Hotdogs banned in North Korea
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Kim Jong-un’s bizarre new ban for North Koreans:
The hermit kingdom has outlawed popular items in recent months as part of a massive crackdown on Western cultural influences.
Heath Parkes-Hupton, news.com.au (1/6/25)
"Weird", as some attendees at the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year vote last evening might have said.
The hermit kingdom has outlawed popular items in recent months as part of a massive crackdown on Western cultural influences.
North Koreans have reportedly been banned from eating hotdogs as part of a crackdown on Western culture infiltrating the hermit kingdom.
Dictator Kim Jong-un has declared that serving the sausage was an act of treason, The Sun reports, amid the rising popularity of a South Korean dish inspired by the US.
People caught selling or cooking hotdogs face the prospect of time in the country’s infamous labour camps, while Pyongyang has also decreed that divorcees could also be jailed.
As part of the regime’s efforts to quash capitalist culture among citizens, it has forbidden the sale of budae-jjigae – a dish imported from pro-Western neighbour South Korea.
The spicy Korean-American hotpot – which means “army base stew” – includes hotdogs or spam among it ingredients.
It was born from meats discarded by US soldiers based in the region during the Korean War of the 1950s, with hungry locals using the items to create stews.
The fusion fare is believed to have crossed the border into North Korea some time in 2017, decades after it was invented in the south.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported in November that authorities had now banned the dish, along with steamed rice cakes tteokbokki, also a popular street food in its neighbouring nation.
"Hotdog" is transliterated in Hangul as hasdogeu 핫도그, but Haewon Cho tells me:
I believe 핫도그 is romanized as hotdogeu (Revised Romanization). The final ㅅ (s) is pronounced as ㄷ (t) because only seven consonants can be pronounced in the syllable-final position, where consonants are unreleased. In the Yale system, it is romanized as hostoku.
Korean hotdogs are actually corn dogs, and they are getting popular worldwide these days. I just read an article about Kim Jong Un prohibiting hotdogs in North Korea, and it seems like he meant American hot dogs, as he is trying to limit Western influence. Just my two cents!
Let's see how Wikipedia weighs in on South Korean corn dogs:
In South Korea, a corn dog is one of the most popular street foods. A corn dog is usually called "hot dog" in the Korean language (핫도그), creating confusion with a genuine hot dog. A French fry–encrusted corn dog, or "Kogo," has especially attracted the attention of Western visitors, including vegans (using vegan hot dogs).
There are still a lot of imponderables / unknowns about the fate of hotdogs in North Korea.
1. How does the dictator refer to them? To denounce them, he has to refer to them as something.
2. Is he all right with bona fide Korean corndogs?
3. Is there enough meat in North Korea for each North Korean to eat at least one hotdog / corndog per year? Since there might not be enough meat for that, perhaps it's a nonissue.
Selected readings
- "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean, part 2" (7/3/23)
- "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean" (4/21/23)
- "Hockey language divergence between North Korea and South Korea" (2/11/18)
- "Some remarks from North Korea on language" (Pinyin News [12/13/07])
- "Ban loan words, says North Korea" (Pinyin News [12/19/08])
- "'Bad' borrowings in North Korean" (12/3/16)
- "Is Korean diverging into two languages?" (11/6/14)
- "Is Korean diverging into two languages?, part 2" (5/4/22)
- "ADS WotY 2024" (1/11/25)
[Thanks to James Fanell and Bob Ramsey]