Greetings fellow netizens: welcome back to Ask a North Korean, where you can, well, ask a North Korean your questions about life on the ground in the DPRK!

Today’s question is from Danny, who asked about what North Koreans think about mixed marriages, specifically those between a black person and a Korean.

In-hua Kim takes this question one step further and discusses what North Koreans think about black people more broadly. She even details the life of someone who is half-black and their experience growing up as a North Korean.

Got a question for In-hua? Email it to [email protected] with your name and city. We’ll be publishing the best ones.

Racism is not something ordinary North Koreans encounter in their daily life because North Korea has a very homogeneous population.

They learn about the history of racism at school and are aware of discrimination against black and yellow (Asian) people.

Whether white or black, foreigners are absolutely welcomed but locals are not allowed near them. Residents of the capital, Pyongyang, often see foreigners in the streets, university campuses, and theaters.

Foreign tourists visit my home town, Hyesan, occasionally because their Mount Paektu tour begins from the Battle of Pochonbo memorial monument that commemorates a famous Kim Il Sung anti-Japanese guerrilla raid. North Korean guards prohibit locals from contact with them, so we only get to see the foreigners from afar.

The black people among them pique particular curiosity.

Mr. Ri in my town was a handsome party cadre of good stature. He was working in the trading sector and was making a good living.

But despite many years of marriage, he had no children. This distressed him; he adored the kids in the neighborhood.

He shared his long-held wish with his sister in Pyongyang and asked if she could help him adopt a child from the capital’s maternity hospital. She finally got back to him one day and he visited Pyongyang with his mother to meet her.

Having been embarrassed about their infertility, Mr. Ri’s wife was looking forward to her husband’s return with an adopted child. She was, however, taken aback when her mother-in-law handed a baby to her — the baby was black.

Mr. Ri took the baby back from his startled wife. Rocking the baby he explained, “A woman who worked at a hotel gave birth to him. His father is African but they don’t know what he was doing in our country.

“He stayed a few days at the hotel she was working at and I guess that’s when they slept together. She resigned from her job and gave birth at the Pyongyang maternity hospital, then disappeared.”

North Koreans are taught to have pride in belonging to the so-called world’s only mono-ethnicity. Whether black or white, marrying a foreigner is prohibited.

It wasn’t totally unheard of for a newborn baby at the Pyongyang maternity hospital to suddenly become an orphan. In such cases, the hospital takes care of them until they are sent to an orphanage.

Over the course of the three months after his birth, while he was still in the care of the nurses, Mr. Ri’s sister heard about the black baby by word of mouth. She looked into the details and referred him to her childless brother.

Having heard the full story, Mr. Ri’s wife promised that she would treasure the baby and raise him up the best she could. She named him Ri Tong Ok.

Tong Ok grew up healthy and strong. He once asked his parents why his hair is curly and his skin is dark. “Your parents were visiting this country, and your mom gave birth to you. She passed away while you were still at the hospital, so we adopted you and became your parents.”

(Apparently, his adoptive parents didn’t tell him the full truth of the story.)

Tong Ok wept when he heard the story. He drew the attention of those around him due to his different looks, but had attended nursery, kindergarten, and school just like others his age.

His parents enrolled him at the Hyesan foreign language school. His foreign blood might have helped — he spoke English fluently, as if it were his mother tongue.

When it was closer to his graduation from high school, he was taken to Pyongyang to work in a foreign sector.

Before I defected from North Korea, in August 2018, I saw Tong Ok dining at a restaurant at the three-way intersection in Songbong-dong, Hyesan.

I was surprised to see him again in Hyesan as everyone thought he was being trained to be sent overseas. Later I heard that he had been caught using drugs in Pyongyang (something very common for people from Ryanggang province to do — just like offering someone a cigarette when they come to your house) and had been sent home, losing all the chances he had in the capital.

Everyone felt sorry for him. Had he made it overseas, he might have been able to meet his biological father.

These days, he is an ordinary North Korean man, working hard with his relatives to make ends meet.

Tong Ok’s birth mother wouldn’t have been able to marry his father even if she had wanted to. North Koreans are taught to have pride in belonging to the so-called world’s only mono-ethnicity. Whether black or white, marrying a foreigner is prohibited.

Many African countries and North Korea share in common the political and economic pressure they receive from the U.S.

In order to present a united anti-American front, from Kim Il Sung’s time North Korea has cultivated close relationships with many black African leaders and established diplomatic ties with their countries.

Because this message is delivered to the public via state media, ordinary North Koreans sympathize with black people and their fight against racism.

Nelson Mandela is a familiar figure to North Koreans, and a translated version of the South African novel on racism, The Day Will Come (unofficial translation; in Korean, 그날은 오리라), was used to inform how harshly whites had discriminated against blacks.

Having said that, North Korea cast racial slurs at former U.S. president Barack Obama. But this is simply because he put pressure on North Korea; Pyongyang has a tendency to bite at even its close friends if they do something against the country’s interests.

North Korea would have praised the entire black race if President Obama somehow pushed favorable policies toward them.

In general, North Koreans sympathize with black Americans just like they do with those in Africa. Schools teach that the U.S. was built on the corpses of native Indians and Africans that were forcefully taken to the country to serve as slaves.

State media says that Africa is also an undeveloped country, and so President Obama, being racially African, was initially thought of very highly in North Korea (North Koreans still view black Americans as Africans serving as slaves for white Americans).

Translated by Jihye Park

Edited by James Fretwell