Greetings NK News readers, and welcome back to Ask a North Korean — the feature where you send in your questions and have them answered by our North Korean defector writers.

This is Tae-il Shim’s third piece for NK News — you can read his first here and second here.

Today’s question is from Michael from Los Angeles, who asks: “Has Kim Jong Un relaxed the songbun system and if so to what degree?”

Songbun refers to the North Korean social classification system where one’s status is determined by the actions of their paternal ancestors during the Japanese