Meeting with Prof. Bae Yang Soo from Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Busan University of Foreign Studies

On February 24, 2018, Dr. Tran Dinh Lam had a meeting with Prof. Bae Yang Soo from the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Busan University of Foreign Studies, in Hanoi on the occasion of his leading his students on a field trip to Vietnam.

Prof. Bae Yang Soo (Source: tuoitre.vn)

As one of those who got the highest scores in the entrance exam to the Department of Vietnamese Studies at the University of Seoul, Prof. Bae came to Vietnam on the very first days of its reform period and witnessed the country’s spectacular transformation from a poor nation to an average income one.

Such a remarkable development has been attributed to the investment in human resources from both countries. Busan University of Foreign Studies is one of the prestigious institutions that offer high quality programs in Vietnamese studies for Korean students, and it has supplied labor to Korean businesses in Vietnam. According to Prof. Bae, in 2016, there were 4,300 Korean companies running their business in Vietnam, and the figure went up to 6,000 in 2017, compared to 300 companies in Thailand, and 280 in the Philippines. Due to its poor infrastructure, Korean enterprises have not yet been interested in doing business with Myanmar.

Not all Korean companies coming to Vietnam can achieve success. Some failed, but they returned in one or two years later, which shows that there are still a lot of growth potentials in the country. Meanwhile, if they can’t make it in Thailand, they won’t come back. Korea and Vietnam share similar cultural characteristics, with the majority of people following Mahayana Buddhism and having a strong sense of national identity. Moreover, Vietnamese countryside these days is similar to Korean countryside before, so the two countries want to establish mutual cooperation for change.

Universities in Korea are now competing with each other in Vietnamese teaching due to a huge demand from Vietnam-based Korean companies. Its government has invested 3 billion Wons in the teaching of minor foreign languages, in which Vietnamese ranks 2^nd after Arabic.

There are now more than 70,000 Vietnamese brides living in Korea, who play an important role in strengthening the two countries’ relations in the future.

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