Peter Jung’s very niche enterprise would have been unimaginable just a short time ago in Ho Chi Minh City. Last year he opened Fill It, a high-end clinic specializing in scalp micropigmentation, a treatment for hair loss, serving the city’s South Korean population.

“Of course you’ll have clients sometimes with many demands and requiring a lot of time,” he said, with the help of an employee who interpreted from Korean to Vietnamese. “But they end up happy.”

That such a business, where a procedure can cost more than a month’s local wages, exists in Vietnam’s commercial hub attests to how Korean expatriates’ spending power has reached the critical mass to create a self-sustaining ecosystem in Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economy.

In Ho Chi Minh City’s two so-called Korea Towns there are blocks where people can do almost anything — from visiting a dentist and playing virtual golf to buying stocks or consulting a property agent — in Korean.

Besides these two K-Towns, there are enclaves in the capital Hanoi and smaller clusters in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces, where foreign factories have sprouted.

Some 178,000 South Koreans live in Vietnam — 60,000 more than in the rest of Southeast Asia combined, according to data from the foreign ministry in Seoul. Only the U.S., Japan, Canada and China have larger populations of resident Koreans. History, investment and family have brought them in droves to this manufacturing hub and the tide shows little sign of ebbing.

Korea Inc. poured $670 million into Vietnam in the first quarter of this year, making it the top foreign target after the U.S. and a handful of tax havens, according to Statista. Vietnamese government figures show South Korea is the largest source of investment, at $88.3 billion from 1988 to the end of September.

“People come with big companies, they stay, they love Vietnam life,” said Jihwan Park, a partner at Shin & Kim law firm who advises many of the Korean giants that have invested in Vietnam.

Some extend their postings so their children can finish school while others “leave their companies and start their own businesses,” he said in an interview in a downtown high-rise that he shares with Korean Air, a Busan City representative office and other Korean firms.

Businesses range from small passion projects, to chaebol that are a part of daily life in Vietnam, such as CJ Group, which runs the dominant cinema chain, produces films, sells food wholesale and retail and manages shrimp farms.

“When Koreans come here to do business, they feel welcome,” Jung said. He added that they also like Korean businesses such as his where they can “speak their mother tongue” and expect good quality.

Koreans have been coming to the communist country for decades, most tumultuously during the Vietnam War, when North and South Korea backed opposing sides of the conflict. Last year a Seoul court ordered the government to pay compensation for a wartime massacre its marines committed in 1968, local media reported.

Investment and migration really took off after Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in 2007, a decade after joining ASEAN. Samsung opened its first factory in the country in 2009, and now makes half its mobile phones in Vietnam. The company’s vote of confidence acted as a strong catalyst for other South Korean firms to invest.

Koreans now run 10,000 businesses in Vietnam, a figure that has doubled in about eight years, according to the Korean Chamber of Commerce. Bilateral trade was $86.5 billion in 2022 and the two governments hope this will reach $150 billion by 2030.

Economically, the impact is hard to overstate, said Mindy Nguyet, Dragon Capital’s head of research. “Korean investment has been instrumental in Vietnam’s transformation,” she told Nikkei Asia, giving examples from producers “fostering a more diversified and sophisticated industrial base,” to retailers “shaping consumer behavior, raising service standards and boosting local firms’ growth through investments.”

Koreans fill the tennis clubs and golf resorts, they hire fellow nationals as accountants, acupuncturists, tutors, coaches, interior designers and chefs. And they’re turning to private banking as their financial lives become increasingly ensconced in Vietnam, whether to purchase a second or third home or start a business.

This year Woori Bank Vietnam is expanding its offerings to suit the growing needs of clientele, “especially personal capital mobilization,” CEO Park Jongil told Nikkei. The lender launched “Two Chairs,” a program for depositors to sit one on one with asset consultants, bolstering a suite of services that includes mortgages, fund management, and insurance.

“The closeness in culture and tradition has helped Koreans feel familiar and easily adapt when living and working in Vietnam,” Park said.

Park, the lawyer, pointed to commonalities like Vietnamese and Korean roots in China’s Confucianism and language. Vietnamese used to be written with Chinese script and retains words that sound similar in Korean. “Male” is “nam” in Vietnamese and “namseong” in Korean, for instance, Park noted.

But the partnership has not been all plain sailing, as the war reparations show. Vietnamese concerns nowadays lean more toward the economic, from contractors struggling to break into the insular supply chain of Korean giants, to staff wary of Korean employers importing a stressful work culture.

“Vietnamese are hard-working” but want a work-life balance, Timensit asset manager Ngo Van Khai said of the culture clash.

And Koreans, especially those who do not overcome the language barrier, endure some of the frequent tensions of life in Vietnam, like petty bribery or unscrupulous taxi drivers.

But such concerns are eclipsed by robust trade and social links, including the legions of Vietnamese who are enthralled by K-dramas or move to South Korea as spouses or workers. There are some 80,000 Korean-Vietnamese families in South Korea, according to official figures.

Even North Korea maintains unique relations with Vietnam, a rare country that has hosted leader Kim Jong Un and allows Pyongyang to operate enterprises like restaurants in its territory to earn foreign currency.

As such, in a small way, Vietnam depicts an alternative universe for Koreans, a picture of reunification had the two Koreas’ own civil war ended in amity, too. Vietnamese also wonder if they’d have turned out like North and South Korea, had they remained divided.

But today they prefer to model themselves on South Korea, where the likes of Hyundai and Lotte spearheaded the economic metamorphosis at home, as well as investment into Vietnam.

The burgeoning population means there are more Koreans with the leisure to patronize sectors that were barely on the radar a decade ago, such as at Lee Jiwon Pilates. The studio has imported equipment and internationally-certified teachers who tailor their classes, from private sessions to a prenatal program.

“Our highly-skilled instructors are capable of meeting any request,” showing “we sincerely care for each and every client,” said Lee, the owner who named the gym after herself.

Park, the attorney, said that the transplants feel welcome, in part because the Korean wave, or hallyu, like fashion and music has won so many fans in Vietnam.

“When we go to karaoke my [Vietnamese] colleagues know more K-pop than me,” he said of the affinity that’s kept his compatriots living — and spending — in this country. “That’s why Koreans think Vietnam is friendly. … We feel (like) it is not a foreign country.”