Since fall 2013, I had been volunteering English lessons at an after school center for North Korean kids. I found out that nearby, there was a center for Koryo Saram, or Koretsii in Russian. I’m embarrassed to say that even before doing this interview, I had very little background knowledge on this part of Russian/Korean history. Since then, I’ve met a few other Korean ethnic people from Uzbekistan and it’s certainly a growing returning group, a really special kind of international community. I still haven’t interacted much with the Koryo saram in Korea, but I’m glad I was able to learn about their story and be aware of their presence.
Koryo Saram Center
Original article published in Gwangju News May 2014 and in Gwangju Dream: http://gjdream.com/v2/week/view.html?news_type=415&uid=456163
For a deeper historical background on the Koryo saram, refer to this previous article: http://www.gwangjunewsgic.com/online/korea-in-the-world-uzbekistan/
Translated from Russian interview and written by Ana Traynin
Photos by GIC Volunteers Jo Ara and Catherina Takoh
Crossing the Youngsan river in the west of Gwangju means crossing into Gwangsan-gu, a fast-growing industry, agriculture and residential district. Home to the industrial complexes Hanam, Pyeongdong and Sochon, Gwangsan attracts a large number of international workers from African and Asian countries. Here, in the small but densely-populated Weolgok-dong neighborhood, a growing Russian-speaking Koryo saram diaspora community of nearly 2,000 people has taken root.
Since opening at the end of 2011, the Koryo Saram Center 고려인마을 in Weolgok-dong has seen an influx of ethnic Koreans from the former Soviet Union to Gwangju and has brought greater visibility to the community. On a Saturday afternoon, Gwangju News sat down around a table of ethnic snacks at the center to speak with leader Shin Jo Ya. Abuzz with weekend activities and the daycare’s move into a bigger space across the street, Shin told us her story.
Shin Jo Ya was born and spent most of her life in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent, in the ethnic Korean diaspora called “Koreytsi” in Russian. As with others, Shin grew up speaking only Russian and didn’t learn Korean. Her journey to her historic motherland began in October 2001, following on the heels of her daughter’s marriage to a Korean national and move to Seocheon, Chungcheonnamdo. After working around Seoul, Shin moved to Hampyeong and finally, found Gwangju’s Pyeongdong Industrial Complex.
It was there that she met a number of Russian-speaking workers from former Soviet countries, who introduced her to Korean pastor Lee Cheon Yeong. At that time, the pastor was running a church and cultural center for international workers on 8th street in Weolgok-dong. It was a fateful meeting, as Shin would come to follow Lee and work with him side-by-side as an international community leader. Shin credits Pastor Lee and working with Gwangsan’s foreign community as a life-giving force.
“I struggled, here and there,” Shin said. “In that country [Uzbekistan], I was only existing, just breathing and surviving. But here, I’ve come to know many other good things. When I saw that he [Pastor Lee] gave his all to help others, I saw that and if I was to follow the Gospel, I had to do the same. He helped us with everything. Whoever didn’t get paid, had nowhere to sleep or was sick, he did everything for them. That’s how I met him, began following him and came to have faith. I started going to church every Sunday and working with him. He was very glad to meet me, because I am also Korean, we are of the same blood. That is when I said, ‘From now on, I will never go anywhere else but Gwangju. I will never leave him.’”
Over time, many Mongolians, Russians and others from former Soviet republics like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan started coming and Shin took on a greater role.
“He [Pastor Lee] said ‘Zoya, come help me work with foreigners or else I’ll end up in the hospital in two months.’ Working with foreigners takes a lot of nerves and patience. Some people aren’t fair, they earn money and they leave. He couldn’t pay me anything because it was all privately funded. I said ‘I still need to live, I still don’t have money.’ For two years I had to work, but from 2005 I was helping him full-time. And that’s how I gradually came to meet a North Korean on the same level as me, who fled that country, lived in Russia for 13 years and came to South Korea through the church. Same as me, a refugee, only our grandfathers came first. We were both alone. We started from nothing, but we decided to get married and started living better.”
Shin explains that Weolgok-dong’s close proximity to the industrial complexes, cheap housing and convenient bus routes has made the neighborhood a burgeoning foreign community. While before, there was an abundance of private houses, as more workers move in, apartments are springing up.
“So that’s how not only Russian speakers came, but also Vietnamese, Chinese, Thais, who doesn’t live here in Weolgok-dong? There may be more foreigners than locals here. On every corner, they are taking down the houses and the villas are growing like mushrooms. Foreigners who lived in private houses, they had to pay too much for heating in the winter. So they started moving into one-room villas.”
The rise in an international population has produced a greater need for services. Besides running thirteen independent international church services, Shin’s mentor Pastor Lee is the founder and principal of an alternative international school in far west Gwangsan-gu, Saenal School (New World School).
“First, he opened the Nepali church,” Shin said. “Then, I said ‘There is a Nepali pastor. Why can’t we have our own Koreyski church?’ All of my hard years, he helped me. So I said to him ‘why don’t we open a church in Weolgok-dong?’ So, we opened this Koryo Saram Center in at the end of 2011.”
During the interview, Shin received just one of many similar calls – a Koryo saram couple in Seoul had heard about the center and wanted to move to Gwangju. Shin said that although other centers in Korea have bigger spaces, the one in Weolgok-dong – with a nursery, kindergarten and church under one roof – is the first of its kind in the country.
“People from one nation live together,” Shin said. “If we didn’t have the center, Koreytsi wouldn’t have a place of their own. As soon as we opened our own separate center, many local Koreans started helping us. It was difficult to start it, but once we did, it started growing fast. Local Koreans started understanding who were, the Koreyski people. Each country had a different name for us. In China, we were Chosun saram and in Russia we were Koreytsi.”
Shin dreams to see the opening of one inclusive church in the future.
“My dream is that our pastor has one big international church, with different times for each nation’s service. Because God sent him to the foreign community. He fought and struggled to open his legally recognized international school, the New World School. So now we want to open a big church.”
As for the Koryo Saram community, Shin’s hopes are no smaller.
“I just want to be in good enough health to see the big church open and to see that our Koreyski people could get the F4 visa. That anyone who wants to work in a factory can work, that there is no oppression and that we are not sent away from this country because we have nowhere else to go. The language is not the biggest problem. There are 500,000 ethnic Koreans from China, while Koreytsi from the former Soviet nations are only 40,000. We want both people to have the rights.”
For more on the Koryo Saram Center, please visit: www.koreancoop.com
For more on Lee Cheon Yeong’s New World School, please visit: http://www.saenalschool.com
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