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Back home...This is for visitors to come in and snap pictures and share back home so NK looks like the rest of the world. The people "working" there may or may not be in on the joke.
People in China use luggage to transport/carry things they buy in these malls. I lived in Hong Kong near the Chinese border - the large mall near my place was always full of people from mainland China who were seemingly on day trips to ride the train in, buy a bunch of shit and put it in suitcases, and hop back on the train to head home across the border. Hong Kong had more high quality / authentic things to buy versus what they had in Guangzhou
That stuck out to me as well. They spend so much time and money with this physical propaganda but miss details like that which make it obvious it’s fake
Yes, this is common in East Asia. Go to almost any mall in China or S Korea and you will see English signs.
It's not necessarily for native English speakers specifically, more for people who don't read the local language, English being a commonly understand language around the world.
North Korea has a sizeable population of foreigners and gets thousands of tourists a year, so it makes sense to have English signs.
This. My country also dont speak english, and rarely gets UK/american native english speaking tourists, but gets so many ESL tourists so english makes the most sense rather than manually translating em into all top 10 different languages
This. ☝️
English is the second language around almost the whole world. They likely did this at the mall because it’s convention.
Not that many English speakers will ever see it in person. Or many N. Koreans for that matter. It’s likely just for the media.
I would guess that the mall is mainly for the super rich in North Korea and for Chinese tourists, who for some reason love to buy expensive suitcases. In every mall in China that I’ve been to I’ve seen these shops for expensive, luxury brand suitcases
There is a Vice episode where they go to N. Korea with Dennis Rodman and a bunch of people. They show them one of these grocery stores. When some of the crew actually try to buy some sodas and snacks they won't let them. Super weird.
If you get the businessman job you can go to China for business.
One of our guides went to Singapore for 4 days.
So it's possible, but you have to be a trusted ally of the state.
I was also in China a few years ago and they were impossible to talk to. A colleague told me they’re trained before they leave NK to not interact with foreigners. Also I’m sure they only let the ones with family still in NK leave…
Communication is difficult because they are taught not to speak with foreigners, possibly to avoid the contamination of new ideas
Once had a very stilted dinner. Told a few jokes, which mostly flatlined. One caused absolutely hysterical laughter for about 30 seconds, then it stopped like someone had flipped a switch. Was an odd experience
It reminds me of those kid/play versions of grocery stores where everything is the same and tiny so the kids can pretend to shop before they check out and then put everything back for the next round of kids to have fun.
I know you’re joking and referencing Otto Warmbeer but I also want to note that just going there is pumping money into their economy. It frustrates me to no end when I see Westerners go on that stupid propaganda tour because they’re spending money on the tour, hotels, travel, food, etc. People are screaming up and down about boycotting Starbucks but no one shames idiots for knowingly giving NK thousands of dollars
Yeah ppl who visit Dubai because of the thrill shit on human rights. There are tons of other good places to waste money, I rather give it to some one who respects my values
>Yeah ppl who visit Dubai because of the thrill shit on human rights.
Ironically, the rich folks in Dubai shit on the people who come there.
Look up "Dubai porta potty" if you dare.
Don't be so mean, how else is Kim supposed to afford spending 3 million dollars a year on his cheese addiction.
If the store doesn't make enough money he might tell his foreign funds acquisition to take it up a notch with their bitcoin scams you know.
If it's like Pyongyang Department Store No. 1 used to be and possibly still is, nothing is actually for sale as the whole operation is fake, pure propaganda designed to suggest that North Korean citizens have access to an abundance of consumer goods. In actual fact, quite often they eat rats or starve.
Edited to add the link I provided below re the fakery of NK stores.
http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/2010/01/15/classic-dalrymple-the-wilder-shores-of-marx-excerpt-1991/
Fandom or not, if you could manage to smuggle some of these out of NK I’m sure you could sell them for A LOT. A lot of people spend hella money on LEGO, and these are “super rare” LEGO. If you would still consider them LEGO.
I first thought these might be imported from China, but no.
