North Korean jokes? Believe it, or not North Korean people are as human as the rest of us, and yes there are North Korean jokes. If you’ve been lucky enough to have travelled to North Korea with us, you’d likely be surprised to have found that a large number of Korean guides have quite a sharp sense of humour and are quick to tell you a North Korean joke, or two.

North Korean Jokes

Ever the entertainers, it’s not uncommon for one of your Korean guides to opt to tell a joke rather than sing a song on one of those long bus rides to the DMZ. More often than not, the joke that is told is the classic “I want to sing a song” joke, guaranteed to have most Korean guides struggling to complete the joke through stifled fits of laughter.

North Korea has comedians?

Written by one of the DPRK’s most well-known comedians, Li Sun Hong, and airing on television for the first time a few years ago, the DPRK’s favourite North Korean joke goes as follows:

The best North Korean joke!

A little boy sits at the dinner table with his family eating dinner. After drinking too much juice he announces to the table “Mummy! Mummy! I need to pee!”

Embarrassed by her son’s uncouth table manners she corrects him by saying “my son! How rude of you! Next time you need to use the bathroom please come to me and say, “I want to sing a song,” this is much more polite!”

“Okay, please then, I want to sing a song,” replies the boy as he is escorted from the dinner table to the bathroom.

Later that night while the house is asleep, the little boy wakes up desperately needing to use the bathroom. He tiptoes into his grandfather’s room and gently taps him on the shoulder.

“Grandfather, grandfather, please, I want to sing a song,” says the little boy. Annoyed, the grandfather wakes up and replies “what are you talking about boy?! You can’t sing a song now, it’s the middle of the night!”

“Please, grandfather! I really, really want to sing a song!” replied the boy, getting more and more desperate.

“Are you mad?! You’ll wake everyone up!” replies the grandfather.

“I really, really need to sing a song though!” says the boy. Exasperated, the grandfather sighs and says “okay, well if you really need to sing a song, do it quietly into my ear.”

*BOOM TISH!*

But wait, there’s more!

There’s one particular guide, whose name sounds a bit like Honey, so we call Miss Honey. Her joke revolves around there being a number of people on a plane, one of whom is George Bush Jnr (this was at a time he was seen as the enemy. I’ll paraphrase rather than do the joke on full, but the North Korean joke involves a crashing plane, a schoolgirl and a limited number of parachutes. George Bush steals a parachute only for the school girl to announce he jumped out with her school bag on his back. Boom boom.

In Soviet Russia?

And that last of the North Korean jokes brings into play that very famous Soviet joke. There’s a Soviet comedian and an American comedian arguing, and the American comedian, when talking about free speech says “I can stand outside the White House and shout down with the American President:. The Soviet comedian says, “So can I! I cans tand outside the Kremlin and shout down with the American President”.

In this big small world, humour always translates.

Experience the razor-sharp wit of the North Koreans yourself on one of our tours!