Accumulating masculinity : polygyny and the transnational families of Taiwanese expatriates in Vietnam

Abstract

Drawing on the cases of Taiwanese expatriates in Vietnam, this research aims to examine and understand the forming and keeping of the cross-border triangular relationship, and the special logics and sentiments of the three parties involving in the relations. The commercial logics, forged against the background of massive economic disparity between Taiwanese investors and lower class Vietnamese women, structure their relationship. These logics, however, fail to address the complicities of the relationships. Under the context of Confucianism and Capitalism, men's economic capital, social capital, and together with sexual capital all link to their hypermasculinity. The men in my research construct home away from home, which accomplishes their masculinity and fills the emptiness of their transplanted lives. Within the relationships initially understood as explicitly commercial, affects do indeed play an important role. On the part of Vietnamese women, being mistresses of foreign men is sacrificing for their families, as well as egoistic for themselves. They could arguably be understood as traditional women who are willing to enter polygyny, yet modern ones who are readily to have an open relationship and gain capitals from it. While wives in Taiwan are not simply victims, they are able to negotiate modern choices and course of action that are often under covered by the Confucian tradition. Here, polygyny is not restored but strategized to make the marriage work under modern economic deployment, and become a post-traditional marriage arrangement. Globalization not only changes the pattern of accumulation, but also changes the structure of transnational families.