| Sometime last year I met Mary (pseudonym), a woman from southern Asia, and we had a chat. Although I already knew that she came with her husband, a post-doctoral fellow at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), and that she stays at home, I was surprised to know that she was unhappy to be at home all the time. However, she had no choice. It was even more surprising for me to know she has her Bachelor's Degree in Business and had worked for an international company, but she could not study here since she had done poorly in the English as a second language test.;I used to believe that international women like her became housewives because they had no higher education in their home country. I was wrong! I feel so sorry for her and this aroused my curiosity about the status of spouses of other international students. From my work as an instructor for a reading course for the spouses and my personal contacts with international students, I had chance to find out. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
