Multiculturalism in Korea

By Robert J. Fouser

The word ``foreigner" is slowly, ever so slowly, losing its meaning in Korea.

In the old days, when Korea was a developing country, foreigners were limited to language teachers, missionaries, diplomats, and business people, a few foreign students, and U.S. military personnel.

Most were from North America, Europe and Japan. Korea had no diplomatic relations with China and the former Soviet bloc until the late 1980s and early 1990s, and a plentiful supply of domestic labor meant that there was no need for foreign workers. Foreigners stood out and were viewed as guests who came to Korea for a specific purpose. As guests, they were expected to leave, partly because Koreans thought life in their home countries was far better than in Korea.

Thing began to change in the 1990s with the opening of relations with China and the former Soviet bloc. Almost instantly, there was a diversification in the origin of foreigners in Korea. Strong economic growth in the 1990s made Korea more attractive as a place to study and work. As Korean companies grew and entered new markets overseas, awareness of Korea grew. The most dramatic change in the 1990s was an increase in the number of foreigners from Asia (not including Japan) and of ethnic Koreans from China.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis stunted Korea's growth briefly, but it quickly regained its vigor, and entered a new period of development in the 2000s. Reforms in the wake of the crisis opened Korea up to foreign investment, which spurred efforts to embrace globalization. Major institutions wanted to look global and many hired foreigners for professional positions for the first time. English education boomed, particularly for children, causing the number of English teachers to rise to levels unimaginable a decade before.

The push to develop new industries and markets after the economic crisis helped create a “hallyu” (Korean wave) boom as Korea developed a system for promoting its cultural products in overseas markets. The hallyu boom has stimulated an increase in the number of foreign students coming to learn Korean, both for short-term language study and as degree-program students.

The 2000s saw another major change: the rise in the number of women, mostly from Asia, who come to Korea as brides, mostly for men in living in rural areas. Today, almost 11 percent of marriages in 2009 were international marriages; the percentage is larger in rural areas. Suddenly not all foreigners were foreigners; these women are called ``marriage immigrants."

As the number of foreigners reached a critical mass in the late 2000s, multiculturalism became the buzz word of the day. Educators rushed to join the bandwagon, and the media ran numerous articles on foreigners in Korean society.

At the same time, the looming population crisis ― South Korea's birthrate is one of the lowest in the world ― has raised increasing concerns that Korea's potential for growth may dry up. Efforts to increase the birthrate will not show results for a generation, and Korea will need to welcome foreigners to maintain its economic vitality as the labor force begins to shrink.

All of which leads to a logical problem: How can foreigners become Korean? If asked, passengers in a full subway car would probably answer overwhelmingly that foreigners cannot become Korean. A survey of foreigners in Itaewon would probably yield the same results. Which leads to another question: If foreigners cannot become Korean, then how can Korea become multicultural?

To help answer the question, the Constitution of the Republic of Korea is a good place to start. The official English translation of the preamble available on the National Assembly website does not convey the full meaning of the Korean original because ``minjok dangyeol” (solidarity of the Korean people) and ``dongpoae” (love for Korean brethren) are not fully translated.

A quick reading of the Korean original leaves the impression that ethnicity is a defining characteristic of the Republic of Korea. If so, then non-ethnic Korean citizens of the Republic of Korea, be they immigrants or Korea-born persons of mixed heritage, occupy a grey area. They are citizens with equal rights and protection, but they are not really "Korean."

As long as Korea places importance on ethnicity, non-ethnic Korean citizens can never be full members of society. In this context, efforts to create a multicultural society will achieve little, leaving the question of how to include increasing numbers of non-Korean citizens fully in society.

Korea has reached a breaking point: It can remain a quaint 20th-century ethnicity-based state, or it can redefine itself as a 21st-century multicultural society based on common values. Shifting from ethnicity to common values strengthens Korea because it makes ``Koreanness" accessible and, therefore, more attractive to people living in Korea, both by birth and choice.

The writer is a professor of the Department of Korean Language Education at Seoul National University. He can be reached at fouser@snu.ac.kr.