Just across the street from the Incheon train station is Korea’s only Chinatown. This Chinatown does not compare to Chinatowns in cities like San Francisco, New York, or Vancouver, but it is still interesting place to spend an afternoon visiting for those who live here in Korea.
The Chinatown in Incheon was officially established in 1884 in an agreement between the Korean King and the Chinese Qing Dynasty emperor in the Seonlin-dong hillside in Incheon to create a free trade zone for Chinese merchants. Incheon was chosen as the site for this free trade zone due to the port city’s proximity to the Korean capitol of Seoul. This hill side sits on prime real estate in central Incheon located between the Incheon train station and Jayu Park.
Before the Korean War the Chinese community in Incheon and Korea in general flourished. In 1942 Korea had 80,000 registered Chinese immigrants. After the Korean War the nation wide distrust of the Chinese due to their invasion of Korea during the war plus the post war policies of then South Korean President Park Chung Hee forbidding the Chinese to own businesses and moving them out of Seoul to help Korean business owners, led to a mass reduction in the amount of Chinese people living in Korea. Currently the public’s attitude toward the Chinese has improved but there is still only 30,000 registered Chinese residents in Korea and only 500 of them live in Chinatown. Even today racism may be alive and well against the Chinese who do live in Chinatown according to this Korea Herald piece that includes an interview of a Chinatown family.
Although the days of the Chinese not being allowed to own businesses are over, racial discrimination is still a reality, some Korean-born Chinese say.
“The reason why there is no Chinatown here is because Koreans don’t like foreigners,” says Irene Chu, 32, the Korean-born Chinese owner of Chinese Fusion Restaurant in Incheon. “They don’t even like Chinese people working for them. The Koreans are very protective (of their culture).”
As Chu gets up to take an order, her 60-year-old grandfather breathes a long sigh and pipes in.
“They mistreated us, looked down upon us and saw us as foreigners. I am Chinese. I don’t consider myself Korean. Things have improved now, but what does it matter anymore? I’m an old man,” says the grandfather, who came to Korea when he was 5.
In fact when was in Chinatown I saw very few Chinese at all. Many of the street vendors were all Koreans selling Chinese junk. I went to a large, newer looking Chinese restaurant to eat. I asked the waitress dressed in a traditional Chinese dress if the people in the restaurant were Chinese because they all looked like Koreans to me. She told me that the only Chinese that worked in the restaurant were the cooks that prepared the meals. Everyone else was Korean.
The last time I went to Chinatown was four years ago before the current development of the area and then I actually met more Chinese people then I did now. The area has been greatly developed since then and that has probably brought in more Korean businesses to cash in on the increased tourism.
The development of the area has caused Chinatown to look much nicer but it all seems kind of fake after a while because all the decorations are not authenic, like many of the people, and are just cheap plastic displays. If this artist’s rendition of the new Chinatown to be built in Ilsan is any indication of things to come, Korea will soon have the equivalent of a Chinese theme park filled with more cheap plastic decorations and wannabe Chinese people than Incheon’s Chinatown could ever possibly have.
Never the less Chinatown is still a great place to spend some time checking out. Grab a bite to eat at one of the local restaurants before heading up to Jayu Park. The food is one of the few authentic Chinese experiences you can have in Chinatown. For 20,000 won I stuffed myself with a huge meal that included sweet and sour pork, fish, clams, oysters, etc. Even with its quirks Chinatown should be part of any travel itinerary for those spending time in Incheon. It gets a GI thumbs up.
