The other time Singapore gave North Korea a taste of America

The Lion City’s hosting of the Trump-Kim summit is not the first time it has provided a link between North Korea and the US. Meet Singaporean Patrick Soh, who brought the burger to Pyongyang – and tempted Kim Jong-un

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Flipping burgers at a Samtaesong in Pyongyang. Photo: AP

Published: 8:00am, 3 Jun 2018Updated: 8:00am, 3 Jun 2018

When Singaporean businessman Patrick Soh first arrived in North Korea in 2008, his minders whispered to him that everyone was forbidden even to utter the word “burger”.

After all, the hermit kingdom had the gogigyeopbbang, “invented” by the country’s second leader Kim Jong-il in 2000 and described as “double bread with meat”.

“Under the previous leader, Kim Jong-il, the burgers could not be called burgers. But now, everyone knows what they are,” Soh says.

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Indeed, under the country’s current portly leader, Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il’s son, the ubiquitous American food has experienced a surge in popularity, so much so that US media reported this week that the CIA believes Kim Jong-un won’t agree to denuclearise but might allow the Americans to open a hamburger chain in Pyongyang – if he ends up meeting US President Donald Trump at a summit in Singapore scheduled for June 12.

While the Americans may be champing at the bit to open a franchise, they won’t be the first. Soh and two countrymen brought fast-food burgers to North Korea a decade ago, giving Singapore another connection to the Trump-Kim summit – which after being torpedoed last week by the US president now appears to be on again.

Patrick Soh and staff at a Samtaesong restaurant in Pyongyang. Photo: Courtesy

Soh had been invited by fellow businessmen Quek Cher Lan and Timothy Tan to help them set up the first fast food joint in North Korea through their company Simpyong International. Quek had established a relationship with North Korean authorities more than 30 years before through his company Aetna Group, which traded steel and minerals with Pyongyang.

BURGER BASICS