Street food vendors in Hyesan are struggling to survive as ingredient costs soar in November 2026. Raising prices drives customers away, but holding prices steady leaves vendors with almost no profit.
Hyesan sits on the Yalu River across from Changbai, China, in North Korea’s mountainous north. The city is the capital of Ryanggang province, and its markets depend heavily on cross-border trade.
“Street food vendors in Hyesan are very frustrated,” a source in Ryanggang province told Daily NK on Friday. The vendors sell tofu rice, artificial meat rice, rice cakes and blood sausage to passersby on city streets.
“Business was already slow and their income had shrunk,” the source said. “But ingredient costs keep climbing, so making ends meet gets harder by the day.”
Tofu rice is made by stuffing fried tofu pouches with rice and topping them with chili sauce. Artificial meat rice wraps a chewy sheet of pressed soybean residue around rice in a similar way.
Both dishes spread widely during North Korea’s famine in the 1990s, when real meat was out of reach. They remain cheap, filling meals for workers and traders across the country today.
The Chinese yuan now trades at around 14,000 North Korean won in Hyesan, according to the source. That weaker won quickly fed into market prices across the city’s food stalls.
Rice now sells for more than 50,000 won per kilogram in Hyesan’s markets. The price has climbed after a string of record highs recorded across North Korea earlier this year.
Small vendors who buy and sell food in North Korean won have taken the hardest hit. Their ingredient costs have jumped sharply, yet they cannot pass those costs on to customers right away.
“When the exchange rate or rice prices go up, everything else follows,” the source said. “But if you raise food prices even a little, people stop buying.”
“No matter how much ingredient costs rise, vendors can’t easily charge more,” the source added. “So there’s no way they are taking anything home at the end of the day.”
Merchants who trade in foreign currency and run larger operations feel exchange rate swings far less, the source said. Small vendors who live hand to mouth, however, are being pushed from the edge of survival toward ruin.
Daily NK has previously reported that a rising yuan exchange rate hurts market sellers who deal mainly in North Korean won. Street vendors have long worked on thin margins, even when crackdowns on their stalls eased in earlier years.
Street food vendors say the smuggling slump left them behind
The source also blamed a sharp decline in smuggling across the Chinese border for the vendors’ plight. In the past, official customs trade and smuggling ran side by side in Hyesan and other border cities.
That steady flow of goods kept North Korea’s private markets, known as jangmadang, busy and full of cash. Even the poorest traders in those markets could earn at least a minimal income.
North Korea sealed its border with China in early 2020 to keep out COVID-19. Kim Jong Un’s government has since cracked down hard on unofficial cross-border trade in the region.
The suspension of smuggling has also driven up prices of Chinese imports sold in Hyesan’s markets. That has added to the pressure on traders already squeezed by the weak won.
“When smuggling was active, the yuan exchange rate stayed relatively stable,” the source said. “Back then nearly everyone could at least feed themselves and get by.”
“Now the rate climbs relentlessly and rises again every few days,” the source continued. “Life has become harder than words can describe for ordinary people here.”
Pyongyang has been expanding official trade that runs through state customs houses instead of smuggling routes. Trucks and hand carts loaded with customs cargo have become a common sight on Hyesan’s streets.
Hand cart haulers, who carry goods around the city for a fee, have faced crackdowns in Hyesan in past years. Today, however, the growing volume of official cargo has done little to improve daily life for ordinary Hyesan residents.
“Things have gotten so bad that people quote the saying that a famous feast leaves nothing to eat,” the source said. The Korean proverb describes an event that draws great fanfare but offers little to those who attend.
“Quite a few people say that seeing trucks and carts hauling customs cargo actually makes them angry,” the source added. Many Hyesan residents feel the new trade is passing them by entirely.
In the past, the source said, this much cargo moving in and out would have put money into the markets. Hyesan residents say that kind of trade once allowed ordinary families to make a decent living.
“Now it only helps people with money and the state, and there’s nothing in it for us,” the source quoted them as saying. Some also grumble that well-fed officials will never worry about the lives of ordinary people.
A Hyesan street food vendor in their 50s described the hardship in blunt terms. “The state has never worried about how people like us survive,” the vendor said.
“We’ve always gotten by on our own, but these days it’s hard to make a living no matter what,” the vendor continued. “Rice costs 50,000 won a kilogram, and earning even 10,000 won a day is like reaching for the stars.”
“How are we supposed to live like this?” the vendor asked, noting that a full day’s earnings now buy only a fifth of a kilogram of rice.
“Before COVID-19, you could at least scrape by selling food even without much capital,” the vendor said. “Now it’s hard to get even plain water, let alone thin porridge.”
“The exchange rate and prices keep climbing, but the authorities still have no plan at all to deal with it,” the vendor added.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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