Witnessing Inter-Korean Exchange at Vladivostok Airport

One of the little-known idiosyncrasies of the Russian Far East is the presence of a relatively large North Korean population.  The region's low population translates to a chronic shortage of laborers needed for low-paid construction and menial work Russians are reluctant to take up.  In European Russia, Central Asian migrants fill the role, out here the North Koreans play the same role.  Despite ongoing sanctions that dramatically reduced their numbers, North Korean laborers are still preferred by Russian firms for their manageability, diligence, and lack of negative cultural (read: Muslim) influence.

The local presence for North Korean laborers and the North Korean regime's willingness to use their personnel as a source of foreign currency earning means that many relatively "normal" North Koreans are sent to the region, where they have some freedom to roam around and mingle with others.  As Vladivostok become a tourist destination for South Korean holidaymakers, there are unique opportunities to observe rare occasions of "normal" North and South Koreans interacting.  Through such interactions, it is easy to see that future unification will have to face some serious cultural hurdles. 

Illustrative is a case of North and South Koreans waiting in line at the local currency exchange.  Young South Korean tourists show clear unhappiness being approached by North Koreans who, with smiles and banter, try to get the South Koreans to exchange with them rather than the bank for slightly better rates.  Some South Koreans ignore the fawning North Korean workers, dressed in characteristic khakis of their homeland (or uniforms of construction workers), their identities well-known with their obligatory Kim Il-sung pins on their shirts. 

Seeing their being ignored, the North Koreans cut in front of the line, pushing their way through the crowd of waiting foreigners and Russians to shove their money into the kiosk.  The Russian employee of the bank, looking annoyed, nonetheless relents, take their money and quickly transact the order.  Yet, even after the exchange is complete, the North Korean workers refuse to leave the window, counting their changed US dollars (gasp, imperialist money!) carefully and then proceed to argue with the bank employee for supposedly shortchanging them. 

The delay further irritates the already impatient South Korean tourists further down the ever-stretching line, with some proceeding to call for the North Koreans to go to the back of the line.  The North Koreans, with their smiles, ignore the South Koreans, and continue to argue in their broken Russian with the Bank employee.  Only when the bank employee raise her voice and shout "No!" did the North Koreans reluctantly leave, talking amongst themselves nonchalantly.   The bank returns to normal; as troublemakers leave, the place quickly quietens. 

 

Some Koreans on both sides of the border speak of a "common Korean culture" as the basis for future political and economic alignment between the two countries, but interactions among Koreans in Vladivostok show that the view of commonality is overly optimistic and just how much differing socioeconomic realities have shaped everyday customs of North and South Koreans in opposite ways.  By arguing that a common Korean culture exist, people conveniently ignore how culture is dynamic and can be changed rather quickly in different environments. 

For instance, the rush with which North Koreans change their few Russian rubles into US dollars can be seen as a natural reflex to frequent scarcity.  Just as an older generation of Chinese do, they fight to get in the line of every service they can get, simply because they are used to deprivation, of not getting anything when they do not fight for the few pieces available.  If they do not rush, they are taught by experience to think, they might not get anything at all.  Such mentality, so relevant back home, is brought over as a social norm overseas.

In their behavior, the North Koreans share much more with societies where poverty persisted, than a much more prosperous contemporary South Korea.  And the difference is particularly stark when North Korean laborers, definitely not rich portion of North Korean society, are put next to the richer South Koreans who can afford to travel overseas.  It is not a conversation between two peoples sharing a culture, but one between two social classes defined by material wealth or lack thereof.  If one day, North and South Koreans do talk at a bigger scale, such difference will only be more pronounced.