Koreans Reflect Regretfully on L.A. They Left Behind

Seven thousand miles from California, today’s fifth-anniversary observance of the Los Angeles riots still is an occasion for agonizing reflection by thousands of Koreans who experienced 1992’s unrest firsthand and returned to South Korea deeply scarred.

“But for the riots, I would be in L.A. today with my wife and children,” said Alexandre Kim, a former Koreatown hairdresser.

Post-riot returnees like Kim are a special breed whose Americanization sets them apart in this South Korean capital of 11 million. Since 1992, between 1,000 and 3,000 former Los Angeles residents have returned each year, according to experts and government statistics--although 200,000 people of Korean ancestry, 80% of them foreign-born, still live in Los Angeles County.

Kim, whose family still owns a Koreatown beauty salon and shopping center that has become vastly less profitable since the riots, said he works seven days a week to support his family and pay his Los Angeles County property taxes.

His new beauty studio, located in trendy Apkujong-dong, south of the Han River, is a popular place for the rich and famous. He has parlayed his Vidal Sassoon training and the experience of working in Beverly Hills into a lucrative business.

Yet loneliness haunts him. “Every morning between 3 and 4 in the morning, I’m wide awake thinking about my wife and children.”

Some find consolation in banding together with other returnees from Los Angeles.

“We feel happy when we’re with each other,” said Min Pyong-Yong, a founder of a 250-member group called People Who Love L.A., whose only membership requirement is a former Los Angeles residency. “When we’re together, we can let our guards down. We don’t have to pay attention to all the complicated constraints of interpersonal relationships in Seoul.”

To commemorate this anniversary of the riots, which Koreans call sa-ee-gu--meaning April 29--about 20 faithful club members endured two-hour traffic jams to gather for an evening of talk and food.

“Watching Koreatown burn, I asked myself, ‘Is this a place where I should spend the rest of my life?’ ” said sculptor Jay Shim, who ran the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Gallery in Koreatown. “The answer was no.”

It took him more than two years after the riots, however, to put his decision into action.

“I had invested so much in my American dream that it was difficult to break away,” Shim said.

In November, after more than a year in Seoul, Shim made the final break by going to the American Embassy and giving up his U.S. citizenship.

He, Min and 18 other returnees from Los Angeles met over a meal of Genghis Khan (paper-thin beef slices cooked in sizzling pots filled to the brim with fresh vegetables) at Sorabol, an upscale Korean restaurant a stone’s throw from Kyongbok Palace in the old section of the city, where delicate gingko trees line meandering streets of ancient stone walls.

In this pocket of Seoul, Old Korea remains, evoking a time when the peninsula was one country, not two ideological camps, and Koreans called their home the Land of Morning Calm.

Adjusting to life in Seoul is tough for many returnees. The high cost of housing and food, competitive schools, scarcity of job opportunities and reverse culture shock have prompted some to return to Los Angeles.

“In Los Angeles, you can buy a $300,000 home with only a 25% down,” said Min. “But here, even modest condos start at $500,000 and you have to pay all cash.”

Even for those who remain and are doing relatively well in Seoul, divisions are painful.

“I left 40% of my heart in Los Angeles,” said Walter Park, who moved to Seoul with his wife in 1994 out of financial desperation, leaving behind their two young adult children.

Five years ago in post-riot Los Angeles, Park, a well-known Koreatown businessman and community leader, was on the brink of ruin. His popular real estate school nearly collapsed because many people of Korean ancestry who had been buying property no longer had the money or the inclination to do so.

Today, he is a picture of success--South Korea’s answer to Larry King and Ted Koppel combined. His “Live Late Night Debate,” a two-hour show on the state-owned KBS-TV, is a top-rated program.

“I woke up one morning and found myself famous,” he said. “This is the happiest period of my life. . . . I was very, very lucky.”

During his two decades in Los Angeles, Park said, he tried hard to break into the American mainstream. But like so many first-generation immigrants, his horizons were limited, and he remained prominent only in the Koreatown subculture.

“These days, I feel like a fish that has returned to its water,” he said.

He acknowledged that his American education and the experience of living in California contributed to his success in Seoul. “I owe a lot to America.”

To fit into his new social milieu, Park gave up his U.S. citizenship, goes by his Korean name--Park Won-Hong--and works at being as “Korean” as possible.

“Returnees who burn the bridge after them do much better in Seoul,” he said. “Those who talk about America, speak English and long for the good old days in America don’t do well.”

The Love L.A. gathering provides a forum for former residents to share their private thoughts about Korea and America with people who have a common frame of reference. What they say remains within the group and thus they don’t risk public reproof.

According to Min, who is writing a book on Korean American reverse migration, returnees from Los Angeles fall into two main categories: those returning in the aftermath of the riots and economic devastation and those who come in search of better business and economic opportunities because the South Korean economy has been robust until this year.

