How Does Busan Reconnect with Those Who Have Left?

510,000 Have Left

Over the past decade, the youth population in the southeastern region that includes Busan has decreased by 510,000. What was 2.17 million became 1.65 million. In Busan alone, the proportion of young people dropped from 28 percent in 2010 to 21 percent in 2024, making it the first metropolitan city nationwide to enter the population extinction risk stage.

Where did they go? Mostly to the Seoul metropolitan area. Because that's where the quality jobs, capital, and opportunities were. The people Busan raised left because they couldn't find a place to grow in Busan itself. Just as we've seen in previous articles.

This article looks at that departure anew. Is leaving a loss, or can it be seen differently?

How Should We View Departure?

If we view those who left as people we've lost, the story ends there. Only empty seats remain. But there are cities that viewed those who left differently.

Taiwan did this. In the 1970s and 80s, Taiwan's brightest young people left for Silicon Valley in the United States. It was brain drain. But they didn't disappear. They built networks in Silicon Valley based on alumni and hometown ties, and those networks later became the critical channel for launching the semiconductor cluster in Hsinchu near Taipei. Those who left essentially created the home country's industry. India and Israel's technology industries followed the same path. The experts who left became bridges connecting their home countries with the world.

This is called not brain drain but brain gain. The difference isn't in the people. It's in the perspective—whether you view those who left as lost, or as our people out in the world.

Those Who Left Are Busan's Global Outposts

Let's look again at the 510,000 who left Busan.

They are in Seoul, in Gyeonggi, and farther away in Tokyo, Singapore, and Silicon Valley. Born and raised in Busan, they are scattered across the world's cities with Busan's language and sensibility. If we see them only as people who left, they're empty seats. But if we see them as outposts Busan has placed in the world, Busan is already a city that has marked points across the globe. They haven't scattered; they've extended outward.

The same applies to those who haven't left. You can keep your body in Busan while placing your mind in the world. If you live in Busan and think only by Busan's standards, you're trapped in Busan. But if you sit in the same place and work by the standards of Tokyo, London, and New York, you become someone in Busan connected to the world. You don't have to leave to connect with the world. You can become a global outpost while staying put.

The fact that Busan is a port city is important here. Ports are originally places where people leave and enter. People, ships, and goods go out and come back in. Busan was a city of this coming and going. Thinking we've lost those who left is like a port thinking it has lost the ships that depart.

What Reconnects Them?

So what reconnects scattered people?

Not distance. We now live in an era when we can instantly connect with the opposite side of the globe. Physical distance is no longer the issue. What reconnects is the trust built before leaving. What kind of trust did you build with that person in Busan before they left? If that trust exists, even after ten years on the opposite side of the globe, a single call reconnects you. Without trust, you won't connect even if you live in the same city.

This is what diaspora research around the world consistently says. Reconnecting those who left with their home country doesn't happen through a single event. It only happens through sustained interaction. Only through long-term relationships where trust is built before leaving and that trust continues after leaving. In the end, it's trust again. The trust this series has spoken of from the beginning.

If Busan wants to make those who left into global outposts, it must build trust before they leave. While they're in Busan, it must recognize them, make room for them, and create relationships built over time. Only then, even after they leave, will Busan remain connected to the world through them.

Calling Upon Scattered Trust

Busan is accustomed to raising people and sending them out, we said. Now one more thing is needed. Continuing the trust with those who were sent out.

The 510,000 are not empty seats. They are people scattered across the world who know Busan. Each one of them can become Busan's outpost in Tokyo, Seoul, or Silicon Valley. But it doesn't happen automatically. Someone must remember, call upon, and connect that scattered trust. It starts with the perspective that views those who left not as lost, but as our people out in the world.

But connecting scattered trust cannot last long on one person's goodwill alone. Someone must promise it for the long term and turn that promise into an institution. How is that promise kept? That's the next question.