Remembering work, forgetting neighbors

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Remembering work, forgetting neighbors

Published: 29 Dec. 2025, 00:03

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Won Ok-kum

The author is a representative of the Migrant Center Donghaeng and is originally from Vietnam.

In Korea today, whenever people say that farms and factories are grinding to a halt because of labor shortages, or that care and services can no longer be sustained, migrants are quickly brought into the conversation. The phrase “indispensable people” has become almost routine. In media reports, policy papers and government announcements, migrants are consistently described as those who are needed. Yet that description applies only to the workplace. Once outside it, migrants remain largely invisible.

People walk down the multicultural food street market in Danwon District, Ansan, Gyeonggi, on July 29. Foreign workers heading home after daytime shifts mix with those heading to night work, alongside foreign merchants and residents. As of 2023, Ansan has the largest foreign population in Korea, at about 108,000. [KIM HONG-JUN]

Even when they live in the same neighborhood or the same apartment complex, greetings are rarely exchanged. Children may attend the same school, yet conversations between parents seldom follow. In hospital waiting rooms, elevators and local grocery stores, people cross paths countless times without ever speaking. Korean society needs migrants but is remarkably reluctant to keep them close. We live alongside them, but we do not truly live together. Approaching those who seem somehow different still feels awkward.

Protesters gather at the plaza in front of Seoul Station on the afternoon of Dec. 14, calling on the government to take responsibility for the death of a migrant worker, a Vietnamese woman who worked at a factory in Daegu, who reportedly died in October after falling while hiding to evade a crackdown on undocumented migrants. [NEWS1]

Not long ago, an incident occurred in a low-rise apartment building in one neighborhood. Repeated complaints were filed about noise coming from a home where a Vietnamese couple lived with their young child. The issue, neighbors said, was loud sounds late into the evening. In reality, it was the sound of a child running around after dinner. It was hardly an unusual scene, one found in many Korean households. Other families in the building also had small children, yet complaints focused only on this home. According to those involved, a resident downstairs even added, “Isn’t it because they’re foreigners?”

A few days later, the couple laid additional mats inside their apartment to stop the child from running. In the evenings, they began taking the child outside. They did not protest or try to explain. Instead, they said, “Shouldn’t we just be more careful?” Embedded in that response was a desire to avoid conflict and a quiet awareness that they were guests in this society. They shared the same living space, but the same standards did not apply.

Migrants are no longer confined to the margins of Korean society. They breathe the same air, ride the same buses and travel the same roads each day. They endure the same noise and inconvenience and feel the same rise in prices. Yet they are still defined not as people who live together but as people who come to work. Once labor ends, relationships are expected to end as well.

The problem is not only overt hostility. More widespread and more enduring than hatred is indifference. The attitude of, “Better not to get involved,” or the remark, “Isn’t it enough to live quietly?” draw a clear line. It signals that while migrants may live in the same neighborhood, they are not accepted as full members of the same society. The line may be invisible, but it operates powerfully in migrants’ everyday lives.

Whenever conflict arises, cultural differences are too easily cited as the cause. People speak of different lifestyles, communication difficulties or differing standards of etiquette. Yet most of these differences are never explained, mediated or even given a chance to be addressed together. Without making the minimum effort required for co-existence, Korean society places responsibility squarely on migrants. The outcome is then reused as evidence that “there are problems after all.”

Rarely do we ask why migrants remain framed only as those who must adapt. Why is it that Korean society does not change, while migrants alone are expected to do so? Co-existence is not a matter of one-sided adjustment. It is a process of gradually accommodating one another’s ways of living. That process, however, is often postponed because it is inconvenient and time-consuming.

Workers at a tomato farm in Gangwon in April. [YONHAP]

In a society where the migrant population continues to grow, the real question is not numerical. It is not about how many people arrive or which countries they come from. It is about where they are placed in society and what kinds of relationships are permitted. If migrants are welcomed as labor but rejected as neighbors, conflict is inevitable. That conflict will eventually return, labeled as hatred or deepened into further division.

Looking back at the year’s end, Korean society has spoken at length about migrants, yet said little about how to live together. There has been no shortage of discussion about systems, statistics, labor supply and enforcement plans. But efforts to build inclusion as neighbors have been scarce. We continue to hide behind the word “necessary” while postponing the question of whether we are ready to live together.

As the year draws to a close, people talk once again about a better year ahead. But change does not begin only with grand plans. It starts with a greeting, a willingness to explain and an effort to adjust discomfort together. The moment migrants begin to be seen not as labor but as neighbors, the coming year in Korea may take on a slightly different face. One can hope for a new year greeted with a little more ease.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.