Dinner at a North Korean Restaurant in Shanghai (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Dinner at a North Korean Restaurant in Shanghai (2016)

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- "We heard that the girls stay in the Hotel (yes, upstairs) and they are seldom allowed out and that they do not get paid or if they do, the amount is for pocket money as everything from food and lodging to basic necessities are provided by the State."

In more straightforward language: these are slaves.

[late edit]: Here's more about how these slave women are treated:

- "In contrast, he said the high achievers are rewarded with a trip to a North Korean restaurant, where they can pick one of the waitresses to spend the evening with. The top employee of the month gets to choose first. He likened it to a hostess bar - and accused managers of "preying on young men's sexual urges, to get them to compete and bring in more money"."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68226271 ("North Koreans working in China 'exploited like slaves" (2024))

> We found out that the girls are all from elite North Korean families. The one that served us shared politely that she has worked at this restaurant for one and the half years and all of them are University graduates who consider this their duty and only opportunity to work and serve their country by sharing their culture and food.

I imagine it is worse for the people who aren't children of elite families, nor able to learn Mandarin to get a chance at spending a few years as a restaurant slave.

There is a weird phenomenon I saw on some parts of Lemmy where people decide that, "because America is bad, therefore all its adversaries are good," so they'll be online praising every action from North Korea.

Unfortunately, this is an extremely common way of thinking. It's one of the reasons flinging dirt in politics is so effective I think.

I wonder if there is any connection with this way of thinking and the many David vs Goliath style stories we get as a kid. Maybe we need more stories for children where every character is bad, or every character is good.

There can still be conflict to provide an interesting story between two good parties, or between two bad parties.

I liked Princess Mononoke a lot as a kid because of the ambiguity in most of the characters. No one was truly evil, or truly good in their actions.

I definitely noticed it was different than most media at the time because of that.

I read their comment and immediately thought of the same movie. That story did moral shades of gray very well. I do wish there was more content like that.

I've conceptualized this in the following way: be most skeptical of narratives that are strongly aligned with the mainstream narrative (more room for ignorance or malice; see Harvey Weinstein), and then most skeptical of narratives that are strongly contrary to the mainstream narrative. Binary categories of good and bad, us and them, right and wrong are an easy trap. To counter this, seek out many narratives (which are not made equal) and consolidate. To truly understand a perspective is the most we can expect out of someone, as they may not agree.

Correct, do you want your child to be starving, cold, and without electricity or do you want them to at least be a restaurant slave?

I’m sure the girls can’t escape or their families will be killed.

That's what I mean, if even the people with means are opting for restaurant slavery for themselves or their children, the rest of the country is obviously in dire condition. People with means within the country are living lives they consider worse than restaurant slavery. People without means must be suffering yet worse conditions than whatever that is.

And so I find it astonishing that people online are willfully deluding themselves into praising this country.

it's fake news. she is employee , boss pay money 4000up RMB

If you want North Korean food, but not run by the North Korean government with the weird slavery shit, there's numerous Korean restaurants north of North Korea in Yanbian, Jilin/Changchun, etc. Just regular restaurants, mostly run by Chinese that are ethnically Korean.

Perhaps a better term to differentiate it from regime-run ones -- "Ethically North Korean Restaurants"?

Are North and South Korea ethnically distinct?

Probably not in any meaningful way, but I would agree the above comment they are ethically distinct.

Yes. Why would they not be?

Easier to just go to any of them in an actual Korea in Seoul.

Maybe? I dunno

There's iirc <100k North Korean in South Korea, and >>100k in China, mostly Jilin province

More concentrated especially if they are mostly in Seoul

Outside of Yanbian maybe yea. There's like 600,000 Korean in Yanbian alone, a huge chunk of which are North Korean.

There are other reasons to avoid like https://x.com/Sino_Market/status/1810508441234067465 / https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3269808/chi...

Oh yea for sure, you get way better food safety in SK.

I have to admit, I’d be curious to visit one of these restaurants myself. However, one has to be aware of the fact that these restaurants are reportedly linked to the secretive North Korean party organization, Room 39 [1], which means that all revenue flows directly into the hands of the Kim dynasty, so in the best case you'll help financing their next BMW or much worse, the nuclear arms program—neither of these I'm very comfortable with…

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_39

After a quick search, I found there are North Korean restaurants in Seoul owned by escapees. Definitely a way to learn about the oppressed North Korean people shut away from the rest of the world without supporting their messed up leaders.

there are and some of them are great

Wonderful to know. I never even thought to look up North Korean restaurants during previous visits to South Korea. Will definitely one up next time.

I didn’t see the price mentioned in the article, but given that most restaurants are barely getting by, are we sure they’re really making meaningful money off this place (much less weapons money)? I wonder if it’s more for covert activities.

The article also mentions that the staff is not payed, which surely helps the bottom line.

Sadly for a North Korean just having 2000 calories per day is considered a working class salary. 40% of the population is undernourished.

> so in the best case you'll help financing their next BMW or much worse, the nuclear arms program

That's for sure

tbo, dishes at the restaurant are very expensive , and the taste is just average(my personal opinion)

the primary reason I went to there is I hope the money I paid can help them build more Hwasong-18s, or if it could help their 20x10 plan

https://www.38north.org/2024/08/north-koreas-regional-develo...

Going by my dad's constant repair bills for his BMW, saddling the North Korean regime with those could be good for diverting funds away from their more unsavory endeavors.

This made me laugh :D

Until 2020 the you could book a stay in a backpacker hostel in Berlin that was actually located inside the North Korean embassy.

Eventually the German government got fed up with them running a business out of their embassy and they had to shut it down.

