Ask A Waeguk, Vol. 3

Since watching a soccer game in which the North Korean team was misidentified with the South Korean flag, Monti from Oakville wonders if South Koreans are offended if called North Koreans, and vice versa.

The Waeguk Responds

Up to now, Monti, I have not met a North Korean, nor have I made the mistake of mixing up North and South, so what I can offer you is only idle speculation.

At school (the site of the majority of my conversational interactions with bona fide citizens of the Republic of Korea), the topic of politics rarely comes up, and North Korea is mentioned even less frequently.

With very, very few exceptions, North Koreans stay in North Korea. It is not a country with anything even close to open borders. By and large, South Koreans are not allowed into the North, and citizens of other countries who wish to do so must go through China, such is the nature of the DMZ, the "world's most heavily fortified border," as countless websites and guidebooks are quick to tell us, breathlessly noting the 2 million soldiers who line its sides.

Given this, and the fact that the Korean peninsula was only one country until the end of the Second World War, one would think that the "rogue state" to the north would be frequent watercooler fare. From what I've seen, however, it isn't. It may be that the situation, although scary, has remained the same for long enough that there really isn't much to talk about on a day-by-day basis. It may be that it's not a topic one would choose to broach with colleagues as part of casual office chatter, particularly if those colleagues are Westerners and the topic is one with considerable emotional weight.

In terms of your question, Monti, my best guess is that South Koreans would be largely bemused if someone were to mix up the North and South, especially if that someone happened to be living in South Korea. Although they share four thousand years of heritage, the countries' paths since 1945 have been so radically different that to confuse the two would be akin to being unable to distinguish between the USA and the USSR, circa 1980.

Maybe I'll try flipping the names this week, just to test my hypothesis. But probably not.