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consoleman
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 Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:26 pm Post subject: For Chinese Koreans, life is hard but still better in SK |
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| Quote: | For Chinese Koreans, life is hard but still better in South Korea
The migrants are limited to jobs in restaurants, factories, construction fields or as domestic workers, but they are glad to be there. 'There is nothing' in China, one says.
Yin Shuilian is among the ethnic Koreans who left northeastern China to begin a new life in South Korea. She works six days a week, 12 hours a day, in a restaurant in Seoul so she can send money home to relatives. (Lina Yoon / For The Times)
By Lina Yoon
February 1, 2010
Reporting from Seoul - Yin Shuilian is a fighter.
For more than 11 years, the 45-year-old ethnic Korean tried to leave her hard life in China, where she toiled in fields and in restaurants, and make her way to South Korea.
The move wasn't easy: She was repeatedly denied visas and cheated by unscrupulous brokers.
At last, Yin arrived here in 1998 lugging not only her belongings but also $80,000 in debts to her friends and family. When her husband followed eight months later, the couple faced the challenge of their lives: They worked for six years to repay what they owed and begin a new life in their chosen homeland.
"For us, going to Korea was like going to heaven, a place where money grew on trees," Yin says. "There is nothing [in China]. Here, if you want to work, you can."
But, like many Korean Chinese, Yin has learned that the life in her newfound utopia comes with sweat, hard labor and low wages that barely allow them to survive in the pricey nation.
Many are limited to jobs in restaurants, factories, construction fields or as domestic workers. They inhabit the very bottom rung of the workforce, but they are more than glad to be here -- for now.
Even a harsh life in South Korea is far better than the one they left behind in China's northeastern provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang or Liaoning. And with the remittances they send home, the workers help improve the lot of their families.
Korean Chinese "make an economic contribution in sectors most Koreans don't want to work in but need to be covered in society," says Yoon In-jin, sociology professor at Korea University. "Their incorporation as foreign labor is smoother because they speak the language and are considered from the same race."
There were 377,560 Korean Chinese legally registered in South Korea by the end of 2009, according to the Korea Immigration Service, but untold others work here illegally.
Yin works six days a week, 12 hours a day, in the kitchen of a traditional fish soup restaurant in Seoul's bustling Gangnam business district, where she chops vegetables, slices frozen fish, cooks soup and washes dishes.
She spends more than two hours commuting to work. She leaves home at 9 a.m. and often isn't back until just before midnight, when she prepares the next day's breakfast, talks with her daughter in China using Skype and then collapses into bed.
"I work a lot, but I make more money than I ever dreamed of when I was in China," says Yin, who barely survived working in restaurants and growing rice in Wuchang, her hometown in Heilongjiang province. "Here, I have a comfortable life."
That life came at a huge risk. Yin lived and worked illegally in small restaurants for six years until she was able to register legally in 2005.
"I was always scared of getting caught," she says. "I was running away and hiding whenever I saw the police, even if they came into my restaurant to eat."
Korean Chinese began migrating to South Korea in the early 1990s when China's economically hard-hit northeastern provinces were excluded from Beijing's economic reforms. The Korean Chinese Human Rights Center of the Korean Chinese Church estimates that 200,000 Korean Chinese were living in South Korea illegally when the center was established in 1999.
In the last seven years, the number of Korean Chinese legally registered has nearly tripled, from 132,305 in 2003 to 377,560 last year, according to the Korea Immigration Service.
The increase follows a new law passed in 2004 allowing for immigrant workers, and a five-year working visa that was created for Korean Chinese in 2007.
As their numbers grow, the Korean Chinese workers have developed a crucial support network. They have relatives to assist them. There are churches with organized groups to help them adapt to life in South Korea or obtain information on jobs and services.
But many activists here want to see South Korea extend the five-year working visas so migrants aren't eventually forced to abandon lives they have created.
"The situation has improved, but the solutions are only temporary," says Lee Ho-hyoung, director of the Korean Chinese Human Rights group. "The problem is they can't and won't go back. We need to continue fighting for a long-term structural solution."
For now, Yin's family living in Seoul -- including her three sisters and only brother -- send part of their wages to their parents and extended family in China. Yin is also paying for her 21-year-old daughter's university studies in China.
"Before, we just didn't know if we were going to eat the next day," says Yin, who took out a 20-year mortgage in 2008 to buy an apartment in her hometown for her relatives who remain and, perhaps, as a place for her retirement.
"Now all my family has a future," she says.
Yoon is a special correspondent. |
So much for Chinese hospitality for ethnic Koreans.
Most ethnic Koreans in China also wants to live in South Korea.
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Priceless12
Isageum
Joined: 07 Jul 2008
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Location: A-Town, GA lmfao
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| Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:57 am Post subject: |
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| Good for them. It's nice to know Korea can be a help to a few hardworking Chinese suppressed by their communist gov't. |
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Nomad88
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| Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Are there any statistics on Koreans from the former Soviet Republics trying to settle in S. Korea? Do they succeed? I always thought that if you could prove Korean heritage on your dad's side, citizenship was automatic. |
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Captain Corea
9th Dan
Joined: 29 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Not automatic as far as I now, but certain VISAs are available. |
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consoleman
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Location: In the Pacific ocean
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| Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Nomad88 wrote: | | Are there any statistics on Koreans from the former Soviet Republics trying to settle in S. Korea? Do they succeed? I always thought that if you could prove Korean heritage on your dad's side, citizenship was automatic. |
Most 1st generation are dead now, and rest of 2nd to 4th generations are used to live in Central Asian and Russia, I've heard all of them are well settled in their new homes, so they have no reason to come back. Actually Korean govt invited them but they refused. There was documentary shown on TV decade ago about Korean families living in Kazakhstan and they came back to tour South Korea. Because they were originally North Korean, some family head said he rather come back after the unification.
