Several hotels and restaurants in northeast China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture employ young North Korean women as performers and waiting staff. In many cases such arrangements provide benefits to all sides, representing economic opportunity for the performers and their official handlers, and a means for the Chinese institution to attract custom.

But cultural differences, the girls’ monotonous living conditions and the cold logic of business can also put a strain on relationships. And when things go sour, as they did in one recent case in the border town of Hunchun, everyday Sino-DPRK interactions can mirror the two countries’ troubled official relations.