Theta Beta DPRK

embassy of North Korea in Addis Ababa (photo: Laika ac)

An article in the Times "Hosting Proms and Selling Cows: North Korean Embassies Scrounge for Cash,"NYT, 10/7/17), quotes one Marcus Noland, executive vice president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics thusly, “My late father-in-law was an ambassador and he told me that in India, years ago, it was known within the diplomatic corps that if you wanted to buy beef, you could knock on the back door of the North Korean Embassy in Delhi. They ran an abattoir in the basement.” Of course most people like to get meat from a butcher and if you’re going to have a social event like a wedding or a wake, you’re likely to go to one of those banquet halls like Leonard's Palazzo out in Great Neck which have a lot of experience and can supply you with DJ’s and a wide assortment of buffet options--or simply a nearby funeral home. But a local embassy of North Korea is certainly off the beaten track. Talk about inner sanctums and oedipal chambers, these proxies of the secretive North Korean State, which, according to the Times, depend on a creative entrepreneurial spirit to survive, are about as far as you can go. Let’s say you ‘re having a 70^th birthday, why not put a deposit on the North Korean Embassy in Sofia, which has “gilded halls” and offers fireworks displays which are facilitated due to the embassy’s “diplomatic immunity.” Affluent Manhattan families are always trying to outdo each other in coming up with lavish bar mitzvahs or graduation parties, but it's unlikely any Dalton parents have yet tried to arrange an affair at the North Korean mission to the U.N.