Page 2 of
2 The gentle decline of the 'Third
Korea' By Andrei Lankov
flooded with South Korean business
people, missionaries, students and tourists. These
people were usually attracted by the opportunities
to do business without dealing with a language
barrier, but some of them began to preach the
nationalist gospel as well. Their work was made
much easier by the fact that South Korea came to
be seen not as a land of destitution but one of
prosperity and opportunity. South Korean
nationalists love to
stress
that the lands of Yanbian once were part of the
ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo that lasted 700
years, from 57 BC to AD 668. Koguryo is presented
by them - as well as many other Koreans outside of
the area - as the most successful of the three
ancient Korean kingdoms.
Therefore,
Chinese authorities are on guard against this
nationalist fervor and ensure that a
Korean-language education does not mean an
education in the spirit of Korean nationalism. At
the Korean schools, children study exactly the
same curriculum as their peers in the
Chinese-language schools. Their textbooks are
exact translations of the Chinese textbooks used
at the same levels.
"We are a minority
group of China, China is our country, so there is
no need to study Korean history or literature,"
one ethnic Korean told me. "When they teach
national history at our schools, it means the
history of China, and China only."
As a
result of this policy, the younger generations of
Koreans are increasingly out of touch with their
Korean heritage. Ko Kyong-su, a professor at
Yanbian university, himself an ethnic Korean,
remarked: "Nowadays, the Korean youngsters here do
not learn about Ch'unhyang and Hong Kil-dong
[characters from Korean classical novels] until
they enter college, and only then if they chose to
specialize in Korean studies."
To what
extent does this dualistic policy of support and
restrictions work? This is a somewhat difficult
question, but it seems that the overwhelming
majority of the local Koreans indeed see
themselves as "hyphenated Chinese", not as proud
overseas citizens of either Korean state. Their
loyalties are, in most cases, firmly with Beijing.
Still, it is clear that the ongoing
nationalist propaganda produces some response. A
number of times my Korean conversation partners
inquired whether I had seen the Koguryo remains,
and once a woman in her early 30s, a fellow
traveler on a train from Yanji to Shenyang, said
nostalgically, "Two thousand years ago this used
to be Korean land. We were so big then!"
This is not exactly a feeling that Chinese
authorities would like to nurture, so it comes as
no surprise that in official publications, Koguryo
is mentioned as a "minority regime" that once
existed as a part of multi-ethnic but unified
Chinese nation. This nation, according to Beijing
propagandists and court historians, existed since
time immemorial.
In spite of all those
problems and potential challenges, until recently
Yanbian prefecture could be seen as a poster case
for China's "nationality politics". Indeed, unlike
the situation in Russia, Japan or the United
States - three other major countries with sizable
ethnic-Korean communities - the Korean-Chinese
have remained fluent in their ancestors' language,
though they overwhelmingly belong to the third or
even fourth generation of immigrants. They are
also quite socially successful. If measured by
such indicators as life-expectancy and
infant-mortality rates, Koreans are the
second-most-prosperous ethnic group in China.
Their educational achievements are also well above
average.
However, nowadays things are not
that rosy - at least if judged from Korean
nationalist perspectives. Beginning in the
mid-1990s, the ethnic Korean population of Yanbian
began to shrink, with its share dropping to 36.3%
in 2000 (from 60.2% in 1953), and is still
falling.
Local Korean schools are being
closed for the lack of students, and Korean
parents are increasingly unwilling to send their
children to the ethnic schools. Until a decade
ago, more or less every Korean family chose to
educate their children at a Korean school, but
this is not the case anymore. The number of
children enrolled in Korean schools in 2000 was
merely 45.2% of the 1996 level. In the 1990-2000
period, 4,200 Korean teachers, or some 53% of the
total, left their jobs because of school closures.
This does not mean Koreans are more poorly
educated - on the contrary, the past two decades
have witnessed a great education boom. But their
education is increasingly conducted in Mandarin,
not Korean.
Contrary to what many
China-bashers want to believe, this process is not
a result of some deliberate discrimination or the
cunning policies of Beijing. No doubt some Chinese
policy planners might feel a bit of relief when
they see how a potentially "separatist" area is
losing its explosive potential, but it seems they
have done nothing to speed up such development.
Rather, Koreans are becoming the victims of their
own social success.
In the past, the
aspirations of the average ethnic Korean was to
graduate from a high school, settle down in his or
her local village, and become a good farmer who
could afford to have rice on the table for every
meal. Now, success is increasingly associated with
a university degree. However, the university
education is in Mandarin, as are the entrance
exams. Korean parents know that Chinese-language
schooling gives their children better educational
advantages.
This process is easy to see
even without statistics. It is clear that a large
proportion of younger people speak Korean, but it
is also clear that many youngsters do not feel too
comfortable when communicating in their parents'
tongue, and are happy to switch back to Mandarin
at the first opportunity. It was instructive to
see two Korean families who sat next to me on a
train: the youngsters, in their 20s, spoke Korean
to the parents but preferred Mandarin among
themselves.
Another part of the crisis is
the low fertility rate of the ethnic Koreans. The
Koreans' birth rate has always been lower than
that of the Han Chinese, even though, as an ethnic
minority, they are exempt from the "one-child
policy". In 2000, the average Korean woman in
Yanbian had 1.01 births in her lifetime. This
again reflects the higher education levels of the
ethnic Koreans: better-educated groups tend to
have less children.
Migration is also
taking its toll. A large number of ethnic Koreans
have moved away from their village communities.
Some of them even went to South Korea - either for
good, or just to make some money doing unskilled
jobs. But for most of them the destinations of
choice are the large Chinese cities, such as
Shenyang or Beijing. While in the city, Korean
settlers tend to maintain close relations with
other Koreans, but they still live in a
Chinese-language environment, and speak little
Korean. The chances of marriage with a Han Chinese
are high, and children from such marriages are
usually monolingual - Mandarin.
So it
seems that the days of the "Third Korea" are
numbered. Even the infusion of South Korean money
is not enough to reverse the unavoidable process
of assimilation. Koreans are not subjected to
forced Sinification; they are making a rational
choice, even if it is one that Korean nationalists
do not approve of. If things continue as such, in
a few decades only hanbok-clad girls and
the obligatory signs in Korean shops and
restaurants will remind one of the Korean
community that once thrived in Yanbian. But I hope
it will always be a good place to feast on dog
meat.
Dr Andrei Lankov is an
associate professor in Kookmin University, Seoul,
and adjunct research fellow at the Research School
of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National
University. He graduated from Leningrad State
University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and
China, with emphasis on Korea. He has published
books and articles on Korea and North Asia.
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