Although the trend started in 1988--the year of the Seoul Olympics, when the prosperity of modern South Korea was showcased around the world--the peak hit in 1992. That’s when more than 6,000 Koreans--nearly half from Los Angeles--returned to their birthplace.

Almost all returnees suffer reverse culture shock and in some cases years of readjustment.

As these returnees talked, seated on silk cushions around three restaurant tables, tended by a solicitous waitress, it was hard to know where America ends and Korea begins. The duality of having been part of both cultures makes them different in Seoul, where conformity is the rule.

“We’ve been transformed by Los Angeles and America more than we realized,” said Min, a former editorial writer for the Korea Times in Los Angeles.

In America, they felt “so Korean” because as immigrants they were handicapped by the barriers of language and culture, returnees say. In Korea, they feel “‘so American” because their encounter with the United States has irrevocably changed them. English words slip out of their mouths--a taboo in the culturally chauvinistic milieu of Seoul.

Scooping a spoonful of soothing Genghis Khan broth, Rim Moon-Soo said his love of Los Angeles and America remains unchanged by the devastation caused by the riots.

“L.A. will always be my second home,” said Rim, a producer with GTV cable television network. “My son was conceived in L.A. and I learned a lot there.”

But Min, whose wife Grace’s mathematics school at the edge of Koreatown was looted by rioters, says the riots made him think that America has a “problematic heart.”

“Overnight, Los Angeles ceased to be the city of my dream and the promise of America evaporated. I still carry the scars of sa-ee-gu.”

Still, twice since his return home, Min seriously considered going back to America, where his sons attend school.

On Friday, some members of People Who Love L.A. participated in a seminar commemorating the riots, sponsored by the Koreans Abroad Study Assn. Scholars, government officials and journalists discussed the ramifications of the most traumatic event in the century-old history of Koreans in America.

Five million ethnic Koreans live outside their ancestral land. More than a million make their home in the United States; their numbers give Los Angeles the biggest center of Korean population outside Asia.

“I would like to suggest that Los Angeles declare April 29 as Korean American Day,” said Lee Kwang-Kyu, an anthropology professor at the prestigious Seoul National University. “It would be a constructive thing to use the day to sponsor seminars on racial harmony.”

Juna Byun, a U.S.-educated medical anthropologist who wrote her doctoral dissertation on riot victims, said she still gets angry when she thinks of the media coverage of Koreans.

“The so-called tensions between Korean merchants and African American customers during the year prior to the riots contributed to generating ill will that led to the targeting of Korean-owned businesses,” said Byun, assistant professor of anthropology at Chonbuk National University in Chonju.

“My research shows that Koreans were victims of Los Angeles’ racial politics,” she said. “I’m convinced as ever that the mainstream media played a major role.”

Her viewpoint is one shared by many Korean Americans in Los Angeles. Particularly damaging, many Korean Americans have said, was the coverage of the 1991 killing of Latasha Harlins, a black teenager who was shot by a Korean American merchant after a shoving match in a South-Central store. The shooting, which would become a battle cry for rioters, resulted in the arrest of the merchant, Soon Ja Du. Du was sentenced to five years probation and no jail time.

In the aftermath of the girl’s slaying, both blacks and Korean Americans said the news media failed to adequately convey the human story behind the tragedy.

Although many elements contributed to the Harlins shooting--panic, racism, crime, the resentment among poor people toward a foreign-born merchant class, the fear of the middle-aged woman confronted by angry youths--it was repeatedly reported that the girl was shot over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice.

All this, Korean Americans still say, helped make them an inevitable target when the city erupted.

South Koreans sometimes call their country the Republic of Crisis because this nation of 43 million people seems to be constantly embroiled in turmoil--from collapsing buildings to former presidents landing behind bars for massive financial improprieties.

As the last remaining legacy of the Cold War, tensions between the Communist North and free South are high.

Political scandals surrounding South Korean President Kim Young-Sam’s son have kept Seoul residents glued to televised parliamentary hearings for two weeks. Book publishers complain that fiction doesn’t sell because real life is stranger.

But for many members of People Who Love L.A., what happens in Los Angeles matters more.

“I pray for Los Angeles’ economy to turn around,” said hairdresser Kim, who hopes to one day return. “My economic well-being and that of L.A.’s is intricately intertwined. . . . My children are Americans. My wife and I are permanent residents. So we are half Americans too.”

He says that since the riots, he stopped playing his favorite game--golf.

“How could I enjoy golf, when part of my soul went up with the smoke?”

ON THE WEB: See a special report on the fifth anniversary of the riots, featuring a look back at front pages, stories and photos from The Times’ 1992 riot coverage. It’s on the Web at: https://www.latimes.com/riots