Content note: Classroom poster showing children striking a figure marked as an American, with a derogatory slur in the headline. This object is shown as it was published. Why
"미국놈 때려잡는 군사놀이 신나요": poster in a North Korean primary school (photographed 2008)
A classroom poster shows four child figures, a nurse, a tank crewman, a soldier and a sailor, striking a helmeted head marked '=US=' in a burst of white, under the headline 'Playing soldiers, beating up the American bastard: isn't it fun?'. The tell is the derogatory tag '미국놈' ('American fellow', with the pejorative 놈) paired with violence presented to children as a game: name-calling aimed at a young audience.
- Date
- June 10, 2008
- Period
- Contemporary
- Made by
- Democratic People's Republic of Korea (poster in a school classroom; issuer not named)
- Region
- East Asia
- Country
- North Korea
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Leader
- Kim Jong Il
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Theme
- War and the military
- Techniques
- Name-calling
- Leader
- Kim Jong Un
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (from Flickr, user 'stephan'), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 2.0 (Flickr user 'stephan'; Commons file page states the licence)
stephan (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Text on the object
미국놈 때려 잡는 군사놀이 신나요 [on the helmet:] =US=
Isn't it fun, the military game of beating down the American bastard? [on the helmet:] =US=
The first two words are in black and the last words in blue on the sheet. 놈 is a pejorative noun for a man ('bastard', 'fellow'); the translation keeps that register. Translation by machine, not verified by a fluent reader.
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