India a tough terrain for Korean citizens, make it conducive: Korean Association

New Delhi. Looking forward to huge investment and influx of Korean companies in time to come, India needs to immediately address the issues of Korean nationals currently living in India.

Staying in tough conditions in various Indian cities, the Korean expat community expects India to strengthen its infrastructure and make available better avenues with quality education, entertainment, sports, and also do better on the index of quality living and ease of doing business.

“Koreans very well realize that next opportunity lies in India, even though life here is still tough. We know that big opportunities are coming up in India in the next 10 years. Even if life is not comfortable here, we have to come to India now, develop business here as this is the right time,” Euy Don Park, the President of the Korean Association in India told the Asian Community News (ACN) Network recently.

At present, as many as 15,000 Korean citizens stay in various cities of India, and about 5000 of which stay in Delhi and NCR towns alone. Chennai too has about 5500 Koreans, Pune 3000 and Mumbai 1000 and rest are in other cities like Pune and Hyderabad.

In deep contrast, the number of Koreans staying in ASEAN countries like Vietnam is over 100,000 as these countries offer comfortable living and working environment as well as better infrastructure besides cultural similarities.

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“Korean’s life in India is very tough. India and Korea are culturally so different. Korean People are facing various issues such as daily life, lack of entertainment and food avenues, and infrastructure is still poor. Overall, sentiments are very much negative,” said Park.

Barring Delhi and NCR towns like Gurgaon that can boast of amenities like good Korean restaurants, sprawling golf courses, and global schools; rest of the Indian cities don’t have much to offer to the Koreans and life is very tough there, said the president of Korean Association in India.

“Currently, I am focusing on the sentiments of the Koreans living in India. At the Korean Association in India, we are trying to bring fun and joy in the lives of Koreans staying in India by organizing community-centric events like golf tournaments, painting competition, joint eating events, and others. All this to boost their morale,” said Park.

Latest in the series of events for Koreans, the Korean Association in India organized Korean Women’s Invitational Golf Tournament 2019, New Delhi at the lush green course of Classic Golf & Country Club on April 5 when women golfers and their families participated from Delhi and NCR towns.

“It was one of the big events, and my initiative to make them feel more comfortable, enjoy Indian life. I want to encourage communication between themselves as it is more important. Every month, we are organising small and medium size gatherings. Last time, we had painting competition at the Butterfly Park where over 100 children participated from Delhi and NCR towns,” said Park adding that the sentimental distance between Indian and Korean communities also needed to be bridged, but this also would be addressed later.

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Already successfully organized 6-7 events since January this year, the Korean Association also addresses concerns related to the Koreans living in India without their families. And to address their boredom, the association invited them to the café of Korean Cultural Centre of India (KCCI) in New Delhi and served traditional Koran food there on the occasion of Korean New Year, the February 5 this year. Most of them being students from DU and JNU, these bachelors feel lonely during their stay in India because of the cultural gape.

Park said, “We also gathered the community to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the March First Independence Movement of Korea against Japanese colonial rule, on March 1 in India. On this day exactly 100 years back, our ancestors had declared movement against Japanese colonial rule in 1919. Other events included an exhibition of flower decoration at the KCCI.”

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All these efforts are aimed at promoting intra-community communication amongst the Koreans so that they could feel likfe a strong and happy community in India, Pask said adding that if they felt happy, they would spread the good word with others in Korea, and more and more Koreans and companies would come to India.

When asked to specifically pinpoint the issues concerning Koreans in India on various parameters, Park said that life for Koreans in Delhi and NCR towns was little better than other cities of India.

“In Delhi NCR, we have over 10 Korean restaurants, nice golf courses like JP Greens, DLF Golf & Country Club, and Classic Golf Club. But overall, entertainment avenues are very limited here as we have nothing more than golf to enjoy here. Whereas in Korea, we enjoy hiking, mountaineering, soccer, cycling and adventurous sports. For cultural life, Koreans go to museaum and join music festivals in Korea but such opportunities are rare in India,” lamented the Korean Association president Park.

Regarding the high school education, even though Delhi and NCR towns have American and British Schools but there were very expensive. Gurgaon though has IB schools  like Pathways, GD Goenka, Lancers etc but its not the case in other cities of India.

Park also said that the Koreans liked nightlife which India missed out grossly on this front too.

Park summed up by saying that India and Korea have to go a long way together and prosper but India will have to prepare a conducive environment for Korean expats and companies to come and stay here, gorw here in huge number.