This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Abroad from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the Choco-pies of capitalism tied to helium balloons, because, really, how else do you get a banned food product over the DMZ from South to North Korea? Choco-pies are chocolate cookies with a marshmallow center that have long been wildly popular south of the thirty-eighth parallel, and now they are popular north of it, too. It seems that while working with South Koreans in the DMZ, North Koreans learned to love them, too. And not just for eating, but also for selling at greatly inflated prices on the black market. Of course, the North Korean government came down hard and demanded that “South Koreans stop distributing Choco-pies, now!” which South Korean activists declined to do; They will continue to airlift the sugary snack food to hungry North Koreans. Insulin to follow under separate balloon.

With thanks to Chubby Smith for this story, from the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.