Apparently, North Korean restaurants are popular in China, for everyone except the young women who are forced to work in them. Fortunately, China is a good enough neighbor to help North Korea hunt the absconders down.
Remind you of anything?
This is about as clear a case of human trafficking as you’ll ever see. In a just world, China would get sanctions for this. In the world in which we really live, the James Bakers and Kofi Annans will never let that happen.
Is this truly a “restaurant,” and are these merely “waitresses?”
Rather bad taste to assume that every Korean woman is a whore, wouldn’t you say?
[…] Anyway, if President Roh wants to be Abe Lincoln how about he starts by condemning slavery of North Korean refugees in China? […]
Indeed, these are real restaurants. I’ve been to all of them in Beijing, including the Okryugwan. The girls are all politically reliable Pyongyang residents, and are all absolute stunners, and are all very sweet. In 9 years in (South) Korea, I never got on the same bus with women who were remotely in the same class of overall feminine pulchitrude.
At the Okryugwan, they live in dorms within the same compound, and move in formation back & forth between the restaurant & barracks. The food is awfully good, about the best Korean food I’ve ever had. Ironically, the beer on tap is Budweiser, and the same building hosts the “Walker Hill Hotel” and a South Korean Pentecostal church. How they keep it all straight beats me.
According to a Mainichi article of a few years back, defections were not unknown, so the number of NK eateries in Beijing has been cut back from 16 to 4.
The girls tell me that over 80% of their customers are South Koreans, mostly tourists to Beijing, but also coming in from the Korean neighborhood of Wangjing. I go there several times a year, and have actually seen groups of young (South) Korean guys getting hammered and singing & chanting ROKA songs…
To get there: Call (010) 64732803 and hand the mobile phone to the taxi driver so he can get directions…
The Nork embassy directly operates a restaurant about a KM away from their chancery, but it’s a pretty dim and grungy looking place in an already dodgy neighborhood. The times I’ve been there, I was the only guy in the place without a you-know-who badge on his lapel. They do have a back room with a karaoke machine, and a couple of hot waitress ladies.
Joshua–Yes, but I think it’s safe to assume that most North Korean women who are in China working as “waitresses” probably are forced to go beyond the call of duty for certain clientele, which is a prime motivation for running away and placing themselves in far greater peril.
You have a point if you refer to estimates that most North Korean refugee women in China are forced into prostitution or sold into marriage at some point. It’s speculative to think that these women are forced to sell themselves, but I suppose that such speculation isn’t unrealistic, either.
I am a former resident of Qingdao, where the young woman worked, and had a few meals at the two Pyongyanggwan restaurants there. The food was overpriced and not the best Korean food I’ve ever had. The young women were friendly and had to fend off the paws of drunk South Korean businessmen. I never saw any man walk out the door or off to another room with any of the ladies, but it’s possible that at least some of the women might use sex as a means of spying. No doubt the restaurants were off limits to the Korean consular staff, but they seemed to be popular with businessmen and families.
Qingdao is the adopted home of many ethnic Koreans from northeastern China, who’ve taken jobs with South Korean businesses. There is a large South Korean Christian population. I hope this young woman has found refuge with people who can protect her and get her out of the country. There is probably a large secret police presence in Shandong Province since it is a departure point for NK refugees. I really hope she is safe.
[…] My opinion on this is that the Japanese Prime Minister should issue some kind of formal recognition and apology for Japanese actions during World War II, but I don’t believe it is an issue that US politicians have any obligation to stick their noses into. Especially a Congressmen as hypocritical as Honda. If Congressman Honda is such a champion of women’s rights how come he isn’t leading Congress in implementing a resolution condemning China for their modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women? […]
[…] I also don’t consider the lack of concern for sexual assaults in Korea to be part of Korean culture. The South Korean government giving a billion dollars a year to North Korea in order to fund a regime that continues to keep 250,000 political prisoners in gulags and in turn causes North Korean female defectors to become sex slaves in China, while at the same time refusing to properly fund the US-ROK alliance which has been directly responsible for the development of the ROK for the past 55 years to be part of Korean culture. I could go on and on, but I guess I should ignore all these things because I am being undiplomatic? […]
[…] The big question I am wondering is who came up with the idea to encourage these people to enlist? Was it Amnesty International’s idea of was it Fenton Communications’? Either way it is amazing to me the efforts these people are willing to go to in order to attack the military and in turn the Bush Administration. I wish Amnesty International would show this much dedication and resolve in combating human rights offensives and sexual slavery happening in China right now. How come they can’t get anyone to go undercover into China and speak out against them? Obviously because America is the easy target. Nothing is going to happen to these frauds that enlisted and if anything this enhances their career aspects within the liberal establishment. Compare that to if they went undercover in China to report on human rights abuses there and were caught, they would end up in jail. That is why I have no respect for these people because the real human rights abusers they have no courage to confront while they gleefully go after the easy target, America. […]
[…] Like I have maintained, I will start caring about what these politicians say on the sex slave issue the day they start demanding China do something about the modern day sexual slavery going on in China right now. Condemning Japan is an easy target to display ones own "righteous outrage" compared to China where it would take real political courage to condemn the abhorrent human rights conditions for North Korean refugees there now. I’m sure 60 years from now someone in both the Canadian Parliament and the US Congress will each submit their own bill condemning China for their human rights record now, while the politicians today do nothing. digg_url=’http://rokdrop.com/2007/04/02/canadian-parliament-joins-comfort-women-dispute/’; digg_skin = ‘compact’; digg_bgcolor = ‘#FFFFFF’; digg_title = ‘Canadian Parliament Joins Comfort Women Dispute’; digg_bodytext = ‘’; digg_topic = ‘’; Powered by Gregarious (39) […]
[…] My criticism of this is the same as with the US Congress; what are the chances the Canadian Parliament issues a resolution condemning the modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women in China? Not likely since no one wants to upset China while everyone knows Japan won’t do anything about it. […]
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