earticle

영어

Engaged in farming in rural areas, the majority of ethnic Koreans in China had formed an ethnic community. But since the Chinese government adopted the economic reform and open-door policy and established a diplomatic tie with South Korea in 1992, the Korean-Chinese have been moving from the countryside, which is their hometown, to cities, causing a huge change in their agricultural communities. Moreover, the rural areas where the Korean-Chinese communities are still maintained are rapidly aging, a sign that they are likely to die out someday. Despite such depressing view, however, some positive efforts have been made to protect the Korean-Chinese identity and culture, in line with the Chinese central government's policy to construct new socialist countryside and culturally unique villages. Such government efforts to vitalize rural areas have been recognized as a possible solution to rural district problems and have raised fresh hope to local Korean-Chinese communities. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to look at unique Korean-Chinese villages that have attempted to bring change to their communities using their own cultural contents as resources. Myeongseong Village located in Yeongan City of Heilongjiang, which has successfully mobilized its pre-existing cultural resources and has completed constructing “the Story Museum of the Korean-Chinese Village,” is the case example this paper explores in depth. This papers explains the background and detailed processes of establishing the museum and shows how valuable the stories about the lives of the Korean-Chinese ancestors are in cultural contents aspects and how the museum construction has affected the rebuilding of its local community. The stories about the Korean-Chinese are not only linked with ethnic Koreans in China but also to grandparents and great-grandparents of those living in the two Koreas. It is hoped that these stories will restore the history of the Korean-Chinese society in China and invite renewed attention to the Korean-Chinese commnities, thereby contributing to producing different cultural contents in the forms of film, art work and music, with the Story Museum of the Korean-Chinese Village serving as the groundwork.