Seocho Designates 124 Shops for Foreigners
In the Seocho District, foreigners are now able to identify the language capabilities of staff at 124 establishments with signs advertising, for example, "English Spoken Here." About half of the establishments are restaurants. The remainder included hospitals, drug stores, real estate agencies and accommodations.
The district designated 24 foreign-language speaking restaurants and accommodations last year, and expanded the certification to an additional 100 commercial places.
"Foreigners should have one or two restaurants or pharmacies in their neighborhood where they can visit without worrying about language problems and that's the reason we promoted this project," said Park Sung-joong, chief of the district.
By language, the most common were English-speaking establishments at 105. There were also eight Chinese-speaking staff, seven Japanese-speaking staff, three French-speaking staff and one German-speaking staff.
"We expect these establishments to make life more convenient for foreigners and even the community among them," a district official said.
The district will post lists of foreign-language available establishments on its Web site.