揭祕多才多藝的朝鮮餐廳女服務員
North Korea does not have the greatest reputation abroad - death camps, dictators and nuclear-missile-testing don't make for good PR. But in some Asian cities the Pyongyang restaurant chain is seeking to change minds with good food and great service.
I've travelled the world quite a bit but I can honestly say I've never encountered restaurant staff quite as talented as this.
After depositing their plates of food, waitress after waitress stepped up on to the stage to deliver a series of virtuoso numbers - Yong with her operatic arias, Ji-u on the violin, or Lin-a with her remarkable whirling dervish routine, balancing a pot on her head.
All of these performances were served up to a thumping electronic beat, while rose-tinted images of the Dear Homeland flashed up on a screen behind them.
I have to admit I became quite transported by it all. But perhaps this was the beer, and the enthusiastic crowd, who clapped and cheered throughout.
We'd been served tasty if overpriced Korean dishes - dog-meat casserole and pine-nut gruel among them. And there was a range of exotic $50 beverages, flavoured with ginseng and sea cucumber, plus herbal pills which, the waitress told me, really could cure anything.
But the question is - and I suppose the reason many foreigners like me wander into this place - what exactly are we coming to be cured of?
The nights I went in the place was packed, overwhelmingly with South Korean or Chinese expats, mostly large gangs of them drunkenly flirting with the staff.
The servers would dance elegantly between the tables in their colourful peasant smocks, smiling as they side-stepped the occasional groping hand of a client.
It led me to ponder one circulating theory - that this was all a complex form of espionage... the talented and attractive waitresses had been placed here to seduce high-value visitors, like me perhaps, to extract valuable state secrets?
To test that idea, I ventured a conversation with Yong, the waitress serving me, who did speak some English.
"How are you? Where are you from?"
"Pyongyang", she replied (OK, so that was a pretty stupid question).
"How long are you here in Cambodia?"
"Three years. I go home in one year."
"You like it here? You want to stay here?"
"No, I miss Pyongyang," she replied.
I wasn't sure but did I detect a slight clenching of her jaw there?
She was polite but a little stiff. If this was seduction, I was Kim Il Sung. I tried a more direct approach.
"Where do you live?"
"Upstairs."
"Gosh, how many of you live up there?"
"A secret. It's a secret," she smiled icily. And then, more firmly, as I moved to pull out my camera, "No, no photos allowed."
So instead I turned to an elderly South Korean doctor sitting nearby. He told me he'd recently been asked to treat a couple of the young ladies when they'd got sick.
There were not normally allowed out, he said.
"They were all highly trained at the State Arts College," he told me. "They were the most talented girls."
But here they find themselves watched night and day. The waitresses watch each other, the chef is watching the waitresses, someone is even watching the chef.
I decided to do some internet searching on my phone. Reports of defections from these places are actually pretty few and far between.
The staff, of course, have families back home, and experts say it could go very hard on them if anyone tried to run away - although one or two restaurant managers have been known to abscond with bags of cash.
On those occasions, restaurants had been shut down entirely.
The working assumption, according to most reports, is that the Pyongyang chain is primarily there to make money, to feed the North Korean leadership's desperate need for foreign currency.
Some speculate that the restaurants are in fact directly under the wing of the secretive Bureau 39, an agency that allegedly launders cash for the government through ventures that include arms sales and methamphetamine production.
But to be fair, there was absolutely no sign of that here. And anyway, given all the staff, pleasant decor and equipment, it occurred to me that this little place was hardly going to provide that much of a boost to the nation's struggling balance sheet.
I turned back to the Korean doctor. What did he think? Could these women be spies, or was this just a money-laundering operation?
He shrugged doubtfully. Maybe it wasn't about money or politics at all. Maybe the North Koreans just want to put on a show - to smile and to sing - they just want to be loved.
Maybe.
I am pleased to disclose that, after some persuasion, one waitress, Lin-a, did relent - she posed for a photo with me. In the picture she can be seen smiling in her peasant frock. I'm smiling, too, in my jeans.
