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Display Shelves for
Korean Books in a Bookstore
in Yanbian, China

If we consider the history of mankind in terms of the exchange of goods and people, we can imagine that 'studying foreign languages' must have been essential in every country in every age throughout that long history. In fact, teaching foreign languages is a central, integral part of formal education in every country today.

Having bounced back to power status from its total collapse following defeats in the Opium Wars and the Sino-Japanese War, China is also placing emphasis on foreign language education. Not only Russian, which was once their first foreign language, and English, which has taken its place, but also French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic are already being taught at the college level in many universities in China. Although Korean is not yet on a par with these languages, with Yanbian University located in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province being the only university in China teaching it at the college level, there is a steady rise in the sizes of Korean departments in many universities in China.

According to statistics by the Education Ministry of China, there are over 2,000 universities in mainland China. About 100 of them, including the prestigious Peking University, have Korean departments. This number rises up to 500 if two-year colleges are included. In other words, China is producing at least a few thousand new Korean majors every year.

In the frequent interactions between the Korean Peninsula and China, the dominant language was Chinese. For free communication in Chinese, Korea published Nogeoldae, which is considered to be the world's first textbook for conversations in foreign languages, as early as in the Goryeo Dynasty and many types of Chinese teaching materials in later years as well. Korean scholars learned the seven Chinese classics and many other Chinese books by heart, and wrote a great deal of Chinese poetry, which they couldn't have done without mastering Chinese rhymes first. But Chinese have also learned Korean for ages, although probably not as hard as Koreans learning Chinese. Certain dictionaries ('Chinese-Barbarian Dictionary' and 'A Glossary from the Joseon Interpreters Institute') compiled during the early Ming Dynasty are specific examples illustrating that Korean education was initiated and conducted by the government in ancient China.

Mr. Kim Jun-yeob Initiates Modern Korean Education in China

Korean education was first introduced to the college curriculum of contemporary China in 1946, when a Korean department was established at the National College of Asian Languages and Literatures which had been located in Chongqing (重慶), a temporary capital of China, before its relocation to Nanjing (南京) after the Chinese government's return. This marks the beginning of Korean education in university in contemporary China. As is known, teachers for this department in its early days were selected by the recommendation of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (PGROK). A member of the first class of this department and currently professor emeritus of the Department of Korean at Peking University, Yang Tongfeng (楊通方) is said to have been taught Korean by Mr. Kim Jun-yeob, a former officer of the PGROK Liberation Army.

Once the communist government was established in China, this school was merged with Peking University, and Mr. Kim Jun-yeob and other Korean professors had to leave the school. The Korean department survived at Peking University as 'a major in the Korean language' in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, and later became the Department of Korean Language and Literature that it is today. After Mr. Kim Jun-yeob left, scholars from North Korea and Yanbian covered the classes. Once South Korea and China established diplomatic relations, the positions were opened to South Korean scholars as well, resuming the department's tradition of appointing South Korean scholars as professors.

In China, peoples with their own languages are guaranteed the freedom to use and learn their own languages under the minority languages protection policy. Accordingly, Koreans in China are using 'Korean' and learning Korean in formal education. In other words, this Korean education is 'mother tongue' education to them. By contrast, non-Korean Chinese are using 'Korean' as a foreign language and learning it through foreign language programs offered at universities and other institutions.

In mainland China, there are additional foreign languages that are, like Korean, spoken by minorities: Mongolian and Kazak. Given the relatively large populations of the Mongolian and Kazak peoples in China, Mongol and Kazak education is also conducted on a fairly large scale. Unlike Korean, however, these two languages are rarely taught as foreign languages.

Up until China's Reform and Opening Up, 'Korean' had been a minority language used by up to 2 million Koreans in China and also a foreign language, the language of North Korea. In those days, 'Korean' was taught only in a small number of universities in the northern region of China, because, with China-ROK diplomatic relations still in the future, 'Korean' as a foreign language was not needed other than in exchange with North Korea and, therefore, there was no need to teach it in the southern region of China. Today, however, Korean is taught in hundreds of universities in all regions across China.

Learning Korean Leads to Studying Korean History and Culture

It is often said in China these days that Korean majors are well prepared for the job market, although probably not as well prepared as English or French majors, of course. The number of Korean departments is rising to meet the needs of the growing number of students wanting to major in Korean in consequence of the increasingly frequent exchange between Korea and China. The growing number of Korean majors is also leading to the growing number of students majoring in Korean history and culture beyond interpretation and translation. As a result, more and more Chinese students are keen on reading Chinese texts remaining in the Korean Peninsula or their translations/annotations. While many young Koreans who are not familiar with Chinese characters may think of Chinese texts as high-hanging sour grapes, Chinese students trained in reading and comprehending old texts throughout middle and high school years will find that Korean literature in Chinese is certainly worth trying to study.

In fact, it is not surprising that Chinese books remaining in Korea appeal to Chinese as an interesting and familiar subject. At this rate, there will come a time soon when Chinese experts will get ahead in research on Korean traditional culture.