Gone are the days when South Korean laborers toiled in various Middle East construction sites in the 1970s and 1980s to earn rare foreign currency. They worked then under the smoldering sun, with their bodies sweat-soaked. They had the horny hands of toil. Their faces were scorched by the sun's rays. And their uniforms were covered with desert sand dusts.
Not any more, said DongA Ilbo newspaper on Saturday.
One of its reporters visited South Korean workers in the Middle East, including Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. There, he found a sea change.
"Nice Shot!" shouted a Pakistani caddie to a South Korean worker. Many South Korean workers there at a large ship repair shop enjoy golfing during the weekend morning hours when it's not too hot.
Unlike in the past, many South Korean workers are managers and engineers who supervise the work site where more manual tasks are done by those from Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and China.
Among the 2,252 workers at this site, South Koreans are 103, making up only 4.6 percent. "The earlier Korean workers decades ago literally had to 'labor', but now there are fewer Koreans here and those who are here are responsible for managing the site," Cho Ki-suk, a manager of Daewoo Construction Co., told the newspaper. "It also reflects the overall elevation of South Korea's global status."
In some ways, these Korean workers are better off than they were in Korea because they don't have to do the usual house chores. They employ foreign male domestic helpers who are called "house boy" or "office boy" who do laundry, cooking and even run errands for them, something they cannot think about if there were in Korea.
"If I am back in Korea, my wife would ask me to help her with emptying trash. Here, I don't have to do it. In a way, I am having a better life here, like a member of the noble class," said a Korean worker.
Even if they are in a foreign soil, these Korean workers eat Korean food every day as they have a Korean chef who serves authentic Korean cuisines, with all the ingredients directly shipped from Korea. They also chat with their family members a few times a day on the Internet messenger.
But the Korean industrial workers who created the so-called "miracle in the desert" in the Middle East countries have their concerns too. "Young Korean engineers don't want to be assigned to be here because of weather conditions," said a senior Korean engineer in Abu Dhabi.
"If young Korean engineers avoid coming here, then the decades-long industrial and construction knowhow we have accumulated here will disappear some day."
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