Koreans in the Philippines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Koreans in the Philippines

Total population
115,400 (2009)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Metro Manila, Bacolod City, Cebu City, Davao City, Iloilo City, Cagayan de Oro City
Languages
Korean, English, Tagalog, various Philippine languages
Religion
Christianity[2]
Related ethnic groups
Koreans

Koreans in the Philippines, largely consisting of expatriates from South Korea, form the largest Korean diaspora community in Southeast Asia and the eighth-largest in the world, after Korean Australians and before Koreans in Kazakhstan; as of 2009, statistics of South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade recorded their population at 115,400 individuals, up by 151% since 2005.^[1][3] There are also an estimated 10,000 Kophinos—children of mixed Korean and Filipino descent—of whom 90% were born since 2003.^[4][5]

Contents 1 Migration history 2 Education 3 Religion 4 Influence on Philippine society 5 Tourism 6 Notable individuals 7 See also 8 References 8.1 Notes 8.2 Sources

[edit] Migration history

The history of Korean settlement in the Philippines can be divided into five phases. The first, lasting until the end of World War II, consisted of just a few disconnected individuals. Jang Bogo of Unified Silla was said to have visited the country as early as the 8th century. However, there was little further contact until over a millennium later, in 1837, when Andrew Kim Taegon and two other Korean Catholics took refuge in the Philippines after fleeing a riot in Macau, where they had been studying.^[6] They lived in a monastery near Lolomboy. Around 1935, a few itinerant ginseng peddlers from Uiju, North Pyongan (in present-day North Korea) arrived in the country via Vietnam. Finally, some Korean soldiers came with the Imperial Japanese Army when it occupied the Philippines during World War II; three, also from Uiju, are known to have married local women and chose to remain in the country permanently. One of them, Pak Yun-hwa, went on to establish the Korean Association Philippines Inc. in 1969, which would grow to become the country's largest Korean organisation.^[7]

The second phase of Korean settlement in the Philippines consisted of the war brides of Filipino soldiers who fought on the side of the UN Forces in the Korean War. About 30 moved to the Philippines with their husbands in the 1960s; in 1975, they formed the Mothers' Association.^[8]

Beginning with the third phase, migration began to take on a more economic character. With the growth of the South Korean economy, companies in labour-intensive manufacturing industries responded to increasing wages by relocating their operations to other countries, including the Philippines, beginning in the 1980s. As a result, managers of enterprises both big and small, along with their families, began to increase.^[9] The fourth phase, in the 1990s. saw an expansion in the variety of Korean businesses in the Philippines; South Korean businesspeople not from just manufacturing companies, but import-export businesses, restaurants, and construction companies, all founded ethnic-specific business associations in this era.^[10]

The fifth phase of migration history, beginning in the 2000s, saw the number of students increase, and also was marked by growing influence and engagement by the various Korean associations with mainstream Philippine society.^[11] For example, the Merchant Association, formed in July 2001 and renamed as the Financial Expert Union Association in 2002, helped to regularise the status of South Korean entrepreneurs who had been working without a proper visa, while the South Korean Used Automobile Import Association fought against a newly-introduced prohibition on the importation of used cars, and the Travel Company Association worked with the Philippine Department of Tourism to resolve visa and licencing issues for South Korean tour guides who hoped to work in the Philippines.^[12]

Many South Koreans living in the Philippines are attracted to the low cost of English-language education and housing, both significantly cheaper than those offered in their native South Korea. The warmer climate is yet another motivating factor for the recent surge in migration.^[13] The Philippines is also a popular destination for retired South Koreans on fixed pensions; the Filipino government actively promotes the settlement of South Korean retirees in the country because of the potential lucrative opportunities for the local economy.^[14]

