Being born into a Marxist country, the present author believes that material conditions are very important. It was therefore of great interest to me to relate how the foreign population of Pyongyang lived while I was there in the mid-1980s.

At that time, North Korea had a rather unusual three-tier currency system, which was partially inspired by similar systems in contemporary China and the USSR.

At the very bottom was the local North Korean currency. This would buy little, since in most cases such currency would be useless without rationing coupons. However, the North Korean authorities did not openly admit