China’s ethnic-Korean enclaves have become less Korean
TALL jars filled with rice beer await customers by the riverside in Yanji, a city in north-eastern China close to the border with North Korea. Servers in aprons fork out spicy salads from rows of red plastic bowls. Atop a nearby trestle table a butcher has laid out three skinned dogs. The early-morning market exudes the distinctive character of Yanbian, an ethnic-Korean enclave of which Yanji is the administrative heart. Youngsters chatter in Mandarin and Korean. Shop hoardings are written in both languages.
Yanbian is the biggest of two ethnic-Korean areas on China’s side of the border. But its Korean-ness has faded over the past three decades. A stallholder who gives his surname as Piao (Park in Korean) explains that his grown-up nieces and nephews have all moved to Japan or South Korea, where he thinks they can earn three times more money. He is sure that his young daughter, who is spending her summer holiday helping at the market, will eventually choose to leave, too. The way things...