That's incredible. Looks like they leased a building to the hostelers and it was shut down because it violated sanctions, but amazing that the $42,000 a month lease is worth it to dabble in for NK. Then again they were subletting parking spots and rooms previously, perhaps if the order is to milk any property or opportunity overseas it adds up.

> $42,000 a month lease is worth it to dabble in for NK

It's all because the country lacks foreign reserves.

When I visited North Korea years ago the pre-determined hotel, shops, entertainment etc all required USD.

And of course this all predates crypto which has made this trivial.

That’s wild! It’s such a strange setup

The food called "black rice" in the blog is called sundae or soondae (순대) which in South Korea they put glass noodles and such instead of rice. So it is not North Korean specialty. If you the author haven't tried, you should definitely try from South Korean restaurants too and there are a different versions of food with sundae; steamed, in soup, stirfried in spicy sauce... etc.

There is a plenty of sundae with rice too.

My experience echos this but on a smaller scale, I’ve visited the NK run restaurant in Bangkok in 2019 and found it to be basically any average nondescript very dated East Asian / Korean restaurant, but odd. It was smaller, maybe seating 60-75 tops?

The food was fine, and they played NK music (the kind you’d hear on Korean Central Television) while we ate. The unique thing I recall on the menu was the Pyongyang Cold Noodles which I did not get.

Unfortunately the waitresses did not do karaoke which I heard was the entertainment and the whole experience was notable but not like “holy crap”.

When asked about takeaways they did offer to sell me NK cigarettes and Soju.

Naengmyeon is worth trying, not only in NK restaurants.

It sounds like you had a pretty similar vibe to what I imagine these places are like... kinda surreal but not mind-blowing in the "holy crap" sense

I visited a similar NK restaurant in Saigon a few times before they closed down decade ago and the experience was the same. What impressed me is that all the NK waitresses can speak the local language (Vietnamese) fluently and can sing or play music instruments. The food is quite authentic, some ingredients are exported from NK. It was a good experience overall.

There's a few NK restaurants in Beijing as well. Very mid food in the 90s. Went back in 2010s and they had a bunch of much tastier new items, can't tell if still traditional or making up new tradition to keep up with the times. Anecdotally from aquaintences, there's American style fast food in Pyongyang, and their fried chicken is very good. Have to keep up with the Korean peninsula fried chicken race.

Do you think Great Leader enjoys American fast food as much as Disney Land?

I think great leader got spoiled by best big macs when he went to school in Switzerland. I wouldn't be surprised if he regularly smuggle fast food ingredients straight from the suppliers in and run a personal fast food court. I think he gave up on reunifying with the south after all the Subway product placement in KDramas, and realized the south was too far gone.

I went to the branch in Phnom Penh years ago. Basically the same format as described in the article, including the karaoke like rock performance. I recall there was dog on the menu. Otherwise it's your typical dystopian experience.

Speaking of Cambodia, China has got quite the strangle hold on that country.

Which is interesting, because the Vietnamese installed a government after defeating the Khmer Rouge in 1979. This majorly pissed off China who invaded Vietnam to "punish" them.

But today? It's a playground for Chinese criminal gangs. Kidnapping of foreigners (recently a Thai citizen) who work in local casinos is common. It's mostly Vietnamese, but other nationalities have been snapped up as well.

It's also a hotbed for Chinese running online scams.

Seems quite lawless nowadays despite the development since the war.

There was one in Yangon, Myanmar too. Shut down in 2018. https://g.co/kgs/fvWRe18

The article is from 2016, it's aeons ago, given the pace of Shanghai. I wonder, if this place still operates in 2025.

Seems that way. A review from ten months ago mentions the restaurant. https://maps.app.goo.gl/qa5KY49pHBRqLLTa9

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1FtKjeHEZX

you may need vpn to watch this video about a south korean girl taked dinner in the restaurant

When I was living in Beijing in 2018-2020, there was a Korean restaurant I liked. It had the usual South Koren dishes (I'm a topokki fan myself), but I remember they did serve bottled North Korean beer. That was pretty cool, I have a photo of it somewhere.

Think the word is “tteokbokki”

We are both correct. It is spelled both ways in English.

There used to be one of these in Dubai too, but it closed down during the pandemic. I remember a very surreal dinner there in circa 2016.

The article is from 2016. Did anyone find out if the restaurant is still open?

Yes, it’s still open.

10am to 9:30pm every day.

https://surl.amap.com/ooIMl6hgaqj

Definitely an experience that leaves you with more questions than answers

How is this related to Hacker News?

And why posting an article of 2016?

Oh yeah, as if a regular North Korean has access to sushi.

They call it gimbap and putting random shit in rice and seaweed is only considered a luxury in the west.

Not sure how comfortable id be ordering from one of these resturaunts as an American.

Why are you special in this regard?

portion sizes

ahahah!

More like chair sizes

Probably could put you on all kinds of security risk lists.

I would rather stay away from russian or maybe chinese restaurants if westerner, those are actual enemies. Or just dont care, dont get seduced by random women out of your league and you will be fine.

And if you mean US security risk lists well thats on US current paranoia coming from hard attempts of current government to make whole world hate US, nothing rest of the world cares much.

Since NK is under sanctions by the US, I supposed you wouldn't want to give them any money for goods or services. It could blow back

I've had Pyongyang soju when it was sold in the US around a decade or so ago, it was ok: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/north-korean-alcohol-imported...

Bought it as a curiosity since I had never seen anything sold from DPRK before and it was just randomly at a liquor store. I guess the importer ended up getting arrested under FARA and you can't buy it anymore.

Aha now I understand. But how does us tourists to PyongUang deal with this typically? Or rather how should it be solved?

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