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An honest mistake
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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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%.
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).
Interesting. That's a pretty rare opportunity, assuming you're not in Russia or China (and even then, it's still fairly uncommon).
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.
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.
I think "being from North Korea" qualifies immediately for refugee status.
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).
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.