Okay, you know the routine.

A sitting American leader and a North Korean leader met in Singapore on June 12 this year.

But Singapore has ties with North Korea that go beyond the Trump-Kim summit and allowing the North Koreans to set up an embassy here.

Singaporean who opened first American fast food chain in North Korea

North American media Vice News put up a video recently about two Singaporeans working with the North Koreans

Although it was released on YouTube on Nov. 18 this year, the interviews appeared to have been conducted before the Trump-Kim summit took place.

The first Singaporean featured was Patrick Soh, who opened a Western hamburger chain called Samtaesong (Three Big Stars) in Pyongyang.

In Singapore, this fast food chain is better known as Waffletown and Soh owns the Asian franchise of this little-known American fast-food chain.

The Singaporean outlet is located at Balmoral Plaza on Bukit Timah Road.

By April 2009, the first outlet was set up in North Korea.

Since then, four more dine-in outlets and 20 takeaway units have been established in Pyongyang, reported Yahoo News.

The chain was kick-started by two Singaporean businessmen, Quek Chek Lan and Timothy Tan.

The former has had business dealings with North Korea for many years.

How Waffletown got picked

Soh told Vice News that North Korea sent a delegation to Singapore and tried McDonald's and KFC.

But they passed over the popular fast-food chains and settled on Waffletown instead.

"At Waffletown, we have a very good fried chicken. And also, the waffle is something different.

So for North Korea, the ex-leader, the father, he wanted to create something for citizens, especially for family purpose, so that's why they bring Waffletown there."

While Soh told Yahoo News his first impression of the North Koreans were that they were "grim" and "unsmiling", he said in the Vice News that he thinks they are "very friendly, very disciplined, and most of the people are well-educated".

Teaching North Koreas how to do business

Besides junk food, another Singaporean is providing something to the North Koran business community.

Entrepreneur Geoffrey See founded non-profit group Choson Exchange in 2009 with the aim of teaching entrepreneurship to inspire "positive change" and help work towards a "healthy civil society in North Korea".

The group has also brought more than 100 North Koreans to Singapore.

See told Vice News:

"The first trip we went in there, we didn't know what to expect, and the North Koreans also didn't really know what to expect.

And I remember that first workshop was very tense and very weird."

He said that the students were hesitant to ask questions and were afraid to be seen as "too enthusiastic about a topic" for fear of that coming back to haunt them someday.

North Koreans want to know you care

He added that although Choson Exchange gets into conflicts with their North Korean partners "all the time over all sorts of things", both sides were still able to maintain a working relationship for 11 years.

See's work in North Korea has been widely covered by the international media, and was even turned into a Harvard Business School case study.

While some might believe that increased exposure to foreigners and greater interactions with them can help North Korea in opening up, not everyone thinks the same way.

Greg Scarlatoiu, an expert on the human rights situation in North Korea, told Al Jazeera there are "limitations to the ability to change North Korean hearts and minds through exposure to outsiders".

This is due to "the regime's overwhelming coercion, control, surveillance and punishment".

Nevertheless, he said:

"But kudos to the Choson Exchange for their dedication and hard work, and for consistently pursuing what they believe in."

You can watch the video by Vice News here:

More of our coverage on North Korea here:

Top image via Vice News/YT