Hard Times for North Korean Restaurants in Asia
Via The Diplomat, the restaurants’ setbacks defy their limitless supply of morally retarded clientele:
The Pyongyang eateries are known for being friendly but a little pricey and it’s unclear where exactly any profits go. Still, the ultimate destination of the cash spent in the restaurants hasn’t put customers off visiting.
“˜I didn’t object to paying (what I did) for my meal, or feel that I was supporting a tyrant,’ says Don Douglas, an American NGO worker who recently ate at a branch in Kathmandu. Like many people who go there he says he wanted to try it once to satisfy his curiosity.
A string of actual and attempted defections has shut several of the restaurants down, The Great Confiscation crimped their cash flow, and reports linking them to money laundering have scared away potential business partners. Restaurants, it seems, can bring bundles of cash to their banks without prompting quite as many questions.
I have seen clips from those restaurants on youtube, and I can’t help but feel sorry for the waiteress and other employees. I would be interested in hearing the stories from those former restaurant employees how have actually defected.
My undertstanding is that these restaurants generally provide some funds to the regime, but not necessarily directly through food purchases. Some may operate on a flat fee basis, i.e., a would be restaurant owner pays Pyongyang Restaurant Resourcing Limited (making up the name here) RMB100,000 and then agrees to pay for expenses for a NK team (maybe 10 waitresses, a few cooks and a couple supervisors) for two years. Expenses would presumably include transport (cheapest available), food (restaurant leftovers are perfect) and clothing, though there may not be much if any salary beyond that. Then he can use the team to set up a DPRK restaurant.
I’ve visited at least one of these places which has a Chinese owner and boss. It was interesting to note that the hanbok the girls were wearing (Korean traditional dress) was purchased in China and not NK (where it could presumably be made more cheaply). I went to one restaurant where the food was incredible (except for the meat, which was mediocre)–My Korean friend said several dishes were better than anything in Seoul. However, most of these places have pretty crappy food, and most of them seem to be overpriced and mostly empty. So I’m not sure how much they actually generate for the regime to the extent they don’t work on a flat fee basis.
As for feeling sorry for the waitresses/employees, you shouldn’t. Although they are not allowed to go out on their own much, if at all, and they have to work pretty long hours, it’s a prestige job. They are chosen from the upper class and are pretty well nourished. They work in shifts of a couple years, sometimes moving to DPRK restaurants in different locations. One interesting thing is that they don’t learn foreign languages very well at all, even Chinese, before they come over. In China, some of them are able to pick up a fair amount of Chinese by talking with customers, but most do not. The fact that it’s a prestige job is pretty saddening, since it speaks about the miserable life that even these privileged girls would have back in the DPRK.