Choco Pie revolution?

Choco Pie is selling in more than 60 countries. It is used for ancestral rites in Vietnam and as wedding gifts in China. Russian children like the snack so much that they want to join Korean companies. It brings happy smiles to children in war-ravaged Afghanistan and hopes to Chileans who starved due to an earthquake last year. The snack is displayed on a shelf that easily grabs attention at a snack bar of a mountain cabin on Mount Baekdu.

Since its debut in 1974, the snack has been loved by people regardless of age and gender and 14 billion Choco pies have been sold around the world. “Jeong," or affection in Korean, on the snack’s package is called the most successful advertising copy. Just as a Korean saying goes that there is nothing that can beat the passage of time, the popularity of the 40-year-old Korean snack is waning due to preference for healthy food. The snack is known to have become the most loved in the barracks because of "Ppogeuli," or instant noodles in a bag that can be eaten by adding hot water.

The snack, however, is regaining power in North Korea. After 46,000 workers in the Kaesong inter-Korean industrial complex began eating the pie between meals, it has captivated North Koreans. More than six million Choco Pies are consumed every month in North Korea. Companies in the complex gave one to two pies per person a day at first. They began using the snack as an incentive to boost productivity and some of them started distributing more than 10 units to each worker a day. Workers there began stocking up on Choco pies to share with their families.

The North Korean government, which shows an allergic response to the spread of a capitalistic atmosphere, has recently urged the companies in the complex to provide incentives in the form of cash, not Choco Pies. Pyongyang is trying to prevent the “flavor of South Korea” from spreading via markets and deprive its people of the snacks they earn by working overtime. If tension on the Korean Peninsula rises as seen in the North`s attack on the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island, the workers in the complex are said to work harder over fear of losing their jobs. North Korea apparently fears the outbreak of a “Choco Pie revolution" along the lines of the Jasmine Revolution that the Middle East and North Africa have experienced.

Editorial Writer Ha Tae-won (triplets@donga.com)