Gireogi appa is a Korean

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 man who works in Korea

Economy of South Korea

South Korea has a market economy which ranks 15th in the world by nominal GDP and 12th by purchasing power parity , identifying it as one of the G-20 major economies. It is a high-income developed country, with a developed market, and is a member of OECD...

 while his wife and children stay in an English-speaking country for the sake of the children's education

Education in South Korea

Education in South Korea is viewed as being crucial for success and competition is consequently very heated and fierce. A centralized administration oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to the third and final year of high school. Mathematics, science, Korean, social...

. The term is inspired by the fact that geese are a species that migrate

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

, just as the father must travel a great distance to see his family.
If the man has the finances to pay for frequent visits to see his family, he is called an "eagle dad" (독수리 아빠) but if finances constrict his ability to travel abroad, he is known as a "penguin dad" (펭귄 아빠) because he cannot fly

Flightless bird

Flightless birds are birds which lack the ability to fly, relying instead on their ability to run or swim. They are thought to have evolved from flying ancestors. There are about forty species in existence today, the best known being the ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi, and penguin...

 and may go without seeing his family for years at a time.

Estimates of the number of goose fathers range as high as 200,000 men in Korea. More than 40,000 South Korean schoolchildren are believed to be living in USA, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 expressly to increase English-speaking ability. As of 2009, over 100,000 Korean students were studying abroad. In at least some of the cases, a South Korean mother will choose to live abroad with her children with the additional reason of avoiding her mother-in-law, with whom a historically stressful relationship may exist due to Korean Confucianism

Korean Confucianism

Korean Confucianism is the form of Confucianism developed in Korea. One of the most substantial influences in Korean intellectual history was the introduction of Confucian thought as part of the cultural influence from China...

.

See also

• Flying Geese Paradigm
  Flying Geese Paradigm
  The Flying Geese Paradigm is a view of Japanese scholars upon the technological development in Southeast Asia viewing Japan as a leading power. It was developed in the 1930s, but gained wider popularity in the 1960s after its author Kaname Akamatsu published his ideas in the Journal of Developing...
  
  
• Contemporary culture of South Korea
  Contemporary culture of South Korea
  The contemporary culture of South Korea developed from the traditional culture of Korea, and on its own path away from North Korean culture since the division of Korea in 1948. The industrialization and urbanization of South Korea, especially Seoul, have brought many changes to the way Korean...
  
  
• Education in South Korea
  Education in South Korea
  Education in South Korea is viewed as being crucial for success and competition is consequently very heated and fierce. A centralized administration oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to the third and final year of high school. Mathematics, science, Korean, social...
  
  
• Globalization
  Globalization
  Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
  
  
• Hagwon
  Hagwon
  Hagwon is the Korean-language word for a for-profit private institute, academy or cram-school prevalent in South Korea. The term is also sometimes used to describe similar institutions operated by Korean Americans in the United States...
  
  

External links

• 펭귄 아빠, 독수리 아빠? Chosun Ilbo 2007.05.30
• Korea Times Phenomenon of Wild Goose Fathers in South Korea 02-22-2009 by Agnes Goh-Grapes