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Welcome to the reboot of The Creamcast! From the studio of Popup Chinese, RFH and I welcomed Andray Abrahamian, Executive Director at Choson Exchange, and Simon Cockerell, general manager of Koryo Tours, to talk about all things North Korea — spying, journalism (7:35 mark), coffee (21:43), reunification (27:30), and whether animals cry (this was really a predominant theme).

Obviously we also discussed The Interview (35:20) and the merits of Katy Perry.

Other topics included: the Daily Mail’s profile of Simon, beginning with this headline –

A love of killer high heels, dog ribs in gravy and why Bend It Like Beckham is a smash: Man who’s been to North Korea 140 times shares his unrivalled insight into ‘normal’ life in the world’s most secretive nation

– Andray’s insightful editorial in the Wall Street Journal, and a book recommendation, the forthcoming North Korea Confidential by Daniel Tudor and James Pearson.

A quick note: this episode wasn’t without its technical difficulties, and for that I offer my apologies. But we’ll try again this week, and promise to do better.

We offer our sincerest thanks to Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio, and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 15 of The Creamcast — THE REBOOT – here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

The amazing folks over at the North Korea news and analysis website NK News are back with the second edition of their (hopefully annual*) NK News Calendar, with pictures by award-winning photographer Eric Lafforgue. You can buy the calendar here – and get $5 off by entering beijingcream as the coupon code.

There’s more to North Korea than “propaganda, nuclear weapons, and military parades,” as stated on the calendar’s website, and if you doubt that, just check out some of the photos below, which NK News has graciously shared with us. It’s the portrait of a peoples, depicting frailty, joy, hope and ambition, discipline, yearning, and love.

A more cynical person might call it infirmity, brainwashing, zeal and conviction, Juche, hungering, and idolization, but doing so would be to ignore the very real striving that happens anywhere and everywhere for that universal yet so singularly human value of self-actualization. And besides, we’re talking about flip sides of life here, spinning one to the next, and who can say how this coin — for you, in this life or the next — might land?

*Lafforgue cannot return to North Korea. As he told Business Insider last year: “They know that when I come, I take pictures. They prefer the tourism money, until it causes a problem for one of the people in charge.”

Note: while images of political leaders appear in the sample photos below, the calendar itself is “100% propaganda free.” As NK News explains: “We know you don’t want portraits of North Korean leaders on your wall, so rest assured in knowing that the North Korea Wall calendar is 100% propaganda free. And know that not a single cent from your purchase goes towards the North Korean government.” So go check it out.

Armchair traveling is fine and the app certainly is good for that — it has great pictures, interesting tidbits about the locations and facilities, and geo-tagging by Curtis Melvin, perhaps the world’s foremost North Korea satellite imagery expert. But if you’re living in Beijing – or, God forbid, disgusting vapid Shanghai* – Pyongyang is quite easy to get to for a relatively cheap price, so is this app useful for people thinking of actually visiting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?

Other useful sections include a comprehensive FAQ and an “ethics” section, which is essentially an essay by the eminent professor Andrei Lankov, making the case for the positive effects of tourism in North Korea. (For an interesting debate among defectors on this issue, check out this article on NK News.)

Still, if you’re a non-American businessperson, economist or lawyer and feel uneasy about “just touring,” one can also travel to North Korea with Choson Exchange, a Singaporean non-profit that runs workshops in entrepreneurship, economic policy and law. Um. I may work for that organization.

*Sorry, I just want to get sucked into this silly expat faux-rivalry.

Andray Abrahamian is the Executive Director of Choson Exchange, a Singaporean non-profit that runs workshops in entrepreneurship, economic policy and law for North Koreans. He has a PhD in international relations/North Korea stuff.

For the seventh consecutive year on Monday, the Chinese men’s ping-pong team won the Swaythling Cup. (Apparently familiarity doesn’t make the trophy any less awkward to handle.) It’s the 19th time they’ve finished first at the World Table Tennis Championships, which was held this time in Tokyo. The Chinese women’s team, not to be outdone, also won – also its 19th team title at this worlds competition. The women have lost only twice since 1975.

