Official DPRK merchandise

Remember it’s not official DPRK merchandise unless it says “Made in the DPR of Korea” on the bottom.

A woman in Poland was rummaging through her kitchenware and stumbled on a bowl made in the DPRK:

~~Can anyone translate the Hangul? “An tuk Gang”? Maybe the name of the factory? Mt. Paektu is featured in the logo. I am not sure what the “7” means.~~

Henrik offers a better translation of the logo in the comments:

As far as I can see, the stamp says “압록강” which translates as “Amnok gang”, meaning the Amnok (or Yalu) river.

The stamp might actually show the bridge between Dandong and Sinuiju, with boats going under it too.

A further question which a Korea linguist might be able to explain to me is why “압록강” is translated as “Amnok River” and not “Abrok River”…

Here is a picture of the bowl. It appears to be a pressed metal sheet with an enamel coating. They still make bowls this way today in the DPRK.

(h/t MR)

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Manufacturing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Henrik Nydqvist

As far as I can see, the stamp says “압록강” which translates as “Amnok gang”, meaning the Amnok (or Yalu) river.

The stamp might actually show the bridge between Dandong and Sinuiju, with boats going under it too. That’s my guess at least 😉
Kerk Phillips

Individually, the syllables 압 & 록 are pronounced “ap” and “rok”. However, when they are run together in a single word there is a sound change and the p-r becomes m-n, hence “Amnok”.

The same is true of Independence Gate in Seoul, 독립문 Dongnipmun, which used to be romanized as Dog rip mun back in the old days (1980’s at least).
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Rich Kuslan, Editor

Boy, wouldn’t I love to have one of those! Fascinating.

North Korean Economy Watch

Official DPRK merchandise