60,000 Young Women Went to Korea. “It’s Difficult to Find Bachelorettes.”

“It has been long time since the saying ‘even a sandal has its own pair’ disappeared. Even a widow with children can live well in here. Bachelors are rare here; however, bachelorettes are less than one in every 20 ~ 30 bachelors.”

The Town of Taiyen in Iran Jin, which is 30 minutes away by car from the City of Yenji. Some old ladies in their 60’s and 70’s, who were playing cards in a senior citizen’s activity center, said with sighs, “We cannot find bachelorettes in rural areas any more.”

The old ladies heard that we were from Korea and offered us some steamed corns for lunch. Although I ate 4 already, they insisted that I had to eat three more to be full and gave me a handful of corns when I left. The cold wind of urbanization seemed to pass this warm hospitality of this rural area.

▽ Hometown of Korean Elites=The Town of Taiyen, where people do not grow rice but merely manage their lives by growing corns and beans, was the place where young elites from Yenben and Shanghai were forced to move in during the Cultural Revolution (1966 ~ 1976) and engaged in labor.

The town, which had almost 3,000 households at that time, was organized in 11 production units with 25 ~ 35 households in a unit. The 200 some elites built their headquarter, where is the senior citizen’s activity center in present time, and ‘worked during the day and temper their ideology with farmers during the night.’ There are 7 Korean production units and 4 Chinese units out of 11 units.

However, the situation has been totally changed. Although the production units has been increased to 13, but the Korean units has been reduced to two. And the number of households has been reduced to 15 as well.

“All the young people left the town and went to big cities in China or Korea, so there are only old people and children left in rural areas. The Chinese people took all of our lands. Now we can speak little bit of Chinese.”

Mr. Kim (69) said, “When we organized production units with just Koreans, we didn’t need to use Chinese, but we cannot work without knowing Chinese.”

▽ A Contrary wind of the Korean Dream=”When China made the autonomous districts for races, they consider whether minority ratio is more than 25% or not. The population growth rate of Koreans became minus since 1996. A Korean scholar predicted that the Korean population ratio of Yenben will be 20% in 2010, 10% in 2020, and only 8.7% in 2030.

The Central National University Korean Studies Research Institute in China said that the number of newborn babies at the end of 1999 was 3,800, and it was only a quarter of that compare to 1989. If we consider the reduction of birth rate in last 10 years, there will be 2,000 newborns in 2009, 500 in 2019, 31 in 2029, and none in 2049.

The Korean society in Yenben is facing the biggest disorganization threat in its 140 years of history. For that threat, a contrary wind brought by the Amity of Korea and China played a big role.

“Although the number of newborns are drastically dropped under 4,000, the Korean bachelorettes, who go to Korea by marriage, are up to 6,000 to 10,000 a year, so if we calculate from 1993, it would be more than 60,000. We can say that one out of three women in their 20’s and 30’s, who supposed to make the Korean Community, went to Korea.”

▽ Unique Culture is in danger of withering to death=A writer (55) that I met in Yenji illustrated the recent Korean situation as a ‘moistened water.’

“If the Korean population rate is dropped below 25%, the meaning of the autonomous district will be disappeared. It’s like one Korean lives with three other Chinese, and they use Chinese language not Korean. It’s a matter of time for Koreans to be assimilated to Chinese. Can the Korean schools, media, and publications survive without people? Although they force to move people like Stalin, it will be slowly collapsed like a moistened wall.”

The Taiyen Elementary School, which had relatively many students, also closed this March. It was because the number of students, which used to be 30 ~ 50 a class in 10 ~ 20 years ago, has drastically dropped to 5 ~ 8 a class in recent few years. This school merged to the Chinese Jinchung Elementary School, which was 4 kilometers away.

The closing of Korean schools in Yenben became a general phenomenon due to massive emigration of Korean population and dropping of birth rate.

The Korean publications are also in danger. The famous pure literature monthly magazine ‘Yenben Literature’ sold 80,000 copies in 1982 ~ 85, but now only 400 copies are sold. Since the people who use Korean language are drastically dropped, the ‘Korean Cultural Market,’ which is based on media and publications, is in danger of withering to death.

yshwang@donga.com