 Around 1935, a few itinerant ginseng peddlers from Uiju, North Pyongan (in present-day North Korea) arrived in the country via Vietnam.Finally, some Korean soldiers came with the Imperial Japanese Army when it occupied the Philippines during World War II; three, also from Uiju, are known to have married local women and chose to remain in the country permanently.One of them, Pak Yun-hwa, went on to establish the Korean Association Philippines Inc. in 1969, which would grow to become the country's largest Korean organization.