BEIJING-North Korea, with its history of famine and repression, might not immediately leap to mind when thinking about the world's cuisine.

Yet, North Korean eateries, where waitresses from Pyongyang sing and dance traditional North Korean songs, have sprung up across China in recent years.

Estimates of the number of North Korean restaurants in China range from several dozen to more than 100. In Beijing, there were 14 as of this fall. For some, it's a lucrative business opportunity with the offer of sending profits in much-needed foreign currency back to North Korea, sources say.

But suddenly, many North Korean workers are packing up and going home, apparently on instructions from their government. Others speculate the exodus is tied to a rash of defections to foreign embassies in China or because Pyongyang fears its experiment with capitalism could result in severe backlash.

``North Korean waitresses are really pretty. They leave a good impression, too, so I talk to them a lot. We also have the same taste in food because we are ethnically the same,'' says Song Gonghon, 57, a farmer from South Korea's Chollabuk province, who dined at the Moranbong restaurant during a group tour to China in early December. Members of his tour party started slow-dancing with the North Korean waitresses as he spoke.

Restaurants operated by North Koreans in China are especially popular with South Korean tourists eager for a taste of ``home.'' At the Haedanghwa restaurant, regarded by many as the best North Korean eatery in Beijing, 90 percent of diners are South Korean, according to a waitress who works in the chain's flagship store.

In the autumn of 2002, there were only three North Korean restaurants. One has since closed, but two more opened in 2003. In 2004, the number shot up, with 10 new eateries opening up in the first 10 months of the year.

One of the first to open was a branch of the Haedanghwa restaurant, which is an affiliate of the Koryo Hotel chain in Pyongyang. The restaurant held its grand opening party on Feb. 16 to coincide with the 62nd birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

It is believed that tentative economic reforms begun in North Korea in the summer of 2002 are behind this move. State-owned companies became responsible for their own profit-making and state rules were eased so they could set up overseas and obtain much-needed foreign currency. Many North Korean restaurants in China are joint ventures between North Korean and Chinese investors. North Korean businesses provide the labor, while Chinese investors provide the funds, space and everything else needed to run a restaurant.

According to industry insiders, restaurants pay North Korean workers about $100 (10,500 yen) a month in wages. Intermediaries are paid a commission for introducing staff. This can add up to a relatively large sum of money-paid in hard cash and in foreign currency.

For North Korean businesses, this is a sweet deal that requires no capital. It also probably explains why, in addition to hotel and service companies, North Korean firms in unrelated fields are jumping on the restaurant bandwagon. Hard times, too

However, these establishments are also encountering hard times-but not because of a lack of customers.

At the Beerobong restaurant's main store that opened this spring in Beijing's Wangjing district, where many South Korean residents live, the North Korean chefs returned to their homeland in mid-November. In early December, the North Korean waitresses left, too. The exodus resulted in a major overhaul of the restaurant's menu and services.

``Now that the North Korean workers have gone, we've had to discontinue the songs and other performances. We also had to makes changes to our dishes,'' explains a Korean-Chinese woman who was recently hired there.

At the Donghaewon restaurant, which had attracted many Japanese customers, eight North Korean workers returned to their homeland in mid-October.

With its import of barbecue beef sauce from Japan, the restaurant had once boasted ``a taste of Japan and the service of Pyongyang women.'' But now, ethnic Korean residents living China work the shifts.

The owner did not know why the workers were packing up and going home. A Chinese man who owns a North Korean restaurant in another different district, was equally perplexed: ``My workers are also returning to North Korea before the Chinese New Year. They are returning without even making money, so they seem unhappy. But they have no choice. Apparently, the order to leave came from the government (in Pyongyang).'' Speculation abounds

There has been a lot of speculation about the retreat to North Korea. In Beijing, North Korean workers from at least three of 14 established North Korean restaurants are heading home.

Staff in all North Korean restaurants, excluding the five affiliated with hotels and service companies in Pyongyang, have been ordered to return to North Korea, one owner said.

Beijing is not the only city experiencing an exodus. An industry insider in Dandong city in Liaoning province says that all but five of the dozen or so North Korean restaurants there are losing their North Korean staff. Similar stories can be heard in other cities.

Another reason could be that not all the North Korean investors are making as much profit as they had hoped.

If that's the case, they are not sending payments to intermediaries. What is clear is that nobody seems to really know.

Others say Pyongyang is finding it increasingly hard to keep track of the number of North Koreans working in China. Thus, according to that reasoning, restaurant staff will continue to be ordered home for the foreseeable future.

``Once Pyongyang is more organized, North Korean workers will return,'' says one source.

Yet another informant suggests: ``This could be the result of numerous defection incidents in September in which North Koreans stormed foreign embassies and schools in Beijing to seek refuge.''

A North Korean source in Beijing offers yet another opinion: ``This could be a way for Pyongyang to prevent capitalism from rushing its doors.''

With no obvious explanation, North Korean restaurants in China this winter could find the going tough.(IHT/Asahi: December 25,2004)