'Too Different to Be Chinese, Not Good Enough to Be Korean'

“South Koreans treat us like foreigners. Worse, they treat us like dogs!” shouted Li Zhangyan, a retired 67-year old Joseonjok. Together with other ethnic Korean men, Li had drunk a few too many shots of soybean-paste liquor—a local specialty. It made him welcoming to strangers like me, but also easily riled up. “There isn’t one of us,” he pointed at himself and his two friends, also retired, “who hasn’t bought a couple of houses here in Yanbian. We made all this money but South Koreans still