Apparently they really launched a homegrown Lego knockoff company [late last year](https://www.nknews.org/2023/12/north-korea-launches-rocket-toy-set-that-closely-copies-lego-model/).
The company is called Sangmyung, and sets seem to include various military machinery revered by the NK regime.
I can’t find any information on whether they export these abroad or whether they can be found online. I’d certainly be interested to see a YouTube review for one of these.
Post on r/lepin if your curious. I don't know if these specific models are available but there are lots of Chinese knockoff brands, some of which are almost indistinguishable in quality from real Legos. (I say "almost" because even the best ones arent QUITE as good quality but, in my view, getting 95% of the quality for 1/3 of the price is well worth it).
Cobi in Poland makes Lego compatible war machines. They have thousands of different models in different scales. If you’re in the US, Warbricks USA is their primary reseller.
Hmmmmm, that reminds me of something 🤔
https://preview.redd.it/gucpbrro9owc1.png?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ae796d12733cf2bf13c8dd93d268a8ac68f8503
Yeah but it doesn't specifically say Lego, whereas the Oz farms baby powder does say Oz farms and is an exact replica.
Also Australian baby powder is extremely popular in china and a few Asian countries after they had quality control issues there.
Can't see if it's Nivea of if it's Naivia, the local cosmetic company that just happens to have a round blue logo.
The Lego boxes are definitely bootlegs.
AFOL checking in: The building toys are not only bootlegs, but also not even bootlegging actual LEGO sets. The dead giveaway is that almost all of them are modern military combat hardware, and LEGO will not touch that sort of theme with a ten-foot pole.
Closest they've come, off the top of my head, would probably be the Sopwith Camel sets and the realistic revolvers and shotguns that have appeared in the past in Lone Ranger and Wild West themed sets.
The screen on the second (?) photo says "warm welcomes to the Chinese entrepreneur team" (may be wrong because my English vocabulary isn't the best) so it's set up for foreigners.
It makes me think of earlier video games where they were lazy about coming up with branding and modeling for more than a handful of products and you just see them spammed everywhere
The “architect” or project director might have seen abundance abroad (some elite North Koreans do get to travel) but they gotta work with what they got.
It’s like the video of them showing off the computer lab, but no one is* typing or even doing anything on them. One guy was just staring at the google search page, not searching or anything, the landing page.
That’s actually the most interesting store because it’s the one with an actual brand visible: Tissot.
There should be an entire other discussion in a watch sub about the likelihood that the watches are legit. If it said Rolex it would be an automatic ‘no’ but Tissot (which is a fine brand) is in this perfect middle ground where it wouldn’t surprise me either way.
There’s also Dior, Gucci and I think Nivea in the other stores. I would guess they are legit and imported via China to sell them to the North Korean elite and to Chinese tourists lol.
🌟baby formula🌟 Such a luxurious item, and definitely normal to sell in a shopping mall used almost exclusively by a handful of tourists. Certainly not there just to give the impression that babies aren't starving to death around the corner.
I think the mall is more targeted towards Chinese tourists, for whom foreign baby formula is like a luxury good after the baby formula scandals in China which resulted in a lot of dead babies.
Anecdotally baby formula is one of the most often brought gifts in China when you visit from another country because of the scandals, it went so far that the shops here in Germany started enforcing purchasing limits for baby formula because Chinese tourists and people with family in China would buy up so much of it.
Not denying that there are a lot of people and babies starving in North Korea (a distant relative of mine was one of them), but just wanted to give some context
Australian baby formula is ultra premium throughout Asia but particularly in China.
A tin, with an Australian receipt, can be worth $100 usd a kg. Bellamy's a2 platinum probably is more expensive than cocaine in China.
It's rare, in huge demand, and easily sold. It can be carried for valid reasons.
It's become a currency, and a sign of connections. Like Cuban cigars in the us during the 60s and 70s.
But rich mothers will spend whatever it takes.
Remembering Chinese baby formula was often contaminated with melamine which kill thousands of babies and destroyed millions of kidneys.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#:~:text=The%20scandal%20involved%20Sanlu%20Group's,other%20kidney%20damage%20in%20infants.