I mean… congratulations? No team title should be disparaged, especially since it looks like Team Germany gave China a bit of resistance, actually taking one game before falling 3-1. But, man, seven in a row and 19 total… maybe it’s time to give the Chinese a handicap? Like, smaller paddles, or ankle weights, or something. Look:

China’s domination of the sport extends to the Olympics. The kids here grow up with ping-pong and do stuff like this at the park, so it’s not a surprise that the rest of the world has no chance in international competitions.

Good luck next year, everyone else. But honestly, it probably won’t matter:

Meanwhile, via NK News:

Japanese customs officers on Tuesday confiscated North Korean table tennis players’ belongings, including souvenirs and equipment, at Narita International Airport, local media has reported.

The Sankei newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, reported on Tuesday that Japanese customs inspectors confiscated souvenirs and table tennis equipment – purchased in Japan – from 13 North Korean players at a special security check.

…Japan bars all trade with North Korea. It has banned all exports to North Korea and port calls by North Korean vessels due to Pyongyang’s nuclear tests and missile launches since July 2006.

The Japanese government generally prohibits any North Korean nationals from entering Japan, but issued the players’ visas under the principle of separating sports from politics.

Via China News: “April 13, 2014, Pyongyang, DPRK, Kim Il-sung Stadium hosted the 27th annual Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon to commemorate the late Kim Il-sung, Great Leader of North Korea. According to the Associated Press, this year’s race was the first time foreign travelers were allowed to participate.”

AP’s recap:

Tens of thousands of North Koreans lined the streets to applaud, cheer and sometimes high-five the runners, who were followed by a truck blaring patriotic music. They stood and roared as North Korea’s Pak Chol, who completed the men’s event in 2 hours, 12 minutes and 26 seconds, crossed the finish line. Compatriots Kim Hye Gyong and her twin sister, Kim Hye Song, finished first and second in the women’s race. The winning women’s time was 2:27:04.

Some of the foreigners who participated — history-makers — spoke to AP about the experience afterwards. They may have been amateur runners, but their bromides were pure professional:

“I really wanted to do this race because of the location,” said 10-kilometer runner Jen Skym, a 32-year-old Briton living in Hong Kong, who is also four months pregnant. “The scenery was fantastic, and there were so many people watching. It was good motivation to get back into running. I really enjoyed it.”

…”I go to international races every year, but this one just strikes me as the most unique,” said Jacob Young, of Nova Scotia, Canada. “It’s very novel. Usually I would imagine it’s the tourists here looking out at the local people. Here, it’s them looking at us. We are the show.”

…”Basically, we just had to wear regular running clothes,” said Will Erskine, of Melbourne, Australia. “Some people might have wanted to shoot pictures the whole time. But I don’t think it was all that unusual. It was a good experience.”

Here, it’s them looking at us. Jacob Young would love living in inland China.

All in all, it sounds like it was a fun time. Don’t know if anyone had more fun than this lady in the front row though:

Some more pictures via China News:

Dennis Rodman sang Happy Birthday to Kim Jong-un, who then watched as his country’s basketball team beat Dennis Rodman’s USA team on Wednesday in Pyongyang. That’s according to Koryo Tours general manager Simon Cockerell, who reports that “the DPRK team emerged triumphant” in a 20-minute game, played as two 10-minute halves.

That DPRK team was apparently called the Torch. Afterwards, players lined up and mixed up the squads, like “in a primary school,” with captains picking players. (Who was picked last???) They played another 20-minute game, Green vs. White.

Cockerell again:

That game was actually much better, showboating, showing off, alley-oops, slam dunks, and that kind of that, so that was a really entertaining game.

But the most entertaining moment for “most of the North Koreans present” was undoubtedly at the beginning, when Kim Jong-un appeared with his wife.

…And of course, as is their way of doing things, all the local people went crazy, so several minutes of cheering and saluting, shouting manse, meaning “10,000 years, long life,” until basically Kim Jong-un told everybody to sit down and the game began.

