For North Koreans, Human Excrement a Top Seller

Everyone knows North Korea is one of the more…weird countries out there. It’s ruled by the diminutive and utterly insane Kim Jong-Il and is fiercely militaristic, ensuring the world that you best bring your A-game if you want to challenge it to a game of RISK. What people don’t know, however, is its love of human excrement.

(Read also: http://jitlim7.blogspot.com/2011/06/japanese-scientist-makes-delicious.html)

Yes, human excrement. Poop. Feces All of this and more is apparently a hot commodity just north of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)

According to Professor Kim Young-soo of Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea, interviews with a number of North Korean defectors revealed that skinny jeans (Hipster couture), adult films, and yes, human excrement are selling like “hot cakes.”

When I first read that I pictured pancake-shaped feces sold in a Denny’s. Clearly North Korea isn’t that weird.

Of course, there is semi-logical reason for all of this. Everyone loves pornography, regardless of country of origin, and “fashionable trousers” were banned, making skinny jeans a hot ticket item for North Korean women. But what of the human excrement?

According to Kim, households used human waste as fertilizer. Since the average human probably doesn’t produce enough waste each day, some shops have begun selling it to deal with the shortage.

This is all well and good – you gotta do what you gotta do to survive – but makes us ask: where do they get it, and how much do they pay for it?