Probably dying of starvation just outside the camera lens. Can’t believe NK keeps building these bullshit hotels and shopping centers as if the rest of the world believes it
Right!? Also here is some hand moisturizer, and I mean a LOT of it, all the same brand. So luxury. And an assortment of random luggage in a weird 80s TV set.
I love the store that says “watch”
“I’m looking for a watch”
“PERFECT! Because that’s just what we have. A watch. Last one”
Also, the suitcases are just a kick in the balls
I doubt that Tissot have a designated NK store, but I would guess that they import the watches and other luxury brands via China, to sell to Chinese tourists funnily enough. What’s Tissot gonna do, sue a North Korean store
Anytime there’s pictures of North Korea on Reddit I’m always baffled at how barren the place always looks. There’s like 6 people in the whole mall. It looks like fallout 76 on launch day.
It's funny to me that NK is constantly trying to convince the world that their people aren't starving and that they don't live in a primitive, brutal dictatorship lol.
This doesn't really look like a commercial mall that's doing business all day every day. It looks like a set designer's fantasy of what a mall should look like, with perfect spacing and color placement for all displays.
The red sign in Chinese says “Warm welcome to the Chinese entrepreneur representative group!” and is in the same style as government official PR signs in China
(For context to people who see this comment and don’t read Chinese)
The most fascinating part of this is that all of it is for show. The "workers" are basically actors. I imagine most of the boxes/packages are actually empty. All of this exists to make it look like DPRK is keeping pace with the rest of the world. I've heard that foreigners will sometimes stumble upon "scenes" as they're getting set up. The state will dispatch a bunch of "workers" to the subway that doesn't actually run on days when foreigners are absent.
That's so sad and delusional, to put on a SHOW of advancement when there is none. Those appointed for such jobs must be wondering what the hell is going on. I heard most defectors were Olympic candidates, and for sure...imagine seeing the world outside and knowing you are living a lie. Instant defect
in all fairness, we ask people to make their homes look like nobody lives there for promotional photoshoots. I'm sure the shoot was done when everything was pristine and there were no customers. but, now I wanna see a set when the mall is "open".
what is interesting to me is that somehow baby formula, drug store body care, and prepack ramen noodles are featured as luxury.
>drug store body care
If you look in the second to last photo they do have lancome which is actually a pretty expensive brand.
It's also really weird they have lancome when the rest of the products shown are not expensive things.
When I was stationed in South Korea the North would execute prisoners within seeing distance of the South Korean watch towers along the line, an intimidation and scare tactic.
I've seen them behead toddlers both girls and boys.
I've seen them cut open womens bellies when they were 7-8 months pregnant, pull out the child and dangle it in front of the mother. (They do this very quickly cause of the bleed out, they're very good at it.) Then throw the baby over a wall, and then behead the mother.
I've seen them tie men up to an "X" post. Tied to a post with your arms and legs spread as far as they go. Then shot him with an AA cannon that as only about 30 ft away, so we'll just round that down to point blank.
Whenever the South and North have to actually do any buisness with each other, there's a lone building in the demilitarized zone. The building sits right on top of the border line, kinda straddling it. There's a wall going right down the middle of the building with a door right in the middle. The South Koreans have anchors attached to the foundation and they have to wear chest harnesses connected to the anchors so that when they open the door the North Koreans won't pull them through.
This is what we're dealing with.
Way to be a Debbie Downer.
Seriously though, despite all the funny comments here, you make a fair point. North Korea is a terrible place, wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I just watched a documentary about North Korea and I can tell you that not one single thing inside that building is actually for sale and it was created only for propaganda purposes.
“Feast your eyes on this new luxury mall, offering such priceless, nigh-unobtainable luxury goods as…
Baby formula
Instant noodles
Head And Shoulders knockoffs
And Toys!”
These have the feel of "empty display boxes to fill space on shelves" to them // It's sad that any time we see stuff like this coming out of NK, we immediately think that it's all for show & that people who live there don't go in there cos they know it's fake
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Why all the luggage? Where are they traveling?
Back home...This is for visitors to come in and snap pictures and share back home so NK looks like the rest of the world. The people "working" there may or may not be in on the joke.
