North Korea has instructed tour guides at a new seaside resort to avoid using common Western and South Korean loanwords such as “hamburger,” “ice cream” and “karaoke,” telling them instead to use domestically framed terms, according to media reports. The change is part of detailed state guidance for entertaining foreign visitors, the reports said.
The guidance, attributed to training materials for guides working at the Wonsan-Kalma resort, requires memorising slogans and prefabricated phrases and consciously substituting North Korean vocabulary for Anglicised or South Korean expressions. Reported suggested alternatives include dajin-gogi gyeopppang (literal translation: double bread with ground beef) in place of “hamburger,” eseukimo for “ice cream,” and the descriptive label “on-screen accompaniment machine” instead of “karaoke.”
The instructions were reported by outlets that cited the South Korea–based news organization Daily NK and were carried by international media. Officials have not publicly commented on the language guidance. The Wonsan-Kalma resort, developed as a showcase tourism project, opened earlier in the summer and has become a venue for controlled interactions between North Koreans and foreign visitors.
Observers and rights monitors have noted that the language guidance fits into a wider pattern of tightening cultural and informational controls inside the country. A recent United Nations review covering developments since 2014 said North Korean authorities have increasingly criminalised the import and consumption of foreign media and the use of linguistic expressions deemed inconsistent with prescribed socialist ideology and culture. According to the U.N. review, measures introduced since 2015 were intensified from about 2018 and grew harsher after 2020.
The U.N. assessment and other reports allege that enforcement has included house raids by government task forces searching for "anti-socialist" materials, staged public trials and, in some cases, public executions purportedly intended to instil fear. The review said that penalties for watching foreign films, listening to overseas music or sharing television dramas can be severe under laws enacted over the last decade, with punishments ranging up to the death penalty in particularly conspicuous cases.
The U.N. report and defectors' testimony reviewed by investigators said that during the Covid-19 pandemic some North Koreans were able to avoid punishment through bribery, and that persons previously detained for consuming foreign media were sometimes released after undergoing state-organised "revolutionary" education. The U.N. review concluded that enjoyment of freedom of expression and access to information had significantly regressed in recent years.
Despite the risks, several reports indicate that consumption of prohibited media continues. Cross-border smuggling, clandestine viewing and private sharing of content remain persistent concerns for the regime, which rights groups say has responded by expanding ideological controls, including the policing of language and terminology in public-facing roles.
The step to regulate everyday tour-language reflects an effort to manage not only what visitors see and experience at state-run venues but also the vocabulary used to frame those experiences. Tourism officials reportedly want guides to present attractions and amenities through a North Korean cultural lens and to avoid terminology associated with South Korea or Western popular culture.
State media have presented the Wonsan-Kalma development as a symbol of national achievement and of restoring domestic leisure facilities. International analysts say the resort serves both economic and propaganda functions, showcasing development projects while tightly controlling the narrative and interaction between citizens and foreigners.
The authorities’ campaign to replace loanwords is consistent with long-standing political priorities that emphasise self-reliance and ideological conformity. The U.N. review and independent monitors say those priorities have increasingly translated into concrete legal measures and enforcement actions affecting everyday life, from language use to access to information. The government’s exact enforcement mechanisms for the recent language guidance at tourist sites and the penalties for noncompliance were not detailed in the reports.