And behind us, next to an epic mural of a rising Korean sun, stands another waitress, watching us.據英國廣播公司報道，朝鮮在海外名聲不大好，如死亡集中營，政治獨裁和核導彈試驗。這些都使得朝鮮無法擁有一個良好的對外形象。但是，在一些亞洲的城市，平壤飯店通過美食和優質服務來改變人們的觀念。
我遊覽過很多國家，但是說實話，我從來沒有遇到過這麼出彩的店員。
在將乘食物的盤子放好後，女服務員們登上舞臺，施展她們的藝術才華：Yong唱歌劇，Ji-u拉着小提琴，Lin-a頭頂着罐子，轉着圈。
所有這些表演都伴着一個巨響的電子節拍，而在他們身後的屏幕上，閃現着玫瑰色的“親愛的祖國”影像。
我不得不承認，我被這些情不自禁地吸引住了。但是，或許是啤酒的緣故，還有受到熱情的，熱烈歡呼鼓掌的人羣的舞動。
我們享用了可口但價格昂貴的朝鮮菜，如狗肉煲、松子粥。有衆多50美元的異國風情飲料，飲料中配有人蔘、海蔘、中藥丸等。女服務員告訴我，這些東西真的能治癒百病。
但是，問題是——我猜想過理由，那就是爲什麼許多外國人與我一樣喜歡漫步在這裏，我們來這裏到底是想要治癒些什麼呢？
在晚上，我去的地方擠滿了人，到處都是韓國人和中國人，他們中的很多人醉醺醺地調戲着女服務員。
飯店的服務員身着五彩的衣服在桌子之間跳舞，她們笑着避開顧客們時不時伸出的鹹豬手。
這讓我想到一個傳播理論：這是一個複雜的間諜網……有才華的和有魅力的女服務員派到這裏來勾引高價值的遊客，也許，可以提取有價值的國家祕密？
爲了測試這個想法，我冒險和Yong進行談話。Yong能說一些英語。
“你好？你來自什麼地方？”
“平壤，”她回答（很好，這是一個相當愚蠢的問題）。
“你在柬埔寨待了多久了？”
“三年了，我一年回一次家。”
“你喜歡這裏嗎？你想待在這裏嗎？”
“不，我很想念平壤，”她回答。
我不確定，但我似乎察覺到她微微咬緊了牙關。
她很有禮貌，但有點拘謹。如果這是誘惑，我就是金日成。我試了一種更直接的方法。
“你住在哪裏？”
“樓上。”
“天吶，你們多少人住在那裏？”
“祕密，這是個祕密。”她冷笑道。然後，當我拿出我的相機時，她堅決地說道：“不允許拍照。”
而後，我轉向坐在邊上的一位年長的韓國醫生。他告訴我，他最近受邀去醫治幾個生病的年輕女孩子。
他表示，通常她們是不允許外出的。
“她們都在國家藝術學院（the State Arts College）受過高級訓練的，”他告訴我。“她們是最有才華的女孩。”
但在這裏，她們發現自己只是單調地看着黑夜和白天輪轉。服務員注視對方，廚師正看着服務員，有人甚至看着廚師。
我決定用我的手機搜索一番。關於這些地區的叛逃報告幾乎沒有。
當然，員工在朝鮮有家人，而專家稱，他們如果有人企圖逃跑，家人就會背罪，不過，有傳聞稱有一兩個餐廳經理帶着現金潛逃了。
在這種情況下，一些餐館徹底倒閉。
根據大多數的報道，較有可能的假設是，平壤飯店主要是賺錢，養活朝鮮領導人對外國貨幣的極度渴求。
有一些人猜測，這些餐廳其實是直接受39號保密局的管理。據稱這是一個爲朝鮮政府洗錢的機構，主要是通過販賣武器和生產冰毒等形式。
但是，平心而論，絕對沒有任何跡象表明這些陰暗面的存在。不管怎樣，所有的員工擁有令人愉快的裝飾和設備，在我看來，這個小地方也不可能提供大量的能解決朝鮮負債的資金。
我轉身回到那個韓國醫生面前。他是怎麼想的呢？這些婦女會是間諜，或許這個餐館只是一個洗錢工具？
他不確定地聳了聳肩。也許這根本與金錢和政治無關。也許朝鮮人只是想表演，只是想笑和想唱歌——他們只是想讓人喜歡。
但願吧。
我很高興地透露一下，我費力地說服了一名女服務員Lin-a大發慈悲，並喊她跟我一起合影。照片中，她穿着農家長裙子微笑，而我則是穿着牛仔微笑。
在我們身後，是一幅蔚爲壯觀的、有一輪冉冉升起的朝鮮太陽的壁畫，下面站着另一個服務員，正在看着我們。
