Koryo Saram Puns

Given the recent events going on in Kazakhstan, does anyone here know how our compatriats there are faring these days amidst the uprising? Hope that everyone there is safe and will overcome such hardships 🙏

During the period of Soviet rule, Korean language and culture was heavily suppressed, which led to loss of Korean language speaking and culture among the generations of Koryo-saram population in USSR.

However, when the Central Asian republics became independent following dissolution of Soviet Union, South Korea immediately recognised the independence of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Following recognition, these countries started having thriving relations with South Korea, which continues to the present.

As a result of the relationship, there have been opening of Korean Culture Centers in the major cities of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. A deep interest in Korean culture was also inculcated as part of the relationship.

So as a result of this, is there a revival of Korean culture, traditions and language among the Koryo-saram population, following years of suppression under Soviet rule ? And also how popular is Korean wave among the population of the mentioned countries ?

I'm from India, if that matters.

I can't seem to find any restaurants on Google that serve it in Uzbekistan. Are they not a thing? If they aren't, would there be any way to sample the cuisine?

My friend is in Almaty and I wanna help him find a place where he could try Koryo Saram food. Not just a Korean restaurant with dishes from Korea proper, but dishes of Central Asian Koreans.

I was reading about the Koryo Saram or people who left Korea and immigrated outside of Korea to places like Russia and Central Asia ( USSR) many decades ago. I found it interesting how many Korean surnames changed. There are surnames such as Ten, Tsoi, Nogay, Shegay etc, that are derived from common Korean surnames https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koryo-saram#Personal_and_family_names

Does any one here know how or why these surnames changed so much from their original pronunciations? For example Dennis Ten, his surname may have been pronounced 전 or 정 ( jeon or jeong), but became 텐 (ten), as far as I know there are no Tens in modern day Korea. Can someone explain this phenomenon?

Have you met any?

Republic of Korea, 안녕하십니까.

The Supreme Council of Kyrgyzstan has authorised me, Marina Kim, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to appeal to you regarding the Koryo-Saram.

Koryo-saram (고려사람) is the name used to refer to the 19,000 strong community of ethnic Koreans in the Kyrgyz Republic. These communities can be traced back to Koreans who were living in the Russian Empire during the late 1800s. I myself am one of these, living proof that they are fully integrated into the life of the Kyrgyz Republic.

In the past, we Koryo-saram have been responsible for some of the strongest business links with the Korean Peninsula that the Kyrgyz Republic has, and we are one of the richest and most successful groups in our nation. Many are fluent in Kyrgyz and Russian as well as (albeit non-standard; we speak Hamgyong dialect) Korean.

We are coming to you today because our circumstances are troubling. After a brief cultural resurgence with the Hallyu wave in the early 2010s, our culture is now in peril. Our numbers are dwindling, and our children are opting to take Kyrgyz surnames. Many, having joined the Khanbalshy, are forsaking the Korean language entirely and referring to themselves as ethnically Kyrgyz. The Kyrgyz Republic has not seen this as a problem in the past, but it has begun to threaten our economic links. The "right of return" that the Republic of Korea grants to ethnic Koreans means that many are fleeing back "home", despite being 7th-generation Kyrgyz citizens.

We therefore wish to propose a deal:

• The Republic of Korea will provide funding for 200 Koryo-saram per year to pursue their education at Korean-language institutions in the Republic of Korea.
• The Republic of Korea will expand academic ties with Kyrgyz institutions to allow the teaching of Korean in Kyrgyz institutions.
• The Republic of Korea will open an embassy in the city of Bishkek.
• The Republic of Korea will provide a foreign aid package of USD $250 million per year to the Kyrgyz Republic, to be used to fund expansion of the aforementioned Korean language programmes into the wider Kyrgyz Republic.

In return, the Kyrgyz Republic will:

• Remove all restrictions on the broadcast and sale of Korean television, movies, music and online content.
• Provide locations for Korean cultural centres to be opened in Bishkek and Osh.
• Remove visa requirements for Koreans wishing to do business in the Kyrgyz Republic.
• Allocate Hyundai Rotem, the rail manufacturers, "preferred bidder" status in th

To mark the 414th episode of Omnibus (because I missed the round number of 400 and won't wait until 500), here's every speculation by Ken and John on the podcast about what the Futurelings will look like, smell like, be like, etc. This is from a notes file on my phone, so maybe I've missed some. Episodes that aren't listed contain no speculations.

(I shared a previous versions of this, but the posts are now archived so can't update it or comment)

Intro episode

Cockroaches, presumably.

European Starling

Starlings are the only bird left in North America, replacing the Eagle as the symbol of the country.

Live in a community of pacifism and pure energy... who have better taste than current people and revere the Long Winters, and use his track as a National Anthem.

Maybe half goat half person that like peeing on themselves.

Defenestration

Futurelings live in a world called Battlefield Earth.

Insectile claw into record grooves to listen to Omnibus.

Marathon of 1904

Giant. Megafauna.

Blocks of cheese, or maybe Ents?

The Pig War

All living in utopian Cascadia.

No Facebook... and no faces either.

Smell-o-vision

Giant moles, smelling the podcast, not hearing it.

