may not be long before calling a 21st century ajumma "ajumma" will bring an angry frown to her face, too.