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North Korea is a bit of a black box, right?
朝鲜有点像个黑匣子，对吧？
It's got this rogue nuclear program.
有不走寻常路的核计划。
It's under heavy international sanctions.
受到了国际社会的严厉制裁。
There's gulags.
有古拉格（集中营）。
There's famines.
还有饥荒。
The people appear to worship this deified kid of a national leader.
那里的人似乎都很崇拜这个被神化的，担任他们的国家领导人的孩子。
To understand why that is, you really have to go back to 1910 when Japan first colonized Korea.
要想弄清楚这其中的来龙去脉，我们还得从1910年日本开始殖民朝鲜的时候说起。
And Japan at the time was its own super crazy fascist imperial state,
当时的日本也是一个超级疯狂的法西斯帝国，
which Americans know all about because we fought a war with them.
美国人对此堪称了如指掌，因为我们和他们打过仗。
Japan wanted to convince Koreans that they were a subset of the Japanese race and to rally them to the imperial cause.
日本想让朝鲜人相信他们是日本种族的一部分，想把他们也笼络到帝国事业中来。
And then Japan collapsed, 1945, the North came under Soviet occupation but the ideology stayed there.
后来，也就是1945年，日本垮台了，朝鲜又被苏联占领了，但日本的意识形态已经在朝鲜生根了。
So we think of North Korea as like this last holdover of Soviet-style communism,
所以，虽然我们都认为朝鲜是苏维埃式共产主义的最后一个遗留物，
but actually it's the last holdover of Japanese fascism.
但朝鲜实际上是日本法西斯主义的最后一个遗留物。
And you still see that today.
即便是今天，我们也依然看得出来。
North Koreans are told that they are the purest race on Earth
朝鲜民众被告知他们是地球上最纯洁的种族，
and that their superiority means that they need a strong leader to protect them from the outside world
他们的优越性意味着他们需要一位强有力的领导人来保护他们免受外界的伤害，
and then they have this leader who's kind of deified
于是，他们就有了这个被神化的领袖，
because he's a holdover from the Japanese emperor who was actually, you know, a quasi-religious figure.
因为他是日本天皇——一个准宗教人物——的继承人。
So then in 1991 the Soviet Union collapses, stopped giving North Korea all these subsidies,
后来，1991年，苏联解体了，自此便停止向朝鲜提供各种补贴了，
and the North Korean government needed to find a new way to keep its citizens' support
朝鲜政府需要寻找一种新的方式，守住朝鲜公民的支持，
because they were so poor that they could not feed their own people and 1 in 10 North Koreans starved to death.
因为他们实在是太穷了，穷得连他们自己的人民都养活不了，以致于每10个朝鲜人中间就会有1个人饿死。
So that's when Kim Jong-Il, who was the leader at the time, came up with the Songun policy, military first,
就在这个时候，当时的朝鲜领导人金正日提出了先军政策，
which is this big lie they tell the country that they're constantly at this like low-boil war with the entire outside world,
就是他们对自己的国名撒下的那个弥天大谎：朝鲜一直在与外界，
especially the American imperialist dogs, so you have to give up everything towards the military cause.
尤其是美帝国主义走狗展开低调的战争，所以，大家必须牺牲一切，为朝鲜的军事做贡献。
It's really effective.
事实证明，这个谎言很管用。
Everybody buys into it.
所有人都信了。
There are studies that show that even North Koreans who leave the country and see how poor North Korea is,
有研究表明，即使是离开了朝鲜，知道朝鲜有多穷的朝鲜人，
most of them actually come back willingly.
大部分还都会自愿回到朝鲜。
When Kim Jong-Il died, there were millions of North Koreans crying in the street,
金正日去世时，数以百万计的朝鲜人到街头哭丧，
and even defectors say that was more real than fake,
即使是叛逃者都说那是他们的真情实感，并不是装出来的，
which is kind of amazing given that the country is really poor and 1% of its population lives in prison camps.
这点确实是让人挺惊讶的，考虑到这个国家真的很穷，还有1%的人口生活在战俘营里。
And then one effect of this that works really well in the North Korean government's favor
他们这么做的效果之一，同时也是对朝鲜非常有利的一大效果
is that this militarism also distracts the U.S. and the rest of the outside world,
就是他们的这种军国主义姿态也分散了美国及其他国家对朝鲜的注意力，
so we're so worried about their nuclear program and their crazy attacks on South Korea
以致于他们的核计划，以及他们对韩国的疯狂攻击成了非常让我们担忧的一件事，
that we actually don't bother that much with the way they treat their own people,
担忧到我们都不怎么在意他们是怎么对待他们的人民的了，
who are the real victims of the North Korean system.
尽管他们才是朝鲜的政治制度的真正受害者。