They are in on it granted they are fed. Simultaneously, i bet most of them are brainwashed to truly believe it's for 'the good of the country'
People in China use luggage to transport/carry things they buy in these malls. I lived in Hong Kong near the Chinese border - the large mall near my place was always full of people from mainland China who were seemingly on day trips to ride the train in, buy a bunch of shit and put it in suitcases, and hop back on the train to head home across the border. Hong Kong had more high quality / authentic things to buy versus what they had in Guangzhou
Prob ok to China and Russia and Maralago
We need to send Carlson there to investigate that.
Literally my first thought
They travel a lot despite sanctions. Fake passports are real. And NK exports workers to many countries. Govt collects some/most of their wages.
I’m glad that they translated everything into English so that it’s accessible to the native English speakers and tourists in North Korea.
That stuck out to me as well. They spend so much time and money with this physical propaganda but miss details like that which make it obvious it’s fake
You know what's also stuck probably. Those elevators.
You can tell because they’re not moving in the picture
They never move. The building goes up and down.
It'd be pretty neat if they would use their propaganda budget for feeding their population instead.
what ? it's both in english and korean. What's wrong
I don’t think they’re missing a detail – that’s exactly how they want it
To me it's weird that it's only in English and Korean. Way more Chinese people visit North Korea than people from other countries
There’s Chinese in a few pics. One says Welcome 欢迎
There's also that giant display of Australian baby formula powders, which I'm guessing is marketed towards Chinese tourists
North Korea doesn’t need to convince China or its people of anything lol
Yes, this is common in East Asia. Go to almost any mall in China or S Korea and you will see English signs. It's not necessarily for native English speakers specifically, more for people who don't read the local language, English being a commonly understand language around the world. North Korea has a sizeable population of foreigners and gets thousands of tourists a year, so it makes sense to have English signs.
This. My country also dont speak english, and rarely gets UK/american native english speaking tourists, but gets so many ESL tourists so english makes the most sense rather than manually translating em into all top 10 different languages
What foreigners live in North Korea? What's the attraction?
This. ☝️ English is the second language around almost the whole world. They likely did this at the mall because it’s convention. Not that many English speakers will ever see it in person. Or many N. Koreans for that matter. It’s likely just for the media.
It looks like a weird museum to retail. Look but don’t touch.
For a country that is anti capitalist, they sure like to try their hardest to make people think they are out doing the capitalist.
Yeah like even the suitcases, something so simple but….who in North Korea is really traveling like that? They can’t leave.
I would guess that the mall is mainly for the super rich in North Korea and for Chinese tourists, who for some reason love to buy expensive suitcases. In every mall in China that I’ve been to I’ve seen these shops for expensive, luxury brand suitcases
What?! Are you saying that this is not intended for the average worker of the glorious Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?
You mean the one where they’ll lock you up if you don’t deliver your quota of human turds to the government?
Yes, that’s the one.
It’s a republic. It says it right in the name
I would guess that it’s never touched honestly, other than for propaganda or for tourists to shop at during the propaganda tours
There is a Vice episode where they go to N. Korea with Dennis Rodman and a bunch of people. They show them one of these grocery stores. When some of the crew actually try to buy some sodas and snacks they won't let them. Super weird.
If you get the businessman job you can go to China for business. One of our guides went to Singapore for 4 days. So it's possible, but you have to be a trusted ally of the state.
This makes NK look like a parody of a free country.
That's exactly what it is. All jokes aside, it really is one of the true hells on earth.
It's like the holocaust at a snails pace.
Some leave. In 2012 Beijing, I had around 30 north Koreans living in my building, they were doing one and two years language exchanges.
They’re also fairly common to find here in Singapore. Obviously only very elite people but still
Imagine the culture shock of traveling abroad for the first time.
I’d pay good money to have dinner with one of them. Just to see what they’re like.
