Most of your “friends don’t even know how hard it is for North Korean to escape the country.” Wow. In this era of Smartphones?! Please educate your friends ASAP before they embarrass themselves.

The simple fact that people don’t know why the 2 Koreas are so different is frustrating. I think everyone gets a little bit annoyed when someone doesn’t know something very basic about their country. It’s better to just assume that a Korean is South Korean because it’s mostly likely they are, and if they are actually North Korean, they aren’t likely to tell you.

I mean why do South Korean get irritated or even offended if people ask are you from south or north ? That’s my biggest question. Not every person in this world know much about north and South Korea so asking a simple question like that is not a big deal and understandable. I mean most of my friends don’t even know how hard it is for North Korean to escape the country. I know about this not from school but because I love to browse in the Internet about geography and sociology.

Most Koreans are from South. North Koreans are unable to escape their country. It’s presumptuous to assume that I escaped from North Korea because most cannot.

Most Koreans are from South. North Koreans are unable to escape their country. It’s presumptuous to assume that I escaped from North Korea because most cannot. The only people who are fixated on the North/South are non-Koreans. Because of this fixation, I just tell people I am “American” even though I am Korean-American, because I will get irritated if I hear “Are you from North or South?” Despite the irritation, I will smile and be polite to you.

lol wow this is such an old post! How did you even come across it?

It depends on the context of the person asking. An educated person isn’t going to ask that within 2 seconds of meeting my husband, because that would be rude and ridiculous. So to generalise, it’s a pretty dumb question almost always asked by ignorant people. For example, my brother is a drummer of some fame and was being interviewed on radio, when he was asked about his YouTube channel he mentioned that his siste,r who set it up for him, has a blog about Korean culture and being married to a Korean man. The radio dj immediately laughed and said “Is he from North Korea? hahaha!” My marriage and my blog and my husband were immediately made into a joke. It’s ignorant and rude and is usually meant in a way so they can look down on them. So no, I’m not being severe at all. If someone knows the difference between North and South Korea they should also know that’s a rude question to ask immediately. Not only to South Koreans because they hate someone mistaking them for North Koreans and you will offend them, but also actual North Koreans don’t usually tell people they are North Korean, many try to hide that about themselves because it’s hard for them to fit into the outside world and they probably experienced some terrible things. So straight up saying, “Are you North Korean or South Korean???” is likely to offend, so better to have some tact.

To answer your question, where I reside, most people just point blankly say they’re from South Korea as oppose to just ‘Korea’ by itself. Saying Korea leaves a lot of ambiguity for other people cause their is still some possibility of being from the North no matter how slim. There are North Korean refugees who escaped the country. I would think it would be presumptuous of me to assume you’re from either one, so asking for clarification seems like the right way to go about it to me.

I do understand that Koreans refer to the country as simply Korea when inside but after a while outside the country I think they start to realize that everyone else refers to them as South Korea. (i may be wrong on this one)

I have nothing for the MASH thing …