Actually Dennis Rodman gave a speech at the beginning of the event, which was clearly improvised because he didn’t seem particularly well prepared, which culminated in him leading a mass sing-along of Happy Birthday to You to his friend, Kim Jong-un. So as you might imagine, it was a bizarre and unusual occasion that won’t easily be forgotten.

Private cameras were apparently not allowed inside Pyongyang stadium, but Sky News managed to capture the above footage, which is amazing. AP reports that 14,000 people attended the game, and also has this picture:

Rodman’s team, in case you’ve missed all the news lately, consisted of seven former NBA players: Kenny Anderson, Vin Baker, Cliff Robinson, Charles Smith, Doug Christie, Sleepy Floyd, Craig Hodges. Here’s Smith in a pretty funny photo — funny in that tall-people-juxtaposed-next-to-not-so-tall-people kind of way — via @mpspavor:

The NY Times’s The Lede blog has more, plus videos. Stuff like this:

I was lead blocker…. pic.twitter.com/SGPT7bVs4Z

— Joseph Terwilliger (@JoeTerwilliger) December 28, 2013

(H/T Vicky Mohieddeen)

I’m generally an advocate of Koryo Tours’s programs, especially those dedicated to outreach and encouraging cross-cultural dialogue, but let’s not take things too far…

Legends? Is that the genteel British way of calling them old?

Of course you already know Dennis Rodman is back in Pyongyang, this time with seven former NBA players — Kenny Anderson, Vin Baker, Cliff Robinson, Charles Smith, Doug Christie, Sleepy Floyd, Craig Hodges; and right, of course you don’t care. But if you want to see something fun, check out Rodman berating CNN’s Chris Cuomo in a video on Gawker. I think Dennis Rodman might be tired of fielding questions about Kenneth Bae.

He screamed about sacrifice. He accused Cuomo of not having anything at stake. He said he didn’t give a “rat’s ass” what the CNN host thought, all while pointing his cigar at the camera. Eventually, he settled down and let the much calmer Charles Smith explain the player’s “non-political” stance to Cuomo, but not before yelling for a solid two minutes or so.

UPDATE, 1/9, 2:40 pm: Rodman admits he had been drinking, apologizes.

What we really need is the NBA commissioner’s opinion, right? David Stern: “This one I believe was a little bit blinded by a flash of North Korean money.”

Never mind, we don’t need that. Here’s another picture, this time with fellow Koryo tourists:

Images via Instagram (top, bottom)

Look who’s back in North Korea. Dennis Rodman’s making his third trip to Pyongyang to “train the national team,” reports AP.

That Kim Jong-un just executed his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, doesn’t seem to concern Rodman.

“I can’t control what they do with their government, I can’t control what they say or how they do things here,” he said. “I’m just trying to come here as a sports figure and try to hope I can open the door for a lot of people in the country.”

A basketball game is happening. No, we don’t really care.

However. However. Look at that picture above, via Koryo Tours. The backlit man on the left is the living Beijing legend Simon Cockerell as you’ve never seen him, aglow, plucked straight out of a Men’s Book catalogue and the dreams of Christina Courtenay readers everywhere. Looking good, friend!

Pacman, Peso, and I recently returned from a 16-day Asia trip that included a five-day stay in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (as in America, the N-word is taboo in DPRK). This journey started in August when our record label, Forest Hills Tenleytown Music Group, launched a Kickstarter seeking $6,000 to fund the trip and a music video called “Escape to North Korea.” With the help of a five-page feature in the Washington Post Style section and a generous $5,100 donation from James Passin (aka “The American Who Bought Mongolia”), we were able to raise $10,400 and get a lot of attention in the process. People actually cared, for some reason.

Pacman, Peso, FHTMG Vice President Esteban Glower and I arrived in Beijing on November 17 ready to take Asia by storm. Our host was Ryan Ha, a fellow Washington DC native and co-founder of Comedy Club China, who had motorcycles ready to go despite the fact that none of us had driven motorcycles before. Not surprisingly, we had three accidents within our first several hours. Pacman was held captive for several hours as we negotiated a settlement to damages made to a parked car.

