Korean Job Discussion Forums

JongnoGuru · Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep

Foreign Resident Population Drops 28 Pct.

From The Korea Times

Binch Lover · Joined: 25 Jul 2005

kermo · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:29 am Post subject:

7% of these households have no refrigerators? Wha?

JongnoGuru · Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep

And air conditioners are still but a dream for 96.8 percent!

Guri Guy · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Location: Bamboo Island

That article is from 1985. What was the point in posting it???
To see how far they have come in the last 21 years?
Man, it must have been hell in the summer back then. Sad

JongnoGuru · Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep

No, it's not from 1985. They're just comparing figures to that year.

kermo · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:48 am Post subject:

Guri Guy · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Location: Bamboo Island

Ah ok. That makes more sense then. There are less foreigners now in Korea then there were before? That seems rather odd to me. Perhaps that was your point and I totally missed that. Korea is becoming more exclusive as time goes on? Hermit Kingdom Part Deux. Razz

JongnoGuru · Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep

Guri Guy · Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Location: Bamboo Island

Muuuhaaaaa!

It's all good. A simple misunderstanding on my part. I don't drink much and I am a happy drunk anyway. Not violent at all and my Korean improves immensely when drunk.

Korea, you've come a long way baby. Wink

pet lover · Joined: 02 Jan 2004 Location: not in Seoul

Yeah, they are comparing to how things were in 1985 in the very first part, but then they use the PAST tense throughout the rest of it...which makes me think that they are STILL referring to how things were in 1985. Or, they'd use the present tense.

bluelake · Joined: 01 Dec 2005

Having lived here in 1984, I truly don't remember there being many foreigners in the country at that time. If the percentages of things owned are supposed to reflect present-day Korea, I think their calculator is busted; if they are supposed to reflect 1985, I think it's still busted.

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Didn't Korea kick out a large number of Chinese a number of years ago? That might explain the huge drop. It seems to be a move they're regretting today, with the rise of China. A healthy China town helps develop and oil trade. They seem to be scrambling these days to turn the Incheon China town into a hub.

matthews_world · Joined: 15 Feb 2003

This is what they came up with after their pushy census last year?

JongnoGuru · Joined: 25 May 2004 Location: peeing on your doorstep

All right, that's enough nibbles on the line.

First, why did I post this? In the process of downsizing & consolidating, I came across an old Tintin book (in Korean) and pulled it out to have another look at it. A day later (yesterday), I saw a thread in which Guri Guy compliments another poster for using Tintin in the signature line. So I mention that Guri probably hasn't seen Tintin IN KOREA, and he says he'd buy it if it existed. (TBH, it's not "Tintin in Korea", it's just one of the Tintin adventures that was translated into Korean. If he challenged me on it, I was going to insist, 'Oh no, it's "Tintin IN KOREA" -- where else in the world does everyone speak Korean?' Razz

) So then, as I was looking through the Tintin book and taking photos to post on that other thread, I found between the pages an old yellowed Korea Times article that I had clipped ages & ages ago.

The OP is excerpted from that Korea Times article (12 December 1992). The figures in the article are for 1990, and in the case of the first sentence only (foreign res. pop.) it compares 1990 with 1985. Neither the figures (except for. res. pop.) nor the article itself are from 1985. Rather, the figures are from 1990 and the article from 1992. All clear now?

So it's late 1992, I'm on a bus, it's probably near freezing, I tuck into my morning KT, turn to page 17, see that headline and think, "Gads, we're dropping like flies!! Shocked

Down 28% in five years?! Whatever shall become of us??? Surprised

"

And what of those five years? Well, instead of another power struggle and bloody coup, there was a democratic and peaceful change of government, the economy was firing on all cylinders, everyone was taking driving lessons & buying their first car, average Koreans were starting to travel abroad for tourist purposes the first time, exports were on steroids, consumer imports were arriving through legitimate channels for a change, national confidence and esteem were flying high in the post-88 Olympics era... and yet our numbers were falling, the expat "community" was dwindling fast.

Sure, it was mainly the Taiwanese pulling up tent pins, and who notices them anyway? But still. I recall going to more farewell parties in those days for Western friends than I had Western friends to go to farewell parties for. Know what I mean?

Things you might find interesting:

Look at the total number of Westerners -- dinky! It truly was small, and manageable, and fathomable. And it seemed normal and right. Normal & right for a country like Korea, anyway. Not seeing another white face for days & days, even weeks on end, was not uncommon depending on where you lived and worked. Even in Seoul. This did tend to limit one's choice of foreign friends to hang out with, and cliques weren't always a luxury you could afford. Friendships among expats did seem closer, stronger, and thus the farewells more profound and sometimes painful.

Obviously no Red Chinese or Russkies or East bloc commies. No dark-skinned 3-D workers. No Canadians (not in statistically relevant numbers anyway).

13 percent car ownership. Can you even begin to imagine how wonderful that was? I'll bet you can't.

I'd better stop now. I'm getting all misty-eyed. Sad