The Lion & the Gazelle

This restaurant in Pyongyang is innovating - they get the waitresses and cooks to sing in the evening! 

Last month, two weeks after the Ebola quarantine measures were lifted in North Korea,  we entered Pyongyang to run a workshop on ‘partnering with foreign businesspeople.’ Participants were particularly appreciative of one particular talk – a professor who spoke about Singapore’s efforts to attract foreign investment.

The professor ended his talk with the story of “the Lion and the Gazelle”, apparently a favorite story of Singapore’s bureaucrats. This is how it goes (paraphrased):

In the morning, the gazelle wakes up thinking “if I run too slowly, I will be devoured by the lion.” The same morning, the lion wakes up thinking “if I run too slowly, I will not catch the gazelle and will starve to death.”

The moral of the story? Investment attraction is a competition, and every country needs to be continually improving its business environment to attract investors. We hope that the message gets through to the businesspeople, academics and policymakers in attendance, that there is A LOT more North Korea can do to make the country minimally hospitable to foreign businesspeople.

high-speed rail from China to North Korea-Russia border soon to be tested and debugged

China's Changjitu project continues to knit together the Northeast, providing a figurative quantum leap in the region's infrastructure. Tumen, a town that only got traffic lights 7 or 8 years ago, will have a high-speed rail station in a few months.

From: http://finance.chinanews.com/cj/2015/04-14/7205686.shtml

Date: 4.14

Yanji at Night.

The Jilin-Tumen-Hunchun passenger rail line connecting Jilin and Hunchun will be tested and debugged in July. Hopefully this line will be opened on October. The rail line is 360 km long, with a speed of 250km/h. It comes past Jilin, Jiaohe, Dunhua, Antu, Longjin, Yanji, Tumen and Hunchun. This rail line will strengthen the transport connections between the Tumen River area and center of Jilin. Also, it will lead to further development of cross-border tourism in Yanbian and Tumen River area. Therefore it carries significant meaning in intensifying regional connections in Northeast Asia.

Translation by Wang Xingyu

North Koreans learn entrepreneurship in Singapore

“Yes, but what is innovation?”

“What percentage of newly planted trees survive in Singapore?”

“Why can’t I log in to this website?”

When you have 12 North Koreans spending two weeks on a Choson Exchange study trip on tech entrepreneurship to Singapore, the questions range wildly. In early March, we organised such a two-week programme.

The goal was to introduce to these budding entrepreneurs, scientists and policymakers the roles of a host of actors in the startup ecosystem. Given their familiarity with a heavy governmental role, we tackled the role of policy early. Volunteer workshop leaders emphasised the need for government bodies to incentivise a tech-business ecosystem, and in funding R&D and commercialisation in instances of market dislocation.

Augmented Reality App Demo

One of the workshop leaders actually drew up a couple of potential action plans for the DPRK to consider: a dedicated government-sponsored plot to host high-tech startups similar to Singapore’s own Block 71, and overseas internships or study exchanges for North Korean university students in countries such as Sweden or China. These were pretty well received on the whole and the feasibility of these plans was debated for the better portion of an hour before the group turned its attention to the more philosophical topic of what exactly the term “innovation” defines.

If anything, though, a more pressing issue was less policy-related and more about the general approach towards commercialising products. A few members of our team noted that the participants tended towards creating a product and then trying to sell it  – one gentleman was considering the development of an online marketplace for cosmetics seemingly without really consulting many women about their preferences. As one of our workshop leaders put it, “making something for the users without even talking to the users” is not a problem unique to North Korea, but one they need to consider given the historical lack of market focus among people used to state planning.

When one of our volunteers introduced the Lean Canvas model for building startups, initial hesitation gave way to a full embrace of its philosophy of “lean”. It provided a useful template, helping mapping out key steps from identifying a problem and targetting customers to establishing unfair advantage and communication channels. More than one workshop leader pointed out that the group’s ideas often made the common mistake of jumping straight to the solution without identifying the problem and market.

Just a couple of days after first seeing it, they were referring to the template while practicing idea pitching in front of an investment manager. The concept kept resurfacing and seemed to increasingly structure their ideas as the study trip went on.

If one looks at the bigger picture, North Korea has a long way to go in comprehending investor confidence, pricing and competition. They also desperately need better communication links with the outside world. But while the policies they operate under are still largely out of their hands, these twelve have a new-found understanding of business planning that will be easy for them to explain to colleagues and friends back home.

Whether they pinned down the meaning of “innovation” is another matter.

