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The Story Behind North Korean Jeans (spiegel.de)
20 points by JacobAldridge on Jan 27, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments



You've got to find a little bit of amusement in Swedes naming their hip North Korean jeans based on a corruption of a Japanese word which is itself a coinage half-derived from English.


I thought it was sad that I'd assumed Kara and Oke meant something relevant in Korean. Nearly slapped myself in the face when I put them together.


Is there more to this story? It just seemed to end...


My general impression is that doing business with the DPRK is easier than generally thought; it's just that they don't really offer that many competitive advantages to doing so. Someone once posted a link on HN giving a price list for DPRK _software developers_ (generally without a constant Internet connection).

I went to the DPRK last summer, and it was quite easy. I Paypaled my money and emailed a picture of my passport to Koryo Tours, and a few months later I found myself in Beijing waiting to get onboard a 30-year-old Soviet-built Tupolev jet.


Right? What's the fuss about?


History has a term for guys like these. It's "useful idiots".




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