East Meets Western : Although Korean merchants have helped to revive the area, some longtime business owners are feeling like outcasts.

The stretch of Western Avenue north of Wilshire Boulevard is a neighborhood in metamorphosis.

Once a dusty row of storefronts in an aging commercial district, it is becoming a lively annex of Koreatown as the Korean commercial district has expanded north and west. Signs printed in Korean characters hang at nearly every portal, and Korean-language billboards dominate the low rooftops.

The dramatic transformation of the past five to 10 years has brought a resurgence of commercial activity to Western Avenue, and sharply higher real estate values. But for the dwindling number of non-Korean merchants, the price of this success has been steep. They complain of being squeezed out of the area because they don’t speak their new customers’ language, don’t understand their business protocol and, in some cases, feel ignored and excluded by them.

“I found that Korean people in this marketplace will not buy from you unless you’re Korean-owned and operated. They give me no business,” said Lyn Perry, whose shop, Wilshire TV & Video, has been a fixture in the neighborhood since 1954. “Only (recently) we put the business up for sale so we could locate in a new community more willing to support us.”

A recent consumer study by Cal State Los Angeles sociologist Eui-Young Yu confirms that Korean-Americans do prefer to shop in stores owned by other Koreans, mostly because of the comfort of the common language and customs. However, both white and Korean merchants also discussed subtle differences in business protocol that have caused bruised feelings and alienation in integrated neighborhoods like Western Avenue.

Chull Huh, a leader of the Korean Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, said non-Koreans are offended when Korean merchants put customers’ change on the counter instead of in their hand, for example.

“We live in a Confucian society, and sometimes this causes misunderstandings with customers. Americans ask, ‘Why don’t you smile? Why don’t you put money in the (customer’s) hand?’ In a Confucian society you never touch ladies,” Huh said.

Many Korean-American business operators interviewed for this story also expressed hope that their non-Korean neighbors appreciated their considerable financial investments in what had been a declining neighborhood. Through hard work and wise business practices, they said, Koreans are succeeding on Western Avenue and in other neighborhoods that whites were evacuating anyway.

“I think (the street) is much better looking now than a few years ago,” said Sang Park, vice president of Lucky Electronics at 528 S. Western Ave. He added that his company spent more than $100,000 to renovate the one-story white building before moving in three years ago.

Among the many people who believe that Korean-Americans have revitalized the area is sociologist Yu, who has been studying Korean activity in Los Angeles and written six books on the subject.

“It’s more (a question of) Koreans moving into areas abandoned by established businesses than Koreans moving in and pushing them out,” Yu said in an interview. “Because of Koreatown and Koreans establishing a community there, land prices have skyrocketed.” White merchants, he said “are the beneficiaries, not the victims.”

The experience of at least one property owner reinforces Yu’s view.

“I bought this building in ’78 for $300,000 and I’ve been offered two-and-a-quarter million for it,” said Roger Goldthwaite, president of Cardinal Lithograph Co. at 414 S. Western. “It’s made me a nice retirement nest egg if I ever decide to sell the property.”

While giving voice to complex feelings of anger and displacement, many longtime merchants acknowledge that the changes along Western have generally been good for the neighborhood.

“Buildings are better maintained as a result of Koreans coming in because it has forced out some of the street-type people and criminal element,” said Perry at Wilshire TV & Video. “It’s been good for the community--but not good for the middle-class working American citizen. Those people have lost in this community,” Perry said.

When asked about the neighborhood changing, the white merchants talked most about the influx of new Korean businesses, but that is just one force affecting the transformation of this community.

A Metro Rail station, now under construction at Wilshire and Western and scheduled to go into service in 1996, is expected to promote pedestrian traffic and boost commercial property values. The Ratkovich Group, which owns the Wiltern Theater at the same corner, is also in the initial stage of planning a big construction project: a 200- to 300-unit condominium or apartment building on the parking lot behind the historic theater.

“You’re getting more of the residential developments, high-rises and condos near stations so people can actually use the system for transportation,” said John Higgins, senior public affairs officer for Rail Construction Corp., Metro Rail’s builder.

