“Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom,” reports the — wait. Stop. UNICORNS? That’s an actual snippet from a report from the Korean Central News Agency, the state news agency of North Korea and fine, okay, we totally understand that this might be a retaliatory joke in response to China getting fooled by The Onion naming Kim Jong-un the Sexiest Man Alive or something.
I suppose that living in a hermetically-sealed kingdom might alter one’s perspective to a certain degree. North Korea can’t even manage to feed it’s population, and yet it’s building it’s own nuclear arsenal and engaging in off-again and on-again threats to unleash WWIII upon South Korea and the rest of the world. Third-generation Glorious Leader Kim Jong-un is managing to lead the aptly-named Hermit Kingdom to something between complete, abject starvation and total world domination. So the news that the DPRK has discovered a secret unicorn lair seems not at all out of the ordinary. If you can’t (won’t) feed your people, engaging in sheer fantasy makes perfect sense.
Hey, why not unicorns? Anyone who’s ever experienced the joys of reading “news” dispatched from the Korean Central News Agency understands that in the joyous People’s Paradise that is North Korea, all thing are possible…and what seems impossible can be explained and massaged and manipulated in a way that keeps the starving peasants hordes pacified and at bay. Besides, are reports of alleged unicorn lairs any more fantastical than the rumors about Bigfoot here in the Pacific Northwest? Or Chupacabras in Mexico?
Taking into account that this is the same country with news agencies telling their people that mountains cry and birds lament when Kim Jong-il died and did so because he was sent down from the cosmos to destroy the Japanese to sink holes in one and that’s totally normal, this isn’t too far-fetched of a — you know what? I give up.
If you can’t (or refuse to) provide your people with the basics necessary for survival, I suppose filling their heads (if not their bellies) with mythology and fairy tales is about all you have to fall back on. Hey, people can’t live on grass alone, right?
North Koreans may be starving, but they can be grateful that their Glorious Leader is doing what he can to ensure that the Hermit Kingdom retains its scientific (if not moral) superiority.
