Index

Women in Business & Ministry of Finance workshops

Commerce

Pyeonghwa Motors Billboard

There has been a significant increase in the number of cars in Pyongyang between 2008 and 2013. Traffic could actually be described as heavy in some areas. This billboard outside the Pyongyang Hotel is for the local brand Pyeonghwa Motors.  There was another billboard outside the Railway Station advertising SUVs, also from Pyeonghwa Motors.

  • Photo taken in March 2013. No apparent change in the billboard since 2011 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/58086607

Telecommunications

Another big change since 2008 has been the proliferation of mobile phones. Both of our hosts had handphones, as did many of the people walking on the street, at least in downtown Pyongyang (60% handphone penetration rate in Pyongyang, according to one website). A few handphone anecdotes which would have been unimaginable not too many years ago:

• An old lady hawking cigarettes at the foot of a pedestrian overhead bridge shouting loudly into a handphone handed to her by a man standing next to her. Overdue payment, some other business transaction, or just her telling her kids that she would be late for dinner ?

• Our interpreters calling the driver to come pick us up from a different location because we had to change plans and go to a different restaurant. We take this convenience for granted in the outside world, but without mobile phones, dealing with this kind of last-minute changes would be far more difficult. And mobile phones were only re-introduced to DPRK in 2008.

• Visiting the West Sea Barrage 60 km outside Pyongyang. Getting there required us to travel down some pretty awful roads but while we are standing at the lookout point looking out to the Yellow Sea, a call comes in on our host's mobile phone. It's their office calling to tell us that the British Embassy had invited us to lunch the next day. Even on a North Korean beach way out of town, we remain contactable by phone. No escape from mobile devices even in North Korea !

Interesting article on mobile phone usage in DPRK at 

http://www.asiapress.org/rimjingang/english/archive/pdf/PART1_North_Korea_IT_report_Rimjin-gang.pdf

This notice was at the Friendship Centre in the Diplomatic district. 3G service is available but we are told it is only for resident foreigners not tourists. Pricing is truly astonishing. 

    Roadside stalls

    I saw far more roadside stalls on this trip than back in 2008, and the stalls look more permanent than the old canvas structures (left, 2008).

    • Typical canvas stall set-up in 2008.
    • By 2013, the typical roadside stall had become zinc-roofed and walled. The stall on the left sells DVDs while that on the right sells drinks
    Stalls with the lotus symbol on a red background were very common across Pyongyang (see left-hand stall of picture above right).  Despite the buddhist symbolism, these stalls sell DVDs, presumably vetted by the authorities. I did not manage to get any photos, but there were also many stalls with a trophy logo. These are lottery shops. Instead of cash prizes, prizes are in the form of hard goods such as TVs, computers and so on. Proceeds from the lottery fund sports activities, which is the official explanation of the use of the trophy as a logo.

    • Propaganda poster flanked by a snack shop and a flower shop.
    Notice the tables outside the snack shop on the left. Flower shops (right) are also ubiquitous though I think they mostly sell cloth flowers.