during the opening scenes in yu hong's hometown, i started picking up words and realized they were speaking korean. is that common in that region (tumen)?
i'm assuming that this is probably the result of north koreans defecting there. is that right?
btw, a great film which really helped illustrate the consensus of the new generation, their angst and semi-liberation.
I noticed some Korean words too. It just must be part of their dialect.
Obama for America!!
yeah there must've been some korean. I watched this last night [loved it!]. In the first 5 minutes, my BF looked up at and asked if the movie was korean [he is].
shareThe main character's home is given as being on the China-North Korea border. My recollection is that some number of ethnic Koreans made their way across the border at the end of the Korean War and that even since the war this region has been a "popular" destination for defectors. This article from the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/weekinreview/22marsh.html) uses the phrase "semi-permeable" to describe the border, so given all of that I would think that some amount of Korean had crept into the language that the Chinese of that region speak; a pidgin language if you will.
shareI didn't catch the Korean in the (rather chaotic) opening section, but Tumen is on the North Korean border and there are lots of ethnic Koreans living on the Chinese side of the border, quite apart from recent NK refugees. Not a bad film and very daring in more ways than one, but 30 mins too long.
shareI doubt it's part of their dialect. Given their proximity to the N. Korean border and the fact that the character's father runs a store, they probably picked up a couple of Korean words so they could communicate better with their customers and neighbors.
shareThey were almost certainly ethnic Koreans. There are alot living in the border areas. They are born in China but their ancestors were Korean. These people still hold on to many customs and language. I used to go to an ethnic Korean restaurant in the NE of China and people sometimes spoke Korean there.
sharethere are a couple (or more) million ethnic koreans living the bordering provinces. most of them migrated there around 150 years ago, but some maybe much longer.
the area was sparsely populated 200 years, being the home of the Qing (Manchu), who moved to north and central china after they conquered the Ming in 1644. while koreans has also occupied the area in more ancient history.