China Food & Drinks
Dinner in Pyongyang – North Korea’s Government-Run Restaurant in Beijing
Pyongyang is a restaurant chain owned and operated by the North Korean government. Pyongyang Restaurants, all staff from the DPRK’s capital, offer a glimpse inside the world’s most secretive nation.
Three waitresses greet us with a short and stern smile when we walk into Beijing’s Pyongyang Restaurant (平壤馆). They all have pretty faces, and their clothes and make-up look impeccable. When we are seated and receive the menu, my friend asks our waitress in Korean: “Where are you from?” “Pyongyang,” she says (we could have guessed), and her smile is gone. She leaves the table before we can ask another question.
North Korea is one of the most secretive states in the world. The country made international headlines this week when its government announced it had succeeded in testing a hydrogen bomb. Even to China, North Korea’s closest economic and diplomatic ally, the country remains unpredictable, and many Chinese seem to find the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) an intriguing subject; ‘North Korea’ (朝鲜) has become a daily recurring topic on Chinese social media.
Since the 1990s, the North Korean government has opened Pyongyang Restaurants in several countries across Asia. Except for the restaurants in China near to the North Korean border and elsewhere (Beijing, Shanghai, Harbin, etc), there are also branches in Jakarta, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Kuala Lumpur, and other cities. The branch in Cambodia’s Siem Reap is one of the oldest and biggest in Southeast Asia, and is very popular amongst locals and tourists. In 2012, a Dutch branch was opened in Amsterdam, but it was permanently closed in 2014.
An additional reason why restaurants are an interesting business venture for the DPRK leadership, Duncan writes, is that they offer a chance “to spy on South Korean business people and gain knowledge from them when they are drunk” (2014, 77). This claim is confirmed by the
Korea Joongang Daily, that reports how waitresses eavesdrop on their guests’ conversations to gather information on public opinion. They are ordered to keep the North Korean authorities posted on a daily basis. According to sources, there are surveillance cameras and wiretapping devices installed in some establishments.
In a way, Pyongyang Restaurants are extensions of the North Korean state, and are controlled just as strictly. Much has been written about the mysterious lives of the restaurant’s staff (see Xinhua, BBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, etc.) Waitresses are carefully selected based on their (privileged) family background, looks and height.
Living in cosmopolitan cities does not bring North Korean waitresses a modern lifestyle; they do not have a phone, nor internet, and live highly regimented lives. They often live above or near the restaurant, and are not allowed to freely roam around the city. They are sent back to their homeland once their period of work abroad is finished. If they escape, their families in North Korea face punishment, DPRK expert Marcus Noland says.
“I drove two friends back to Beijing yesterday. When we got there it was already noon, and we decided to go to Beijing’s famous North Korean Pyongyang Restaurant,” one netizen writes: “The restaurant food is okay, better than most Korean places. The waitresses all come from North Korea, and apart from us, nobody seemed to speak Chinese. Although the waitresses were helpful, there was certainly some distance.”
“From the ink paintings on the wall, via the North Korean songs on their television, to the pretty North Korean waitresses; it all creates such a strange atmosphere”, another Weibo netizen writes.
We experience that same strange atmosphere upon our visit to Pyongyang Restaurant. The dining hall is brightly lit with fancy chandeliers, but the rest of the restaurant’s decor is surprisingly plain and grey. The North Korean landscape paintings on the wall give an extra Pyongyang feel to the restaurant. The television in the corner of the room shows a music programme on Korean Central Television.
According to the outside sign of the Chinese health inspection, this restaurant is a ‘B’ – which means that it is advised to “dine in restaurants of higher sanitation ratings”. Although the restaurant looks fairly clean, its only toilet looks less immaculate.
It is a Sunday night, and only about 6 of the restaurant’s 16 tables are occupied. The restaurant’s guests are mostly South Korean and Chinese.
The menu offers a selection of different dishes, ranging from 20 RMB (3 US$) cold noodles, to 1080 RMB (164 US$) seafood soup. There are several fish dishes priced around 100 RMB (15 US$), or whole chickens of 198 RMB (30 US$). We start off with a cold made-in-DPKR Taedonggang beer, which tastes fresh and hoppy.
The waitresses do speak some Chinese, but with our broken Korean, we succeed in ordering some traditional dishes, such as Kimchi, mixed rice dish Bibimbap, blood sausage (a stew of Sundae), and a tofu soup (Sundubu jjigae).
