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Tan Yong-fa (64) reads the political section of his newspaper very thoroughly these days. Running a Chinese restaurant in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul, he never fails to watch TV news about the coming election and knows everything about the candidates running for Seoul mayor. Tan was born and educated in Korea, but he was unable to vote because he is of Chinese descent.
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Tan Yong-fa (second from right) pose with staff at his Chinese restaurant.
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¡°The late Hyundai chairman Chung Ju-young invited five Chinese residents including me to Gwangwhamun in 1992, when he ran for the presidential election, and asked us what we needed. That¡¯s all,¡± Tan says. ¡°Since then, I¡¯ve seen no political party or candidate interested in Chinese residents here.¡± Tan has served as the chairman of the Chinese Residents Association in Seoul but did not receive a single business card from political candidates during his tenure.
But this time things are different. The electoral law revised last August says the 6,579 foreigners with permanent residence who have lived here for more than three years can cast their ballot in the coming local elections. Among them, 6,511 came from Taiwan, 51 from Japan, eight from the U.S. and five from mainland China, the National Election Commission said.
So now Tan, who is to cast his vote for the first time in his life here, repeats how excited he is, and how grateful to be able to vote, even as he expresses regret that candidates ¡°still don¡¯t know that Chinese residents have the right to vote now.¡± ¡°If anyone of them is interested in issues facing us, we will definitely give our vote to him or her,¡± he predicts.
Tan also serves as a vice director at an Overseas Chinese High School in Seoul. ¡°Chinese residents pay education taxes, too, but the government does not financially support Chinese schools,¡± he points out. ¡°We hope to see candidates who are interested in us as a minority in society.¡±
But whether such candidates run in the local elections or not, Tan is sure to cast his vote along with his wife, who is also a Chinese resident, son and daughter-in-law. The opportunity to exercise his right to vote, which he waited for so long to earn, cannot be missed. Tan predicts that more than 80 percent of Chinese residents living here will vote on the day even as the overall national average probably falls short of 50 percent.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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