The Entrepreneurs of North Korea

When I climbed Sangpaldam Pools (Eight Upper Pools) in Mt. Kumgang, so called after the eight ponds in the region, along the steep iron-railed stairs in the scorching sun, two North Korean women dozing in the shade of a tree raised their heads, sensing approaching people. They had little stalls selling bread, candy, apples and biscuits and ice boxes. The women knew what they should do.

"Sir, we've ices and juice. We also have Mt. Baekdu ogalpi sap, from which you can get the spirit of Mt. Baekdu. To enjoy the good scenery, you have to feed yourselves first."

I made a one-night-two-day tour of Mt. Kumgang over the weekend. When I first visited Mt. Kumgang by cruise boat some years ago, I climbed the mountain carrying a lunch box, ate lunch at the entrance parking lot and boarded the boat again. But the resort now not only has five big hotels but also restaurants that accept credit cards, karaoke lounges and covered cart bars.

Stalls have emerged at key points along the hiking course. Standing there are "comrade guides", who normally say "We don't know that sort of thing." Now, after expertly explaining the nearby scenery, they display their business talents, saying, "Don't just look at my face, but feed yourselves here," and "Since you will soon reach a very steep hill, prepare yourselves in advance with bread, apples or soft drinks." When did capitalism infiltrate the North?

The site where the immigration bureau used to stand when Mt. Kumgang tours were by cruise boats has now changed into the Kosong Port Sliced Raw Fish Restaurant run by a South Korean. North Korean submarines were once seen in the calm sea off the coast. With the military port gone, tourists were now leisurely strolling along the pier, where there is a hotel, a lighthouse and fluorescent street lamps. Time leaves nothing unchanged; it was hard to tell if this was the North or the South.

The two-day Mt. Kumgang tour cost W290,000 (US$1=W938). That included the bus trip, twin-bed hotel room and Sunday breakfast. Tourists had to pay extra for meals, performances and hot spring baths. Each meal costs at least US$10, acrobatic feats on the tour program $30 and the hot spring bath $12. Hyundai Asan, which runs the Mt. Kumgang tours, makes no profits: its deficits are accumulating.

The North Korean authorities collect $48 from each tourist for a two-day stay. Whose pockets does the cash flow into and how is it used? Mt. Kumgang tourism is effectively a handout for North Korea. Access to North Korean reality, beyond the barbed wire along the exclusive tourist bus road, is still controlled. Staunch conservatives can hardly bear it, and not a few people refuse the offer of Mt. Kumgang tour opportunities out of conviction.

In 1999, I wrote the following: "Since South Korean tourists began touring the famed mountain, the Mt. Kumgang tour course became off-limit to North Koreans. It is restricted to South Korean tourists. This means there exists no North Korea in Mt. Kumgang. If the object of reform and opening does not exist in Mt. Kumgang, it's impossible to argue for reform and opening of the North through Mt. Kumgang tourism. Would you reform and open Mt. Kumgang's fantastically shaped rocks and inaccessible precipices?"

Yet perhaps time proved me wrong. There are now 1,050 North Korean workers working in the Mt. Kumgang resort. Small as that number is, they are reshuffled every year or six months. As bees touch and move pollen unknowingly, there is no exact way of knowing how the influence of capitalism is spreading in the North.

The tourist bus I'm riding is crossing the 4-km-wide demilitarized zone in the name of tourism. Effecting the change by force or other means would have been very difficult. And perhaps it¡¯s too small a change given the W1.5 trillion (US$1=W938) we have put into Mt. Kumgang tourism. But a typhoon is sometimes hidden in a bee¡¯s wing.

Source : http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200706/200706270031.html

Why I went all the way to Scotland to buy a bed...

Tuesday, June 26, 2007
By Paul Whittington

'Eh, we don't get many blokes doing this," said the Glaswegian taxi driver, looking doubtfully into his rear-view mirror. I knew what he meant. We were travelling from Glasgow airport towards a vast industrial estate in the old shipbuilding area along the river Clyde, home to the city's branch of IKEA.

The route between Dublin and its doors is well trodden by groups of Irish females who happily spend entire days in the open prairies of its household department. But, as was pointed out to me a number of times during my flying visit, men are apparently a rarity.

In any case, I wasn't here to peruse the pillow cases and linger over the lampshades. I was here for the furniture. Quizzical eyebrows had been raised around the office when it was discovered I was flying to Scotland to buy furniture. How on earth would that make sense, my colleagues helpfully wondered. Had I not heard of Dublin's Long Mile Road?

