Choco Pie is rather like the Wagon Wheel much loved of football ground snack bars and school lunch boxes in this country. Originally from the Us, they've become outrageously popular in Russia and the Far East.
They are sent in their thousands to workers in the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a sprawl of factories straddling the border between North and South Korea that gives the North vital hard currency and South corporations access to dirt cheap labour. Workers from the North take home £42 per month, but also a handful of Choco Pies in their daily lunch boxes which sell for up to £4 each on the North Korean black market.
Choco Pie inflation, reportedly led to factory go-slows as workers discovered the joys of capitalism and demanded ever more quantities of cake. However, that's all gone down the pan after the North's nuclear stand-off led to a spectacular cutting-of-the-nose-to-spite-your-face by Kim Jong Un, who ordered the Kaesong complex closed, losing an already impoverished Pyongyang millions in much-needed trade. The move also cost the thousands of Kaesong workers their jobs and cut off their access to their vital Chocco Pie supply.
So, we did what any bloated western capitalist would: We bought some off Ebay from a nice chap in Bradford. After a lunch-break unveiling, let's see what they're like:
If any North Korean factory workers or black marketeers read this: I've got Choco Pie. In the light of the current shortage, yours for a tenner. Each.
But is it nice or nasty?
ReplyDeleteThey were this: OK
ReplyDelete