Skinny jeans, blue crabs, pig-intestine rolls and even human manure were some of the hottest items among North Korean consumers this year, according to a South Korean professor who has interviewed recent defectors from the communist country.
Kim Young-soo, a political science professor at Seoul’s Sogang University, said in a conference on Tuesday that adult movies, television dramas and instant noodle “ramen” made in South Korea are also selling “like hot cakes” in North Korea.
As if it were bad enough that North Korea was developing nukes, exporting missiles and launching provocations against the South, now it’s turning into a nation of hipsters. Just effing great.
He said that skinny jeans are so popular in the North’s capital, Pyongyang, that people there sometimes mistakenly believe Chinese wearing the stylish clothes are roaming their capital.
“These are signs that North Korea is easing its isolation,” Kim said in a telephone interview, noting that such lifestyle changes are conspicuous in Pyongyang and areas near the border with China.
Interestingly, shiitake mushrooms, blue crabs and sundae are also selling well, the first two thanks to international sanctions that have blocked North Korean mushroom exports to Japan:
Kim said defectors told him pine mushrooms were also a “hit” among North Koreans this year because exports to South Korea had been diverted into the domestic market since cross-border tensions soared over the deadly March sinking of a South Korean warship.
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Kim said blue crabs have met the same fate as pine mushrooms, allowing North Koreans to enjoy what was once a rarity for them.
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“Soondae,” or sausage rolls stuffed with ingredients such as noodles and vegetables and wrapped in pig intestine films, has also made inroads into the market as a staple after the military stopped collecting pork and other food items from civilians, Kim said.
As you know, we’re big fans of sundae here, so it’s nice to see the North Korean public enjoying it, too.
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human manure is a hit because?
I assume as a fertilizer. They used to use it here a lot, too.
#1,
And before anyone else says otherwise, it’s true that it is the shit.
And a general comment,
For those of you who can go to the DPRK, think of the opportunity you have of earning a few extra won by smuggling in some Yaji boot cuts.
Seriously, it’s going to be like the opening of Eastern Europe, but taking more time.
Feed it to the pigs, too.
Should I assume night soil collector is still an occupation in NK? If it’s a (s)hit product this year why not is years past? And how is this distributed to the consumers? In buckets? Is it freeze dried and powered? Lemme understand this… the producers of it, who are squeezing it away for free, are then later buying it? I don’t know about this one… wonderful if true but strikes me as a bit too far-fetched.
powdered
The way my stomach has been acting up, I could have made a killing these past few days.
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