Metro Rail’s arrival can only hasten the pace of evolution in this neighborhood where the signs of recent change are so apparent. The paint was still wet a few weeks ago on a new mural at Western and 1st Street, depicting the multiethnicity and mobility of Los Angeles. Many of the businesses with the modern Korean-lettered signs still bore the English names given by previous owners written in chipped gold paint on plate glass storefronts.

“What you have is a lot of different changes happening at once,” said Jim Suhr, development manager for the Wiltern project.

Although Western Avenue has historically been a transient business district, the pain of transition cannot be minimized. Merchants feel isolated. There’s no recourse but to move and no business group to turn to for comfort.

Marshall Fried, owner of Paul’s West Furniture at Western and Melrose, said his store is now out of place in its home of 80 years. His nearby Korean competitors, staffed in many cases by family members, have far lower payroll expenses and are willing to sell for prices closer to wholesale than the 100% markup American retailers customarily charge.

“This street for 80 years was recognized as the place to buy furniture,” Fried said. “Now it’s known as there’s-no-bottom-price street.”

Korean business and cultural leaders compare themselves to Jewish and Italian immigrants of previous generations. They’re industrious. They draw support from a tight-knit community and they believe they will succeed through hard work and savvy business tactics.

“When you are going to buy something, try Koreatown first,” said Joyce Lee of Ivy Realty on Wilshire Boulevard. “They really want to win. They don’t expect as much profit as Americans do. If they make just a 1% profit from selling a camcorder, that’s OK. They want to get their name out in the Korean community.”

Since Koreatown emerged as a distinct neighborhood along 8th Street and Olympic Boulevard in the 1970s, Korean merchants have catered primarily to other Koreans. Even now, most Korean-American merchants say, 80% to 90% of their customers are from Korea and can read and speak Korean. That is why so many of the business signs are written in Korean, they said. Business and cultural leaders, however, are encouraging merchants to change their signs to English only or bilingual messages.

“That’s a phenomenon of recent immigrants,” sociologist Yu said. “Some shops are changing their signs. People are becoming sensitive. The Korean leaders are certainly encouraging through the Korean media to change the signs not only for Anglo people but for all non-Koreans. It even excludes second-generation Koreans who do not read the Korean language.”

To many of the non-Korean merchants, the Korean-only signs are an irritant, but a fairly minor one. Perry, Fried and other merchants say they are more upset by the buying and selling habits of their new neighbors.

Perry said he made an effort to patronize the Korean businesses near his TV and video store, but has stopped going to some of them because he felt they ignored or tried to overcharge him.

At his own store, he insists, he tries to “bend over backwards” to help customers of “any ethnic appearance.”

“It’s not corny,” Perry said. “We do it because, one, we want their business, and also I think that’s the way a business should be run.”

Census figures show that Asians and Asian-Americans now outnumber all other ethnic groups in the square mile on both sides of Western Avenue between Wilshire and Beverly boulevards.

The 1990 Census found 32,306 people living in the 100-block area bound by Wilshire, Beverly, Plymouth Boulevard and Normandie Avenue. Of these, 12,710 were Asian, 9,831 Latino, 6,704 Anglo and 2,854 black. About two-thirds of the Asians were Korean-born or of Korean ancestry.

Evidence suggests, however, that the non-Korean businesses are hurt less by the change in neighborhood ethnicity than by the tendency of Koreans to shop in stores owned by their countrymen. A study published by the Korea Times last year, based on a survey of 600 Korean-American households during 1988 and 1989, found that most of the families surveyed had bought their televisions, stereos and videocassette recorders from Korean-owned stores. Most of those surveyed also reported that even though non-Korean grocery stores were less expensive and carried a wider range of merchandise and more fresh vegetables, they still shopped in Korean markets more often.

About 86% of those surveyed patronized Korean doctors and about 72% chose Korean lawyers. In each case, the majority said they chose the services of fellow Koreans because they spoke the same language.

“I don’t think the Koreans really discriminate,” Yu said. “We asked people why they use Korean shops and Korean services and the main reason is the language.”