The Rachel

May be wearing a haircut called the Ken Jennings.

Tesseract

Live on potato starch... worship the potato.

Water Wars

3.5 feet tall horned toads that lick moisture off rocks.

Listening thousands of feet underground at the water table.

Gadsby

Live in hives.

Eat massive 12,000 pound ducks that last the entire futureling’s life.

Click mandibles to write letters.

Secret Order of the Double Sunrise

Listening from Singapore which has a billion people, part of a global hive.

Have gossamer dragonfly wings due to evolvolution.

Houston and New York are part of the same megalopolis.

They all have an AI John Roderick in their treehouses.

Darien Gap

Sentient fish who live underwater and look at submerged trees.

Heil Honey I’m Home!

No such thing as race in futurelings.

All rooms only have three walls due to the main architectural influence being family sitcoms.

Monrovia

Old futurelings watch Jeopardy hosted by Alex Trebec’s head in a jar of nutrients.

Might all be part of the Canadian Hegemony.

Mandibles clicking in excitement.

Live in 55,000 small nation states.

Kohoutek

Giant Cockroaches again

Twitter became SkyNet and Omnibus is recorded for it.

Sentinelese

All left handed, or left mandible

So I'm a Korean who was born and grew up around gyeonggi-do who saw the debate between Vaush and mel and wow I physically cringed whenever she said anything about Korea.

I don't think Vaush has ever been to Korea but he represents Korea infinitely better than mel does.

I know that anyone with half a brain can disprove Mel but jfc

Here were some specific arguments that I had problems with:

"How am I anti Korean if I'm Korean?"

야 이 미친 십 새야 우리나라 헌법이나 읽어봤 어?

We literally consider North Korea a rogue state and do not recognize it as a country.

Vaush is right, anyone who defends North Korea is anti-Korean.

As someone who sacrificed almost two years of my life to defend Korea in the ROK Army I am disgusted that she would even spout that kind of nonsense from the comfort of the US. If shit goes down, it's my ass on the GOP who'd have to defend the border.

"South Koreans don't have issues with North Korean citizens"

No we just have issues with 빨갱이s like her who shoot her mouth off on issues that don't affect people living an ocean away.

"There should be one Korea controlled by whatever government the people want"

Okay so at this point I realize mel lost any credibility she had on Korea, if she had any to begin with. Not only do we outnumber them 2:1 like Vaush said, they literally would not be able to govern South Korea. If president Moon were to literally just hand the reins over to North Korea, we'd probably take over the government either way. It wouldn't be our first time fighting authoritarian regimes.

I honestly don't consider mel to be Korean in any sense of the word. There are other groups like koryo saram and joseonjok who are ethnically Korean but no one on the peninsula considers them Korean because their lived experiences and identity are so far removed from the peninsula. Ethnicity should not be a determining factor for nationality.

Tl;dr Vaush represents the interests of Korea much better than mel does and I say this as a Korean who was born and grew up here

r/minjok

is a place for the korean disapora (Korean Americans, Korean Latin Americans, Zainichi, Koryo-saram, and others), native koreans who are traveling overseas, and korean expats.

A place to ask for advice, share experiences, find friends, go to meetups, and to connect with others.

I am a koryo-saram guy and wonder how it is important now in Korean culture or generally in expat communities; my grandma has always told me that they always inquired about bon-wang and that it is actually prohibited to marry someone from the same bon-wang. Although we still remain a highly homogeneous community in Central Asia, it's unclear for me whether or not it's still asked in our community.

Like, I, of course, know that my bon-wang is Gangneung by mother's side and Gimhae by father's side but it is still of really no importance for me because we were grown up in a very egalitarian community in which you are never better than another Korean and no Korean is better than you (almost).

Like... given my clans, am I considered to be a bit of prestigious or they are very peasent clans?

I'm curious, do people in your country prioritize citizenship or ethnicity? Like, ethnic Russians who are citizens of Kazakhstan, or ethnic Kazakhs who are citizens of Mongolia, Koryo-Sarams who are citizens of Uzbekistan, etc do you guys feel more kinship with people from your ethnicity/your motherland/titular nation or your fellow countrymen?

For example: ethnic Russians who are Kazakhstani: do you vibe better with ethnic Kazakhs of Kazahkstan, or with ethnic Russians from Russia?

And when you go abroad, do you introduce yourself, "I come from Russia" or "I'm Kazakhstani"?

Just would like to point out that this excellent and highly unusual restaurant appears to be closed. The restaurant served the cuisine of ethnic Koreans, many of whom are descended from those who were deported from Korea to Uzbekistan by Stalin.

Here's an old NYT article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/dining/reviews/14under.html

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-at-your-mother-in-law-brooklyn-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koryo-saram

I just want to know, because i heard that is is very difficult for East asian men to date girls in middle eastern countries which is close to central asia. Also, keep in mind not all East asian men are Chinese from China so dont automatically assume all East Asian looking people are Chinese.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

r/minjok

is a place for the korean disapora (Korean Americans, Korean Latin Americans, Zainichi, Koryo-saram, and others), native koreans who are traveling overseas, and korean expats.

A place to ask for advice, share experiences, find friends, go to meetups, and to connect with others.