Student Blog on ICM 2014 Trip to Study Themes of Korean Identity and Place

Ten undergraduate students went to South Korea and China for ten days as part of a Faculty of Arts and Science International Course Module (ICM) in May 2014.  The ICM was designed to build on CAS400Y: “Critical Perspectives on Asian Modernity” and Professor Andre Schmid’s EAS466H: “Historiography of North Korea,”  focusing on the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.

Seen by Koreans as their ancestral home, the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture is located in northeast China, and is the largest settlement of ethnic Koreans outside of the Korean peninsula. This border region, described as North Korea’s “lifeline to the outside world,” is where the majority of the DPRK’s trade takes place, as well as being a site for significant South Korean investment. The region is home to the Chaoxianzu, ethnic Koreans who initially settled in Yanbian in the 19th century. Yanbian is considered to be one of China’s only truly bicultural societies. However, since the 1990s the area has seen increases in the use of Chinese in everyday speech and the enrollment of Korean children in Chinese language schools. This has happened in conjunction with Chinese economic policies that actively encourage flows of investment, trade, and people from both South and North Korea into China, with many ethnic Koreans moving to South Korea for economic purposes.  The module intended to allow these students to study  the impact of such cultural and economic policies, and ascertain the effects it has on the shrinking Korean minority population living in China, exploring themes of “integrated” Korean identity, historical memory and migration, and Chinese economic policy towards the DPRK.

The students created a blog, and took turns writing about each day of their trip, sharing their experiences and observations on how different constructions of Korean  identity in China interact within a small, accessible geographic area.

Please enjoy their blog, found here:  http://icm2014asia.wordpress.com/