Dictatorship Travel: Eating Like Kim Jong Il

Where: 400 Monivong Boulevard, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

October 20, 2008 at 10:00 AM | by ced138 | 0 Comments

After North Korea agreed to turn off its biggest nuclear reactor last week, it officially fell off the United States' list of countries that sponsor terrorism. So we figured, why not indulge in some Communist cuisine to celebrate?

In Cambodia, along with about 200 other countries, state sanctioned and supported North Korean restaurants serve as unofficial embassies of the country's creepy culture.

Turns out Pyongyang Restaurant in Phnom Penh is a microcosm of North Korea's Arirang Festival, in which tens of thousands of children create moving mosaics at Pyongyang's May Day Stadium.

The waitresses at the restaurant, clad in puffy pink dresses suitable for no one over the age of six months, scuffle around in platform heels, their powdered-white faces melting under glaring fluorescent bulbs.

Between serving guests spicy bowls of kimchi, they take turns performing on a makeshift stage with a flat screen running snapshots of North Korea's landscape in the background. The women sing, dance, play guitar, drums and keyboard; these are indisputably talented performers. But the saddest part--other than the mortifying uniforms--is that they're released from their country's Phnom Penh compound only to go to work and back.

What Westerners lack in ability to manage our financial systems and mind our own business, we make up for in our abilities to constantly lampoon our leaders and make fun of our fellow citizens. Perhaps the oddest part of experiencing Communist culture firsthand is the earnestness in which everything, even while dressed in funny costumes, is carried out.

Related Stories:
· North Korean Food for Thought [PPP]
· Dictatorship Travel: KJI Doing Just Fine [Jaunted]

Jaunted

Select a Destination:

Tags: Communist Travel / North Korea Travel / Restaurants / → All Tags