After the performances, the staff’s uniforms and serious faces return, and the waitresses go back to their routine duties – clearing the tables and bringing the bill. The fake rose that they brought to our table during one of their performances is taken back; we are not allowed to keep it.
On Weibo, people seem amazed with the fact that all staff is from North Korea. Other aspects of the restaurant also surprises them: “I went to Pyongyang Restaurant with my friend the other day,” one netizen writes: “And as usual, I turn on my phone to connect to the wifi. To my surprise, I found none. ‘Why is there no wifi?’ I mumbled. ‘Because you’re in Pyongyang,’ my friend said.”
We are happy to step outside into the smoggy streets after dinner. It is interesting to be in Pyongyang for one night, but we prefer to be in Beijing.
– By Manya Koetse
Follow @WhatsOnWeibo
Pyongyang Restaurant
78 Maizidian St, Chaoyang, Beijing
朝阳区麦子店街华康宾馆1层
References
Duncan, Simon. 2014. “North Korean Government-operated restaurants in Southeast Asia.” Second International Conference on Asian Studies, 75-77. Sri Lanka: International Center for Research and Development.
Images: Except for the two images of the waitresses at work (Weibo, BBC) all pictures are the author’s own.
©2016 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
[showad block=1]
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Tsingtao Brewery ‘Pee-Gate’: Factory Worker Caught Urinating in Raw Material Warehouse
The pee incident, that occurred at a subsidiary Tsingtao Beer factory, has caused concerns among consumers.
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
From Baijiu Latte to DIY Liquor Coffee: China’s Coffee Culture Takes a Shot at Coffee + Alcohol Fusion
The recent buzz surrounding the Luckin x Maotai collaboration shows that blending coffee + alcohol might just become the next major trend in Chinese coffee culture.
PREMIUM CONTENT
Would you like a shot with that? Recently, a trend involving the fusion of alcohol and coffee seems to be taking off in China, blending established liquor brands with popular domestic coffee labels.
The concept of mixing alcohol with coffee is relatively new in China, where classics like Irish Coffee never achieved the same recognition as they did in Western countries.
But also, the way in which ‘coffee + alcohol’ is introduced to consumers is different, with brands such as 7-Eleven and Luckin promoting their ‘coffee + liquor shot’ or ‘alcohol lattes.’
As a tea drinking nation, coffee culture is not part of Chinese traditional culture. However, over the past decade, China has witnessed the remarkable growth of a distinct and immensely popular Chinese coffee culture. In this evolving landscape, companies and consumers are continuously finding innovative ways to incorporate coffee into daily city life.
Coffee in China is typically an out-of-home purchase, particularly favored by the middle class (Ferreira & Ferreira 2018, 785). It has become intrinsically linked with modern urban life in China, taking on new cultural meanings related to status, lifestyle, aesthetics, urban communities, and the acquisition of new tastes. Millennials and Gen Z are at the forefront of shaping China’s coffee culture.
The pursuit of unique flavors is a defining aspect of China’s coffee culture, with a strong emphasis on specialty coffee. In fact, Shanghai alone boasts over 7,000 independent coffee houses, surpassing coffee hubs like London or New York (Xu & Ng 2022, 2349). Chinese coffee shops are known for introducing innovative concepts such as fruit-infused coffee, spicy chili coffee, garlic coffee, and liquor-flavored coffees.
Rather than introducing coffee into China’s drinking culture, alcohol is now being integrated into China’s coffee culture, providing consumers with yet another way to enjoy their coffee and explore new flavor experiences.
7-Eleven Blending Coffee with Alcohol
At various 7-Eleven convenience stores in China, you can now purchase a shot of alcohol to go with your coffee. For just 5 yuan ($0.70), customers can add a shot of their preferred liquor, such as Havana or Malibu, to their take-away coffee. It’s also possible to add it to your soda.
7-Eleven DIY counter: adding a shot of Malibu to takeaway coffee. (Image via Xiaohongshu user 今天怎么还没睡).
While we first noticed this option at a Beijing 7-eleven somewhere during the summer of 2023, Radii and Phoenix News reported that the first DYI counter was piloted at a Beijing store in October of 2022.
The counter, that specifically promotes the coffee + alcohol combo, is meant to serve customers who would previously purchase their coffee and then separately buy a full-priced mini bottle of liquor for anywhere in between 20-40 yuan ($2.75-$5.50) for 50ml.
DIY liquor counter at 7-Eleven in Beijing, promoting its “coffee + shot of alcohol” option (Photo by What’s on Weibo).
