【外交政策 20150525】朝鲜的真人版饥饿游戏

满仓

【中文标题】朝鲜的真人版饥饿游戏
【原文标题】North Korea’s Real Life Hunger Games
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】JOSEPH KIM
【原文链接】http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/25/north-koreas-real-life-hunger-games-joseph-kim/




在拘留中心的第二天，我被派去给稻田除草。这项工作让我筋疲力尽，连续几个小时在泥水里，把手指插入杂草白色的根部拔出来。中午时分，我们在烈日下排队回到拘留中心吃午饭。我不知道这里的惯例，所以紧紧跟着别人，唯恐被人察觉。在吃完了一点点玉米面条汤之后，一个守卫——瘦瘦的十来岁孩子，长着一张愤怒的脸——喊道：“现在是休息时间。”我看到其他人几乎是立即躺倒入睡。根据他们入睡的速度，我能想到这是多么珍贵的休息机会。

1995年，我们这个地区遭遇了饥荒，当时我只有5岁，和父母、姐姐凤淑住在北咸镜道。接下来几年的日子非常艰苦，我的父亲死于饥饿和疾病，母亲在试图跨越中朝边境时被逮捕，凤淑要么被卖作性奴隶，要么被中国人买走做老婆——我到现在也不知道。家庭四分五裂之后，我从十岁开始就变成了“小燕子”，也就是流浪儿，无家可归的孩子们在市场上乞讨，晚上随便找个地方睡觉。有些孩子是被无力抚养他们的父母抛弃，有些像我一样，眼睁睁地看着自己的家庭在饥荒面前分崩离析。在2005年夏天——那是我逃往中国的一年前，前往美国的两年前——政府专管弱势群体的部门Saraocheong把我送进拘留中心，因为我连续三个月没有上学。

拘留中心坐落在一个曾经是艺术学校的残破建筑物里，里面数百个像我一样的孩子惶惶不可终日。在那里的第一天，我看到一个十来岁的孩子被残暴地殴打，我可以确定他的脑子被打坏了。黑暗降临之后，隔壁传来女孩被强奸时的惨叫声。拘留中心曾经是咸镜道最好的艺术学校，但是现在，和周围的很多事物一样，它变成了野蛮、破败和混乱之地。

第二天，我在睡梦中听到有人大喊：“起来！起来！”我睁开眼睛，看到守卫正在冲我们咆哮，一边踢那些没有起来的孩子，一边用一根大木棍——实际上是一个锄头柄——吓唬周围的人。所有人急急忙忙地在房间中央的一堆鞋里寻找自己的鞋。我的手在抖，只找到一只鞋。当我弯腰在寻找另外一只时，肩胛骨上重重地挨了一棍。“混蛋！”他喊道，“你怎么那么慢！”

剧痛袭来，但是我忍住没有跌倒，我知道只要一有孱弱的表现，就离死不远了。我向守卫鞠躬，他的脸上露出狰狞的笑容，背后的疼痛入火烧一般。

“对不起，长官，”我说，“我在找我的鞋。”

他又把棍子举起来，大喊：“混蛋！”这一下打在我左肩膀上，锁骨几乎要断了。我想杀了他，但是周围肯定有其他的守卫，天黑之后他们一定会找我的麻烦。

从那以后，这个守卫就把我当成了头号施虐对象。我后来知道，他原来也是狱中的犯人，他的父母都是中产阶级，可以让他离开这里，但是却没有这么做。被父母抛弃之后，他被送到拘留中心，后来得到了这份管教其他犯人的工作。（这里并没有选拔守卫的标准流程，谁最强壮、最能制服犯人，谁就是守卫。）为了扬名立万，他毫无来由地殴打犯人，对我更是青睐有加。

我于是知道了要把鞋放在容易找到的地方，但是守卫根本不管。我的名字就是混蛋，被殴打更是家常便饭。有时候他用大棍子打我，有时候扇我的耳光。我唯一的回应就是鞠躬，但怒火在心中不断堆积。当他扇我耳光时，我可以感觉到体内的血液在沸腾。在来到拘留中心之前，我在街上也是个出名的打手，很多人都怕我。

在来到拘留中心之前，靠乞讨和盗窃我几乎已经无法继续生存了。我和母亲以及另外一个残暴的同伴生活在一起，如果我没有找到足够的食物来维持这个临时拼凑的家庭，他就会打我。在沮丧和愤怒中，我本以为生活已经达到了最低点——直到我进入拘留中心。

几个月之后的一天，我听到他在后面叫我：“嗨，混蛋。”语气似乎充满了愉悦。我能从他的声音之中感到一种热切的期盼，痛快地给我一个嘴巴，把仇恨和沮丧从他的手传递给我的脸。他似乎全心全意地在等待着把积累了一个早晨的能量宣泄出来，我知道他非常享受这一刻。但是今天，我不能再忍受了。我转过身来。

