this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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My SO is Korean and we get this all the time. I don't even think it's always a joke, some people just honestly don't understand how restrictive N. Korea is...
There are around 100,000 north koreans working abroad. It's not so unreasonable of a question as you'd think
Looks like it's mostly Russia and China, with unconfirmed estimates for other countries. This is in violation of UN sanctions, so it's highly unlikely that you'd meet a N. Korean in countries that respect UN sanctions.
South Korea, on the other hand, numbers in the millions. So if you live outside of Russia and China, there are millions of S. Koreans vs probably a few thousand N. Koreans. It's not even close.
And if you do meet a North Korean couple in small-town America, they probably won't mention it! (Un's uncle and aunt fled there from Switzerland)
Idk, if you meet someone from Pennsylvania, do you ask if the person personally knows the family of the Trump assassin? If you meet someone from the UK, do you ask if they're royalty? That's the kind of odds I'm talking about, the chance is so remote that the question isn't worth the breath to ask. It's not like asking if someone identifies as LGBT (that's like 7-8%), it's like asking if anyone in their family was struck by lightning.
The main exception here is if you live in China (~3% chance of a Korean being from N. Korea) or Russia (more like 30% chance of being N. Korean). Pretty much everywhere else, it's going to be a fraction of a percent.
Plus about 50,000 have managed to defect over the past 30 years.
150k is about 0.000183% of the world population
Ok, that's more than twice the population of Wyoming's capital. If I don't ignore that Wyomingites exists then there's no reason to ignore that North Koreans exist outside of North Korea
I never assume that someone is from Wyoming's capital either.
I still dont really get the issue. Yes its much less likely that any korean would be from the north, but there absolutely are defectors from the north that live in the west. This is just like people calling themselves "american"... Like bro just properly state the name of your home country, then people wont have to ask you.
Yes, defectors exist, but they're so vanishingly few that it makes no sense to ask. Average defectors are something like 1-2k/year, and by comparison, about 16-17k S. Koreans immigrate to the US every year. So the chance that the person you're talking to is from N. Korea is incredibly small, not only do very few people actually escape N. Korea, they likely largely stay in S. Korea, where they speak the language.
"Korea" is the proper name for both countries, the "North" and "South" descriptor comes from other countries to disambiguate them. The official name for S. Korea is "Republic of Korea," and the official name for N. Korea is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea." So if you're wanting people to fully state the country they're from, you'd probably be more confused because both countries' official names include "Republic of Korea." But you'll likely never talk to someone from N. Korea, so the whole question is moot. If they say they're from "Korea," 99.9% of the time they'll be from South Korea, and if you live outside of S. Korea, it's probably like 99.999%.
Ive known a dozen koreans (if you include briefly meeting family then more) and one was indeed born in the north.
Were they super old? As in, they were born there before the war?
Because actually meeting someone from N. Korea is incredibly rare, unless you're in China or something (S. Koreans pretty much never immigrate there).
nope. PhD student. I did not sit down and ask the story but it was known because it was such a thing. Don't know if he was a baby on a raft or had a harrowing escape story or what.
Interesting. That's a pretty rare opportunity, assuming you're not in Russia or China (and even then, it's still fairly uncommon).
You know im sorta wishing now I would have tried to get the story. I mean we had like half a dozen other koreans and no one seemed to treat him differently but he was not especially outgoing and that is even for a korean student who were not the most outgoing to begin with and lets face it. PhD students are not necessarily the most outgoing of the popluation at large. At the time it was just woa, but you know otherwise he seemed no different than any others. He did smoke which I did not think about it at the time as many PhD students smoked but it was not prevelent in the korean students. At least the ones I knew which is a not a super large set.
Eh, Koreans have a pretty high rate of smoking (this site claims >40% of adult men), so you're probably just getting sampling bias if most you know don't smoke. My SO's friends are all anti-smoking for religious reasons, but when we visited Korea, a lot of people smoked. A lot of people in Asia smoke, it's nuts.
But yeah, Koreans tend to stick with other Koreans. My in-laws are quite racist against non-Koreans (I get a pass), and while the younger generations are better about it, they still tend to stick with other Koreans. I had a lot of international friends growing up (Vietnamese, Japanese, Taiwanese, etc), but none of them were Korean, despite having a pretty big Korean population where I grew up. I had a good working relationship with one in college when I was dating my SO (he was super good at StarCraft, that's not just a meme), and I helped him edit his essays.
I will say most koreans I have known are religious (and christian curiously) and come to think of it I don't recall this guy ever mentioning religion.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure N. Korea bans religion, kind of like the USSR, because the leader is supposed to replace God.
South Korea is something like 50% non-religious, and the rest is split between Buddhist and Christian (a bit more Christian than Buddhist). But at least from my experience, Koreans tend to see religion as more of a social club than actual belief, and in the US, they tend to be business networking places instead of places to actually worship. So even a Christian Korean probably wouldn't be super upfront about it.
A certain demographic being rare/small does not strip them of their right to existence in peoples minds, i get where you are coming from, but there is also zero hurt being done by asking this. There might not be super much of a point in asking, but looking at someone like they are a moron for asking it, is completely unjustified.
I'm guessing people from South Korea get a little mad being asked this all the time.
Nah, he was around eight too. Both were in their own bubble of 8 year oldness.
