Koreans top new expat arrivals

By Qin Zhongwei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-12 09:12

More than 140,000 South Koreans visited Beijing in the third quarter, overshadowing the numbers of visitors from any other country, latest official statistics reveal.

Foreign travelers made more than 1.87 million trips into Beijing during this three-month period, representing a 10.9 percent year-on-year increase, Beijing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection said.

And visitors from the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States topped the list.

Zhao Guangyan, press officer with the station, said the high entry figures is a sign that China is coming out of the financial downturn.

Paik Ji-min, a 23-year-old Korean, is one of the 140,000 Korean visitors. He arrived in Beijing in September to work as a Korean teacher in the Beijing Language and Culture University and said many of his friends had come to China or are planning to relocate.

"China is my first choice since I decided to teach Korean to foreigners back in my country as a lot of people here show their great interest in our language and culture," she said. "And Beijing is a city I can easily fit into, as I can always read some bilingual signboards on the streets where there is dense Korean population and eat Korean food."

Currently, about 200,000 among the nearly one million visiting South Koreans in China are living in Beijing, and just like Paik, they are here to either to study or to work. And most live in Wangjing's "Korean Town" in the capital's northeast.

The surge of Korean visitors to Beijing is a contrast to a trend seen earlier this year when many Korean residents returned back to their country because of the financial crisis and depreciation of the South Korean won.

Zhou Yanping, who works for real estate chain Homelink's Wangjing outlet, said he has recently seen a higher demand from South Koreans looking for accommodation and on Saturday had just taken a Korean student to see an apartment.

But Li Yuanhai, a Korean-speaking real estate agent, is not so optimistic.

"We used to receive a couple of South Korean clients each day when there was a great demand, but now I merely see one every couple of days, if I am lucky enough," Li said.

Xu Kang and Xu Fan contributed to the story