Some North Korean workers are being left out in the cold this year after their workplaces failed to provide yearly rations of cabbage and other ingredients needed for the manufacture of kimchi, the universal food of choice for nearly all adult Koreans and one that is traditionally made at home by each family.
A source from the border city of Hyesan told Daily NK yesterday, “Before people used to get 20-40kg of cabbage per head from their workplaces, but this year there’s been nothing. Workplaces normally distribute cabbages grown in-house as a sideline, but we’ve heard nothing this year so we aren’t making kimchi.”
People working farms run by larger industrial enterprises ordinarily plant the vegetables that are needed to make kimchi (primarily cabbage and radish) at the end of July, then harvest them in October and distribute them to the workforce. Smaller enterprises that don’t have the ability to run their own farms achieve the same result by sending some of their workers to help local cooperative farms with labor-intensive activities, and receive a share of the farm’s harvest that way.
According to the source, “Even when the year’s farming went poorly, workers got 20kg of cabbage per family member. It’s odd, but this year there doesn’t seem to be anything,” adding, “Maybe the young heads got damaged in August when we had those typhoons.”
As is also true in South Korea, the prices of kimchi ingredients on the open market are also continuing to rise steeply due to inflation exacerbated by a poor growing season and harsh controls over smuggling and importation licenses. For example, the source reported that the price of cabbage has gone from 400 won/kg in 2011 to 1500 won/kg today, while radish has risen from 250 won/kg to 400 won/kg.