[edit] Education

The trend of South Korean students going to the Philippines to pursue university education began in the 1960s, when South Korea was still a poor country and the Philippines ranked as the region's second-most developed behind Japan. Philippine universities still have a reputation among older South Koreans for offering quality education, which is believed to have contributed to the boom in the numbers of South Korea international students coming to the country to learn English or even to enroll in degree courses.^[15] South Korean tourists often enroll in short-term courses in English language schools to cope with South Korea's growing demand for English proficiency. Their numbers include a large proportion of young people; according to Son Jung-Son of the Philippine-Korean Cultural Center in Seoul, over 1,500 Koreans under 20 years old arrive in the Philippines every month to study English.^[3] Since the 2001-02 academic year, South Korean international students have also been the largest group of foreigners studying at Philippine tertiary institutions, edging out Americans; in the 2002-03 academic year, they totalled 1,069 individuals, or 24.6% of the total 4,363 foreign students.^[16]

Koreans living in the Philippines do not have a Korean-medium day school for their community's children, but are served by seven weekend Korean-language schools recognised by the South Korean government, the earliest being the ones in Cebu and Antipolo, both founded in 1994.^[17][18] Between 1997 and 2000, five more schools were founded in Davao City, Angeles City, Pasay City, Baguio City, and Cainta. In total, the seven schools enroll 383 students.^{[19][20][21][22][23]}

[edit] Religion

Korean Christian churches in Metro Manila and other large cities in the Philippines serve as centers of religious and social activity within the Korean community.^[3] The earliest Korean church, Manila's Korean Union Church, opened its doors in 1974.^[24] The churches are largely Protestant, especially Presbyterian; their style of worship is marked by forceful preaching and the use of amplified guitar and organ accompaniment to song and prayer, often perceived by Filipinos as too noisy.^[25] However, some Korean Catholic churches also exist, such as the St. Andrew Kim Dae Gun Parish Church, which grew out of a 1986 commemorative ceremony for the 150th anniversary of the martyrdom of the eponymous saint; as of 2003, the church had roughly 500 members.^[26]

Filipinos are often baffled by and even suspicious of the presence of Korean ethnic-specific churches in their country, assuming that they have come in an attempt to evangelise Catholics; however, though the churches sometimes conduct charity outreach work in the local communities, their activities are mainly targeted towards Koreans.^[27] The few native members the churches attract tend to be those from lower socioeconomic brackets.^[28] Mass weddings conducted by the Unification Church in the 1980s caused particular controversy and had a negative effect on Philippine-South Korean diplomatic relations.^[29]

[edit] Influence on Philippine society

Korean expatriates provide a significant stimulus to the local economy; they are estimated to spend between US$800 and $1000 per month, making an aggregate contribution of over $1 billion per year in consumer spending.^[30] The most well-known Koreatowns in the Metro Manila area are located in Makati's Barangay Poblacion and BF Homes, Parañaque. Outside of Manila, many Koreans also reside in quieter provincial cities such as Bacolod, Subic, Davao, and Baguio.^[14]

The Korean community in the Philippines had little influence on Philippine society until the late 1980s, when the Korean wave (the increasing popularity of South Korean television and pop music) started.^[3] They continue to be seen as a closed group by Filipinos.^[30] Furthermore, Filipinos in general perceive South Korean migration to their country as something of an oddity, as it goes against the pattern more familiar to their own experience, that of people from poorer countries migrating to more developed ones.^[31]

[edit] Tourism

As of 2007, South Koreans accounted for 15% of all foreign visitors to the Philippines. As recently as 1992, the annual number of South Korean visitors arriving in the Philippines was a mere 26,000; however, that expanded over seven times to roughly 180,000 by 1997, and then to 303,867 by 2003.^[32] Tourism arrivals continued to grow rapidly, to 570,000 in 2006, meaning that South Korean tourists formed a larger group than American tourists for the first time, and then to 650,000 by 2008.^[4][30] As of 2007, Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, and Philippine Airlines each offered one daily flight between Manila and Seoul, with Philippine Airlines also expanding their Cebu-Seoul route to daily flights.^[33]

The prevalence of South Korean men in sex tourism to the Philippines has resulted in the birth of an estimated 10,000 children of mixed Korean and Filipino descent to unwed Filipina mothers.^[5] Colloquially referred to as Kophinos (Korean language: 코피노), as recently as 2003 they were believed to number fewer than 1,000; another 9,000 were born from 2003 to 2008. As a result, Filipinos' perception of Korean men has taken a turn for the worse.^[4] In response, some South Korean NGOs, such as the Daejeon Migrant Workers Support Center, have begun to establish branch offices in the Philippines to provide social services to the children and their mothers.^[5]

