Everyone knows North Korea is one of the more…weird
countries out there. It’s ruled by the diminutive and utterly
insane Kim Jong-Il and is fiercely militaristic, ensuring the world
that you best bring your A-game if you want to challenge it to a
game of RISK. What people don’t know, however, is its love of human
excrement.
Yes, human excrement. Poop. Feces. The end result of a Taco Bell
bender. All of this and more is apparently a hot commodity just
north of the DMZ.
According to Professor Kim Young-soo of Sogang University in
Seoul, South Korea, interviews with a number of North Korean
defectors revealed that skinny jeans (Hipster couture), adult
films, and yes, human excrement are selling like “hot cakes.”
When I first read that I pictured pancake-shaped feces sold in a
Denny’s. Clearly North Korea isn’t that weird.
Of course, there is semi-logical reason for all of this.
Everyone loves pornography, regardless of country of origin, and
“fashionable trousers” were banned, making skinny jeans a hot
ticket item for North Korean women. But what of the human
excrement?
According to Kim, households used human waste as fertilizer.
Since the average human probably doesn’t produce enough
waste each day, some shops have begun selling it to deal with the
shortage.
This is all well and good – you gotta do what you gotta do to
survive – but makes us ask: where do they get it, and how much do
they pay for it?
