{"id":8352,"date":"2026-05-08T02:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/8352\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T02:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:47:09","slug":"north-korea-wig-and-eyelash-work-surges-amid-hardship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/8352\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea wig and eyelash work surges amid hardship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"false<\/a>False eyelashes for sale on the Chinese online shopping site Pindududu. The products appear to undergo first-line processing in North Korea before being sent to China for packaging. (Screen capture from the Pindudou website)<\/p>\n

Wig and eyelash assembly work<\/a> has taken off as a cottage industry in Chongjin, North Korea\u2019s third-largest city, as intensifying market<\/a> controls and rising inflation<\/a> leave<\/a> North Korean people with few other ways to earn income.<\/p>\n

\u201cWig and eyelash contract assembly has until now been carried out mainly in detention facilities and factory<\/a> units, but since late last year, trading companies<\/a> have been negotiating higher per-unit rates with Chinese<\/a> partners and expanding the scale of their operations, so work is now flowing into ordinary private homes<\/a> as well,\u201d a source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The source described scenes now common across Chongjin: \u201cThese days, it<\/a> has become a familiar sight to see people working through the night by oil lamp in dim rooms with unreliable electricity<\/a>, making wigs and eyelashes. Because it has become impossible to make a living through market trading, people are flooding<\/a> into wig and eyelash assembly work, however physically demanding it may be, because at least you get paid for what you produce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jangmadang, North Korea\u2019s network of semi-official street markets<\/a> that emerged in the 1990s as the state distribution<\/a> system<\/a> collapsed, has come under renewed restrictions in recent years as authorities tighten economic controls.<\/p>\n

Strand by strand, a livelihood<\/p>\n

The pay<\/a> for this piecework is meager relative to the effort required. Wigs earn between 15,000 and 30,000 North Korean won per piece depending on size and weight. Eyelash strips pay roughly 3,000 won per 100 pieces for thicker varieties and 5,000 won for thinner ones.<\/p>\n

At current market rice<\/a> prices<\/a> in North Korea, completing 1,000 eyelash strips buys just one kilogram of rice. Even so, North Korean people are taking on the work because it offers a more reliable income stream than market trading, and the earnings are going directly toward food<\/a> purchases.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can feed your family<\/a> by making eyelashes, so people work through the night, and even children<\/a> help with the assembly work after they come home from school,\u201d the source said. \u201cAmong people, there is a saying going around: \u2018Every single strand helps keep us alive.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Chinese buyers have also raised quality standards, leading to a tiered pay structure based on the precision and consistency of the work. Pieces assembled with machine-like evenness and tight knot spacing command higher rates, meaning that workers<\/a> with skilled hands can earn meaningfully more than others for the same hours<\/a> of work.<\/p>\n

The finished wigs and eyelashes are shipped to China<\/a>, where they are relabeled as Chinese-made products and exported to global markets. North Korean labor<\/a>, paid a fraction of what workers elsewhere would earn, effectively underpins the bottom of an international supply chain.<\/p>\n

According to data from China\u2019s General Administration of Customs, wigs and eyelashes account for well over half of all North Korean exports<\/a> to China, making them by far the country\u2019s leading export commodity. Because neither product appears on the list of goods banned under U.N. Security Council sanctions<\/a> against North Korea, Pyongyang<\/a> treats the sector as a strategic export priority.<\/p>\n

Disputes over per-unit pay rates between North Korean trading companies and their Chinese counterparts have persisted, but the arrangement is sustained by a convergence of interests: North Korea urgently needs foreign currency<\/a>, and Chinese buyers need low-cost processing. The source suggested the sector will remain North Korea\u2019s dominant export to China for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

Read in Korean<\/a><\/p>\n

Reporting from inside North Korea<\/p>\n

\n Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information<\/a> through secure channels. Unlike reporting based on state media<\/a>, satellite<\/a> imagery, or defector<\/a> accounts from years past, our journalism comes directly from people currently living under the regime. We verify reports through multiple independent sources and cross-reference details before publication.\n <\/p>\n

\n Our sources remain anonymous because contact with foreign media is treated as a capital<\/a> offense in North Korea \u2014 discovery means imprisonment or execution. This network-based approach allows Daily NK to report<\/a> on developments other outlets cannot access: market trends, policy implementation, public sentiment, and daily realities that never appear in official narratives.\n <\/p>\n

\n Maintaining these secure communication channels and protecting source identities requires specialized protocols and constant vigilance. Daily NK serves as a bridge<\/a> between North Koreans and the outside world, documenting what\u2019s happening inside one of the world\u2019s most closed societies.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"False eyelashes for sale on the Chinese online shopping site Pindududu. The products appear to undergo first-line processing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[134,6493,449,119,3177,6494,2595,452,31,451,4610,34,2594],"class_list":{"0":"post-8352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-north-korea","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-chongjin","10":"tag-crackdowns","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-exports","13":"tag-forced-labor","14":"tag-foreign-currency","15":"tag-jangmadang","16":"tag-korea","17":"tag-markets","18":"tag-north-hamgyong-province","19":"tag-north-korea","20":"tag-trade"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}