This study investigates the roles and characteristics of Korean-Chinese tour guides during the rapid socio-political changes between China and Korea. Data were obtained through in-depth interviews with 12 guides working in South Korea and were analyzed using the grounded theory framework. Open coding gave 98 conceptual labels, 30 subcategories, and 13 main categories. This study allows us to innovatively investigate the psychological changes in Korean-Chinese tour guides affected by political influences. However, most of the data was collected from males in their 30s using cross-sectional analysis, a longitudinal study would therefore strengthen the value of our approach in the future.