A Changed World for Korea’s Returnees

One came back for a father-in-law; one came back for God. More than one came back for profit.

Another calls Korea "an abnormal, sick society," and in the same breath says, "I'm more patriotic than anybody I know."

They left Korea decades ago, while the country was in the grip of dictators, in search of a better life in the United States. With most now closing in on their retirement years, they have returned to their homeland and discovered a new political, economic and social landscape. Some embrace it, some do not.

The first-generation returnees interviewed for this article are generally well-to-do, are fluent in English, possess degrees from American universities and, in most cases, have U.S. passports. Many of them are back in Korea for the same reason they left all those years ago: They're simply following the opportunities. The return doesn't mark a circular journey, but a linear one.

A combination of talent, resources and luck allowed returnees like Chung Myung-hwa, Korea's leading concert cellist, to go to the United States in the first place. Ms. Chung and others stayed long enough to pursue successful careers that have enabled them to come back to Korea on their own terms and with a sense of greater freedom.

Ms. Chung, 61, who has had a home in Manhattan for three decades, came back six years ago to teach at the Korean National University of Arts. "In Korea you have to do certain things a certain way, but at the school I teach as if I were teaching in New York because I don't have to prove myself," she says.

Untroubled by the culture shock and identity crises that frequently greet younger Koreans who return to Korea, Ms. Chung says she has no feelings of being torn about the motherland. In returning to Korea, she wasn't trying to find anything. Instead, she wanted to give something back. "Which means that what I do here, I do because I choose to," she says.

First-generation Koreans have been trickling back here since the 1980s, says Gi-wook Shin, a sociology professor at Stanford University and director of the school's Korean Studies program, in an interview. In the 1970s, many Korean academics saw few career opportunities in their homeland, which was poor and authoritarian, even though the Park Chung Hee government tried to lure back some Korean scientists by offering perks.

But things began to change in the 1980s, especially as Korea became richer and democratic, creating a lot of opportunities for qualified Koreans who had settled abroad.

For Ben Limb, 69, an attorney and a New Yorker of some 30 years, the political changes sweeping Korea were what allowed him to come back. Though he'd wanted to return to Korea immediately after finishing his U.S. education "to share what I'd learned with the people back here, because I knew exactly how bad those things were needed," his human rights activities placed him on President Park's blacklist for decades.

Having returned out of civic consciousness, both Mr. Limb and Ms. Chung acknowledge a "big fish, small pond" advantage.

"There are so many famous people all over, but here I'm one of the few who can contribute" to the performing arts community, says Ms. Chung, "and it's nice to be appreciated."

Mr. Limb also notes that "in the U.S., there's always strong competition," but when he returned in the wake of the 1997-98 financial crisis, the relative inexperience of Korean lawyers in handling things like cross-border mergers and acquisitions left the door wide open for him.

Now practicing immigration law in Seoul, Mr. Limb reports "enormous job satisfaction" and many more open doors, "even at my age."

Kim Young-dae and Thomas Hwang, both 62 and high school classmates, also went abroad to bring something back ― two very different things.

After working as an engineer for Hewlett-Packard, Mr. Kim returned to Korea and founded a high-tech company. "I wanted to do something of my own," he says. For him, Korea was a strategic manufacturing base.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hwang, a businessman turned pastor, came back and founded an English-language seminary for foreign factory workers. Korea was close to the Third World countries he wanted to serve, Mr. Hwang says.

Asked where he considers home, Mr. Kim answers, "Either way, I've become cosmopolitan, and once you do that, you don't get too attached to any one place. You like it everywhere, and you also miss everywhere."

Yet it's clear that many such returnees aren't burdened by soul-searching questions, precisely because their "Korean-ness" is a forgone conclusion.

Though Charles Lho, an executive director at the Samsung Economic Research Institute who holds degrees from Stanford, Yale and Oxford, is one of just two people interviewed who does not have U.S. citizenship, he represents how many returnees combine a strong Korean identity with a global outlook.

"The core reason why I maintained my Korean citizenship even though I spent more than 80 percent of my life abroad was because I knew that I would come back one day," says Mr. Lho.

But as for where he feels at home: "It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, you know. Do you like Korean food the best? What about Italian? French? What about fusion restaurants?"

In their personal lives as well, many returnees are comfortable having ties to different countries. For Ms. Chung, her homeland is now her professional base. "I'm not really involved in social gatherings here, so I just teach," she says.

Meanwhile, her personal base is overseas, with her children, mother and siblings all living on different continents. But, says Ms. Chung, "We're all so used to going back and forth for so many years. It actually works quite well."

In fact, almost all the interviewed returnees have grown children, and in some cases spouses, outside of Korea, something only affluent families can afford.

The Koreans who do come back tend to be upper class, says Mr. Shin of Stanford. "I don't think most shopkeepers and dry cleaners see any good reason to return. This is related to the nature of Korean society, which is still status-conscious," he says.

Yoon Tae-hee, 69, a longtime economist with the World Bank and a returnee who styles himself as an ardent critic of Korean society, says he believes the culture has built-in barriers for the small-town boy looking to make good. You have to already be "one of them," says Mr. Yoon, explaining that, in most cases, hard-earned accomplishments abroad are meaningless back home without the backing of Korea's three big networking channels: family, school and region.

Mr. Yoon recalls a "world-class" Korean-born, U.S.-based engineer who was looking to return but had the misfortune of having attended high school in Baltimore.

"Korea needs hundreds of people like him," he says, "but I told him honestly, ‘You're nothing in Korea.' There are 500 candidates for each job and they're going to put their friends in them."

