Do Koreans Integrate into Australian Society? And Does it Matter?

Hi everyone, it's been a long time.  I keep meaning to post more, but Korea is less relevant to me these days.  I still blog, but now it is usually only about cycle touring, which has been a new and exciting hobby I have been doing since coming to Australia.

Anyway, I thought I'd address the controversial topics of immigration and integration for my first post since over a year ago, and relate it to Korea to keep things relevant.

Firstly, I'll let you know where my bias lies on this topic.  I can't speak for other countries, but when it comes to Britain, I think mass immigration is doing a fair amount of harm at the moment, and I am especially concerned about immigration from the Islamic world.  Unlike the US, whose Muslim population is comparatively small (proportionately) and whose immigration system usually takes mostly well-qualified and vetted immigrants from the Islamic world.  The UK has old ties with countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, which means we tend to have a fair amount of low-quality immigrants from these nations that do not benefit British society.

So how do I tie this in with Korea?  Well, I love a comparison, as you may know, so I thought I'd do one here between Korean immigrants to Australia and Muslim immigrants to the UK.

My biggest issue with Muslim immigrants to the UK, and perhaps more importantly to other countries in Europe, is that those already there appear to be living solely in their own communities and struggling to integrate, yet still huge numbers are coming in, making assimilation into British and European culture even harder.

I am currently living in Melbourne, and I am often struck with amazement cycling my way through the city about just how many East Asians there are.  It feels like the ratio is almost 50/50, and filling a percentage of this does appear to be a fair amount of Koreans.

Looking at the latest figures I could find, the 2011 census data, the number of Korean-born people in Australia was only about 75 000.  Now this doesn't account for those born in Australia of Korean ancestry, but the number is far far less than say Muslims in the UK.

However, the key issue I am concerned with is integration.  Do Koreans integrate into Australian society?  It is a tricky question to answer with statistics alone, so with that in mind, I am going to give my observations of what I have seen in Melbourne through connections with my wife.

I like to make things absolutely clear for readers, because I have absorbed a fair amount of criticism on this blog, so what I am about to say is an observation, not a statement of fact (and this has always been the case, and was even written into the description of my blog).  I am writing this blog as an observer, not a journalist.  I don't have the time to sift through data or interview community leaders.  These are my opinions based, not solely, but mainly on my own observations.

So, do Koreans integrate?  My answer would be largely, no.  I find they mainly stick to having Korean friends and associations. You will always find examples of people who do, and I think it is obvious to say that the children of Korean immigrants in the past are far more likely to do so, but in general the Koreans I have met don't really integrate into wider Australian society.

What I think you'll find happening more and more in western countries is also that foreign communities will begin to integrate less and less due to the high volumes of their own country men and women coming over.  The reason for this is that in the past, the first immigrants had to associate with wider society in a range of areas; for schooling, services, and friendship.  However today, increasingly all these things can just be comfortably done within their own communities.  For instance, what you'll find in many Muslim dense areas of the UK is that kids go to Islamic schools, you can hire a Muslim plumber, go to a Muslim-owned grocery store, and people only socialise with other Muslims.  They might as well be in their own countries.

The Korean community in Melbourne often works to my benefit, as I find that having access to them through my wife can be very useful.  If I ever want a job done well, I usually hire a Korean.  If I need a taxi to the airport, someone to help move house, a builder, a visa agent, etc, I get my wife to look into the Korean community first.  I usually find them cheaper, quicker, better quality, easier to get a hold of, and generally less bogged-down in bureaucratic procedures.  I am sure they do all these services without the proper government-approved license, but quite frankly, I am glad of that as they are better at what they do as a result.

I am not suggesting that this lack of integration is the fault of Korean people (or indeed Muslims) either, I just think this is a bit of a fact of life that, in reality, happens in most foreign communities.  After all when in Korea, the same occurs with people from English speaking nations, they all hang around together.  The critical thing is, though, does this lack of integration really matter? In the case of Korean people, I think it doesn't.

