Can a tiger change its stripes?

In response to your April 29 article, “New immigration policies needed as Korea turns truly multicultural,” I’d like to thank your paper for the entertainment it provided. The article provoked a lot of hope and doubt in almost equal measures.

Certainly, the number of foreign workers in Korea has ballooned over the past 20 years. But I think the accurate question the article raises is: Can a ‘visa system’ and a government system designed and developed to serve a fairly homogeneous population like Korea meet the needs of ‘immigrants’ rather than ‘visitors’?

Are guest or foreign workers really immigrants? Or is that just what they are being called and counted as? How will large numbers of certain groups change Korea? What security concerns do they present, given that Korea is the ‘hinge’ on the door to Asia?

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, my wife and I were lucky enough to spend some time in Japan. For years, Japan has had groups of foreigners living long term in the country, including Koreans. We were really happy to be able to speak Korean in almost every city we visited because of our ‘basic’ Japanese language ability.

Koreans fed and took care of us all over Japan. Somehow, we became friends with two older Korean ladies who ran a small five-chair bar and restaurant. It was cozy and it was nice to spend nights talking and joking in Korean.

Surprisingly, these ladies’ families had somehow washed up on Japan’s shores before World War II, yet they were Koreans in their hearts and in all the most important ways.

For both Korea and the millions of recent foreign workers the article talks about, I’d ask a very simple question: If a tiger changes its stripes, is it a tiger anymore?

In Canada right now, thousands of young Koreans are working in every part of our country and complaining about the lack of opportunity, for both job and career, in Korea. They work for minimum-wage jobs and often make plans for going back to Korea if they succeed in Canada.

A few do.

Can a tiger change its stripes?

Korea will always be my second home and the love of my life. Thank you for your fascinating article and I hope you continue this story in some regular fashion!

Mike Sluchinski, a Canadian citizen