Which is why Mr. Yoon scoffs at what's become the gold standard of success among professionals in Korea: "Anyone who is not mentally retarded can get a Ph.D. in the United States."

Calling Korea "the most corrupt country in the world," Mr. Yoon holds it up against his 40-some years' experience in other parts of the world, and finds grievous shortcomings.

"They don't believe in universal principles. They don't believe in fair competition. They're xenophobic. And they classify according to success," he says.

Though more vocal than most, Mr. Yoon is by no means alone in his criticism of his homeland. Ms. Moon, who asked to be identified only by her last name, also talks about the decay in "moral fiber" she's seen accompany Korea's accumulation of wealth.

"Most people I know here are economically very well off, but their way of thinking is still the same as 30 years ago," she says. "The first thing they ask is, ‘How many pyeong (a unit of 3.3 square meters) is your apartment?'"

Ms. Moon, like other returnees, charges Koreans with worrying too much about what other people think, and consequently caring only about appearances.

"It's hard to be a woman of a certain age who likes to dress casually," she says.

Ms. Moon is also put off by what she sees as Koreans' overblown pride. "The sentiment I hear most here is ‘Daehanminguk chaegoda' (Korea is No. 1)," she says. "But I'd rather see Koreans honest, kind, and able to understand the feelings and pain of others in the community than to see them be the best in the world at this or that."

However, Ms. Moon's and Mr. Yoon's views come from two different places. Mr. Yoon criticizes Korea out of love, like one would a wayward child.

"No matter where I am, I'm always Korean, and a patriotic Korean," he says. "I might as well be in Korea."

Ms. Moon, in contrast, returned to Korea for a business venture and doesn't plan to stay. "In my heart, whenever I land back at O'Hare [airport], I feel that I'm home. Not when I land at Incheon," she says.

Her faith is in "the American spirit of democracy," she says, adding, "I realized how great a country America is after I came back to Korea."

The returnees' experiences overseas have not only given them an outsider's perspective of Korea, they have an outsider's mindset as well.

In Mr. Yoon's case, even though his World Bank position kept him well-tuned to the rapid development that was occurring in his homeland, he still sees a difference between himself and those who stayed.

"I'm 70 and I feel alive, healthy, not worn out or tired," he says. "These people, they've been struggling all their lives, even the chaebols (conglomerates). It's a highly taxing, competitive life here at all levels."

For Mee Ro, 58, who had almost no contact with Korea for 10 years after she left for college in 1966, the country's sudden changes have produced a more powerful impression.

"When I left Korea, all the mountains were red. Just dirt," she says. "When we were growing up there were no trees because they were cutting them down for fuel."

When she looked down from the airplane on her return, she recalled, "I saw all this green ? The land had changed."

Ms. Ro, a librarian at the Seoul Foreign School and one of the few who came back for personal reasons, which was to spend time with her aging father-in-law, says she had to undergo a unique form of cultural adaptation.

"Westerners [coming here] may not be so shocked because they assume that this is a different culture," says Ms. Ro. But she wasn't a foreigner and couldn't easily brush off annoyances "like rudeness, and how insistent they are with certain things regardless of your opinion, and of course street manners, and the attitude toward children."

"I got into arguments and would complain to authorities," she recalls. "It really amazed me how, when people would see something they should be involved in, or correct, they wouldn't."

Other returnees agree that even though they believe they are Korean through-and-through, everyday life in Korea still takes getting used to.

In the boardroom, Mr. Limb, the attorney, gave up on committee meetings because no one would volunteer ideas. On the social circuit, Ms. Moon, who was used to couples-oriented gatherings, was relegated to the ladies-who-lunch scene while her husband was invited out to dinner and drinks with business associates.

In physical and material comfort, Seoul has its attractions for the returnees. But again there's a caveat: "Here you expect certain standards, especially at our age," says Ms. Ro. "In the States, if you don't have it, it's okay ― unless you compete among Korean-Americans."

The seemingly removed arena of politics gives the greatest insight into how the returnees situate themselves in Korea. While many don't vote in U.S. elections and are outright apolitical about Korean affairs, others are quite active and vocal but are notably selective in doing so.

John Lee, 77, is another attorney and a Korean War veteran who left for Yale College in 1954. When he returned in 1999, he set up Republicans Abroad Korea in time for the U.S. presidential election.

"The basic U.S. system is something I admire," says Mr. Lee. "I adhere to it; I enjoy it." And he feels he has a stake in the U.S. Republican party, with his religious background, experience with U.S. Forces Korea and close friendship with prominent Republicans in Washington.

But despite his Republican political initiative, Mr. Lee refuses to dip his toe into domestic policy. "There are no inhibitions or restrictions on what I express, because I'm not entangled with the government," he explains.

Ben Limb is Mr. Lee's political opposite ― "Reading the New York Times for 35 years will leave quite an impact," he says ― who, after being taken off the Korean government's blacklist, returned to Korea to advise the 1997 presidential campaign of liberal candidate Kim Dae-jung.

Yet, in spite of such involvement, Mr. Limb also refuses to formally join a Korean party. Like Mr. Lee and indeed, like all returnees, he seems to follow a guideline that goes beyond politics: Hold strong views, but keep a certain distance.

Mr. Limb still socializes with his high school friends from over a half-century ago, which speaks to the strong ties the returnees still have in the land they left for so long.

But recently, a friend remarked that he "still smelled something buttery" about Mr. Limb, as opposed to "genuine doenjang." ‘Butter' is a slightly derogatory term to describe foreigners. Doenjang is the soybean paste that is a staple of Korean cuisine.

Mr. Limb doesn't care what smell he gives off. "I think I'm doing pretty well here."