I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it..

I have a "real" post coming up, but I had another head-exploding episode here as I watched a video on what N Koreans (who defected) think of S Korea. & what amazed me is how much ignorance & stereotypes they face here. I GUESS on the one hand I kinda get it, but...

They spoke to a man & a woman, & both said that, of course, S Koreans think N Koreans are all poor (though hell, *I* was always taught that too), & so look down on them.

The man said middle & high school students are shocked that they speak the same language (!!!!?), & the woman said a kid asked her what reunification is-- he'd never heard of it & his parents never taught him anything (though my memory is that maybe the kid was young, like 5, so that I could understand).

&, then, my favorite: a N Korean woman was going to meet her fiance's parents for the first time, & the FIRST question she was asked is, "Are you a spy?" Of course, this is pretty insulting, but insulting & super personal questions or statements for us in the West are par for the course here. In fact, what I've now been hearing is that, for Koreans particularly, they think it's very normal & necessary to continually state the obvious. This is usually aimed at telling people that they're fat, for example, or that I have blue eyes... but that's a different discussion for a different time. My main objection to this question is, do they HONESTLY think if a person IS a spy that they'll fucking TELL them?! But it's a commonly-asked question for them, & I can't think of a stupider one. "Are you a N Korean spy?" "Yes, yes I am." Because they don't do sarcasm here, though, the only time they'd get a yes is if they asked me, because your asinine question deserves such an answer. (Side note: I'm teaching my students how to ask questions or give negative responses because they never know to use "to do." We practiced asking "Do you/Are you" questions so they could practice distinguishing, & I answered yes to being Batman, God, and Jesus.)

Sadly though, the N Koreans guy thinks that while he definitely wants reunification, he said now is not the time, it can't be until S Koreans learn a lot more about N Korea, because otherwise the cultural clash would be so great, particularly S Koreans to N, that it would probably tear Korea apart.

I ask AGAIN, WTF do they teach them in school???