The Kalmaegi Hotel, part of the Wonsan Kalma Resort, appears to look fairly stylistically similar to this part of the Ryongsong Residence (last photo), built not long after KJU took power. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Wonsan Hotel was modelled after it, especially when considering it’s meant to be the luxurious centrepiece for the resort.

I made a short documentary about the lives of North Korean defectors living in South Korea.
Crossing the border is often portrayed as the end of their journey. But for many, it is actually the beginning of a completely different kind of challenge — adapting to a new society, finding work, building relationships, and figuring out what “home” means.
For this documentary, we spoke with North Korean defectors about their experiences and their lives in South Korea.
I wanted to share their stories from their own perspectives, rather than focusing only on the political side of North Korea.
What do you think is the biggest challenge for North Korean defectors after settling in South Korea?

[Film teaser link]
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeEBSISxjg3/?stkn=a2FycXFpcXo3dnRv

So in this video starting from 21:32 is a takeoff from Wonsan airport. Judging by the list of Kim Jong Un residences we can clearly see the one in Wonsan at ~22:00. Kind of a rare thing to be on tape.

Someone said his heads built like a coat of arms.

Photo Source: Daily NK

Hello,

When I originally heard about NK involvement in the Russo Ukraine war, I was very skeptical. I thought, “wow, Kim is really going to send his men out there to die for a war they have no involvement in?”

Which…. is technically still true. I would hope they at least have some Russian interpreters out there now but from what I originally heard it was a bit of a mess trying to train these men on modern weaponry and drones when they’d been trained on rifles and bayonets.

War is terrible and I’d hope it ends soon.

However ….

There has been one unexpected bonus that has come from this alliance with Russia that has improved the lives of many North Koreans (not all) and that’s the new import of Russian wheat. 🌾

Now as most of you know, North Koreans traditionally have subsisted on a rice and corn based diet.

They also implemented acorn flour and buckwheat flour as a food source during the famine, as buckwheat can grow in cold climates (Russia also eats a lot of buckwheat, so they have likely imported plenty of this as well).

Wheat cannot be grown in the North’s mountainous terrain very well, so wheat based products like bread were once considered a luxury. Now, it is becoming more accessible.

And what’s also beneficial is it can be cut with acorn flour to make noodles and other products because Acorn flour is gluten free and needs help binding.

Acorn flour?

Acorns have a very rich history in the Korean diet, and because they are plentiful have been a very important staple during food scarcity. However, they are unfortunately extremely labor intensive. The process would be:

forage acorns → shell them → grind them → repeatedly soak/leach them → dry/process the starch → finally cook with it.

That’s pretty hard to do when you are already exhausted and hungry.

Also let’s not forget that if you do not soak your acorn flour enough times, it still contains tannins and is extremely bitter.

Introducing more wheat means a decreased reliance on acorn flour, and more food availability overall.

Because wheat contains gluten, you can use it for Mandu wrappers, bread, jeon-style pancakes (지짐) and more. This has made a some difference in North Koreans having less scarcity with the remaining raw flour that is leftover from elite/military allocation.

Now back to the subject of this photo….

There are shops in China today that exclusively sell North Korean produced snacks and beverages that are made in Korean food factories. And since the importation of much more wheat, said factories have been able to create more cookies, crackers and RAMEN for export.

So this sounds great, right? A cheap food for everyday citizens? Well, let’s not go that far….

North Koreans have technically been making their own Ramen since the year 2000, in part thanks to Hong Kong’s foreign investment. But production has risen significantly due to foreign interest in recent years.

These domestically made ramen packets are not sold at the open air market, but rather state run stores, for about 3-5 Chinese Yuan, or 0.44-0.74 cents.

This is still considered prohibitively priced for many North Koreans. The official state salary for a factory worker is essentially nothing due to hyperinflation. They make approximately $1-2 USD PER MONTH. So citizens have to rely on the underground market economy and make a “niche” for themselves in order to survive.

