NORTH KOREA’S 1%
In an impoverished nation, a small group begins putting on the glitz,
“Kim Jong Un is very pro-market. His policy has essentially been benign neglect. A number of North Korean capitalists I’ve talked to say that they’ve never had it so good.” ANDREI LANKOV RUSSIAN HISTORIAN
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA— They like fast fashion from Zara and H&M. They work out to be seen as much as to exercise. They drink cappuccinos to show how cosmopolitan they are. Some have had their eyelids done to make them look more western.
North Korea now has a 1 per cent. And you’ll find them in “Pyonghattan,” the parallel universe inhabited by the rich kids of the Democratic People’s Republic.
“We’re supposed to dress conservatively in North Korea, so people like going to the gym so they can show off their bodies, show some skin,” said Lee Seo-Hyeon, a 24-year-old who was, until 18 months ago, part of Pyongyang’s brat pack.
Women like to wear leggings and tight tops — Elle is the most popular brand among women, while men prefer Adidas and Nike — she said. When young people to go China, they go armed with shopping lists for workout gear from their friends.
At a leisure complex next to the bowling alley in the middle of Pyongyang, they run on the treadmills, which show Disney cartoons on the monitors, or do yoga.
The complex also has a fancy restaurant that advertises for wedding functions — glitzy venues cost as much as $500 an hour — and a coffee shop, where most drinks are priced between $4 and $8, although an iced mocha costs $9.
“It’s a cool spot. When you’re in there it feels like you could be anywhere in the world,” said Andray Abrahamian, who is British and helps run an exchange program that provides financial training to North Koreans.
He recently played squash on one of the three courts at the centre. “It’s not cheap. It’s a few dollars for a class. It’s definitely for people who have disposable income.”
North Korea as a whole remains economically backward — industry has all but collapsed, and even in Pyongyang, the official salary remains less than $10 a month — but the rise in recent years of a merchant class has created a whole layer of nouveaux riches in the capital city.
“Donju,” or “masters of money,” have emerged with the tentative moves toward a market economy that began about 15 years ago but has picked up momentum under Kim Jong Un, the third-generation leader who took over the reins of North Korea at the end of 2011.
The donju usually hold official government positions — in ministries or the military, running state businesses abroad or trying to attract investment into North Korea. On the side, they trade in everything they can get their hands on, from flatscreen TVs to apartments.
The money that they are making now flows through society, through the markets that are now present in every population centre to the high-end restaurants of Pyongyang.
“Kim Jong Un is very pro-market. His policy has essentially been benign neglect,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian historian specializing in Korea, who once studied in Pyongyang. “A number of North Korean capitalists I’ve talked to say that they’ve never had it so good.”
Kim, who is only 33, has made it a high priority to improve the lives of his fellow millennials in particular. He has ordered the construction of amusement parks and water parks and skate parks, even a dolphinarium and a ski resort. Around the capital, volleyball and tennis courts are full of young people.
On a trip to Pyongyang this month, three Washington Post reporters went to a German-themed restaurant near the Juche Tower, with exposed brick walls and seven kinds of North Korean beer on tap and a huge screen that was showing ice skating.
On the menu, there was a prime steak with a baked potato for $48, although the Wiener schnitzel, at $7, was more reasonable.
At the Sunrise complex, there’s a sushi bar and a barbecue restaurant, where groups of North Koreans were enjoying grilled meat — the waitress recommended cuts of beef that were $50 for a one-person portion — and bottles of soju, Koreans’ favourite alcoholic beverage, on a recent Saturday night.
A North Korean couple pulled the bamboo curtain across the front of their table when they heard some foreigners arrive. In Pyonghattan, discretion is key.
“If it weren’t for the little badges, they could be South Koreans,” said one expat in Pyongyang, referring to the pins of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il, the first two generations of leaders, that North Koreans must wear over their hearts. “They’re paying 10 to 15 euros for a meal,” he said. He asked not to be identified because of the trouble that could bring down on him.
Until last year, Lee Seo-Hyeon and her brother Lee Hyeon-Seung, now 30, were part of this privileged set.
They lived and went to a university in China, where their father, a high-ranking North Korean official, was tasked with earning foreign currency for the regime. But they travelled back and forth to Pyongyang.
Hyeon-Seung described his teenage life in Pyongyang, one that involved listening to Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys in the days before the South Korean wave of K-pop and schmaltzy dramas had arrived.
For the average Pyonghattanite, fast fashion such as Uniqlo, Zara and H&M is affordable and popular. “All my friends lived abroad and everyone would bring stuff like this back,” Hyeon-Seung said.
But there were limits. Sleeveless tops and too-short skirts are out, as is hair dye.
“If your clothes are too radical or extreme, or they’re not in line with North Korean style, the police might take your name and then your name will be broadcast on the radio,” Seo-Hyeon said. The siblings defected, together with their mother and high-ranking father, to South Korea in 2014, and are now in Northern Virginia, hoping to go to college in Washington this fall.
One of the most obvious changes has been the construction boom in the capital.
The highrise apartment buildings that have popped up in the centre of Pyongyang, from the Changjon complex near Kim Il Sung Square to the Mirae Scientists Street, look impressive from a distance.
But up close, tiles are falling off buildings that are only a year old and electricity supply remains so patchy that the most sought-after apartments are the ones on the lower storeys. Who wants a 20th-floor walk-up?
These may all be part of a Potemkin village, but they nonetheless underscore the fact that in North Korea, poverty is no longer equally shared.
“There is only one game in town,” said Lankov, the historian. “Capitalism.”