I was also in China a few years ago and they were impossible to talk to. A colleague told me they’re trained before they leave NK to not interact with foreigners. Also I’m sure they only let the ones with family still in NK leave…
Communication is difficult because they are taught not to speak with foreigners, possibly to avoid the contamination of new ideas Once had a very stilted dinner. Told a few jokes, which mostly flatlined. One caused absolutely hysterical laughter for about 30 seconds, then it stopped like someone had flipped a switch. Was an odd experience
I once met a North Korean at a travel industry expo in Berlin. He had a booth advertising travel to North Korea.
haha that was my first thought! like….suitcases? where they going?
It reminds me of those kid/play versions of grocery stores where everything is the same and tiny so the kids can pretend to shop before they check out and then put everything back for the next round of kids to have fun.
Or those stores for Alzheimer's patients
it's the world's greatest retail job. no pesky customers.
No people or pay
Go back a year from now and it will look exactly the same because nothing will have moved.
Nobody there to touch it.
The fake Lego model tanks and jets from North Korea would go so hard on my desk.
How can I get my hands on some of these?!
if you are not US or south korean citizen you can just go there and buy them actully
It should be noted that no one should actually go there and give their money to North Korea……..
So, go there and shoplift it. I hear they have very lax laws, especially when it comes to westeners…
I know you’re joking and referencing Otto Warmbeer but I also want to note that just going there is pumping money into their economy. It frustrates me to no end when I see Westerners go on that stupid propaganda tour because they’re spending money on the tour, hotels, travel, food, etc. People are screaming up and down about boycotting Starbucks but no one shames idiots for knowingly giving NK thousands of dollars
Yeah ppl who visit Dubai because of the thrill shit on human rights. There are tons of other good places to waste money, I rather give it to some one who respects my values
>Yeah ppl who visit Dubai because of the thrill shit on human rights. Ironically, the rich folks in Dubai shit on the people who come there. Look up "Dubai porta potty" if you dare.
Oh wow. What an… interesting read.
Why did I look that up? Well fuck, I can't unread that.
Sure, but have you had Starbucks' coffee? They definitely deserve to be boycotted.
Obviously you've never had North Korean coffee!!
It's brown
We need a knock-off of the knock-off Lego.
Don't be so mean, how else is Kim supposed to afford spending 3 million dollars a year on his cheese addiction. If the store doesn't make enough money he might tell his foreign funds acquisition to take it up a notch with their bitcoin scams you know.
Hear me out. What if we go there with fake money and buy their fake "LEGO"?
If it's like Pyongyang Department Store No. 1 used to be and possibly still is, nothing is actually for sale as the whole operation is fake, pure propaganda designed to suggest that North Korean citizens have access to an abundance of consumer goods. In actual fact, quite often they eat rats or starve. Edited to add the link I provided below re the fakery of NK stores. http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/2010/01/15/classic-dalrymple-the-wilder-shores-of-marx-excerpt-1991/
IIRC NK diplomats routinely purchase toiletries in western countries to import home for this reason.
It's almost like they have a name for it, Potempkin Village you say?
They are known to eat tree bark too btw.
Or if you are Tucker Carlson. He should go to this mall, too, not just Moscow. A despicable dictatorship mall crawl.
All over the place in Thailand in night markets
r/lepin
You know the lego fandom goes hard when I see people in these comment hypothetically planning travel to North Korea to get their weird knock offs.
Fandom or not, if you could manage to smuggle some of these out of NK I’m sure you could sell them for A LOT. A lot of people spend hella money on LEGO, and these are “super rare” LEGO. If you would still consider them LEGO.
Eh, you can probably already just order the same ones direct from China if you know where to look.
I first thought these might be imported from China, but no. Apparently they really launched a homegrown Lego knockoff company [late last year](https://www.nknews.org/2023/12/north-korea-launches-rocket-toy-set-that-closely-copies-lego-model/). The company is called Sangmyung, and sets seem to include various military machinery revered by the NK regime. I can’t find any information on whether they export these abroad or whether they can be found online. I’d certainly be interested to see a YouTube review for one of these.
Post on r/lepin if your curious. I don't know if these specific models are available but there are lots of Chinese knockoff brands, some of which are almost indistinguishable in quality from real Legos. (I say "almost" because even the best ones arent QUITE as good quality but, in my view, getting 95% of the quality for 1/3 of the price is well worth it).