I had indeed, but as the people of this island north and south will shortly discover, IKEA offers something different.

The retail furniture giant was recently granted planning permission to open its first outlet in the Republic but there is a strict condition.

It cannot open the massive store at Dublin's Ballymun until M50 improvements are completed.

IKEA is obviously very keen to lure Irish shoppers because it has offered to part-fund the €1bn motorway upgrade if it means they can open sooner.

So why is there so much fuss about a furniture store? Founded back in 1943 by a 17-year-old Swede called Ingvar Kamprad, the once humble household business has become a multibillion-dollar global phenomenon on the back on one very simple idea: functional, durable, cleanly designed and extremely reasonable furniture with one little snag -- you have to put it together yourself.

Because all of IKEA's furniture comes flat-packed, the company can afford to charge very reasonable prices, allowing customers to make huge savings.

Its furniture is easier and cheaper to make and transport than assembled products, and it can be sold in vast warehouses with a minimum of fuss -- and staff.

All of this makes IKEA furniture extremely good value indeed, even if you add in the price of my airfare (around €60) and the cost of shipping it all home again (which we'll come to later).

And they sell practically everything you can think of, from coffee tables to dining tables, bookcases to daybeds, wardrobes to full kitchens and everything in between.

A fat catalogue gives the skinny on these various products, all of which are given short, simple names like 'Benno', 'Linga' and 'Hemnes', a practice apparently stemming from the founder's severe dyslexia.

And to give you some idea of prices, a freestanding six-foot bookcase will cost you around €51, a wardrobe of similar size around €105. All you have to do is turn up at the warehouse and find them.

Why not do it online instead, you might ask. Because you can't just yet, from here at any rate. Which is why I turned up at 99 Kings Inch Drive, Glasgow, on a chilly spring morning, with a little list in my hand.

For the IKEA virgin, entering one of these stores for the first time can be a bit terrifying. Determined-looking punters race trolleys through what looks to you like an impenetrable maze. The staff are generally helpful, if a little bemused to discover that there is still someone in the world who doesn't know how this sublimely logical shopping experience works.

IIt works like this. At the front of most IKEA shops is an extensive and labyrinthine household department, selling sleek and continental-looking domestic accessories of every conceivable kind.

You could easily spend hours examining the mats and mirrors, bedside lamps and linen in the various rooms that are laid out throughout this section, before you arrive at the business end of IKEA.

The furniture department is not so much a department as a great, endless warehouse. Shelf upon shelf is is stacked to the roof with identical flat brown packages, identifiable only by the modest labels on their sides. Each aisle is carefully numbered and, if they are not too busy, a member of staff will give you a print out telling you where your furniture is. But when it comes to finding it, you're on your own.

This is when you realise that furniture shopping at IKEA takes time.

I had a modest number of specific items in mind, but if you've a long list get the red eye flight -- Aer Lingus flies direct to Glasgow, and its first plane leaves around seven -- and give yourself the whole day (there's a perfectly decent restaurant). If you don't, you'll end up panicking and turn a tough experience into a deeply unpleasant one.

You work your way around the department with your special flatpack trolley, locating and stacking your pieces. Some of the packs are heavy, and staff are aound to help those not keen on lugging them off the shelves.

Fiendishly, some IKEA furniture comes in two boxes, a fact that is not always evident, so always check for a yellow number on the box, which will tell you if it has a companion.

Although this experience will soon be a thing of the past when the Belfast and Dublin stores open, Irish shoppers in Glasgow or Manchester pay for their loaded trolleys, then roll them around to the shipping counter, from where -- for a fee -- they'll be whisked to your home. (It works out at about €120 for each loaded trolley.)

And they're whisked with remarkable efficiency, in my case. Just a week after my Clydeside raid, my flatpack stack arrived at the door. All I had to do now was put it all together.

Many are daunted by the idea of assembling bits of furniture, especially when they open the IKEA boxes and find great bags of screws and bolts and an intimidating set of diagrams. But it's less difficult than it looks, and if you follow the guide to the letter, most of you will get there (others may prefer to pay carpenters).

So is the assembled furniture any good? IKEA furniture actually looks great, the pieces reassuringly heavy and remarkably durable.

All in all, then, it was a successful - if exhausting - trip to Glasgow.

When I got into the return taxi, I noticed a very large Rangers sticker in the driver's front window. "Airport, please," I said, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

Source : http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/daily-features/article2711755.ece