Branches outside North Korea
The Japan-based Korean residents' association Chongryon has authorisation to open overseas branches of Okryu-gwan.[8] Okryu-gwan has various branches throughout China, which help the North Korean government to earn badly needed foreign currency.[9] Okryu-gwan is thus well-known even in South Korea.[10] Each restaurant is reportedly required to remit US$100,000 to US$300,000 to Pyongyang per year, depending on local conditions. As a result, they market themselves aggressively, even purchasing advertisements in local South Korean expatriate newspapers.[11] However, the South Korean government takes a dim view of their own nationals who visit the restaurants, and warns them that they may be charged with violating the National Security Act.[12]
The first Okryu-gwan branch in China opened in Beijing's Wangjing district in 2003; by 2010, its revenues were estimated at more than US$6,000 per day. The waitresses are graduates of the Jang Chol Gu University of Commerce or culinary schools in Pyongyang. The restaurant in Shanghai of the same name is a knock-off, staffed by Chinese citizens of Korean ethnicity.[11] The Okryu-gwan branch in Dubai is located in the Deira area, near the Deira Clocktower. It is a joint venture with several equityholders, including an undisclosed majority local owner, along with Chinese businessman Gavin Tang. It is popular with Japanese expatriates.[13][14] A branch in Kathmandu reportedly continued to operate as of early 2011, though another nearby North Korean restaurant Kumgangsan closed after its manager absconded to India with its funds and reportedly defected to South Korea.[12] Other international branches of Okryu-gwan operate in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, and Russia.[11]
In 1999, a restaurant of the same name was opened in South Korea by Kim Young-baek, attracting attention in the South Korean press for its claim to be an officially contracted branch restaurant of the one in the North. A spokesman for the Pyongyang Okryu-gwan denied that any such contract existed, while Kim clarified that he had not contracted directly with the Pyongyang Okryu-gwan but rather with Chongryon.[8][15] Nevertheless, the Southern Okryu-gwan, a 360-seat restaurant in Seoul, maintained several ties with the one in the North; they employed a Korean with a Japanese passport who had trained as a chef at the Pyongyang Okryu-gwan, hung a painting of the Pyongyang Okryu-gwan done by a North Korean artist on their outside wall, imported buckwheat and mung bean from the North, and even purchased utensils and tableware from the Pyongyang Okryu-gwan.[16][17] Soon after they opened, they were turning away as many as 3,000 customers a day for lack of seats.[18]