Despite these setbacks, we got many great shots for Pacman & Peso’s music video for “My Nigga” — check out the track off their debut mixtape Coming Soon – set in Beijing and scheduled for release next month. While we were shooting at Tiananmen Square, we got some footage of a naked elderly lady being tackled by plainclothes police as she presumably protested something, though we aren’t sure what. Everywhere we went, zhongguoren couldn’t get enough of Pacman and Peso – many dreadlocks were touched/grabbed and many pictures were taken with huge grins.

Swedish underwear brand Björn Borg have made good on a pledge to “love bomb” 450 pairs of underwear in Pyongyang. The company hired a “journalist” who went “undercover” and threw the garments from the 41st story of a hotel window.

You can read all about it on this anonymous blog. If you were wondering what the underments looked like close-up, wonder no more:

So — underwear, hot pink; Pyongyang; what’s the story here? The Local has you covered:

The focal point of Björn Borg’s autumn campaign ‘Björn Borg says JA! to Weapons of Mass Seducton’ was The Drop, a scheme to “love bomb” underwear onto the city voted most in need of some love and seduction.

“We couldn’t even imagine a place like North Korea would win,” Lina Söderqvist, marketing director at Björn Borg, told The Local. “We had planned how we would pursue an airdrop, and we could have done it almost anywhere in the world – except North Korea.”

Just over a week into the campaign, The Drop’s website experienced a traffic surge from South Korea. The North Korean capital sky-rocketed in the poll, gaining more than 25,000 votes overnight. By the poll’s end on October 31st, more than 53,000 people around the world had taken part in the vote, and 60 percent went to Pyongyang.

Here’s a picture of an underwear in flight:

Björn Borg’s stunt comes on the heels of Elle Magazine’s “North Korea Chic” faux pas, and just before this latest advisory from the US Department of State against visiting North Korea. “Travel by U.S. citizens to North Korea is not routine,” it reads. (It left out the part where it’s totally routine if you go with a travel agency such as Koryo Tours.)

When you’re a “hermit kingdom,” these are the sort of things that will happen to you, I guess. Kitsch feeds on mystery. Your lawn will get littered with pink boxer briefs. Many people will become infinitely confused.

(H/T Alicia via The Atlantic)

Public backlash has caused Elle to pull an image of a North Korea soldier from the online version of Joe Zee’s September “A to Zee” column about military trends.

As first uncovered* by Washington Post’s Max Fisher on November 19:

Elle magazine, in an article posted today on its Web site, names “North Korea Chic” as one of its “top fashion trends” for the autumn of 2013. Just in case the article disappears mysteriously from Elle’s site, just as the Asma al-Assad profile did from Vogue’s site when backlash mounted, here is a screenshot of the first page on North Korea Chic:

The picture is above.

Fisher continues:

As an example of North Korea Chic, Elle points to a pair of designer camouflage pants that sell for $425. (The average North Korean is thought to make about $4 per day.)

Elle’s creative director, Joe Zee, writes that “North Korea Chic” is known for its “take no prisoners tailoring,” which is presumably not a play on North Korea’s practice of kidnapping foreign civilians and holding them captive for years or decades at a time. Zee compares it favorably to other military-themed fashion trends, adding that North Korea Chic is “edgier, even dangerous.”

…Still, it’s only fashion, and perhaps it’s easy for foreign policy observers to take ourselves too seriously. What’s really wrong with winking at North Korean militarism to sell $400 pants? For that matter, why not a line of footwear by Pol Pot? Or grooming tips by Stalin? Maybe affix Mao’s name to next month’s diet plan?

Mao’s diet plan. Oof.

In any case, here’s Elle’s statement from yesterday, featuring the classic non-apology — to those we offended. A couple of angry letters from readers are also within that link.

The edition of Joe Zee’s A to Zee column that ran in the September 2013 issue of the magazine stirred some controversy that was addressed in the Letters section of the November issue. Here is the official statement from ELLE regarding the story, with the full text of the initial response below: We regret the reference to North Korea in our post on the season’s military trend, and have removed the image. We apologize to those we offended.