In late 2022, 7-Eleven in Taiwan also promoted the liquor + coffee combo as it exclusively offered the Hennessy cognac x City Prima coffee “Liquor Latte Set.”
City Prima x Hennessy at 7-Eleven Taiwan (Image via tw.com).
Luckin x Maotai Collab: Introducing Baijiu Latte
While the trend of adding alcohol to coffee seems to be taking off in China, Luckin coffee became all the talk on Chinese social media this week for its collaboration with Maotai (茅台), also known as Moutai, a renowned Chinese brand of baijiu – a type of strong distilled liquor.
Luckin launched the drink on Monday for 38 yuan ($5.20) under the name “酱香拿铁” (jiàng xiāng ná tiě) or “Sauce-Flavored Latte,” soon selling out at various stores and becoming a trending topic online. The ‘sauce’ reference is because of the distinct flavor profile associated with Maotai, often described as having a soy sauce-like aroma (“酱香型”).
The collaboration has become super popular for various reasons, one major one being the unexpected yet exciting combination of two such well-known Chinese brands coming together.
Promotion of the Maotai coffee on Luckin’s Weibo page.
Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡) was founded in Beijing in 2017, opened its first shops in early 2018, and it has seen incredible growth over the past five years. The brand’s primary emphasis lies in providing top-notch coffee at accessible prices in convenient locations. Due to its ubiquity and dominant position in the market, it’s sometimes also referred to as “China’s Starbucks” (“中国星巴克”).
Maotai, made in Maotai in Guizhou Province, prides itself for its 2000-year history and it became the first Chinese liquor to be produced in large-scale production. The strong luxury spirit (53%), known as China’s national liquor, is especially popular among middle-aged and elderly men.
With Luckin being particular popular among China’s younger generations, while Maotai is especially loved among the elder generations, one popular Weibo post about the recent collaboration said: “For young people, it’s their first cup of Maotai, for the elderly, it’s their first cup of Luckin.”
It is also one of the reasons why the trend has become so big this week: many consumers are just curious to try this novel combination, although not everyone likes its special taste.
Trying out the new Luckin x Maotai combo (photos via @互联网欢乐指南).
The blend of coffee with alcohol is really more about the flavor than the buzz; the baijiu-flavored Luckin coffee only has an alcohol content of about 0.5%. One Weibo hashtag related to the question of whether or not people should drive after consuming the drink amassed an astonishing 640 million views (#瑞幸回应喝茅台联名咖啡能否开车#). Despite the very low alcohol content, Luckin still advises that minors, pregnant women, and drivers should avoid consuming the beverage.
The “Chinese version of Irish Coffee,” image on Xiaohongshu via @謝琦鈦.
Some social media users add some extra Maotai to their coffee themselves, calling it the “Chinese version of Irish coffe” (“中国版的爱尔兰咖啡”).
“Milk Tea for Grown-Ups”
Luckin is not the only Chinese coffee house offering a Maotai-flavored latte. Other Chinese coffee shops have independently introduced their own versions of Maotai coffee, without official partnerships.
In addition to company-driven innovations, consumers are also experimenting with their own coffee + liquor blends. On the social media platform Xiaohongshu, numerous users are enthusiastically sharing their personalized methods infusing coffee with Maotai and various other types of alcohol, including adding miniature bottles of Baileys to Starbucks takeaway coffee.
Image via Xiaohongshu user @潮流情报官.
Others are going beyond the coffee trend, and mix their milk tea or fruit tea with Jameson, Kahlua, or other liquors, turning them into “grown-up milk tea” beverages (成年人的奶茶).
While such practices might receive disapproval in many countries, where daytime drinking and adding spirits to coffee could be seen as indicative of alcoholism and irresponsible behavior, in China, these actions generally lack these negative connotations. Many young people just view it as an innovative way to enjoy new tastes, describing it as “a new trendy way to drink coffee” (or tea).
Is the coffee + alcohol mix a temporary trend, or will it become a permanent part of China’s out-of-home coffee culture? On social media, most people are curious to try it out but they are also not convinced the combination is one to stay.
“I don’t really know the flavor of coffee + alcohol, but judging from their effects – alcohol makes me sleepy and coffee wakes me up – I’m afraid it would mix up my nerves, so I don’t dare to try” one commenter (@无边桃炎) wrote.
“It’s just the taste [of mixing coffee with alcohol] that’s really good – apart from the Maotai Luckin one,” one person responded.
