Fish/shrimp sauce used not to be declared on the pre-packaged kimchi packaging that you can buy over here. Now it's declared and I think vegetarians/vegans realise that for years they ate kimchi that probably included it--it's a standard ingredient, and I suspect that perhaps the people who sold you this made the standard assumption that vegetarians eat fish or that fish sauce is acceptable to vegetarians. It's very easy to make vegan kimchi, though.
Fish/shrimp sauce used not to be declared on the pre-packaged kimchi packaging that you can buy over here. Now it's declared and I think vegetarians/vegans realise that for years they ate kimchi that probably included it--it's a standard ingredient, and I suspect that perhaps the people who sold you this made the standard assumption that vegetarians eat fish or that fish sauce is acceptable to vegetarians. It's very easy to make vegan kimchi, though.