There are many things that Westerners and Koreans have in common – such as lying about our ages. Westerners tend to lie and make themselves younger than they really are while Koreans seem to do it in reverse. King Kojong (Gojong)lied about his age. Many Koreans thought the American Minister to Korea, John Sill, was lying about his age when he presented his creditials to the Korean monarch in 1894 – they thought he looked too young to be 63 and was trying to up his age to look more respectable and wise. Apparently North Korea isn’t above this vanity.
According to Mainichi Shimbun – Kim Jong-un, who it was claimed was born in 1983 was actually born in 1984. Even his birthdate keeps changing. At one time it was thought he was born on January 18, last year it was celebrated on January 7 and this year on January 8.
But Choson Ilbo reported this story last month and had this to say: “… North Korean officials have told foreign diplomats in Pyongyang since June that Kim junior was born in 1982. Previously, they said he was born on Jan. 8, 1983.”
According to Yonhap - ”The report came amid media speculation that North Korea may again attempt to manipulate the year of Jong-un’s birth to 1982 to make him 30 years old in 2012, when the North will celebrate the centennial of the birth of its deceased founding leader Kim Il-sung and is expected to formally declare Jong-un as the heir.”
But it isn’t only his birthdate that is causing confusion. One Swiss newspaper mistook the heir-to-be as Yesung, a member of the Korean boy band – SUPER JUNIOR. Read here for the entertaining blogging of it by Kimchisoju.
Perhaps they should have asked Kenji Fujimoto, a former personal chef to Kim Jong-Il, who described Kim Jung-un as “a chip off the old block” who closely resembles his father physically and in terms of personality.
You tell me – do either Kim Jong-il or Kim Jong-un look like Yesung?
Photo from kimchisoju site.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Is that still true? As Koreans approach middle-age, they, too, strive to look youthful. Besides the usual jet-black hair dye and facial injections, changes in clothing and hairstyles also reflect a desire to project an image of youthfulness. When I first arrived in Korea in the early nineties. nearly every Korean woman over thirty kept her hair length above the shoulders. With the Missy trend about a decade ago, married women started growing their hair longer and wearing tighter clothing with more skin exposed.
I don’t know how easily Koreans could lie about their age anyway. I knew which Korean faculty and office staff were older than me and which were younger because full birthdates were included on staff rosters.
If what you say about age is true, can you explain why so many Korean newspaper columnists use 20-year-old head shots?
Hmmm…, let me try and dig my way out. We have to remember that I have been here for quite some time and although I have experienced this it may not be so true at the present – especially in regards to women. I do think, however, that especially with young males – those in their teens and twenties – that some do lie in order to appear older and thus more respectable to their peers. I have also seen Korean men do this when one feels that the other has been disrespected. Perhaps I am still living in the past.
It’s one of those things that’s changing here, for sure. There used to be strong incentive to appear to be older… But now many in middle-age want to seem younger, for sex/love getting/keeping purposes, or for getting/keeping job/promotion. Remember Creed dying his hair black and talkin’ youth-lingo in an ep of The Office a few years ago…?
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Robert, you are absolutely right to say that Koreans in general, especially males, tend to lie about age to raise their ch’emyon.
I’ve known a certain Korean-American officer for 12 years. In OBC (officer basic course), he often bragged about his age and wouldn’t hesitate to whip out his ID card to show he was born in 1969. Five years later when I ran into him again, we had an argument at Chulmae and he told me I wasn’t using the proper honorifics with him as he was older than me. I continued to use banmal with him, at which time he of course resorted to his old habit of whipping out his ID card. This time, though, it said he was born in 1966!
Wow that’s funny. Makes sense in the ajoshitarianist regime to make the kid seem older. Personally, I don’t think he stands a chance. He’s shark bait and should get the hell away from the Peninsula. The regime can’t survive its own contradictions for another generation. If I were him I’d go live in the West, maybe Europe since he was there before, go write a book, get to be on Charlie Rose and talk shows all over the world, earn nice bank as a speaker on the lecture circuit, hehe, he could actually have a damned fine life if he defected.
On the age thing, I guess Korean culture and language makes it somewhat mandatory to discriminate and be discriminated by age, gender and race.
Social heuristics (short cuts in judgement or definition), that’s the neo-Confucian thing, right? So that you don’t have to think for yourself… Think for yourself? Hahahaha, Uncle Confucius already thought about it and he’s way older than you so his thoughts count more. I’ll think for you, thank you.
But it was easier to keep the outside world outside in the 18th, 19th centuries than in the 21st. People aren’t really poor until they know it and think about it, but now that they know that they’re poor and know that it’s because of the regime they can feel justified or properly compelled within the Korean-Confucian (“ajoshi”) ethos, to complain, subvert and rebel. Since many of the regime’s lies are being exposed (the one about the dauphin’s tender age being merely a minor’s fib) the clay feet of the Ajoshiathan monster-state are cracking. Those clay feet being none other than the Juche ideology. A regime shod in lies and now, with the currency reform, a regime shooting itself in the foot. Run, petit Dauphin, flee, little prince flee!
“Ajoshi” having become a little heuristic all its own. It’s more “Ajoshi-ism” which could be translated as “Uncle-ism,” but the term can seem unfair, as seen by the negative Whuffie I’m getting… Still, I believe Koreans are most free when freed from the ajoshi-ism within, and South Korea, the least ajoshi-ist Korea ever known is also the most creative, productive, and wealthiest.
So seems to me at least that Korea and Koreans including men who get called ajoshi because of their age have more than enough of the wonderful Koreanness to go around and don’t miss Ajoshi-ism. Of course I can be accused of picking and choosing pieces of a culture, but I don’t think it can be denied that many or perhaps even all cultures have had destructive traits, or traits that don’t work anymore. It’s definitely true for the US — witness the civil rights movement. South Korea seems to do a great job of being energetic, being self-disciplined, and is to me a wonder of change. I’m mesmerized by the energy and the drive people have, and I find many Koreans to be superbly civilized. I don’t think that a drive for excellence has to be a Confucian kind of thing. And indeed what both Koreas need more of is open imagination, open social imagination, and also reason, by which I mean logic. South Korea is getting them both. North Korea can’t get either without undermining the regime’s power. North Korea, a hyper-militarized Chosun. But the grandson can’t hold power, I’ll bet.
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