So how does North Korean ramen taste?

Well…. Not terrible. But both North Koreans and the Chinese alike agree that domestically produced North Korean ramen falls short of South Koreans famous Nongshim Shin Ramyun, which is considered a luxury item today in the North.

Many North Koreans refer to Shin Ramyun as “money ramen” because of their high relative cost in the black market.

North Korean domestic noodle factories do not have the same production capabilities as their Southern and Northern Chinese neighbors, and it shows in the taste and quality of the ramen.

The noodles do not have as much “chew” and soften quickly in water and tend to break quicker. They also tend to absorb water quickly and become mushy.

We also know how much of an “explosive” taste Shin Ramyun has with its deep umami broth and spicy kick.

North Korean noodle broth is much more watery, flat, and simple due to shortages of quality spices, meat extracts and industrial food additives.

However, I would still love to try them. And it is nice to know the North Korean factories are still making things that are being exported and sold.

Hopefully, their GDP can be invested back into their everyday citizens livelihoods in one way or another.

How do North Koreans feel about this State Endorsed diet shift?

Kim Jong Un made an official announcement that North Korean citizens should embrace wheat in their diet. And that it’s essentially just as good as rice. He has also pushed agriculture towards growing more wheat instead of rice, probably realizing the ability to make a lot of noodles with a small crop of wheat and their already abundant acorn flour.

To highlight this enthusiasm, the State distributed bags of wheat to families on Kim Jong Il’s birthday in February, and the North Koreans expressed they would rather have rice.

Arch of Triumph, Completed in 1985. Pyongyang.

A memorial to Korean resistance during Japanese occupation.

A frankly beautiful and grand monument built at the tail end of when things in the North were still in their “Golden Age.”

Pre-1990s famine, after the fall of the Soviet Union, when their suffering truly began… Because this method of governmental dictatorship and “top down centralized command” does not work in a traditional economy.

This has been proven throughout history, and Americans are not interested in going backwards.

Furthermore….

Any other American or “worldly” North Korean hobby historians hearing about Trump’s Arch of Idiocracy and shaking their heads?

I mean seriously… state TV and an arch?

The man is copying the Kim Dynasty playbook. 🤣🤣
I bet 🍊 has read all kinds of things about North Korea, watching all the people worship Kim, and saying “wow, I’d love that!”

AS IF THOSE FREAKING WORSHIPERS aren’t living in poverty, threat of incarceration if you speak against the state, continual food insecurities, constant “preparation for warfare of an imaginary enemy…”

And North Korea themselves don’t like it at this point, I’d argue. Like I bet if you asked Kim Jong un right now:

If you could wake up tomorrow and have your country thriving and your people as happy as neighboring China tomorrow, would you do it? Yes. He definitely would.

He inherited this system and he has to keep it rolling to protect his and his daughter’s life. He hasn’t made great decisions, but it is what it is. The country already was in complete ruin when he got it.

America is NOT in ruin but Trump has been dead set on making it this Hunger Games, Anti-intellectual wasteland of blind consumption and obedience. Renewed tribalism and racial tensions. Violence. I have seen it with my own two eyes.

Please, everyone, we must be aware of what is happening here. And we must pray that it ends so America can truly be great again and NOT A THREAT TO THE WORLD.

We’re talking threat of Neo-N\zi, Eugenics tyranny. That’s what this is, and they use fake Christianity as a cloak to hide their deviance. I don’t want that to be our future.*

Praying today, I hope you do too. For the North Koreans, the poor and disabled Americans, the Palestinians, the Russians AND Ukrainians being forced to participate in a war against their own blood, and any other individuals currently suffering under the injustice of leadership who has lost their minds and made the WRONG choices.

I like finding photos of kaysone but sometimes I feel like I'm the only person outside laos who remembers him😅

Source: Korean Central TV (16 Sep 2026)