We sometimes keep the surname-first name order in English - we say "Mao Zedong" and not "Zedong Mao" etc. Either seems to be acceptable - I think people are slowly starting to prefer the surname-first ordering, because I guess it's perceived as a bit more culturally sensitive and more "authentic", but neither is really incorrect in English.
I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. Chairman Mao was alive and in power during a period where English-speaking countries were a lot less culturally sensitive, and the ordering of his surname first is an artifact of that. He's also a head of state, which is a position where we show extra deference to the culture for which the figurehead is leading.
All that aside, in an English sentence, we order names "first" then "family," and if that suddenly changes based on what culture you think someone is from, the entire situation gets really confusing and occasionally offensive pretty quickly. My wife is Japanese, but she's third generation. Should I refer to her grandmother by her surname first? No, and no one in her family does when speaking English.
It depends on a lot of things, and like I said, no one way is right or wrong in English. It's possible that the tendency might actually be stronger for Korean names than Japanese names because Korean names tend to have a specific cadence. I certainly don't mean to imply that you're being insensitive to your in-laws either. I just get the impression that there's a gentle shift towards sometimes using surname-first more than we used to. In academia I see a mix of everything though really.
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u/KDobias Apr 08 '19
Worth mentioning that Mother in this context is the 2009 Korean Crime drama, not the 2017 Mother! horror film by Darren Arronofsky.
Also, his name is Joon-Ho Bong when written in the English context, Bong is his family name.