Traces of Korean restaurants in China

Let’s start with the important conclusion: 2012 to 2015 is the climax period, among the monitored North Korean restaurants, 70% of the North Korean restaurants are concentrated to pop up in these three years. This data matches the changes in North Korean labor exports to China monitored by Uncle Fatty, with the most ferocious multiplication occurring in 2014, with a total of 14.

 There are 69 North Korean restaurants with review records on the Internet, and Uncle Fatty had a hard time organizing them.

To make a note, these monitoring data mainly from the public review and Baidu map, and there is no official channel, belong to the pure manual search. Here are three assumptions:

First, North Korean restaurants open to the public, and a little activity leaves traces on the Internet, and the power of the netizens is great.

Second, although there is no way to find out the opening date of each Korean restaurant with specific accuracy, it can be estimated that the time of the first comment under each restaurant is not far from the opening date. When we do a tally of the initial comments by date for each of the 69 Korean restaurants, we are able to see something.

Third, the initial Korean restaurants were recorded online in the second half of 2004, at least one year before the related review technology appeared and became active. Therefore, the appearance of Korean restaurants before 2004 can almost be ruled out. Even if they appeared, it was an extremely singular phenomenon. Because, since the late 1990s, the official trade between China and North Korea has been much lower than at present, which is obvious from the data on the number of North Korean people coming to China.

Also, this time is an estimated time and is subject to bias, i.e., there is a deviation between the average time when the first review appeared under all restaurants and the average time when all restaurants opened. And the monitoring data lasted until mid-April 2016. The conditions are limited and that’s all there is to it, this is North Korea after all. Americans would also have to take Google Maps and go one by one from the shape of the house to mark the market to go.

Here’s what was found.

Since 2012, new restaurants have sprung up mainly in Beijing, Shanghai and the Northeast. Of the three, the Northeast has seen the most investment. This is understandable, as the Northeast borders North Korea with the Shenyang consulate and the Dandong office. The port of Dalian has trade with North Korea. Plus there are fellow Koreans with Korean cultural traditions. Taste North Korean flavor has the advantage. At the same time, from the management point of view, the closer it is, the less control costs, the less risk of losing control.

Dandong Pyongyang Goryeo Hotel, said to be the largest North Korean restaurant in China, had its first review on Volkswagen Dianping in 2015.

Between 2012 and 2015, Beijing added eight pavilions, Shanghai nine, and the Northeast a total of 16. This, of course, includes deals that have since gone yellow.

In addition to this, there is a breakthrough in the proliferation of provincial capitals and secondary cities. For statistical convenience, Uncle Fatty put Tianjin, a municipality directly under the central government, in the column of provincial capital cities; anyway, it only has one North Korean restaurant, which doesn’t affect the data analysis that much. The first North Korean restaurants appeared in provincial capital cities in 2010, and one popped up every year until 2013. But in 2014, 6 popped up in one year.

Secondary cities, first testing the waters even later, with 1 appearing in 2012, 1 in ’14, 2 in ’15, and 1 in ’16. As can be seen, still testing the waters.

However, this emerging multiplication from provincial capitals and sub-cities suggests two things; one, the North Korean side may feel that the traditional markets of Beijing, Shanghai, and the Northeast are saturated and need to expand. Two, they have more urge to open restaurants for foreign exchange, and manipulators are more active and dynamic. Third, they have confidence in the management of this expansion, of course, in March Ningbo restaurant accident certainly broke this confidence.