‘Little Koreas’ spring up in Vietnam
The South Korean, who moved to Vietnam in 2003 with just USD 3,000 that he invested in trading secondhand goods, runs a large shop on Truong Chinh Street in Tan Binh District.
“Our business has prospered recently after many South Korean companies [in the city] went bankrupt and sold their furniture and electronics items to us,” he said, adding that his sales had also increased. Sung is among thousands of South Koreans who have chosen to settle down in Vietnam with various jobs. They say they love the peaceful environment and amiable people here.
Kim Sang Il, the South Korean director of Dai Nhat Tourism Company in HCMC, said more than two thirds of the 70,000 or so South Korean residents in Vietnam live in Ho Chi Minh City.
In HCMC, they have gathered together in several areas, forming South Korean quarters on Tan Son Hoa Street, at K300 and Super Bowl areas in Tan Binh District and in the Phu My Hung New Urban Area in District 7.
Kim Sang Il, who runs a company serving mainly South Korean tourists coming to Vietnam, said one of the first “Korean quarters” in HCMC was on Tan Son Hoa Street behind the Pham Van Hai Market. “The South Koreans were very crowded here in the 1990s,” he said, adding that the overseas Korean have dispersed to several other areas since 2000 when local authorities reinforced inspections of residence registration following several cases of illegal prostitution at local hotels. While most overseas Koreans in the K300 area and Phu My Hung New Urban Area are businessmen, the South Koreans living on Hau Giang and Thang Long streets in Tan Binh District do a variety of jobs, mainly to serve their own community.
Kim Soeng Deok, owner of the Jal Restaurant said he decided to settle in Vietnam because the locals are honest and hospitable. “The business is good and I have taken my two sons here to study at a school in the Phu My Hung (New Urban) area,” he said.
Yang Sueng Eun, owner of another eatery on Thang Long Street, also said she likes to live here despite some difficulties with the language and the weather, which is a little hotter.
Along Thang Long and Hau Giang streets, many shops and minimarts have been set up by South Koreans to serve their community with foods and drinks imported from their homeland.
Property brokers
Kim Soo D., a South Korean property broker and dealer in Ho Chi Minh City, is well known for facilitating many successful land and house deals in the city and nearby provinces.
A reporter recently accompanied him in a deal to sell his 2,000 square meters plot in Dong Nai Province’s Long Thanh District. He had used the plot as collateral for a loan from a local who now wanted to buy it outright. Meeting with the potential buyer at the land plot, D. was offered VND700 million (USD 41,000). However, he did not accept the offer immediately, saying he would need to consider it.
D. told the reporter later that although he would make a profit at that price, “If I agreed immediately, the buyer would think I am in need of money and could change his mind and offer a lower price.” D. then drove to the district center to study the prices of some land plots. Arriving in a luxury car, he was quickly surrounded by local dealers offering several plots. He also said there are a number of property services run by South Koreans in the Phu My Hung Area in District 7, mainly to serve the demand among their brethren to rent and buy housing.
Kim Son Kieu, another Korean in HCMC, said he has been working as a property dealer in Phu My Hung for five years. He said he had introduced many South Koreans to rent houses in the area but said not many wanted to buy an apartment here because they were not eligible to do so.
Philanthropists
Lee Yoon Woo first came to Vietnam in 1990 as the secretary of a charity society in South Korea that aimed to help poor patients in the country.
Woo, who has named himself Ly Nhuan Vu in Vietnamese, has maintained a strong connection with the beneficiaries of the charity work since.
In 1994, he proposed that his society constructs the Nam Dinh Charity Hospital in the eponymous province, which opened three years later to serve poor patients in northern provinces. “We have sent many doctors from South Korea to conduct free surgeries for the patients at the hospital,” he said.
In 2007, the Vietnam Ministry of Health granted Woo a commemoration order for his contribution toward improving the health of the locals. He has also helped many Vietnamese working in South Korea when they’ve become sick or injured in accidents.
Another South Korean, Cho Myung Cheol, has been engaged in charity work since the 1990s. The businessman, who used to work as director of a tourism company in Ho Chi Minh City, and his South Korean friends in Vietnam have raised funds for building two kindergartens in Dong Nai and Ben Tre provinces.
Cheol began to work for Hosanna, a South Korean-based nongovernmental organization, in 2002. Hosanna has helped implement several fresh water projects and build 300 houses for the poor in Ben Tre.
