Foreign residents study Korean at Itaewon Global Village Center in Seoul, July 26. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

On hot summer nights, Chinese families living in Shibazono Danchi, a public housing complex near Tokyo, would come out to dance and play in the park. The noise would anger the elderly Japanese living in the complex, as such practices are frowned upon in Japanese culture, where people go home after the sun sets.

“There is even a song in Japan that says children should go home after sunset,” said Takashima Oshima, a resident of Shibazono Danchi who is a journalist for Asahi Shimbun. “It is not that some people lack common sense. It's that there is a difference in what is considered common sense.”

Due to various conflicts that arose as the complex saw an influx of foreign residents since the 1990s, a university student organization decided to take action.

Together with the neighborhood association, it created programs where the Chinese and Japanese people write calligraphy, which is common in the cultures of the two countries. The neighbors also learned the Chinese martial art, tai chi, and the Japanese folk dance Bon Odori.

“What we tried to do is make programs where the participants engage in an activity to achieve a common goal, in order to instill in them an identity as Shibazono Danchi residents, transcending their identities as Japanese and Chinese people,” Oshima said.

The journalist said that this increased contact with their foreign neighbors helped to promote understanding among the elderly Japanese to some extent. The complex now houses 4,000 residents, 60 percent of whom are foreigners.

Korea needs to prepare itself for such situations, as the percentage of foreigners in the country grows.

Most developed economies are competing to attract migrants to fill their shrinking workforces as they follow the same trajectory of falling birthrates and aging populations. The stance of many countries, including Korea, is to address worker shortages in labor-intensive sectors, while seeking to lure skilled professionals to settle.

The Korean government is also preparing to launch a new agency dedicated to policies for immigrants, as related duties are dispersed across multiple ministries.

Currently, the focus is on devising incentives for foreign workers to enter the country and stay longer, while there has been less effort to make Korea a more inclusive country.

But with the percentage of foreign residents in Korea expected to exceed 5 percent next year, it appears imperative for the government to prepare for greater diversity. Korea has 2.25 million foreign residents, accounting for 4.47 percent of the population as of 2022.

Where does Korea stand?

In a survey released in 2020 by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, 68.4 percent of surveyed migrants responded that racial discrimination exists in Korea. They said they have experienced discrimination based on their Korean language skills, nationality or race.

In another survey released in 2022, 58 percent of Korean respondents said they would find it uncomfortable to have a migrant worker become a lawmaker or head of a local government to represent them, while 45.5 percent said they would find it uncomfortable for a marriage immigrant to hold such a position.

"We can say Korean society's acceptance of multiculturalism is among the world's worst,” said Jang Han-up, director of Ewha Womans University's Center for Multicultural Research.

He referred to a global survey conducted by the BBC in 2018, in which Korea ranked 26th out of 27 countries for acceptance of multiculturalism. In the same year, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family conducted a similar survey, where Korea scored 52.81 out of 100. The score fell 0.54 point in 2021 in the survey that is conducted every three years.

"This can be attributed to the fact that Korea taught students for over 50 years that the country is monoethnic," the professor said.

The culture ministry has set up a four-year plan on tasks aimed at protecting and promoting cultural diversity, but when it comes to which migrants are included, the government's definition is limited to certain types of families or students with multicultural backgrounds. There is no educational content on diversity at schools that has a step-by-step approach, with continuity across the curriculum.

Experts point to the need to educate the public on understanding the country's need for migrants from an economic perspective, as well as on accepting differences.

In Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, foreign residents account for 13 percent of the population, the highest among comparable local governments. Ansan's population composition could be where Korea is headed as it grapples with an aging and shrinking population. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

What can we learn from other nations?

In Australia, the Department of Home Affairs is in charge of immigration, but also promotes social cohesion through multicultural programs and settlement programs.

In Korea, the justice ministry is in charge of visa affairs, while the interior ministry provides support for the general foreign population. The labor ministry manages migrant workers and the gender ministry is in charge of policies for multicultural families.

Korea has legal grounds to support multicultural families, but they are defined as families that include a Korean parent. Therefore, many foreign families are excluded from basic subsidies such as those for children's education.