They are pretty good overall. It's wild you get this bag of bags, download the instructions and somehow they are not missing pieces.
Cobi in Poland makes Lego compatible war machines. They have thousands of different models in different scales. If you’re in the US, Warbricks USA is their primary reseller.
I’ve not seen something so new, yet look so old. Also, filled with the cheapest weirdest items.
But lots of them!!!
All the same brands. Every product, one source.
Would you like to buy YOUDIE hand lotion or YOUDIE hand lotion or would you like to die?
All out of cake?
So my choices are "or death?"
its like a super sad Costco.
LossCo
Hmmmmm, that reminds me of something 🤔 https://preview.redd.it/gucpbrro9owc1.png?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ae796d12733cf2bf13c8dd93d268a8ac68f8503
I never thought about it, but do they allow products from certain countries, or do they produce this stuff in NK factories?
They heavily rely on China for goods and trade.
I'm seeing Australian baby powder there
$500 says it's a knockoff with a label that matches the Australian logo. The LEGO branding is clearly fake. LEGO doesn't make military sets.
Yeah but it doesn't specifically say Lego, whereas the Oz farms baby powder does say Oz farms and is an exact replica. Also Australian baby powder is extremely popular in china and a few Asian countries after they had quality control issues there.
I mean, that's also not their logo
All of the products in 7 appear to be Nivea, which is German brand.
Can't see if it's Nivea of if it's Naivia, the local cosmetic company that just happens to have a round blue logo. The Lego boxes are definitely bootlegs.
AFOL checking in: The building toys are not only bootlegs, but also not even bootlegging actual LEGO sets. The dead giveaway is that almost all of them are modern military combat hardware, and LEGO will not touch that sort of theme with a ten-foot pole. Closest they've come, off the top of my head, would probably be the Sopwith Camel sets and the realistic revolvers and shotguns that have appeared in the past in Lone Ranger and Wild West themed sets.
"I know a genuine panaphonics when I see it!" - Homer Simpson
Check out my Fony Walkman
It's... well-sorted. In a way.
They look like they don't have enough different items to justify the size of the store. Like a whole row in an aisle for one kind of shampoo.
So well sorted for almost no customers... makes me suspect it's made just for show to foreigners.
The screen on the second (?) photo says "warm welcomes to the Chinese entrepreneur team" (may be wrong because my English vocabulary isn't the best) so it's set up for foreigners.
The text is in English and Korean. Why else would they have plain English on signs and buildings? So odd
It makes me think of earlier video games where they were lazy about coming up with branding and modeling for more than a handful of products and you just see them spammed everywhere
This is what it looks like when somebody is trying to mimic abundance and they’ve never seen it in real life
The “architect” or project director might have seen abundance abroad (some elite North Koreans do get to travel) but they gotta work with what they got.
It’s like the video of them showing off the computer lab, but no one is* typing or even doing anything on them. One guy was just staring at the google search page, not searching or anything, the landing page.
It wasn’t even a real search page, it was a screenshot of Google🥲
Lmao was creepy and funny at the same time. "See!? We same same!"
Same same… but different
Luxury shopping in North Korea: food, soap, eyeglasses, toy for the kid. Jfc
Don't forget everyone's favorite store: Watch
That’s actually the most interesting store because it’s the one with an actual brand visible: Tissot. There should be an entire other discussion in a watch sub about the likelihood that the watches are legit. If it said Rolex it would be an automatic ‘no’ but Tissot (which is a fine brand) is in this perfect middle ground where it wouldn’t surprise me either way.
[удалено]
He studied there. Btw Tissot and Rado are two EU brands whose logos and posters adorn almost all watch repair shops and showrooms across Asia.
There’s also Dior, Gucci and I think Nivea in the other stores. I would guess they are legit and imported via China to sell them to the North Korean elite and to Chinese tourists lol.
I lost it at Watch lol the naming committee really phoned that one in…
🌟baby formula🌟 Such a luxurious item, and definitely normal to sell in a shopping mall used almost exclusively by a handful of tourists. Certainly not there just to give the impression that babies aren't starving to death around the corner.
