Re: New to the list

On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:

> From: "Yoon Ha Lee"
>
> > Have to agree about Japanese.  Korean also has a noticeable honorific
> > system, but I look at Japanese and wince, mainly because if I ever
> > learned Japanese I *know* I'd get it wrong and offend someone.
>
> Yeah, how do North Koreans deal with such a system? Since everyone, save the
> Great Leader, is supposedly on equal footing, do they trash such a
> hierarchical grammar? Squelch it underground? Chinese doesn't have
[snip]
I forwarded the question to my mom, who if she doesn't know can probably
find out.  :-)  Any translation I make of her answer may be awkward, though.

My best guess, if you held me at gunpoint, would be that they don't.  But
it sounds like the Chinese tried to squelch things even with the whole
cult-of-personality, hierarchy and Confucian cultural
background/baggage.  I've been told that Communism as Koreans conceived
it is quite different from Communism as the Soviets or even most
Westerners conceived it (among other things, the early Korean communists
were in favor with a lot of Koreans after WWII because they were known as
nationalists who had resisted the Japanese consistently), but darned if I
can give you more detail.

YHL