They are not alone; numerous young Chinese internet users are speculating that the recent Luckin collaboration is Maotai’s strategy to appeal to China’s younger generations, who do not necessarily appreciate its distinct flavor. These younger demographics have moved away from the traditional drinking culture in which baijiu plays a significant role.
“It’s just so unpleasant to drink,” others write. “Is it alcohol or is it coffee?” another person wonders: “In the end, it’s actually neither.”
While Luckin’s “Sauce-Flavored Latte” might not secure a permanent place on its menu, it’s clear that the trend of adding alcohol to coffee has gained popularity among China’s younger consumers. With 7-Eleven’s DIY counter offering a variety of sweeter liquors for customers to blend with their coffee, it appears they’ve found the perfect “shot” in this coffee and liquor trend.
By Manya Koetse
with contributions by Miranda Barnes
References
Ferreira, Jennifer, and Carlos Ferreira. 2018. “Challenges and Opportunities of New Retail Horizons in Emerging Markets: The Case of a Rising Coffee Culture in China.” Business Horizons 61, no. 5: 783-796.
Xu, Xinyue, and Aaron Yikai Ng. 2023. “Cultivation of New Taste: Taste Makers and New Forms of Distinction in China’s Coffee Culture.” Information, Communication & Society 26, no. 11: 2345-2362.
Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our newsletter and get access to our latest articles:
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.
©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
‘Sister Blood Points’ Controversy: Shanghai Woman’s Tibet Blood Donations Ignite Privilege Debate
Weibo Watch: Doing Homework at the Hospital
‘Auntie Goose Legs’ Goes Viral after Becoming Sensation in Beijing’s Student Scene
The Story of Li Jun & Liang Liang: How the Challenges of an Ordinary Chinese Couple Captivated China’s Internet
Wilders’ Win on Weibo: Hu Xijin and Others Discuss the “Dutch Trump”
Tsingtao Brewery ‘Pee-Gate’: Factory Worker Caught Urinating in Raw Material Warehouse
Too Sexy for Weibo? Online Discussions on the Concept of ‘Cābiān’
Bad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website
The Story of Li Jun & Liang Liang: How the Challenges of an Ordinary Chinese Couple Captivated China’s Internet
Chinese Social Media Reactions to Israel-Hamas War: Pro-Palestinian Sentiments and Anti-Semitic Discourse
China’s National Holiday Crowds: Even the Desert’s Camels Are Stuck in Traffic
Wang Huidi: Stop Referring to Singapore as a Chinese ‘County’ (坡县)
“Elderlies” in Their Thirties: The Growing Interest of Chinese Youth in Nursing Homes
Fashion that Hurts? Online Debates on China’s Draft Law Regarding ‘Harmful’ Clothes
“Oppenheimer” in China: Highlighting the Story of Qian Xuesen
-
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers2 months agoTsingtao Brewery ‘Pee-Gate’: Factory Worker Caught Urinating in Raw Material Warehouse
-
China Digital2 months agoToo Sexy for Weibo? Online Discussions on the Concept of ‘Cābiān’
-
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers3 months agoBad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website
-
China Insight2 weeks agoThe Story of Li Jun & Liang Liang: How the Challenges of an Ordinary Chinese Couple Captivated China’s Internet
Olivier bourgault
August 8, 2016 at 6:45 pm
Um… your wrong. Please fact check before you write some more bs. There’s no such thing as north korean restaurants in south Korea. Why would north korean government send their citizens their when many defect and seek refuge in this country. Plus what the hell is south Korea thinking if they let pyongyang restaurants do business in their country. Makes no sense. Thirdly if you can’t find a better korean restaurant than that in Beijing you suck.
Manya Koetse
August 8, 2016 at 7:24 pm
Dear Olivier, thank you for your comment. We always fact-check and refer to our sources. You are not right in saying that there are no North Korean restaurants in South Korea (http://smileyjkl.blogspot.nl/2012/11/north-korean-restaurant-in-seoul.html – you might want to fact-check before writing 😉 ). You are, however, right in pointing out that they are probably not the same as that in Beijing and other cities. Thanks for this – we’ve adjusted it. Thirdly, nowhere did we write that there were no better Korean restaurants in Beijing than this particular one. You might want to check out other blogs if you were looking for restaurants recommendations. Regards, Manya (What’s on Weibo editor)
Olivier bourgault
August 9, 2016 at 5:42 am
Oops. I meant no such thing as state owned pyongyang restaurants in south Korea. 🙂 😛