Home » Cryptozoology » Unicorns in North Korea?

Posted by gps on Dec 30, 2012 in Cryptozoology, Humor, Pseudoscience | 2 comments

Unicorns in North Korea?

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. Seriously, I could not even make this up. Nonetheless, here it is:

North Korea Says Its Archaeologists Discovered A ‘Unicorn Lair’

Let’s just hope the Biblical literalists don’t get their hands on this.

Arcus80

That’s not entirely correct, and it goes to show that even NPR can find itself essentially engaging in propaganda. There’s quite a bit more to it:

“So was North Korea claiming that unicorns exist, as some mocking accounts put it? Nope. A Korea scholar quickly debunked that interpretation, explaining that “unicorn” was a mistranslation. The mythical beast was actually a kirin, a four-legged creature with the head of a dragon and the body of a tiger. And it turned out that the North Koreans weren’t using the fanciful story to prove that the kirin actually existed. Instead, they were reinstating their claim on the king’s birthplace, to remind their people and their neighbours that North Korea was once a great nation, and can be so again.”

From: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/27/north_korea_does_not_believe_in_unicorns
- http://www.caleblack.com gps
  
  Interesting, it seems I should have done some more digging around. I wonder why it was mistranslated as “unicorn” in the Japanese press release I saw? Maybe to provoke a little more poking fun at North Korea?