Cultural Identity

Korean Chinese’s identity as “Gongmin”, which means citizen in Chinese, often came into conflict with the loyalty to their ethnic Korean identity due to the Diaspora. Even during the period of time in which strong identification were discouraged back in China, Korean Chinese still kept up and maintained their Korean traditions, refusing to obey the Chinese law at that time. As a result, the Korean Chinese population remain to be more observant as compared to other diaspora Koreans immigrating to countries such as the United States or Japan or Russia. Generally speaking, as a community, Korean Chinese have embraced their identity as both Gongmin and ethnic Korean. However, their “Double-taking” or “Double-positioning” have also led to a lot of conflicts and tensions during the course of their diaspora history, social pressure by the dominant “Han” Chinese in China as well as other minority groups have also caused psychological trauma for a lot of Korean Chinese.

Korean heritage has always been very important for Korean Chinese, despite the fact that many of them left the Korean Peninsula in order to escape poverty, starvation, and exploitation by landlords or under Japanese colonial rule, they still chose to describe Korea as a peaceful and beautiful land where their home belonged.