This article initially appeared on the tech website e27

Chosun Ilbo and the Vagaries of Korean journalism

As an organization working primarily in the DPRK but also committed to helping the rest of the world understand North Korea better, we try to engage media, academics and the public as much as we're able. Sometimes this can be problematic, especially when a South Korean newspaper copies much of an interview given in German and embeds language that suggests we are a threat to North Korea. Slapping the headline "The German helping North Korea with work more dangerous than missile launches" on it was just the beginning. 

Below, we respond to some of the points Nils, our Program Coordinator and interviewee for the German magazine "Stern", found frustrating in the Chosun Ilbo article.

With a flashy headline and photos used without permission, the South Korean website Chosun Ilbo claims that Nils Weisensee is “teaching capitalism to North Koreans”. This claim is false. Just like any other volunteer at Choson Exchange, Weisensee teaches business skills and management principles which can be applied in a variety of economic contexts, including the unique environment in the DPRK. As Weisensee explained in the Stern Magazine article that Chosun Ilbo based its coverage on, business people in the DPRK want to understand how enterprises in other countries operate, how to find out what customers want, how to motivate employees. “Teaching capitalism” is not on the syllabus.

Chosun Ilbo also wrote that car advertisements, smartphone shops and restaurants in Pyongyang “all indicate a drift toward capitalism”. However, neither Weisensee nor Stern author Janis Vougioukas made this claim. Weisensee told Stern that he believes we are seeing an interest in experimentation within the economic system of the DPRK. This is frankly editorializing by Chosun Ilbo - also, those car advertisements and restaurants have been around for years and years.

Finally, Chosun Ilbo wrote that Weisensee runs two coffee shops in Shanghai. This is incorrect — there is only one coffee shop. The news website also wrote that “Weisensee has taught some 800 young North Koreans how to open their own start-ups and about capitalism”. Again, this is false. Choson Exchange volunteers all together have taught business and related topics to 800 North Koreans over the past few years — Weisensee was involved in just a few of these.

To cap things off, Choson Ilbo misspelled the name of our organization: It’s Choson Exchange, not Chosun Exchange. If they took the time to visit websites to take photos without permission, surely they could check the spelling while there...

Unjong is for Kiddies!

Adults, doing adult things.

Unjong is one of the DPRK's SEZs that we argued is most likely to succeed and its easy to see why. They have a comprehensive masterplan, they're close to key political and trading hubs and have an institutional home with a strong mandate. They face plenty of impediments, too, but...all that is stuff for the adults to worry about. What's it like for the kids of scientists?

After a visit in late March, we're pretty sure that there is nowhere better to grow up, if you happen to be a child growing up in the DPRK. Educational and recreational facilities have been heavily invested in by the authorities, so no doubt the kids love being there. By contrast, we heard half-jokingly that Pyongyang-based male scientists face some resistance from their wives about moving out to the 'burbs. But again, that's adult stuff. 

                                                                                                                Photo by Chua Guan Cheong

The kids, however, get brand new basketball courts, rollerblade rinks and very unusually for the DPRK, artificial turf football fields. However, they also get this swing-game device - ubiquitous in North Korea - which to this observer looks terrifyingly dangerous, kids whip around, having to dodge spinning metal and other participants being flipped over a central axis. There is no way this could exist in playgrounds where we are from.

The terrifying swing game thing.                                                            Photo by Chua Guan Cheong

Also, note this angled climbing ladder, which kids can climb and hang from fully five meters off the ground.

How brave are these kids                                                                      Photo by Chua Guan Cheong

Finally, note the size of this swing, which is LITERALLY as high as a mountain*.

Are all DPRK kids adrenaline junkies!?                                                   Photo by Chua Guan Cheong

We may come from helmet-and-elbow-pad cultures - these kids do not. Even the most fortunate youths in North Korea grow up tough. 

*LITERALLY.

New Coffeeshop in Pyongyang

Hello readers of the future! Note the date this was published!

After many months of ebola-related non-travel to the DPRK, a Choson Exchange team got a chance to visit and conduct a workshop last week.

We were pleased to note that a major coffee chain has entered the market. We were able to have cappuccinos, slappuccinos and Irish coffees (whiskey self-supplied).

Cosmopolitanism in a cup.

Locals, from a tea culture, are still adjusting to a beverage that initially tastes like traditional medicine prescribed by a cruel doctor. Soon, though, with a variety of syrups, whipped creams, sugars and accompanying cakes to help bridge the way, we're confident that they can become properly addicted like the rest of us. After all, a sign of a successful economy is thousands of people commuting, unable to start their day without paper cups in hand. Careful, though, the beverage you're about to enjoy is extremely hot! 

My mother says I'm too young and too cute for caffeine.

Pictures in this blogpost may not all be from the DPRK.