The Korean Community

 

Lined with restaurants, herb stores, acupuncture centres, and shops selling imported giftware from Seoul, Toronto’s Koreatown bustles with the activity of an Asian sidewalk market. The neighbourhood, located along Bloor Street West, between Bathurst and Christie streets, was one of the community’s first areas of settlement. Today, few Koreans live in the area but it still contains the highest concentration of Korean restaurants and shops in the city. One of the city’s two Korean banks and a credit union are open for business, while offices along the strip bear the names of Korean lawyers, doctors, and other professionals who have made Toronto their home.

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Canada and Korea officially opened their diplomatic relations in 1963, but the first association between the two countries began as early as 1888 through the Christian missionary system. By the 1940s, church-sponsored students who had come to Canada to study began changing their status from student to landed immigrant. In the late 1960s and the early ’70s, the first large wave of Koreans arrived in Canada.

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A collective effort by the community resulted in the establishment of a church, and in 1967, the first Korean Sunday service was held at St. Luke’s United Church on Sherbourne Street. The parish was named the Toronto Korean United Church and became the centre for community activity, sponsoring lectures, a Korean language school, and the Toronto Korean- Canadian Choir.

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Today, the 100,000-member Toronto Korean community boasts highly skilled workers, professionals, and small business entrepreneurs who operate drycleaning depots, fast food outlets, delicatessens, print shops, and real estate and insurance agencies. More than 76 percent of the grocery and variety stores in Toronto are owned and operated by Koreans.

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Koreans have widened Toronto’s cultural range with dance, music, arts, sports, and martial arts such as Tae Kwon Do (the art of self defence). Korean companies such as Korean Airlines, Hyundai Corporation and Gia Masters (automobile manufacturers), KIA Motors, LG electronics, and Samsung Electronics, have established regional offices in the city.

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South Koreans remember with gratitude the 20,000 Canadian soldiers who were sent to help rescue South Korea from invading North Korean forces during the Korean War. Koreans across Canada donated more than $50,000 to the Federation of Korean Canadians to help erect the Korea Veterans’ National Wall of Remembrance in Brampton on July 27, 1997. A bond between the two cultures is also reflected by replicas of granite pagodas located on the grounds of Victoria College at the University of Toronto. The pagodas were dedicated by the graduates of Victoria Medical College in memory of Dr. O.R. Avison, a graduate of the college who founded the first occidental-style hospital and medical college in Seoul in 1893.

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Places to Go

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Storefronts of restaurants in Koreatown display dishes of sophisticated Korean cuisine, which gained greater appreciation among Torontonians following the 24th Summer Olympic Games held in Seoul in 1988. A simple Korean meal consists of soup, rice, a bowl of fish or meat, and kimchee (pickled cabbage). Rice dishes and rice mixed with barley, beans, and potatoes are staple Korean foods. The popular after-dinner beverage is Korean tea.

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The oldest Korean restaurant in Toronto is Korea House, (Tel. 416-536-8666, 666 Bloor St. W). Specialties include kimchee, kalbi ribs (spare-ribs marinated and barbecued in a special sauce), and bibimbab (rice topped with marinated beef, fried egg, mixed vegetables, and hot sauce). Moolraebang-A, (Tel. 416-534-6833, 3 Christie St), is well known for its bul-go-gee dinner (a mound of thinly sliced sirloin marinated in soy sauce and grilled). It comes with kimchee, spiced chunks of Asian radish, and black beans.

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Korean Village, (Tel. 416-536-0290, 628 Bloor St. W), serves starters such as mandoo gook (Korean won ton soup), guhun mandoo (meat-stuffed won tons fried with seasoned soy sauce for dipping), bindae dock (dried-green-bean flour egg pancakes with bits of ham), and kimchee that comes with bowls filled with pickled juliennes of radish, bean sprouts in sesame oil, pepper-stewed daikon, and sun-dried fish. House specialties include ohjung un begum (squid in a hot chili sauce with rice), cow shank soup, and the bul-go-gee dinner that patrons barbecue at their table.

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Other popular Toronto dining spots include Seoul House, (Tel. 416-782-4405, 3220 Dufferin St), where kalbi and bul-go-gee (spicy barbeque) are specialties. A chimney above each table draws smoke away from tabletop barbecues. Missihana, (Tel. 905-803-9870, 90 Dundas St. W., Mississauga), is a large restaurant serving both traditional Korean and Japanese dishes. Shin-Ra, (Tel. 416-247-2007, 1161 Weston Rd), and Masamune, (Tel. 905-625-1852, 5200 Dixie Rd., Mississauga), feature karaoke. Other Korean restaurants in the city and vicinity include: Ho-Shim, (Tel. 416-368-0125, 100 King St. W); and Spring Garden, (Tel. 416-250-6094, 39 Spring Garden Ave).