A few years back some bar owners got the idea that having Nazi-themed bars were really cool enough to make money.
They weren’t.
Now, in the same spirit of dubious enterprise, some businessmen have caught upon the meme of “well-being” and the natural, unpolluted oasis that is North Korea ™ and have discovered how it can be sold as a concept to sophisticated, world-weary South Koreans. There have been a few restaurants before now which featured North Korean dishes such as the chilled thin noodles whose recipe came south with defectors but now we have an official trend that involves selling the idea of an undeveloped North Korea that is somehow more natural (undeveloped) than its southern counterpart. It seems part of this meme also insinuates that the northern culture is more honest in its naturalness. I loved this quote from a first-time patron of a North Korean-theme restaurant in Daejon:
“It feels rural, natural, unpolluted,” said one first-time customer, Lee Sae Mie, 23, a university student.
but in a more thoughtful vein from the mastermind behind this stupid-fresh gig:
“Even two or three years ago,” he said, “we couldn’t have done this. We would have been fingered as commies.”
Yep.
I now have fresh confirmation that if a vice is repeated often enough, it will become a virtue ™ and make some won. I think now is the time for me to start planning my new, stupid-fresh meme that can be carried over into a variety of commercial projects, using pictures of Roh Moo-hyun and all the Ouridang relics I can get my hot little hands upon, now, while they are dirt-cheap. How about building a “Noh-Go Towers” as a place to relive the housing price bubble of the past or maybe an “Ouri Chib” retro-themed restaurant, complete with an interior that recreates the look of the legislature and when ordering food, waiters can fight over a microphone and throw furniture around, just like back in the good old days. Then, as a floor show, the waiters can tearfully drop to their knees and apologize to the audience for the mediocre food and service. Ah, such future nostalgia!
I figure the failures of today can become the goldmine of tommorow if only I can figure out the right way to make it jingle and sell this to an uncritical nostalgic public that will loathe its future self . . .
12 Comments
Natural all right. Aren’t the people North of the safety net eating grass and bark? Vegans of SoCal and NoKo unite!
Sigh…
Forget tours of Mt. Kumgang… NK should tout itself as a health retreat, what with the ‘well-being’ craze going on in the South and the current administration’s efforts to rehabilitate the image of the North at all costs. “Come to the Kaesong
forced-laborfitness camp! You’re guaranteed to lose weight.”Elgin,
Great post. Dump the Hole and come guest blog for me - whatever Robert is paying you, I’ll double it :).
Nomad, you can pay me in fish.
Are you saying that the same people who opened up the infamous Nazi-themed bars in the 1990s are the same people now opening up the DPRK-themed establishments?
Which romanization system is that?
No Kushibo, this is a different fellow but with the same cultural taste — poor.
Sonagi, that is the Heinz 57 Romanization system.
Okay, thanks for the clarification. In editing, especially in tirades (even well-meaning tirades), references to “and now the same people” always send up a red flag.
I mean this constructively, not critically, but the way you worded it, I think it’s easy for someone to think you mean the same actual people, not people who are tied together by some other characteristic (in this case, being Korean businesspeople).
A lot of the arguments about the hypocrisy of a certain group of people often stem from critics pointing out something that has happened within a group, and then a completely contradictory thing that has also happened, without acknowledging that the two acts may have been from two different sets of people who, in actuality, may not agree on the matter at all.
Okay. Editor mode off.
Though this may be the first time that the supposed simplicity and authentic “Koreanness” of the North have been packaged for commercial gain, there was an exhibition a few years back showing scenes from the life of typical North Koreans that elicited similarly dewy-eyed reactions from many urbane, jaded Southerners.
Quite apart from any misguided Southern notion of the North as a wayward, sickly relative, there is, perhaps, a more acute sense of nostalgia for the countryside — and of something being lost amid the South’s breakneck development — than one might find elsewhere. Movies such as 집으로 and Welcome to Donkmagkeol tap into this, and there is even something of a “back to the land” movement taking place among some professionals, according to
this article,
among others.
I just noticed the name of the bar in the article — the “Pyongyang Moran”. Yep… probably a fitting description for the bar’s patrons.
Somehow, I never quite ‘got’ the whole nostalgia for the countryside thing. Maybe I just never bought into the notion of clean country living, summer days down by the old fishin’ hole, girls dressed in ‘Daisy Duke’ shorts… Even if true, I’m pretty sure such things would be outweighed by waking up at the crack of dawn to put in hours of back-breaking labor until sunset, the poor personal hygeine, the short life-expectancy (what’s so ‘well-being’ about country life?) And of course, just like the whole ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ image of country life we have in America is a bunch of BS, so is the image in the South of the North being some sort of pastoral paradise. North Korea was at one time one of the most heavily industrialized countries on the planet, with most of its people still working in factories (although they produce relatively little, given the energy and raw materials shortages). On the other hand, I suppose if you really wanted to experience depression-era living, Korean-style, there would be no better place than North Korea. Heck… South Korea has an underdeveloped, undermodernized agricultural sector, too. Why don’t these people step out and see that sometime, if they have such a hankering for ‘clean country living’? I suppose it just wouldn’t be the same without the smoke from all the factories (with absolutely no pollution controls) billowing about and adding a bit more mercury content to these peoples’ already-addled brains.
Anyhow, at least this manifestation of South Korea’s penchant for bad taste isn’t likely to incite any Jewish groups to write angry letters like several other establishments (and commercials — dancing Hitler with snack cake, anyone?) have. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people down at the local VFW that will have a word or two to say if they ever catch wind of it.
I’m thinking of opening a bar here in America called ‘Tojo’s.’ We’ll dress the male bartenders like Kamikaze and the female bartenders in hanbok. (Just kidding! No firebombs, please!)
Heh. Found this one just too good to ignore:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ler_eatery
Apprently, now India is making a name for itself in the ’strangely-themed bars’ category.
Cheez, some people never seem to learn from history or think that they can somehow put a polish on a turd through revising the past.
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[...] I found some other Korea tech that has nothing to do with Samsung or LG but it certainly has the edge over the chaebols when it comes to style. There are other Korean sites that demonstrate long-standing tradition of DIY “Do-it-yourself” thinking in Korea that I have found in many places, from the neighborhood adjoshi who actually repairs umbrellas to the hand-made recycling carts and sweet potato roasters that one can find out in the street everywhere in Korea. Though some try to peddle things North Korean as being cool (huh?), maybe there is a future entrepreneur that can harness this sort of DIY ethic as being the real Korean cool. How about fitting a video player inside one of those neat 55-gallon wood stoves that one can find out on the sidewalk during winter? [...]
[...] Despite the attempt of some to market things North Korean as being somehow fresh and unpolluted (eh?), being from the north is not seen as being a good thing, as per the observation of Kim Young Nam: “Our accent brands us as people who come from a place of poverty,” [...]