Thread by @BonicMichael

Seohyun Lee, a North Korean defector, trashes an NK-produced video of Ryung Song Italia Pizza calling it a propaganda video. Jaka Parka's video tho reveals a different reality: Very cool DPRKers offering exotic Italian-style pizzas & pastas for customers🤩

https://twitter.com/Pyonghattan/status/1473843653135134720?s=20

2/I see a completely different reality in Ryung Song Italia Pizza than what Seohyun Lee is selling, which itself is propaganda, a diatribe packaged in soft lip-glossed veneer.

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1474287442215596034?s=20

3/She says: “Pizza is not a popular food in North Korea, and I believe most people don’t know about it at all…Therefore, this restaurant is by Kim Jong Un, of Kim Jong Un & for Kim Jong Un. What North Korean people want is simply enough rice to eat 3 meals a day, not some fancy

4/"expensive cuisines, like pizzas and spaghettis imported directly from Italy…Kim Jong Un doesn’t understand or care about the actual needs or concerns of his people. Once again this propaganda film has shown us how much the regime wastes its resources in order to put on a show

5/"for the outside world while letting its people suffer."
The video of Jaka Parka, a foreigner, is real travel documentary, the opposite of propaganda, and shows Ryung Song Italia Pizza in its true light:

6/Seohyun Lee would have you believe all North Koreans just want enough rice for three meals a day, professional chefs always wear white and you're not supposed to peel pre-sliced ham onto a pizza. However she's full of it, likely making a ton of $$$ building anti-DPRK sentiment

7/aligned politically to South Korea's People Power Party. I've never heard more obnoxious comments from a NK defector insulting the people of her home country whom she's betrayed for capitalism. I see Kim Jong Il's maxim 👇applied to bringing exotic Italian cuisine to DPRK's

8/capital Pyongyang, cool DPRK chicks skilled at working at Ryung Song Italia Pizza making different types of Italian pizza & pasta (unlike US pizza places where the choice is Sicilian vs plain or just what toppings or crust you want), casual coolness (North Korean fashion: black

9/pants, colorful shirts & platform clog shoes 👇which just torpedo Lee's screed out of the sky) shown by professional DPRK socialist women who likely went to culinary school and the overarching atmosphere that this is socialism at work. I know these women 👇would have harsh

10/words for Lee, and if they did, I'd agree with them 100%. Lee sells a narrative that disparages her own country-people. If she had enough rice for three meals a day and never knew anything about pizza would she have never desired to leave DPRK? Sure she wouldn't have. ;-)

11/Pyongyang is an international city, the capital of North Korea, a place travelers around the globe travel to visit, a place of pilgrimage for some globe trekkers. The restaurant, hospitality management and travel & tourism industries provide jobs for North Koreans & generate

12/$$$ for the state. The notion that Ryung Song Italia Pizza is a "show for the outside world" is ludicrous. It is livelihood for the women who work there and genuine Italian cuisine for any North Korean or traveller passing thru Pyongyang. A hip place to visit in Pyongyang.☮️

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