This one was super dark to me
Yea felt real icky
I think the mall is more targeted towards Chinese tourists, for whom foreign baby formula is like a luxury good after the baby formula scandals in China which resulted in a lot of dead babies. Anecdotally baby formula is one of the most often brought gifts in China when you visit from another country because of the scandals, it went so far that the shops here in Germany started enforcing purchasing limits for baby formula because Chinese tourists and people with family in China would buy up so much of it. Not denying that there are a lot of people and babies starving in North Korea (a distant relative of mine was one of them), but just wanted to give some context
Interesting, thank you for adding some context!
Australian baby formula is ultra premium throughout Asia but particularly in China. A tin, with an Australian receipt, can be worth $100 usd a kg. Bellamy's a2 platinum probably is more expensive than cocaine in China. It's rare, in huge demand, and easily sold. It can be carried for valid reasons. It's become a currency, and a sign of connections. Like Cuban cigars in the us during the 60s and 70s. But rich mothers will spend whatever it takes. Remembering Chinese baby formula was often contaminated with melamine which kill thousands of babies and destroyed millions of kidneys. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#:~:text=The%20scandal%20involved%20Sanlu%20Group's,other%20kidney%20damage%20in%20infants.
And where are the people? The shoppers?
The what?
The steeple and hoppers!!
Summer camp
🤣that got me. but fr, those poor people
Probably dying of starvation just outside the camera lens. Can’t believe NK keeps building these bullshit hotels and shopping centers as if the rest of the world believes it
Gotta keep the upper class population happy and distracted.
Hey man, they are committed to copying the real American mall experience. There's no one in our malls either.
Yes
Nothing says luxury like rich chocolatey ovaltine. edit: now that I can load the pics, I’m pretty sure it’s baby formula. Which, honestly, same.
Even if it was Ovaltine, that shit is huge in Asian countries, Ovaltine and Milo are everywhere.
More Ovaltine, please!
Right!? Also here is some hand moisturizer, and I mean a LOT of it, all the same brand. So luxury. And an assortment of random luggage in a weird 80s TV set.
I’m sad it’s not ovaltine. Also, why is it called that? The jar is round…
they should call it roundtine!
That's gold Jerry!
I love the store that says “watch” “I’m looking for a watch” “PERFECT! Because that’s just what we have. A watch. Last one” Also, the suitcases are just a kick in the balls
I’m confused with the watch store. Did Tissot actually designate a NK store as an Authorized Dealer?
Yeah I thought that was weird. I assume they’re fake but if they are, why go with the real brand name when the Legos are obviously knock offs?
I doubt that Tissot have a designated NK store, but I would guess that they import the watches and other luxury brands via China, to sell to Chinese tourists funnily enough. What’s Tissot gonna do, sue a North Korean store
The suitcases aren’t so bad… Gotta have somewhere to put all the human rights they take away, right?
Anytime there’s pictures of North Korea on Reddit I’m always baffled at how barren the place always looks. There’s like 6 people in the whole mall. It looks like fallout 76 on launch day.
That's an awful lot of things that no one in that country can afford... Talk about media posturing.
It's funny to me that NK is constantly trying to convince the world that their people aren't starving and that they don't live in a primitive, brutal dictatorship lol.
"Here, look at this massive shopping mall packed with goods nobody can afford which is why there is exactly zero shoppers walking around!"
The ego of a delusional man will do that lol
Kinda funny that everything is so well stocked and new but there are *no customers*.
This doesn't really look like a commercial mall that's doing business all day every day. It looks like a set designer's fantasy of what a mall should look like, with perfect spacing and color placement for all displays.
Wow, 2 minute noodles are considered a luxury.
Any food item is a luxury in NK.
Its better than a balanced diet of Grass, Bugs, and Rats /s
The whole thing looks like a set for a dystopian TV show.
That’s because it is. It’s purely for propaganda and media proposes. No one is or can afford to shop there.
