Beijing houses a ‘Korean City’

Beijing (CNS) -- Beijing was home to almost 200,000 Korean residents in 2007, the largest of all foreign communities in the capital, and that number has climbed since, according to a latest study on foreign communities on the Chinese mainland, a research project led by Professor Li Minghuan at Xiamen University.

More than one-third of Koreans live in the community known as Wangjing in the northeast of the municipality, with the rest scattering around the city, in Wudaokou in the northwest and elsewhere.

In the 'Little Korea' of Beijing alone, about 500 restaurants, supermarkets, teahouses and beauty salons were opened by Koreans since 1996, according to a Korean association based in China.

Koreans have settled down outside the capital as well, along the long eastern shore of the country in Qingdao (50,000), Shenyang (30,000) and Shanghai (100,000) for instance. Changning district government in Shanghai even offered a Korean language version at its official website to serve the foreign community under their administration.

Korean residents in China chiefly fall into four groups, investors of all scales and their families, mid to high-level mangers at Korean-funded enterprises in China, Korean students, and Koreans on relatively low incomes who favor China's more affordable cost of living.

Despite the fact that more than 50,000 Koreans in China moved back home during the financial tsunami, the community is entrenched and reminds China that it is  obligated to face the challenge of globalization and tackle the tensions that are likely to surface among ethnicities.