With very few exceptions, Korean people have cultural values which enable them to be excellent newcomers to Western societies.  They are hard-working, law abiding, and tolerant of and adaptable to the different way of life that they have migrated into. Many even embrace the ability to throw off the shackles of Korean society and just be themselves.  But even if Koreans don't enjoy Western liberalism, individualism, and life in general, they usually just deal with it and get on with their lives without complaint.

Perhaps I am just ignorant of any downsides, but I cannot recall any problems Far-Eastern communities have caused in Western countries.  I just don't hear of any unrest involving Koreans, Chinese, or Japanese.  Individual exceptions again will always crop-up, but they really do seem like rogue individuals, out of sync and unrelated in their behaviour with their wider community.

Contrast this with Muslim communities in many Western countries, especially in Europe. Now I know there is a lot of right-wing media out there cooking-up a storm about this, but at least some of it does appear to be quite valid.

It isn't just the terrorism, in Britain we have had issues with Muslim rape gangs, tens of thousands of cases of Female Genital Mutilation going completely unprosecuted, and death threats to journalists and public figures for, sometimes the most benign acts of freedom of expression against the prophet Mohammed.

Like it or not, there is an extreme side of many inside Muslim communities in the West that not only doesn't integrate, like Koreans, but appears to actually want to defy the laws and customs of the countries they come into and have their own power.  They want their own legal system, their own areas, and seek special privileges (especially the right to not have their religion mocked or prophets depicted).  On top of this, there looks as though there is an issue with members of the Muslim community not speaking-up against truly unsavoury, dangerous extremists who exist within their communities. This is both out of solidarity with them as fellow Muslims and out of fear of violence against them.

From my observations of Koreans and what they say, they don't hold nearly the same fears or feelings of loyalty with fellow Koreans (not to mention their lack of extreme behaviour).  Indeed many of them don't want to make too close friends with other Koreans, as they end up facing the same issues with societal pressure just in a different land.  For this reason, I am sure there are a number of pretty lonely Koreans in Australia, who find it difficult to make friends with non-Koreans, yet also don't wish to get too close with the Korean community either.

I hear a lot of generalisations about immigration, but really we have to be quite specific about it if we want to realistically make multi-culturalism work, if it can work at all.  As I have said many times in this blog, culture matters, and different cultures can throw-up different challenges when it comes to living side by side with each other.  Some cultures, like Korean culture, can be radically different to ours yet in ways that make them easy to be neighbours with, and some can be different in divisive ways that cause trouble.

I think Western culture generally has far more in common with many Islamic cultures than it does with the Far East, but the specific small differences between the West and some Islamic cultures (being general here, I am aware of the many cultures occurring in Islamic countries and indeed the subtle differences in Western countries also), are far more problematic than the big differences between the people of the West and the Far East when it comes to living with each other.

These subtleties are always lost when we talk about immigration.  Phrases like, "diversity is our strength", or, "immigration benefits our country", are far too broad to get to the heart of the matter.  The truth is that sometimes diversity is a good thing and sometimes immigration is of benefit to our countries, and that it very much depends who and where those coming in are from, and in what numbers, as to whether this immigration is of benefit to the economy and society as a whole.  I have yet to ever hear this nuance in any debate on the subject.

The migrant crisis in Europe would be problematic wherever these people were coming from, but I think it is stating the obvious to say that if we had millions of Koreans flooding into Europe right now, we'd have significantly less troubles than if it was millions of Muslims.  Before we can sit down and logically talk about uncomfortable truths such as this, I see no hope for multi-culturalism worldwide, and particularly in Europe, and I do fear for the well-being of my country of birth in the years to come.

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/c4-survey-and-documentary-reveals-what-british-muslims-really-think
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/36838870/the-first-ever-fgm-figures-show-nearly-6000-new-cases-in-england
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/10588267/Lib-Dem-candidate-receives-death-threats-for-tweeting-Prophet-Mohammed-cartoon.html
https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/02_2014/korea.pdf