For Chinese immigrants, there is no place like home in Seoul’s Chinatown
- The district near Daelim Station has also become Korean foodies’ haunt
- But South Korea’s economic downturn taking a toll on businesses there
Take Seoul’s subway No 2 or No 7 and get off at Daelim Station. Emerge from Exit 12 and you would feel as if you had just entered a different world. Welcome to Chinatown, a favourite haunt of Chinese immigrants in the South Korean capital.
On a Wednesday afternoon, Lee Geum-yong, 40, and his wife were tucking into rice porridge, dumplings and pancakes at a modest restaurant.
“Whenever we miss Chinese food, we come to this district,” said Lee, who is of Korean ancestry and moved to Seoul in 1999.
“Prices are good and food is exactly like what we used to eat at our hometown in Harbin,” he said, referring to the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in China. “Here, it seems like an ordinary Chinese town was moved as a whole to this place”.
Seoul’s Chinatown bears similarities to others around the world. Signboards are in Chinese and shopkeepers are more comfortable using the language rather than speaking haltingly in Korean.
Narrow streets are lined with low-rise buildings with storefront shops selling ingredients for Chinese cuisine, stalls piled up with dumplings, sausages, pancakes and even dog meat, and restaurants specialising in simmering hotpot, noodles and various other dishes.