KBS TV took a look yesterday at the increasingly popular Korean naturalization test—some 20,000 aspiring Koreans applied to take the test last year, compared with 4,000 just four years ago.
Most of the test’s questions are of a Korean elementary school fourth-grade level, but this is reportedly too difficult for some takers.
The KBS story is mostly fluff, but it did mention some interesting factoids. For starters, you apparently have to wait a year after applying to actually take the test. And you only get three chances to pass the written test.
The written test has 20 questions, of which you need answer correctly only 12 to pass. Yet in the test class visited by KBS, only 33 of 65 passed.
If you pass the written test, you then need to sit for an interview. One of the favorite tasks asked during the interview is singing the national anthem.
After the interview, examinees must wait another month to learn whether they’ve earned the right to carry Korean passports.
Some 90 percent of the test takers are ethnic Koreans from China, but an increasing number are foreign women who’ve married Korean men.
There have even been instances of examinees illegally hiring proxies to take the test for them.
For some, it takes effort just to earn the right to sit for the test. This is particularly the case for foreign laborers, who make up roughly half of the foreigners residing in Korea. Most foreign laborers are allowed to stay for three years, but to take the test, you usually need to have resided in Korea for five years or more. Of course, many laborers stay for periods exceeding five years, but they often do so illegally, meaning no test for them.
Some 13,000 foreigners became naturalized Korean citizens last year.
14 Comments
Good for Korea. Getting a citizenship should be a serious task, and it should be about earning it, and not handed out like it’s some kind of candy fostering bold expectations of entitlement. It’s not like I’m trying to point out failures of America’s immigration policy of disaster or anything.
“There have even been instances of examinees illegally hiring proxies to take the test for them”
With all the Korean college exam chicanery we’ve read about, that should lead to instant ROK passport in recognition of having “gone native”.
Do male naturalised Koreans incur an obligation of national service ?
I listened just yesterday to a podcast (or similar incantation of audio-blogging) about a Canadian fellow who’s ‘become a Korean’ (I forget which blog it was on I’m afraid - but it was quite good) and it got me to wondering, any Marmotians have the answer ?
peace.
You mean the same “policy of disaster” which has made the United States the richest and most powerful country the world has ever seen, right? Some “disaster”, that …
Male naturalized Koreans are currently exempted from military service under the same theory that mixed-race Koreans are exempted from military service — “difference” being a bar to integration within the unit.
interesting. I’d be interested in meeting someone who has “gone native” and taken citizenship.
EFL Geek: I gues it is not exactly meeting per se but this interview was an interesting insight into a fellow who’s jumped the Canadian ship and taken up Korean citizenship. - It’s the audio-post I was talking about that I heard yesterday.
Brendon: I assumed this would be the case, I mean that they would be exempt - I did not realise that was the genuine reasoning, seems quite silly until you think what would happen to a southeast asian man if he served.
peace.
> I’d be interested in meeting someone who has “gone native” and taken citizenship.
A few “white” friends of mine have done that — they tend to be somewhat older folks who first came here with the Peace Corps. Every one of them seems quite happy with their choice.
One of the questions on the Exam is:
“If you go to sleep in a room with an electric fan running all night long, what will happen to you?”
I answered “You’ll stay cool” and they flunked me, said i’m never even eligible to take the test again…
One of the questions on the Exam is:
“If you go to sleep in a room with an electric fan running all night long, what will happen to you?”
I answered “You’ll stay cool” and they flunked me, said i’m never even eligible to take the test again…
…unreal.
Please tell me the correct answer is actually “you’ll catcch a cold” instead of what I think it is…
No… you catch colds from not eating your kimchi.
On a more serious note… I’m just wondering what the real questions would be like.
http://www.koreanschool.co.kr/
Hojuin,
Yeah I listened to that already and it was interesting, but to actually meet the guy and just chat about it would be really great.
Dogbertt,
link looks interesting.
Once you become a citizen of this country, then and only then do you become susceptible to “fan death”. It’s the Achille’s heel of Koreans.
I just kind of wonder… If you were to sneak into a room at night, close all the windows and doors, and turn on an electric fan, when the police caught you, would they charge you with trespassing, or attempted murder?