[edit] Notable individuals

• Hong Sung-chon, vice-president of the Philippine Taekwondo Association^[34]
• Jang Jae-jung, former president of the Korean Association of the Philippines^[35]
• Sam Oh, television host, radio jock, and lifestyle columnist
• Sandara Park, former movie and television actress, now back in South Korea^[36]
• Grace Lee, television host and radio jock

[edit] See also

• Filipinos in South Korea
• Koreanovela

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] Sources

• Kutsumi, Kanako (2007), "Koreans in the Philippines: A Study of the Formation of their Social Organization", in Miralao, Virginia A.; Makil, Lorna P., Exploring Transnational Communities in the Philippines, Philippine Social Science Council, pp. 58–73, ISBN 9718514260, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001530/153053e.pdf, retrieved on 2008-12-14 
• Makil, Lorna P. (2007), "South Koreans in Dumaguete: A Preliminary Study", in Miralao, Virginia A.; Makil, Lorna P., Exploring Transnational Communities in the Philippines, Philippine Social Science Council, pp. 40–57, ISBN 9718514260, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001530/153053e.pdf, retrieved on 2008-12-14 
• Miralao, Virginia A. (2007), "Understanding the Korean Diaspora to the Philippines", in Miralao, Virginia A.; Makil, Lorna P., Exploring Transnational Communities in the Philippines, Philippine Social Science Council, pp. 24–39, ISBN 9718514260, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001530/153053e.pdf, retrieved on 2008-12-14 
• (^{[dead link]} – ^{Scholar search}) Overseas Korean Educational Institutions: Asia, Seoul: National Institute for International Education Development, 2007, http://www.interedu.go.kr/edu_net/overseas/sch_informal.htm?key=2, retrieved on 2008-12-13 

v • d • e Ethnic groups in the Philippines Filipinos · Overseas Filipinos Indigenous Non-tribal Bicolano · Ibanag · Ilocano · Ivatan · Kapampangan · Pangasinan · Sambal · Tagalog Moro Bajau · Banguingui · Illanun · Maguindanao · Maranao · Samal · Sangir · Tausug · Yakan Visayan Aklanon · Boholano/Bol-anon · Butuanon · Caluyanon · Capiznon · Cebuano · Eskaya · Hiligaynon · Karay-a · Masbateño · Porohanon · Romblomanon · Surigaonon · Waray Tribal Igorot Balangao · Bontoc · Ibaloi · Ifugao · Isneg · Kalinga · Kankana-ey Lumad Kamayo · Manobo · Samal · T'boli · B'laan Mangyan Buhid · Hanunó'o · Tawbuid · Ratagnon Negrito Aeta · Ati Palawan tribes Agutaynen · Cuyunon · Kagayanen · Palawano · Philippine Batak · Tagbanua Non-indigenous American · Arab · British · Chinese · Desi · Indonesian · Indian · Italian · Japanese · Jewish · Korean · Mexican · Spanish

v • d • e Korean diaspora Africa Canary Islands1 · Libya · South Africa Americas Argentina · Brazil · Canada · Chile · Guatemala · Mexico · Paraguay · Peru · United States · Uruguay Asia Arab world · Cambodia · China (Hong Kong) · India · Indonesia · Iran · Japan · Malaysia · Mongolia · Philippines · Singapore · CIS (Koryo-saram · Sakhalin · North Korean expatriates) · Taiwan · Thailand · Vietnam Europe France · Germany · Italy · Netherlands · Poland · Spain · Sweden · United Kingdom Oceania Australia · New Zealand · Micronesia Dialects Koryo-mar · Zainichi Korean Related topics Adoptees · Koreatowns · North Korean defectors 1 An autonomous community of Spain off the northwest coast of Africa Regional/super-national level groupings are in bold