It's sad story, I think Korea need to be united first before inviting them to come back home.
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Nomad88
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| Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 10:16 am Post subject: |
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| Unification would be nice, but the problem is the last unification attempt was so costly in lives and economic terms. |
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consoleman
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| Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 12:33 am Post subject: |
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^ That's expected, and longer they wait larger the burden of unification cost. They should done that 2 decades of ago when Soviet crumbled, then united Korea would became richest & powerful country in asia, of course China would have develop as today.
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Last edited by consoleman on Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Nomad88
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| Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:25 am Post subject: |
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I don't even think it would have worked out after the dissolution of the USSR. Kim Il Sung was in power then, and he would never have agreed to handing over the North to the South. I keep hearing about the Unification Ministry in the South, but are they working on a realistic plan at all, or is it a place to appoint and pay someone's relatives?
Everyone assumes the South would assume the leadership of a unified peninsula, but the elites up North would have to sacrifice their privileges and power; and then where would you put these isolated, communist educated bureaucrats? How would you integrate the military? The South has progressed so much since the Korean War; North Koreans would always be looked down upon. Most would end up as domestic or menial laborers for rich South Koreans. They would be second class citizens in their own country for a long time. IF the planets aligned or some cosmic miracle allowed the impossible to happen; I think a common symbolic figure for both sides to believe in would help. I don't know if a constitutional or symbolic monarch figure, with NO political authority, would help. The Japanese imperial and British royal families are controversial, but their citizens can at least rally around them in hard times. Even Jamaican or Indian Brits feel an affinity for the royals. |
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Priceless12
Isageum
Joined: 07 Jul 2008
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Location: A-Town, GA lmfao
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| Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:55 am Post subject: |
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| ^I think that's why South Koreans tend stay away from the unification topic. |
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WideAwake
Amhaeng'eosa
Joined: 07 Jul 2008
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| Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, before the Koreas unify, the North needs to become a democratic country. With South Korea's help it can develop greater wealth for its people. When the North becomes respectably developed compared to the South, the two countries can provide visas to citizens for mutual exchange. Economic development in the North will prevent the mass migration of people to the South. Mutual exchange will help promote a greater sense of understanding and unity between the two peoples. When there is a critical level of convergence (economic, social, political, etc.) between the two countries, then the country can unify. In the beginning, each country should be a state like California is in the U.S. The governors of each state would be responsible for their state, but would work together to create national policies, etc. When the sense of unity between the two Koreas is solidified, they should hold an election and elect the president of the Unified Republic of Korea. |
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dangun harabuji
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Joined: 24 Aug 2008
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Location: Goguryeo
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:02 pm Post subject: |
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| WideAwake wrote: | | Well, before the Koreas unify, the North needs to become a democratic country. With South Korea's help it can develop greater wealth for its people. When the North becomes respectably developed compared to the South, the two countries can provide visas to citizens for mutual exchange. Economic development in the North will prevent the mass migration of people to the South. Mutual exchange will help promote a greater sense of understanding and unity between the two peoples. When there is a critical level of convergence (economic, social, political, etc.) between the two countries, then the country can unify. In the beginning, each country should be a state like California is in the U.S. The governors of each state would be responsible for their state, but would work together to create national policies, etc. When the sense of unity between the two Koreas is solidified, they should hold an election and elect the president of the Unified Republic of Korea. |
Sounds like a solid plan. But I was thinking more of North Korea being a territory of Korea Republic. The South acting as a guardian, providing safety and intervening in diplomatic situations. I don't want North Korea going rogue again and doing shit that jeopardizes all of Korea.
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Nomad88
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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^That would be the hope and opinion of most rational people in the South and most of the West; but could the circumstances that allowed East Germany's power figures to completely cede authority and decisionmaking for all of Germany happen on the peninsula, WITHOUT outside entities (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and US) meddling with their own agendas?
I never really had an opinion about a reunified Korea, having grown up outside Korea; but the more I study ancient Korean history and my family's history, the more I favor unifying what we have left of our old territories.
I'm only in favor of reunification if it could happen without bloodshed and if power resides in the Democratic, developed South. Given human tendency for greed and exploitation, I would also be in favor of a transparent oversight council to assure that North Koreans were given education and opportunities to live like South Koreans. |
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dangun harabuji
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Joined: 24 Aug 2008
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Location: Goguryeo
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| Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Nomad88 wrote: | | ^That would be the hope and opinion of most rational people in the South and most of the West; but could the circumstances that allowed East Germany's power figures to completely cede authority and decisionmaking for all of Germany happen on the peninsula, WITHOUT outside entities (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and US) meddling with their own agendas? |
I don't think so. Which sucks. China (or at least ancient China) often used 'divide and conquer' when dealing with neighboring countries. Korea is actually in this predicament right now.
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나는 우리나라가 세계에서 가장 부강한 나라가 되기보다는
가장 아름다운 나라가 되기를 원한다. - 김구 |
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Nomad88
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| Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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| A big "S" in Sucks. China is controlling the whole issue of returning to six-party talks, and does anyone believe China is working on the behalf of the world itself? They had news shots of Jong il meeting and embracing China's Communist official Wang. They were embracing like long lost brothers. Why can't the North's politicians see how China is manipulating them, or is it that they have gotten into such a dependent relationship with China that they're now political & economic hostages? |
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