February 19, 2003
There is talk about building a Chinatown district in South Korea. In an official letter, the Chinese Embassy in Seoul wrote to the South Korean government that China would be ready to make an investment in building a large scale Chinatown in the city of Incheon, if the city authorities provided land. According to this letter, signed by the Chinese Ambassador, the Chinese government would provide a Chinese pavilion to act as a cultural center. The pavilion could also be used as a venue to host Chinese government organizations, such as a Korea-China friendship association or a student exchange information center. Further, Chinese hotels and restaurants would be set up within the core of this Chinatown. The South Korean government, in response, has shown positive signs to this request.
Chinatown is an almost universal component of Chinese culture and business, and can be found in many cities around the world. In spite of being a neighboring country, however, there is not a single Chinatown in Korea - often an uncomfortable topic for Koreans, given that its absence engenders an image of Koreans being xenophobic by nature. Indeed, human rights activists, on occasions, assert that the lack of a Chinatown is proof of the discriminative attitude of Koreans towards the Chinese. Also, from an economic point of view, a Chinatown should be built urgently so as to attract investments from wealthy Chinese living overseas.
It is about time then that South Korea establishes a Chinatown. But a question remains: Why didn't Korea have a Chinatown sooner?
Historically, the outlines of a Chinatown had been visible on the Korean peninsula, just as they were in the rest of Asia. Yet, this state of tacit existence vanished rather quickly as Korea started to modernize rapidly following its independence in 1945. Lee Seung-Man and Park Jung-Hee, the first and second Korean presidents, played major roles in the disappearance of the then-existing Chinatown. Both suppressed the presence of Chinatown in Korea, and in a broader context, suppressed the economic presence of Chinese residing in Korea. In the 1970s, President Park's Acquisition and Management of Land by Foreigners Act limited the amount of assets Chinese could own in order to limit Chinese presence in Korea.
Another discriminatory law created 30 years ago restricted Chinese restaurants from selling rice and other food, unless those restaurants were merged with Korean restaurants. This law effectively forced Chinese restaurants and other enterprises in the Chinatown near Incheon Park to shut down. Under the pretext of promoting flour-based food, the law's intended target was the 10,000 ethnic Chinese living in the area and their staple dish fried rice. Soon many Chinese restaurants inevitably disappeared.
There is no question that Lee Seung-Man and Park Jung-Hee used crafty measures to suppress the Chinese presence in Korea. Why did both presidents suppress Chinese?
Neither man could forget the humiliating memories from their childhoods. As far back as they could remember the Chinese had set up small businesses that would in time come to dominate, commercially speaking, areas near the neighborhood train station. In these commercial centers, the Chinese ran restaurants, established realtor and loan shark businesses, and accumulated massive amounts of wealth and power that was difficult to ignore. As such, it is not surprising that Lee Seung-Man nationalized Chinese restaurants around train stations in the name of terminal development.
A short story called "Potatoes," written by the 1920s realist Kim Dong-In, accurately depicts the Korean view of the Chinese. In the story, the main character Bok-Nyo, due to reasons of sheer poverty, steals potatoes from a vegetable garden owned by a Chinese man named Wang. Instead of punishing Bok-Nyo though, Wang pays her money and sleeps with her. In this novel, Kim portrays this Chinese man as a symbol of money and power who happens to belong to the ruling class, and hence believes that he can do anything he pleases. Later Wang marries a young Korean girl whom he buys for ten dollars, and kills the jealous Bok-Nyo. To make it a perfect murder, Wang bribes Bok-Nyo's husband and disguises her death as the result of a stroke. The feeling back then was that China was Korea's master.
In 1897, Japan demanded that Korea open its doors and thereafter drew up the Kanghwa-Do Treaty, the first article to acknowledge Korea as an independent country. Koreans at the time welcomed this article for it freed them from Chinese interference. Though this treaty in time became the start of a process of Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula, it was initially based on Korea's anti-Chinese sentiment. The more than 70,000 Chinese on the Korean peninsula were an oppressive presence in the late 19th century. Lee Seung-Man, who was educated in the United States, and Park Jung-Hee, who had studied at a Japanese military academy, though from totally different backgrounds, shared a dislike for the Chinese. For them, Chinatown was the headquarters of loan sharks, a place where bankrupt Koreans had to sacrifice their wives and children.
These two Korean presidents' views towards China are now too old to be accepted by the Korean people of the 21st century. Today, China appears as an opportunity for many Koreans. According to a newspaper poll, almost 95% of Koreans support building a Chinatown immediately. The countdown has already started for building a Chinatown, as a headquarters of sorts for Chinese in Korea. Koreans, now confident and economically powerful, may have finally come to accept China as a great power.
Author, Michael Yoo
Research Associate
Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)
Editor-in-Chief, Ichiro Araki
Director of Research
Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)
e-mail: araki-ichiro@rieti.go.jp
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The opinions expressed or implied in this paper are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), or of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