(H/T Vicky Mohieddeen)

*Update, 3:24 pm: That’s Online’s James Griffiths points out a tip of the hat should go to Samantha Culp:

"North Korea Chic" as fall trend highlighted by Elle magazine. Seriously. pic.twitter.com/6BfFz4qZrs

— Samantha Culp (@new_territories) November 18, 2013

We’re a bit late to this, which is a shame, because the paintings sampled here are some really nice pieces of work by North Korean artists. As explained on the Koryo Tours blog, they were part of an exhibition called “The Beautiful Future” that, sadly, ended on October 3. (Surely they’ll be brought out again sometime in the future.)

“The Beautiful Future” is a unique collaboration between Nick Bonner of Koryo Tours, Dominic Johnson-Hill of Plastered 8, and selected North Korean artists.

Each piece was hand-painted in Pyongyang, and based on Nick and Dominic’s sketches inspired by their 20 years in China. They wanted to portray a place lost in time, uniting a challenging past,a dynamic present and an imagined future where all is bright and beautiful. As outsiders looking in Nick, Dominic, and the North Korean artists have created a city whose socialist traditions are juxtaposed with present pleasures and modern city idols.

One of these works was used as the book cover for Tom Carter’s Unsavory Elements, which I’ve always thought was “wonderful.”

The Guardian and SCMP also have write-ups.

(H/T Alicia)

Our friends at Koryo Tours made the above time-lapse. Especially noteworthy are the scenes from the Mass Games and of Kim Il-sung Square, which appears completely empty at almost all times. (Contrast.)

The song is “Whistles,” which is a popular song that’s apparently sung at lots of DPRK karaokes.

South Korean soldiers hate North Korea so much, they’ll kill you to spare you from living there.

Or something. We can’t figure out why else a unit of about 30 soldiers would fire “hundreds” of bullets at a man, presumably unarmed, swimming away from them.

AFP has this story:

In the first official press briefing since the highly unusual incident on Monday, Brigadier General Cho Jong-Sul defended the border guards’ actions, saying they had followed the correct protocol.

Nam Yong-Ho, a 47-year-old South Korean man, was fatally shot at around 2:30 pm (0530 GMT) while trying to swim across the Imjin river that makes up part of the western border with the North.

Cho said soldiers manning a nearby guard post had repeatedly shouted warnings at Nam to turn back, but he ignored them.

The commander of the unit then ordered his men to open fire, and 30 of them discharged their weapons.

WSJ reports that Nam “had tied himself to a home-made Styrofoam life preserver.”

Some local media reported it is the first time since the 1990s that the military has shot a civilian to death to bar defection attempts. But an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff declined to confirm the report and just said: “We need to find out more but there’s no record of such a thing happening for a very long time.”

New York Times notes that South-to-North defections are rare, with the last recorded instance happening in 2009.

Dennis Rodman has returned from Pyongyang. No Kenneth Bae (of course), but Reuters reports he “spent quality time” with Kim Jong-un, and has pictures (above) to prove it. That’s something. The hilariously mismatched friends apparently watched a basketball game, according to KCNA news agency.

The report added Kim warmly welcomed Rodman and had a “cordial talk”. Rodman reportedly expressed his thanks to the leader for spending time with him, saying Kim’s greeting is “an expression of good faith towards the Americans.”

Rodman has probably misinterpreted Kim’s greeting, but his heart is in the right place. In a better world, North Korea and the US would not be bitter enemies, and human-to-human interactions between citizens from completely different places and cultures can be meaningful and judged on their own merits.

In Beijing yesterday, Rodman addressed the media’s insistence on him acting as a diplomat to bring back American citizen Kenneth Bae, an evangelist who’s serving time in a North Korean work camp:

“That’s not my job to ask about Kenneth Bae. Ask Obama about that. Ask Hillary Clinton. I don’t give a shit.”

And about Kim, he added:

“He is my friend for life. I don’t care what you guys think about him. I don’t give a shit about what people around the world think about him.”

The Worm continues to build his case as the famous American in North Korea — maybe even more famous, if he keeps this up, than Joe Dresnok.

Rodman back from North Korea, without jailed American (Reuters)