BAGUIO CITY ? Son Seok, a 14-year-old Korean student here, answers with a crisp ?Kamusta [How are you]?? when his fellow Koreans wave at him and yell ?Annyeong (Hi)!? from across Session Road.

In a Korean-owned grocery also on Session Road, Filipino women in their 30s are busy shopping for kimchi, kim, and Korean noodles. On Legarda Road, locals gather at a Korean restaurant, waiting for their servings of kimpap, bulgogi, champong and sang gyup sal.

Young men and women, mostly college students, ask Charlie Kang, a Korean stylist, to cut their hair ?the Korean way.?

Unemployed nurses and teachers in the city, many of them waiting for jobs abroad, are earning well as English tutors to Korean students.

Annyeong, kimchi, Korean food and even their peculiar hairstyle were unheard of in this mountain city in the early 1990s. The very few Koreans who visited or lived in Baguio then were either tourists or missionaries, says Ricardo Cabochan, immigration officer in Baguio.

But the Korean boom started and changed the city in 1997, when Korean businessman Husky Ryu brought students who were on winter or summer break in South Korea to learn English in Baguio City.

Ryu, who established a language school for Korean students in Baguio, brought some 50 students to study English in a school he named HELP English Institute.

While the programs were brief, Koreans enjoyed their stay in Baguio and became the city?s endorsers when they returned to their country. Through recommendations to friends and relatives and the blog entries of his former students, Ryu unwittingly promoted Baguio as one of the best and most affordable places in Asia to learn English.

From 50 in 1997, the Korean population grew through the years until it reached more than 15,000 in 2006.

Cabochan says 90 percent of foreigners in Baguio are Koreans. Next to Cebu City, Baguio posted the highest amount of visa fees collected in 2009, he says.

Since he put up HELP, Ryu has been helping Korean investors in establishing language schools. Baguio now has close to 100 language schools catering to Koreans.

Children of some Korean families also attend local elementary and high schools and universities. With this boom, businessmen have opened more than 30 restaurants to serve the Korean population.

HELP?s campuses in Baguio and in nearby La Trinidad, Benguet, host more than 200 Koreans every four months and employ more than 200 Filipino teachers and staff.

Of the major cities in the Philippines, why did Ryu choose Baguio as his workplace and second home in 1997?

Ryu, now president of the Korean Schools Association in Northern Luzon, cites four factors: weather, quality of education, peace and order, and people. He says the cool weather is the ?hands down? reason many Korean students, families, tourists, businessmen and retirees are settling in the city.

Although Cebu hosts the most number of Koreans in the country because it offers varied forms of relaxation, Baguio is conducive for learning.

?Students who are seriously studying English go to Baguio,? says Ryu. ?The city was colonized by Americans for many years so you have a lot of fluent English speakers here. We found good teachers as well. And everybody in the city speaks English, unlike in Cebu and other cities.?

Compared to Metro Manila and other cities, Baguio has a low crime rate. Ryu says parents who are working in South Korea to support their children?s education in the Philippines want nothing but safety for their family.

?We also love the people of Baguio,? Ryu adds.

Seok Hyeong Man, 16, who has been studying here for five years now, says Baguio residents and his Filipino schoolmates are ?friendly, hospitable and easy to deal with.?

Heung Sun Ryu, 23, who has been staying in Baguio for six months now, says he likes the city because of the ?weather, the attitude of the people and Filipino food, especially adobo.?

Husky Ryu says the Korean community reciprocates the Filipinos? hospitality by raising money and distributing relief goods to victims of calamities. They also hire Filipinos to help them run their businesses.

In 2009, the leading private agencies in Korea recommended the Philippines, particularly Baguio City, as the ideal destination for a short-term English course.

?Baguio is like a warm-up exercise for Koreans. They come here before they advance their communication skills in other countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States,? Ryu says.

So how much does a Korean student spend for a three-month English language course?

In HELP, a student shells out $700 (P32,200), which is inclusive of tuition, food and accommodation, says Ryu. About 25 percent of this amount, he adds, goes to the agency that recommends the school to the student. He says a student also has to set aside $200 (P9,200) for visa extension fees and allowance for every month.

In 2008, however, the global economic crisis did not spare South Korea. Thousands of Koreans lost their jobs, forcing many factories and businesses to shut down. As their finances started to dry up, a number of families were forced to leave Baguio as they could no longer afford to pay monthly rent, utility bills, school fees and other expenses.

Cabochan says the number of Koreans in the city dropped to just over 4,000 in 2008. The Bureau of Immigration also noted a decline in the number of language schools and Korean restaurants.

But Ryu believes that Koreans are here to stay and language schools will continue to grow. He says in Korea, parents, especially fathers, put much premium on education. This is why Korean men are known for working long hours to support their family.

At the height of any economic turmoil, the last thing that a Korean parent would give up is education, says Ryu. They want their children to study abroad to learn English so they can be globally competitive and get better, high paying jobs later, he adds. ?