[Photo: Speigel Online]

Got a notion for a business and need a foreign partner? Looking to out-source production to a country where the wages are cheap and the workers so compliant they’ll break into choreographed flag-waving teams?

Consider North Korea. That’s what three enterprising, albeit drunken, Swedes did. On a lark. Now they’re hawking a brand new line of jeans in their own Stockholm boutique. They even got an exclusive look inside the Hermit Kingdom during their search for a factory.

…They spent the next 10 days visiting textile factories, but without success. They did manage to fit in a trip to the terrarium at the Pyongyang zoo, to which a Swedish TV star had once donated used equipment and a few wild animals. The three Swedes thought that even the crocodiles looked sad.

On their last day in North Korea, they finally met the director of a mining operation that included both a zinc processing and a textile division. The deal was sealed with a handshake, a group photo and Swedish vodka. They decided on black jeans. The Swedes had discovered that the North Koreans were hesitant to produce blue jeans, apparently because they were perceived as an American symbol. On the other hand, the director was very interested in the possibility of the young foreigners perhaps creating a Web page for his business.