North Koreans want a piece of late leader

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il earlier this month has sparked a run on enamelled lapel pins bearing his image in the Chinese border city of Dandong, street vendors said on Friday.

But the face of the isolated country's new leader, Kim's young son Jong-Un, is nowhere to be found on the vendors' tables, also laden with cheaply made souvenir fridge magnets, Buddhas, bracelets, cups and nail clippers.

“I don't know when we will get them. North Korea hasn't sent them yet,” a peddler surnamed Wang told AFP, a day after the untested Jong-Un was formally declared the supreme leader of the impoverished country.

Another stall holder surnamed Ding said it was too early for Jong-Un badges to be on sale.

“In 20 years they will make them. He's too young now,” the elderly woman told AFP, as she laid out her last Kim Jong-Il lapel pins in a small box.

Vendors braving freezing temperatures along the Yalu River, which separates China and North Korea, said sales of badges bearing the likeness of Kim Jong-Il surged after his death on December 17 from a heart attack at the age of 69.

Ding said she sold 50 to 60 lapel pins every day during the 13-day mourning period, which ended Thursday with a massive memorial service for the late leader, compared with just two or three a day before his death.

A single badge costs between 10 yuan and 35 yuan ($1.60 to $5.50) depending on the buyer's bargaining skills - or 50 yuan for a lapel pin bearing the image of Kim and his late father, North Korea's founding president Kim Il-Sung.

Souvenir North Korean won notes picturing the two Kims were selling for 20 yuan - or 135 yuan for what vendors said were “real” notes.

“North Koreans, South Koreans, Japanese and Europeans have been buying badges to remember the past,” Wang said. - Sapa-AFP