It's not just that they're rare, but that it's literally illegal due to UN sanctions for N. Koreans to emigrate (resolution 2397 in 2017), not to mention severe restrictions by the N. Korean regime itself. Just asking if someone is from N. Korea in any country that follows UN resolutions could get that person deported if someone overhears.
As long as you qualify for refugee status this does not apply. I dont know what is required to qualify for that, but i assume its not impossible, considering the kind of place north korea is.
Certainly. But that just means it's that much less likely that you'll actually meet someone who qualifies (they'll have to flee N. Korea first, the official channels won't work).
I think "being from North Korea" qualifies immediately for refugee status.
TIL "increadibly small" is greater than 1/20...
? The 1-2k figure is total people defecting from N. Korea every year. This isn't immigration, it's people running away from N. Korea. The 16-17k figure is just S. Koreans going to the US (doesn't include other countries).
The actual numbers of people in a given country have a much bigger gap. For S. Korea, it's like 2.5M in the US alone (about 7-8M worldwide), whereas for N. Korea, it's like 100-150k worldwide (mostly in China and Russia). If we take that on face value, it's like 70x more S. Koreans vs N. Koreans worldwide outside their native countries, and if you exclude Russia and China, it's probably well over 1000x.
Nobody will be confused if you tell them you’re American
i remember when i was 8 one of my friends told me he was american and i asked whether he was from north or south and i was so proud bc i knew there were two of them and he looked at me like i was a fucking moron
They might not be confused, but if you're not from the US, they'll be wrong (spoiler: America is a continent, usually broken down into North, Central, and South America (and Latin America, for hispanic countries and Brazil. Other subcategorisations of "America" the continent might exist))
I'm Canadian. We know America is the entire continent. We still don't want to be called Americans. The US can keep that.
I’m American and also know the continents are called that and also don’t always want to be called American. But that’s the standard and what everyone uses to refer to us, until I meet some pedant who thinks they’re clever and trying to prove some kind of point as if I didn’t know or as if I chose that word myself.
Tbh I just mostly be annoyed at how much US stuff makes it my way, even though I've never even set foot there. English became a lingua franca of sorts, and through the use of it online, I cannot avoid stumblin' upon their news and, especially, politics. And sometimes I come to wonder if the (information-based) content I consume might be more relevant to US audiences, therefore rendering the information irrelevant to me.
I do have to give it to them, though, they do have good content online (or rather, content in English tends to be quite good, and in my opinion, unmatched in many languages of which I know and understand, for the number of YouTube channels I follow in any other language pales in comparison to the stuff in English (where are the non-English video essays, funny but sometimes also wise commentary videos, and interesting and sometimes quite fun videos on topics that might teach you a thing or two? (shout out to Ter and Jaime Altozano for the (less frequent) fun content that keeps my YouTube* feed the tiniest bit less English (and never makes me question if I actually like their content, as it's usually great stuff))))
Also, United States of America? Cause… their country is made of states, and these are united? What are countries, if not states, united, after all? And… it's in America, the continent, as well! Did they not come up with a better name? Almost reminds me of Monty Python's witch scene, from The Holy Grail. "And what are countries made of?" " Land" "Churches" "States". Who art thee, so wise in the ways of science?
The only purpose of central America is to pretend that Mexico isn't in northern America.
It's a valid distinction from a cultural point of view. The Americas covers such a vast portion of the globe, you need a succinct way to narrow down which part of it you are talking about. Kind of the same when you talk about the UK, western Europe, eastern Europe, middle east; it's all one big area with no clear geographical division.
World politics isn't really well understood by most people, me included. Outside of who the US is bombing lots of people genuinely don't know what's going on with the world. We know NK is bad and restrictive but it's hard to comprehend as it's not something we've experienced
That's fair, but surely people understand that N. Korea is perhaps the most sanctioned country in the world. As in, N. Korea and pretty much every other country in the world agree on perhaps only one thing, that N. Koreans should stay in N. Korea.
Most North Koreans are exploited and abused, and if they manage to get out on their own (since other countries dont care enough about human rights to try and actively help them to get out), they should be absolutely accepted and helped as much as possible to integrate into another country.
I absolutely agree. I'm just saying that both N. Korea and other countries prefer them to stay in N. Korea. And there are good reasons for that:
But I absolutely believe countries should make an effort to take them in, I'm just saying that's not the current political climate.
this person thinks "North" is a swear word
? I live in "North" America, and I have no problem with that...
I'm not saying North Korean people are bad, I'm saying there's a lot of sanctions that prevent North Koreans from being accepted in most of the world. This results in a large share of the North Koreans outside of North Korea being government plants, like this story about a North Korean getting hired by a security company. Legal emigration just isn't a thing from North Korea, and hasn't been for decades, except for a small handful of countries (Russia, China, and a few others).
I feel really bad for the average North Korean citizen, but that doesn't change the statistics. If you meet someone who is Korean pretty much anywhere outside of China or Russia, there's almost zero chance they're from North Korea. That's the statistics, and it's due to a mix of N. Korean policy, international resolutions, and policies of various countries.
It was a joke. You used the abbreviation "N." every time.
Ah, got it. I'm just kinda lazy sometimes. :)
Sorry for the confusion. Not a very good joke I guess 😅