Strangers in a strange Korean
land By Steven Borowiec
SEOUL - Garibong district was once one of
Seoul's main industrial areas and a driving force
behind the country's stunning 20th-century
economic growth.
Nowadays, most of the
South Koreans who used to work in the area's shops
and factories have moved on and migrants from
elsewhere in Asia have moved in. Many of them are
ethnic Koreans from China who come to South Korea
seeking economic opportunity. There is believed to
be a large population of illegal workers in the
area and this is expected to balloon this year.
Visas for more than 70,000 ethnic Koreans
from China (known locally as Joseonjok)
will expire in 2012 and aren't eligible for
renewal. Many of them come from the Korean
Autonomous Prefecture in China to seek work in
South Korea. Most of them
are descendants of
Koreans who fled Korea between 1860 and 1945 due
to famine and Japanese occupation.
Kim
Sook-ja, 55, is an exceptional success story for a
Joseonjok. She came to Seoul from China 15
years ago and runs a popular restaurant in
Garibong that sells traditional Manchurian
cuisine. About the Joseonjok facing deportation,
she said, "South Korean won doesn't go as far in
China as it used to, so people need to stay longer
to earn enough money. Many will stay illegally,
those who go back will have to wait for a year
then try to return."
Kim Sook-ja, in
addition to being a restaurant owner, is head of
the Korean Compatriots United Congress, a civic
group representing ethnic Koreans in China.
Ethnic Koreans from China are entitled to
shorter visas and stricter rules of employment
than ethnic Koreans from wealthier countries like
the US, Canada or Japan. On the patio outside her
busy restaurant, Kim said, "The South Korean
government treats ethnic Koreans from the US and
Japan as part of the same race, but it treats us
like aliens. But we're a minority in China too;
we're treated as foreigners in both countries."
The Joseonjok now face a difficult
choice, as jobs are hard to come by in their home
region of China and there is already a long
waiting list of Joseonjok seeking to come
here. Some are already disqualified from the
program due to age restrictions. Staying illegally
in South Korea presents the risk of deportation
and inability to access social services such as
healthcare.
Many cite discrimination in
China as one reason for leaving, but they can also
face an unfriendly welcome on arrival in their
supposed ethnic homeland. A couple of high-profile
murders allegedly committed by Korean-Chinese have
made things harder on them as a whole.
One
murder was committed in Suwon, an industrial
suburb of Seoul. A middle-aged ethnic Korean man
of Chinese nationality assaulted and abducted a
28-year-old woman on the street. He then took her
to his home where he raped, murdered and
dismembered her.
He claimed that he felt
discriminated against in South Korea and that part
of his motivation for the crime was a perceived
slight by the eventual victim. (CCTV footage has
shown that to be untrue.)
In another case,
a Joseonjok man allegedly stabbed to death
a worker at a job placement agency out of
frustration over unpaid wages.
It's not
only Korean-Chinese whose work-related welcome is
running out in South Korea. Around 67,000 migrant
workers of other nationalities are facing the same
choice between overstaying their visas or leaving
the country, as their six-year visas are running
out.
Many foreign workers, mostly from
South and Southeast Asia, come here on five-year
visas to do jobs South Koreans don't care for at
wages they wouldn't work for. Besides marrying a
South Korean, there is no way for them to acquire
permanent residency. The last time South Korea
cracked down on foreign workers, in the wake of
the 2008 financial crisis, it led to a shortage of
labor in the construction and manufacturing
industries. A variety of Korean sectors struggle
at the best of times to compete with their
lower-cost Chinese counterparts; limiting their
access to cheap labor makes it almost impossible
for them to survive.
According to Udaya
Rai, a Nepalese national and leader of the South
Korea's Migrants' Trade Union, migrant workers are
prevented from extending their visas because South
Korean companies prefer newly arrived workers.
"It's easier to order workers around if they are
new. Companies want to always move workers in and
out so they can't organize," Rai said in an
interview.
"They don't want workers to be
in one place a long time and get to know how
things work, which companies are good, which are
bad."
Ironically, this comes at a time of
unprecedented success for outsiders in South
Korea. In the April 11 parliamentary elections,
Jasmine Lee, a naturalized Korean of Philippine
origin and Cho Myung-chul, a North Korean
defector, were elected as members of parliament.
Lee's election victory led to spirited, and at
times repugnant, debate over multiculturalism in
Korea.
Jasmine Lee's educational
credentials were called into question in online
forums. She had pledged in her campaign to assist
Korea's growing numbers of multicultural families,
leading some to argue that she had been installed
by outsiders to provide a way for poor Southeast
Asians to claim social assistance in South Korea.
South Korea's struggles to integrate
outsiders are often attributed to anxiety about
their ethnic purity, but as the case of the
Joseonjok shows, even members of the Korean
race can be unwelcome here.
Poverty and
concerns over state welfare benefits are also at
times offered as an explanation. But Jasmine Lee
has reached an exceptional level of prominence and
is still subject to boorish disparagement.
The economic reality is that South Korea
requires immigration to offset its impending
demographic crisis. It is one of the most rapidly
aging societies on earth. A Statistics Korea
report released on April 26 shows that by 2035,
60% of South Korean breadwinners will be over the
age of 60, up from 25% in 2010.
Due to
factors such as the high cost of raising and
educating children, the South Korean population is
not growing. An obvious solution is to encourage
immigration, but South Korea's squeamishness about
sharing their country with outsiders still
prevents this.
Steven Borowiec
is a South Korea-based writer.
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