[KS] Chinese influence and communities in Korea

[Frank Hoffmann]

Just a short add-on note to the wonderful 
accounts by Donald Clark, Don Baker, James B. 
Lewis, and others:

Donald Clark already mentioned the Japanese 
Government General's annual reports. You can 
indeed find a lot of data there, and several U.S. 
libraries have sets also: 
http://lccn.loc.gov/12026643
I am not sure, as I do not have history related 
books with me now, but you could also check if 
Irene B. Taeuber has a summary in her _The 
Population of Japan_ (1958) 
[http://lccn.loc.gov/58007122] which has a 
chapter or two on Korea -- these are mostly based 
on Japanese reports such as the above volumes.

Also wanted to note that the main and probably 
only cause for the Chinese leaving South Korea 
between the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, not just 
to the U.S. but also to Taiwan, was very directly 
related to the Park government's specific 
policies "against" the Chinese. The Chinese were 
simply mistrusted politically because of Mao's 
revolution "at home." The Park administration had 
introduced a couple of new discriminatory 
regulations. Business activities were restricted, 
landownership was restricted, and I believe even 
Chinese schools had various restrictions, all 
this clearly aimed at driving them out. I believe 
that by the early or mid-1980s, when I was first 
in Korea, almost all the Chinese owned 
restaurants and other businesses had disappeared 
from the mentioned Myôngdong area. And, 
ironically enough (!), with the hand-over of the 
Taiwanese Embassy right behind the Central Post 
Office in Myôngdong to the People's Republic of 
China the very last Chinese shop owners left. 
Were their places then taken over by Yônbyôn 
Korean-Chinese? (We saw new Chinese shops in that 
area a few years ago.)


Best,
Frank


-- 
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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws