美国国家公共电台 NPR Why Do Some South Koreans Believe A Myth That North Koreans Have Horns?

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

President Trump¹ will have his first face-to-face meeting with China's president this week. Front and center in that conversation will be what to do about the growing threat from North Korea. For more than two decades, the U.S. has been trying to convince China to put greater pressure on the North to halt its nuclear weapons program.

This past weekend, Trump said if Beijing won't, as he put it, solve North Korea, the U.S. will. The Korean peninsula has been in an official state of war since the North invaded the South in 1950. That is more than a half century of hostility² and mythmaking. NPR's correspondent in Seoul Elise Hu has this story about one of the enduring consequences.

ELISE HU, BYLINE³: In the course of reporting here in Seoul over the past two years, a curious observation kept cropping up in interviews. This is Lee Gwang-sung, a North Korean defector who arrived in late 2015.

LEE GWANG-SUNG: (Through interpreter) I once met a senior in South Korea who asked me if North Koreans have horns on their heads. Are we cows? How can we have horns on our heads?

HU: Then in a separate interview for a different story with Shin Eun-mi, an elderly South Korean American who grew up near Seoul, Shin mentioned something similar.

SHIN EUN-MI: When I was in elementary school in South Korea, teachers taught me that North Koreans had horns on their heads like monsters.

HU: Or some other non-human beasts. She eventually realized it wasn't true.

SHIN: I knew that biologically it is impossible for human beings to have horns, but the demonized images of North Korea had lingered in my life.

HU: Researchers say the notion of North Koreans, who are the same ethnicity as South Koreans, as animal or beast-like is a product of years of propaganda and misleading education. Here's Seoul National University education researcher Park Sung-Chung.

PARK SUNG-CHUNG: It was quoting it from the government, and political leadership wanted people to believe that North Korea is the biggest enemy in the whole world.

HU: North and South Korea were split at an arbitrary line - the 38th parallel - and then engaged in years of bitter war, one that technically⁴ never ended.

PARK: Back in 1970, it was about Cold War mentality⁵. We were against any kind of thing that comes from communism, a communist country.

HU: So North Koreans do not have horns?

PARK: I never thought that - maybe when I was in elementary, I might have thought that they had the horns. But when I was in high school, I didn't believe it.

HU: But the thinking persists in people some 50 years later. How did it live on so long?

SHERI BERMAN: It's very hard to change people's opinions once they've been formed early in life.

HU: Sheri Berman is a political science professor specializing in authoritarian⁶ regimes and propaganda at Barnard College.

BERMAN: The techniques for instilling⁷ these beliefs have always been more or less the same, right? You want to start with children because they are the most impressionable, and that's where your belief systems tend to form and stick.

HU: Park, the education researcher remembers a hit animated⁸ film shown across South Korea when he was little. It's called "Doree Changun."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, " DOREE CHANGUN")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, singing in Korean).

HU: It pits dorees of courage, witty⁹ kids against evil, red wolves who represent North Koreans.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, " DOREE CHANGUN")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character, speaking in Korean).

BERMAN: This is part of what dictatorships do to mobilize citizens for violence or the potential for violence.

HU: Take away your perceived enemies' humanity, and it's easier to fight them. The technique is used the world over throughout history.

BERMAN: It's very difficult once it's sort of begun to fight it back. But, you know, the best way to do that is by letting citizens gain free access to information.

HU: Information about North Korea was especially scarce during the height of the Cold War, says Professor Park.

PARK: We couldn't have any access to North Korea and North Korean people. We didn't have any access to the news releases from North Korea.

HU: That government censorship hasn't changed. A Cold War-era National Security Law is still on the books here making it illegal for South Koreans to share North Korean content like news reports. The government blocks internet users from accessing North Korean sites. The result - misinformation can live on longer as the North Korean defector Lee found out.

LEE: (Through interpreter) I thought, well, we're people. How can human beings have horns on their head? So I was very surprised and quite weirded out by that.

HU: A reminder¹⁰ that even in systems considered free, long, indoctrinated beliefs can take generations to change. Elise Hu, NPR News, Seoul.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 hostility   

n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争

参考例句：

• There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意。
• His hostility to your plan is well known.他对你的计划所持的敌意是众所周知的。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

5 mentality   

n.心理，思想，脑力

参考例句：

• He has many years'experience of the criminal mentality.他研究犯罪心理有多年经验。
• Running a business requires a very different mentality from being a salaried employee.经营企业所要求具备的心态和上班族的心态截然不同。

6 authoritarian   

n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者

参考例句：

• Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
• The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。

7 instilling   

v.逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instil的现在分词 )；逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instill的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Make sure your subordinates understand your sense of urgency and work toward instilling this in allsubordinates. 确保你的下属同样具备判断紧急事件的意识，在工作中潜移默化地灌输给他们。 来自互联网

8 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

9 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

10 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。