#23 Interview with Marina Yugay

Guest: Marina Yugay
Interviewer: Chris
Duration: 42 minutes
Recording Date: June 24, 2009

Marina Yugay is a 22 year-old ethnic Korean from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, the country home to the largest number of ethnic Koreans in the former Soviet states. Marina grew up a minority among minorities, in a country comprised of 80% Uzbeks, 5% ethnic Russians, 5% Tajik and 10% other ethnic minorities, including somewhere around 200,000 Koreans. These ethnic Koreans, known as goryeo-saram, are the descendants of Korean peasants who sought better lives in (or were moved to) Eastern Russia, but then were deported to Central Asia under Stalin during World War II.

Marina attended a Russian-speaking school with few other ethnic Koreans and as such, her parents were strict with her education in traditional Korean fashion and her father encouraged her to learn how to defend herself. Marina had some access, but little interest, in Korea and Korean culture growing up, more interested in Western pop culture. Under constant encouragement from her parents to gain more interest in Korea (and find a proper Korean husband), Marina applied for a full-ride scholarship through the National Institute for International Education Development to study for her undergraduate degree in Korea. She received a place to study at Kyunghee University, and with this opportunity gave up her three years of studies in Uzbekistan to study tourism management in Korea.

In this interview, hear how Marina has navigated cultural differences such as alcohol consumption (Uzbekistan is a primarily Muslim country), learning Korean through dongari, special interest clubs at her university, rather than her studies, and evaluating the prospects of future work in Korea and abroad.

“Korean culture somehow is close to me. Even if I feel distance in communication with Korean people, they try to treat me not as bad as I was at home.”

Korea is a wonderful country … it has everything, it’s growing up, getting globalized. I really thank my lucky stars for giving me a chance to come here for five years. It’s a really great experience for me.

Click here to listen.

Other links:

Information on ethnic Koreans in Uzbekistan.

The National Institute for International Education Development

Wikipedia also has some interesting articles on Uzbekistan, Goryeo-saram (Koryo-saram), and