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ARTS AND IDEAS
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ARTS AND IDEAS |
Jecheon, South Korea. Jun Michael Park for The New York Times |
To save his city, a mayor looks to Central Asia
Like many South Korean cities, Jecheon is being eroded by rapid aging and rock-bottom birthrates. Other cities have tried offering money to entice newlyweds or free housing to parents of school-age children.
Kim Chang-gyu, the mayor and a retired diplomat, looked farther afield: a pocket of about a half-million Koreans who emigrated to Siberia 100 years ago and were deported by Stalin in 1937 to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Kim said he hoped the Koreans from Central Asia would be more readily accepted in South Korea, which has only reluctantly taken in limited numbers of migrant workers.