Good fun here from the Asia Times — a review of a North Korean karaoke bar in Beijing, written by a South Korean. Check out how the writer absolutely falls for the ladies.
The room looks like a typical karaoke room. There are comfy cushions with a table in the center. On the one side of the room, there is a big TV screen with a karaoke machine. There is also a switch on the wall that can make the room light dimmer, to meet the “needs” of the customer.
Soon, two North Korean girls entered the room. One is Park Hee-kyung and the other is Kim Ju-myung (not real names), both of them in their early 20s. They sat down next to us, but not as closely as you might be erroneously visualizing in your head. They were well trained for such an occasion. And they knew that it’s polite to give the two gentlemen in the room some space for themselves. Park and Kim gently poured the imported Pyongyang wine into our glasses and served fruit on our plates.
One of the more interesting things in the article is a small aside about the differences in the Korean spoken in the North and South. I’ve come across this some in studying Korean. Basically the North continues to use many of the (numerous) honorifics that have slowly gone by the wasteside in the south.
Throughout their interaction, the businessman was addressing Park and Kim with honorific terms. The Korean language is notoriously complicated. Depending on the other party’s age, there are different ways of addressing the other. If the other party is older than you, one is expected to use honorific terms. If the other person is younger than you, yet when you two are in a formal relationship, then you are also expected to address the other person in honorific terms to show respect. In addition to using the honorific terms, the businessman was also feigning his intonation slightly closer to the North Korean accent.
Later, when this observation was brought up to him, the businessman said: “You don’t have to butter them up. But when you let them know you treat them with respect, they get disarmed and they will reveal their more human side. Eventually, you’ll enjoy your time here. Respect is the most powerful weapon to disarm people,” he said.
By the end the writer is swooning…
We said our good-byes to the two gorgeous North Korean comrades.
And then they sent all the money to Kim Jong-il. The end.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Will // Feb 26, 2008 at 9:44 am
I’d expect it to be more the other way round - the South uses more honorifics which have fallen aside in the North.
Remember under communism, everyone is ‘comrade’ - although in the DPRK, I understand there are underlying Korean seniority sensitivities to be observed, e.g. my ’senior’ comrade is ‘tong-ji’ (inc. Kim Jong-Il) but my ‘junior’ comrade is just ‘tong-mu’.
Other forms of address not used by the Norks are ‘ajossi’ and ‘agassi’.
2 Shinsano // Feb 26, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I went ahead and looked in the book where I originally saw this…which was a beginning level Korean book I used when I first started learning. In general, the North tries to preserve the “true” Korean language, but it extends more to basic vocabulary/nouns than honorifics (as I wrote)
I’d still guess what I said is true, but I’m not sure. Mr. Korea Beat would probably have a better idea than I.
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