Yen-pien

The Koreans Almost all the Koreans in China live in the north-eastern provinces. The greatest concentration is found in an area of approximately 1,200 square miles in Kirin Province, an area which is part of the Yen-pien Korean Autonomous Chou.

1972, Leo A. Orleans, Every Fifth Child: The Population of China, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 117

In the evening of October 3, I went to the Hall of Cherished Virtue to watch the singing and dancing performance by joint troupes of the literary workers of the southwest ethnic groups, the Sinkiang, Kirin (Yen-pien), and Inner Mongolia groups. Chairman Mao asked me to compose a song to record the splendor of this grand occasion.

1972, Willis Barnstone, transl., The Poems of Mao Tse-tung, Bantam Books, →OCLC, page 143

The Koreans in China are an unassimilated minority with their own written and spoken languages. They number about 1.2 million and live mainly in the Yen-pien Korean Autonomous District and the Korean Autonomous County, both located in Kirin Province. Many came to China around 1870, when North Korea was struck by famine; others crossed the border in 1910 and the following years to escape the Japanese, who conquered and annexed Korea. But later, even Yen-pien fell under Japanese domination for some 14 years, when northeast China was ruled by the puppet regime of Manchukuo. Most of the Koreans of Kirin are rice farmers, but an increasing number are entering the labor force of Manchuria, which is a highly industrialized part of China. Yen-pien produces lumber, metals, and minerals such as gold, silver, iron, coral, and oil shale. Yen-pien is also known as the "Land of Song and Dance," for the lively and outgoing Koreans love to express their feelings through dancing and singing. They are athletic, too: the men enjoy football and wrestling and the girls play games of jumping on seesawing boards or gliding through the air on swings.

1980, M. A. Jagendorf, Virginia Weng, The Magic Boat and Other Chinese Folk Stories, New York: Vanguard Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 212

We were sent to the Yen-pien Korean Autonomous Region, where we were cordially welcomed by our local associates—scholars and students from Yen-pien University. On arrival in Yen-pien, we first bedded down in guest houses.

1998, Chen Chen, Come Watch the Sun Go Home, New York: Marlowe & Company, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 102

The third area of national minority concentration is in the North East, formerly Manchuria (earlier seat of imperial power), a pocket between Mongolia, the Soviet Union and Korea, now divided into the provinces of Kirin, Heilungkiang and Liaoning. The Yen-Pien autonomous district accommodates 1.1 million, but minorities today represent only 6% of the local population.

1980, TvK, “China's Forty Millions”, in Georgina Ashworth, editor, World Minorities in the Eighties, volume 3, Sunbury, Middlesex: Quartermaine House, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 20

Now, modern dwellings of Korean immigrants are changing their spatial compositions, materials, and structures. With cultural assimilation as well as modernization, especially in urban areas, they area compelled to accept the elements of Chinese dwellings. But the spatial element of "Chong-ju-k'an", which is the core element of Yen-Pien dwelling type, never fade away nor is changed.

Journal of architectural history

1994 June, Bong Ryol (김봉렬) Kim, “중국(中國) 연변지구(延邊地區) 조선족(朝鮮族)의 마을과 주거 [The Outline of Villages and Dwellings of the Korean Immigrants in Yen-Pien Area of China]”, in 건축역사연구 [geonchugyeoksayeon'gu, Journal of architectural history], volume 3, number 1, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82