Canada is the only country that has legislation on multiculturalism, which stands for equal treatment, respecting diversity and promoting understanding of different cultures.

Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is a multilingual and multicultural broadcaster that offers programs in more than 60 languages. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

Promoting mutual understanding

In Australia, media has played a vital role in fostering intercultural understanding. The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is a multilingual and multicultural broadcaster that offers programs in more than 60 languages.

Initially established as a radio network in 1978, it expanded into TV in 1980. Its stated purpose is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and TV services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society.”

A significant innovation at SBS is that every televised program has English subtitles — which means programs in the first languages of immigrants can also be viewed by those for whom English is their mother tongue. This enables native English-speaking Australians to learn about cultures of different ethnicities.

Also, Australian-made programs increasingly have subtitles in Vietnamese, Arabic and Chinese — the three largest language groups of immigrants in the country.

“When we describe SBS, we say that it is a symbol and the flagship of multiculturalism, and in the end, it can be said that it has made a truly remarkable contribution to bringing about a change in perception among people who had a poor understanding of other ethnic cultures,” said Joo Yang-joong, executive producer of the Korean program at SBS Audio and Language Content.

SBS in its early years aired sports of different cultures, as well as films from diverse countries that couldn't be seen in regular theaters.

Books used at schools in Australia to promote intercultural understanding among students / Courtesy of New South Wales Department of Education

“Movies reflect the reality of each culture. Viewers could see that there are people who eat with their hands and that Koreans eat with metal chopsticks,” he said.

Education at school is also a key tool, as mindsets are formed at a young age.

Intercultural understanding is one of the seven general capabilities within the Australian curriculum, along with others such as literacy and numeracy. In the curriculum, acquiring intercultural understanding is divided into six steps so that students can develop this capability in a step-by-step process.

“Taught well, cultural understanding helps young people build empathy and understanding of one another,” Australia's Minister for Education Jason Clare said.

Preparing for social integration

A growing percentage of migrants can lead to conflict, especially when there is a scarcity of key resources relating to people's lives — such as jobs or homes.

“Creating more inclusive symbols is often thought to be an important step not only in the message it sends to minorities but in the message it sends to majorities as well,” said Clayton Chin, a senior lecturer in political theory at the University of Melbourne.

He referred to Canada's changing of its national flag in 1965, from the Red Ensign which had the Union Jack representing the U.K. to the current flag with the maple leaf, which is a more inclusive, territorial symbol as maple trees grow in Canada.

Experts also refer to the model of interculturalism, which places an emphasis on interaction and exchanges between people from different cultural backgrounds, for social integtation.

"In interculturalism, the emphasis is put on developing means and ways to accommodate diversity through exchange and interaction while maintaining the majority at the background as the engine of integration,” said Gérard Bouchard, emeritus professor at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi and one of the main scholars of interculturalism.

The model of interculturalism was developed in the 1980s for living together in Canada's province of Quebec, whose population is mainly French Canadian. The purpose of the model is to integrate minority groups within Quebec.

A senior citizen, left, speaks with foreign residents at Cheonyeondong Community Center in Seoul as part of a volunteer program run by Itaewon Global Village Center, Aug. 17. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

Efforts to help foreign migrants interact with locals appear necessary, whether it be students or workers. A survey released by Statistics Korea in September showed one of the top difficulties foreigners in Korea struggle with is loneliness.

“It is difficult for students to become very close over three years if we leave them as they are. I think that schools should consider introducing many programs so that students can mingle with each other,” said Lim Mi-eun, a teacher in charge of multicultural education at Sunil Middle School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, wherestudents from migrant backgrounds constitute 70 percent of the total student body.

Local education offices are devising projects to help students with migrant backgrounds socialize with Korean students. Agencies assisting foreigners are also developing similar programs.

"As a foreigner in Korea, especially if you don't speak Korean at all, it's really difficult to connect with the locals. And because of that, what we want to do is to have these kind of programs or services that help bridge that gap, that problem,” said Katherine Corteza, a Filipina immigrant who is the director of Itaewon Global Village Center.

The center runs a volunteer program for foreign nationals, giving them the opportunity to teach English to senior citizens of the local community. Participants have found this program a meaningful way to interact with local people whom they would not usually have a chance to talk with.