Koreans in Vietnam

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Koreans in Vietnam
Total population
30,000 (2006)
Regions with significant populations
Ho Chi Minh City
Languages
Korean, Vietnamese
Religions
Not known
Related ethnic groups
Koreans

Koreans in Vietnam came initially in a military capacity, fighting on both sides of the Vietnam War. After the end of the war, there was little Korean migration or tourism in Vietnam, until the rise of the South Korean economy and the decline of the North resulted in an influx of South Korean investors and North Korean defectors, as well as South Korean men seeking Vietnamese wives.

1 The Vietnam War
2 Post-war migration
- 2.1 South Korean investors
- 2.2 North Korean defectors
3 Tourism
4 See also
5 References

[edit] The Vietnam War

The areas of responsibility of the South Korean army in Vietnam as of December 1966

Both North and South Korea lent material and manpower support to their respective ideological allies during the Vietnam War, though the number of South Korean troops on the ground was larger. Then-South Korean president Syngman Rhee had offered to send troops to Vietnam as early as 1954, but his proposal was turned down by the U.S. Department of State; the first South Korean personnel to land in Vietnam, 10 years later, were non-combatants: ten Taekwondo instructors, along with thirty-four officers and ninety-six enlisted men of a Korean Army hospital unit.^[1] In total, between 1965 and 1973, 312,853 South Korean soldiers fought in Vietnam; Vietnam's Ministry of Culture and Communications estimated they killed 41,400 North Vietnamese Army soldiers and 5,000 civilians.^[2] South Korean troops were hampered by their lack of command of any of the major languages in the country or among their allies. They were also accused of war atrocities, and are known to have left between eight and fifteen thousand orphans of mixed Korean and Vietnamese descent.^[3]

As a result of a decision of the Korean Workers' Party in October 1966, in early 1967, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) sent a fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi. They stayed through 1968, and 200 pilots were reported to have served.^[4] In addition, at least two anti-aircraft artillery regiments were sent as well. North Korea also sent weapons, ammunition and two million sets of uniforms to their comrades in North Vietnam.^[5] Kim Il Sung is reported to have told his pilots to "fight in the war as if the Vietnamese sky were their own".^[6]^[7]^[8]

In 2003, readers of South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh, which ran a series of articles exposing atrocities committed by Korean troops during the war, donated over US$100,000 to set up a memorial park and peace museum in Phu Yen Province.^[9] Former South Korean soldiers such as Ahn Jung-hyo and Hwang Suk-young have also written novels about their experiences in Vietnam.^[3]

[edit] Post-war migration

[edit] South Korean investors

Four years after the 1992 normalisation of diplomatic ties, South Korea was already annually conducting $1.3 billion of trade with Vietnam, making them Vietnam's third-largest trading partner; they were also the fourth-largest foreign investor after Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong, having put $1.987 billion into Vietnam.^[10] The pace of their investment roughly doubled over the next ten years; in the first five months of 2006, new South Korean investment in Vietnam totalled to around $400 million, and roughly one thousand Korean companies had operations in the country. In September 2006, South Korean conglomerate Kumho Engineering and Construction broke ground at Asiana Plaza, a 32-story complex which is expected to be Vietnam's largest building when completed.^[11] (Vietnam's planned tallest building however, is a 65 story, 195 meters tall skyscraper which will be finished in Hanoi, 2010)^[12]

Following along with the investment dollars, the South Korean expatriate community in Vietnam has grown significantly. According to Chang Keun Lee of the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam, Koreans formed the country's second-largest group of expatriates after Taiwanese, with a population of around 30,000; he estimated that half lived in Ho Chi Minh City.^[11]

[edit] North Korean defectors

Until 2004, Vietnam was described as the "preferred Southeast Asian escape route" for North Korean defectors, largely due to its less-mountainous terrain. Though Vietnam remains an officially communist country and maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea, growing South Korean investment in Vietnam has prompted Hanoi to quietly permit the transit of North Korean refugees to Seoul. The increased South Korean presence in the country also proved a magnet for defectors; four of the biggest defector safehouses in Vietnam were run by South Korean expatriates, and many defectors indicated that they chose to try to cross the border from China into Vietnam precisely because they had heard about such safehouses.^[13] In July 2004, 468 North Korean refugees were airlifted to South Korea in the single largest mass defection; Vietnam initially tried to keep their role in the airlift secret, and in advance of the deal, even anonymous sources in the South Korean government would only tell reporters that the defectors came from "an unidentified Asian country".^[14] Following the airlift, Vietnam would tighten up border controls and deport several safe-house operators.^[13]

[edit] Tourism

Many South Korean men come to Vietnam seeking to find wives, as customers of the two to three thousand South Korean marriage agencies which specialise in making such matches. Though in the 1990s, most were farmers, an increasing number of urban men have also resorted to arranging marriages through international matchmaking agencies; they cite the difficulty faced by uneducated men or those with low incomes in attracting South Korean women to marry them.^[15] As of 2006, as many as 5,000 Vietnamese brides left with new South Korean husbands every year.^[11]