North Koreans in general live without being conscious of their social status or family background. Though it is said to consist of "three levels and 51 classifications," the North's social status is not institutionalized as the nobles and the commoners of the Yi Dynasty or the Indian caste system. But one's social status combined with his or her family background plays a crucial role, unwittingly, at important moments in one's life.

The first test usually comes on entering a college or university. Should a person hail from a family of unfavorable background, he or she is blocked from being accepted by prestigious institutes of higher learning such as Kim Il Sung University, the University of People's Economics and Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, a gate to becoming a ranking party member or one of the social elite such as diplomats. Many children of former Korean residents in Japan who have emigrated to the North are ill treated there and so train to become medical doctors, scientists or engineers, opting for natural sciences at the college.

A poor family background sometimes cause stumbles in marriage. Party members, police officers and state security agents, without fail, have to ascertain the social status and family backgrounds of their prospective spouses. If a senior officer tells them, "If you marry her, you'll have to give up your post," it means there is a problem with her family background.

When a person is accepted as a party member or gets promoted, a thorough investigation of their social status and family background is undertaken. To be qualified for promotion to general an officer cannot even have even a remote family member who is ideologically tainted.

Social status changes, and although initially determined by family background, performance in work and social life can alter this. Classified worst in terms of family backgrounds are landlords, intellectuals, people whose family members have gone to the South and former Korean residents in Japan who have emigrated to the North. In reverse, topping the list are the poor, military servicemen, victims of United Nations troops during the 1950-53 Korean War, servicemen killed in action, anti-Japanese partisans, and family members of spies dispatched to the South. Laborers prior to the country's liberation from Japanese rule in 1945 enjoy uppermost social status, but this is not the case now. The reverse is the case with intellectuals.

The State Security Agency administers written assessments on all citizens. These are life-long records of individuals' lives with their organization activities and others entered. If a friend commits a mistake, social or political, it affects his immediate peers. Pyongyang citizens who are not allowed to participate in "Number One Events" involving the North's paramount leader, Kim Jong Il, can readily perceive what their social status is.

Social status is elevated when one has made an outstanding contribution to the state. A landlord's daughter was permitted to become a party member when she had married a spy dispatched to the South. Most of those who put up with 13 years of military service do so in the hope of earning party membership. Still many of them fail to achieve their aspiration in the face of poor social status. Those who have flopped gaining party memberships in the military are said to be liable to involve themselves in a shooting incident or flee to the South.

Since money has started to wield influence, however, citizens pay less and less attention to their social status. A case in point is the fact that those who have relatives abroad, though subject to security monitoring, are desperately searching for relatives living overseas. Social status coupled with family background, incommensurate with the ideals of the "Republic," is losing its effect in controlling the population.

(Kim Mi Young, miyoung@chosun.com )