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[cue violin music] The early years of the 21st Century were a sad time for the diplomats of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea–eating at Denny’s, sailing the East River on a boat without stairs or a galley, shopping at Walgreen’s on Sundays, drinking instant coffee, moving from place to place to skip out on back rent and unpaid phone bills–in short, living like people in the Bronx (just kidding!). But the Chosun Ilbo reports that for our North Korean friends, at least for those who live outside of North Korea, there is a May after every December:

However, recently the economic conditions and spirits of the North Koreans seem to have improved, their South Korean counterparts report. As late as the mid 1990s, North Korea could not afford the rent for the building they occupied, and the international phone service was cut off because it failed to pay the phone bills. These days they sport cell phones and more often than not can afford to treat diplomats from other countries. On occasion, they rent South Korean movies or dramas in video stores run by Korean Americans.

Why, just the other day one of them even paid off his back rent with a stack of crisp new hundreds.