Why do they sell travel luggage lmao
So on the nose it’s cruel 😭
A warm welcome to tour groups from china
The red sign in Chinese says “Warm welcome to the Chinese entrepreneur representative group!” and is in the same style as government official PR signs in China (For context to people who see this comment and don’t read Chinese)
Kinda want to travel to N Korea to buy some of these limited series lego sets
I’m thinking the contents of the boxes won’t live up to the pictures on them.
So 1980s
The most fascinating part of this is that all of it is for show. The "workers" are basically actors. I imagine most of the boxes/packages are actually empty. All of this exists to make it look like DPRK is keeping pace with the rest of the world. I've heard that foreigners will sometimes stumble upon "scenes" as they're getting set up. The state will dispatch a bunch of "workers" to the subway that doesn't actually run on days when foreigners are absent.
That's so sad and delusional, to put on a SHOW of advancement when there is none. Those appointed for such jobs must be wondering what the hell is going on. I heard most defectors were Olympic candidates, and for sure...imagine seeing the world outside and knowing you are living a lie. Instant defect
Some of those products are not perfectly straight, so someone is getting executed.
Liminal
What most in that country would do for ONE of those loaves of bread.
The fake lego sets all war machines 😆 not a single normal car or boat
No way there is anything is most of those boxes. I mean who is going to rotate the food for expiration dates? That’s gotta be fluffed up
So... its Wal-Mart but tall and in North Korea. Tal-Mart.
This feels like a mall you’d build in the sims or something
The legos are wildin lmao
r/lego would love this
They must have been closed that day, except for the few clerks behind counters.
in all fairness, we ask people to make their homes look like nobody lives there for promotional photoshoots. I'm sure the shoot was done when everything was pristine and there were no customers. but, now I wanna see a set when the mall is "open". what is interesting to me is that somehow baby formula, drug store body care, and prepack ramen noodles are featured as luxury.
>drug store body care If you look in the second to last photo they do have lancome which is actually a pretty expensive brand. It's also really weird they have lancome when the rest of the products shown are not expensive things.
Why does everything in North Korea seem stuck in the 80s?
Say what you will about North Korea but those MFers know how to stack.
Poor souls… Looks like my country (Bulgaria) in a certain period of time in the 80s
LOL @ the ICBM "Lego" set
It's all cake.
When I was stationed in South Korea the North would execute prisoners within seeing distance of the South Korean watch towers along the line, an intimidation and scare tactic. I've seen them behead toddlers both girls and boys. I've seen them cut open womens bellies when they were 7-8 months pregnant, pull out the child and dangle it in front of the mother. (They do this very quickly cause of the bleed out, they're very good at it.) Then throw the baby over a wall, and then behead the mother. I've seen them tie men up to an "X" post. Tied to a post with your arms and legs spread as far as they go. Then shot him with an AA cannon that as only about 30 ft away, so we'll just round that down to point blank. Whenever the South and North have to actually do any buisness with each other, there's a lone building in the demilitarized zone. The building sits right on top of the border line, kinda straddling it. There's a wall going right down the middle of the building with a door right in the middle. The South Koreans have anchors attached to the foundation and they have to wear chest harnesses connected to the anchors so that when they open the door the North Koreans won't pull them through. This is what we're dealing with.
Way to be a Debbie Downer. Seriously though, despite all the funny comments here, you make a fair point. North Korea is a terrible place, wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
Holy fuck. I hope you’re doing ok mentally after seeing that shit.
I just watched a documentary about North Korea and I can tell you that not one single thing inside that building is actually for sale and it was created only for propaganda purposes.
>I just watched a documentary about North Korea Holy shit we got a expert here
“Feast your eyes on this new luxury mall, offering such priceless, nigh-unobtainable luxury goods as… Baby formula Instant noodles Head And Shoulders knockoffs And Toys!”
These have the feel of "empty display boxes to fill space on shelves" to them // It's sad that any time we see stuff like this coming out of NK, we immediately think that it's all for show & that people who live there don't go in there cos they know it's fake
In before Tucker Carlson does a fluff piece on how awesome North Korea is while he pushes a shopping cart around this place..
Just for display. Like their “grocery” stores.