New Malden Koreatown; Where North & South Koreans live in harmony… in Europe!?

[Music] this is [Music] [Music] no we're not in korea north or south we're actually deep in a london suburb in europe's largest korea town new malden is home to the largest community of north and south koreans in europe and potentially the largest densely populated areas of north koreans outside korea it lies in south london close to wimbledon less than an hour out of central london by train from waterloo indeed it was this train line that established new malden as an area in the first place back in 1846 before we start this video i just want to give a special thanks to my patrons without you this video would not be possible consider becoming a patron today and enjoy exclusive chat groups as well as monthly zoom calls oh and please do remember to like and subscribe so i've just got on the train out of central london i'm heading to a suburb about 30 minutes away and i'm going there today because it's a bit of a special suburb in england so it's called new moulding and it is known as london's career time so i'm going there today to kind of show you guys around hopefully get some good korean food uh take a look and see what kind of um what kind of stuff is going on here so i'm kind of hoping that um i appreciate there's going to be lots of brilliant people um i've heard there's lots of cool crazy restaurants playing cafes going shops um and i'm just generally because we have a girl and soaking the culture it's a super interesting place it's um it's london's um you know biggest population of korean people and also really interestingly um with a population of about 600 or so it's europe's largest group of muslims so let's see what you want [Music] so i just arrived here in new malden london's korea town and for a career town it's not really as you'd imagine if you're thinking of it like for example chinatown which is you know a lot of cities have them in the uk and all over the world a concentrated population of um you know chinese businesses and chinese people um rather it's kind of a more natural congregation of lots of korean people and you can see how it's been built up over time it's not a you know specific deliberate designated spot um but rather it kind of formed naturally over time and you can see that in the very natural and random but really nice mix of british and korean culture nestled amongst typical british shops and businesses you'll find an array of korean restaurants and shops took neatly in between the south korean embassy in the uk was originally based in new malden in the 1970s this meant that the ambassador lived here too this started to draw more koreans to live nearby and in the end it became the popular place to settle for koreans as we see it today since then samsung set up its first european headquarters here as well as the korean weekly newspaper eurojournal [Music] since it's my first time in new malden i reached out to becky or hanguka for a bit of a helping hand half korean and a resident of new malden she knows the best places in town and has agreed to show me around the area this at the top of the high street is one of the first korean restaurants in new modern called it used to be called a different restaurant and then that restaurant moved to london and now we've got sanobo which is a korean bbq restaurant selling all your favorite korean dishes on the other side of the road is boom which means palace in english and this restaurant is very popular because it's a korean chinese restaurant and i believe the owners are korean chinese as well so they have like jadanyan jambong tangsuyuk all the favorite korean chinese dishes and they make it really really well so we are standing in front of kimone which means at auntie's in korean and apparently it's closed but inside the restaurant they have their best-selling sam jim which is steamed fish and as you can see on there they've got some little fish to show that that's their speciality and this place is always packed out because it's the kind of food you'd get if you go and visit your auntie your email as you cook loads of dishes for you even when you say before she'll keep feeding you it's really really nice home-cooked style korean food and i definitely recommend you to go and it's halal chicken as well i think i'm gonna get very hungry during this tour [Music] walking around the center you'll see various korean churches shops supermarkets restaurants newspapers and nursery schools everywhere you look you'll see aspects of the korean language or culture that said it's not extremely big actually just one main high street although not obvious one very unique aspect of new malden is the mixture of north and south koreans only in very few places in the world will you ever get to experience koreans living side by side in harmony as in times of pre-separation and it gives an interesting insight into what reunited korea could look like as well as a reminder that koreans whether from the north or south are still koreans with similar traditions culture and language this is the korean art centre and originally it was for senior korean citizens of like had a british family older generation to come here together if they needed help with settling in but now it's turned into an art center so behind me there is a lady practicing korean art calligraphy they often have live concerts here and more recently they had a fundraising for ukraine with north and south koreans coming together for this event and i believe there are more events like that going to happen in the future where north and south koreans come together um for an event or for fundraising or or just to get to know each other more yeah tell me a bit about tell me a bit about you uh so i i didn't grow up in new modern but i've always been kind of around new modern yeah because where i live is about a 10-minute drive from new morden okay um i did go to secondary school here and since coming to school about 10 years ago to now yeah i know more than 10 years ago i've seen that the korean community just thrive there are more that i think there's now about 30 percent of shops on new modern high street are korean owned okay or korean businesses and it's really quite a lot it is huge yeah and it really helps new orleans because now the property prices are much higher than when the first generation of koreans came here it's home to the uk's best and most authentic korean food everywhere you look you can find shops serving bibimbap kimchi pancakes and even the famous cold noodles of course soju is on the menu too right now we're in a korean butcher's called tree stone and this one is quite special because they have a certain selection of meats that you might not find in other pictures and and if you look there it says the different beef cuts pork cups and lamp puffs that they have so basically they use the whole animal nothing goes to waste and then it even tells you what part of the animal is best for what so grilling and barbecuing roasting frying stir-fry explosively and then it will show you which part is good for however you want to eat it so very sustainable to eat meat yeah sustainable way and then if you if let's say you want to buy i don't know like for example a pork belly you can buy it here and then you can take it to the restaurant next door and you can use the meat before and then it will be a bit cheaper although me and becky only had time to chow down on some bingsu traditional korean shaved rice whilst we record another video on the differences between the north and south korean languages more on that next week i'll certainly be back next time to try out some more before we end our tour with becky there's one more place to get lost in [Music] i think as a uh as a as a foreigner even though i like korean stuff a lot seeing this amount of um of like ramen stuff like that it's always a little bit overwhelming i would not know what to choose tokbokki though i would always go for it just seeing that behind me oh yeah nice so this is a minimal plaza so it's actually part of the storm korean foods and there's one in the middle of the high street there's one at the top of the high street just selling like your favorite clean products well i love danko really which is not everyone's cup of tea because it's like peanut but then it tastes a bit squiddy because ojinga means squid and dan kong is the peanut um but i really like it because it's sweet and a bit salty but it's very good with beer this is like andrew it's like something you drink you'd eat um with beer [Music] so we are at the end of our new modern tour and we have stopped in front of k-town which is a barbecue restaurant but not only is it a korean bbq restaurant where you can eat as much meat as you like it is also a buffet restaurant as well which specializes in sushi so you've really got the best of both worlds here and unlimited sanctuary lettuce unlimited poverty spring onion salad and they easily can have here uh which is um the acorn jelly salad which i've never found anywhere in london except here so if you want barbecue and buffet this is the place to go so that ends our short tour of new malden europe's korea town thank you so much to becky hangukappa for showing us around your insights were absolutely priceless do give her a follow on social media where she's very active and do consider giving you more than a visit if you're ever in london [Music] foreign you