Word: korea
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...Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, and Ahmadinejad. The Revolutionary Guards leadership has a vested financial interest in isolating the Islamic republic from the West - and focusing its sights eastward toward places like China. Indeed, some observers believe the IRGC's economic functions may eventually turn it into an entity like South Korea's government-supported chaebol or multinational conglomerates that were key to that country's modernization, albeit in controversial ways...
After I left Pyongyang, I began searching for a journalist willing to pose as a chocolate consultant. Eventually I found Antoine Dreyfus, a reporter for a French weekly. He would travel to North Korea under the pretext of doing a market study for the confectionary industry. I would return to Pyongyang with him, playing his assistant with a background in product marketing...
...sure we could pull off our own. Antoine would drill the Koreans with a series of questions about numbers - wages for semi-skilled workers, availability of cocoa, milk and sugar. I would present our marketing proposal. Traditional advertising mediums such as billboards, magazine, and television advertisements are forbidden in Korea, so I had an alternative plan to create a nation of chocolate lovers. (See pictures of the New York Philharmonic's historic concert in Pyongyang...
...finished my presentation by handing out chocolate samples to the factory directors. They brushed them aside, and politely explained they were not looking to produce chocolate for the local population. North Korea has isolated tourism zones where South Koreans can visit on tightly controlled one-day bus trips. According to the factory director, the South Koreans were always curious about the quality of North Korean goods, and eagerly bought snacks and souvenirs. Currently, the North buys Chinese chocolate, strips off the wrappers and re-packages it with North Korean labels. But Chinese chocolate is pretty bad. They wanted European chocolate...
Read part 1 and part 2 of Tomas Van Houtryve's "Journey to North Korea...