我用颤抖的声音喊道：“为什么总是我？放过我，请放过我！去找别人！”我知道自己必将面对更大的危险，但当时已经太晚了。

守卫脸上的表情僵住了，然后脸色变黑，他的眼睛眯成一条线。他用低低的声音说：“你怎么敢这样和我说话！”我们相互争吵起来，其他的孩子们围过来，睁大眼睛看着我们。主管跑过来。

“出了什么事？”他把周围的孩子推开说，“你们两人在喊什么？”

在守卫张嘴之前，我先发话了，我当着主管的面讲述了事情的原委。他边听边点头，失意愤怒的守卫闭嘴。我讲完之后，主管点点头，说：“我听够了，我们来个公平的安排，也就是说，你们要打一架。”

主管看起来很兴奋，他显然已经受够了每天一成不变的生活，眼前有个刺激的机会。我知道如果失败就死定了，将彻底受守卫摆布，因为我在公众面前羞辱了他，他下手不会留情。我决定要拿出一切本事打赢。

主管把孩子们都叫到我们这个房间里。我研究着对手，他更高、更重，但是我知道他的生活条件优越，而我一直睡眠不足，但我知道如何在艰苦的条件中生存。我对自己说，你的意志力更强，无论如何，不要放弃。

“好，开始！”

守卫和我抓住对方的肩膀和胳膊，推来推去，嘴里含糊地呼喊着。他很快抽出一只手，一拳打在我的下巴上，我的牙齿被震松了。我尝到嘴里血腥的味道，心理有些害怕。我把他推开，试图让他摔倒。但他太强壮了。几分钟的疯狂扭打之后，我的左腿一酸，倒在地上。守卫扑过来，掐住我的脖子。我们抱在一起，滚来滚去，边努力呼吸边击打对方。

在扭打了20分钟之后，我的胳膊上全是汗水。我已经筋疲力尽，两只手臂就好像是用细细的线挂在肩膀上。但是我失败的代价更大，而且我一直就是一个倔强的打手。我终于把守卫摔倒在地，爬到他的身上，坐在他的胸口。我用左手抓住他的两只手，用右手挥拳打他的脸，他尽力扭来扭去躲避我的拳头。我不再感到愤怒，也没有仇恨，就像一个旷工在努力地挖煤。我并不觉得愤怒，只有决心和意志力。砰，他的下嘴唇硌在牙齿上。我深吸一口气，身体向前探，咬紧牙关。砰，再狠一点，砰。

“我投降！”他最后喊道。几个旁观者发出一阵欢呼，其他的人则厌恶地叹了一口气。我从守卫的身上翻下来，大口喘着气。

我本来只想尽快服满刑期，但是打败了守卫之后，我自然而然地晋升到“黑帮兄弟会”的级别，也就是那些实质上运作这座拘留中心的老牌犯人。当天下午，我得到了响应的奖赏。他们把我任命为新的守卫，这意味着更好的食物，以及不用在酷暑下整日劳作的自由度。

被我打败的守卫变成了一个普通的犯人，他也必须要去田间除草。黑帮兄弟会给我一根大木棍，我可以用它来随意惩罚别人。我不想要大木棍，也不想当守卫，但是我没有选择。我发誓要做一个比那些伤害我的人更好的人，我不想变成一个残暴的野兽，就像运作拘留中心的黑帮兄弟会成员。我依然期望保留内心最美好的一面。

但是权力给人带来醺醺然的感觉。每天早晨，年龄比较大的犯人会走过来，问我晚上休息得可好。大部分情况下我不搭理他们，给他们好脸色对我也没什么好处。几个星期之后，我变得越来越凶狠。如果有人违背我的命令，而我又没有惩罚他们，我就会被殴打并替换掉——这是主管明确的命令。于是，只要有人不听话，我就会打他们。只要有人目光中带着仇恨，我上去就是一拳。

离开拘留中心几个月之后，我在母亲的朋友家临时借宿，又回到了小偷小摸的生活中。我在拘留中心殴打过的那些孩子，在咸镜道的街道上时常找我的麻烦。在他们的眼中，我看到了棍子打在脊背上的那种愤怒。我们都很愤怒，我觉得不仅仅是因为我们所经历的那些事情，而且因为我们现在被变成的样子。

朝鲜的大饥荒让数十万人丧生，咸镜道郊外的小山上依然可以看到一些坟墓。但是饥荒还带来了更深层次的危害：它让家庭分崩离析，就好像酸液中被溶解的金属（我的家庭就是一个例子），它让那些牢固、深厚的友谊仅仅因为一小块谷物面包就变得土崩瓦解。西方人都在谈论朝鲜残暴的统治，而我看到的完全是政府行为的缺失。这是更加可怕的事情。




原文：

What it's like to fight for your life in North Korea.

My second day at the detention center, I was sent to weed the rice fields. The task was exhausting, slogging for hours through the flooded rows of dirt, pulling at the weeds and digging down with my fingers for the grub-white roots. Around noon, we marched under a hot sun back to the detention center for lunch. Not knowing the routine, I simply followed everyone else, trying not to stick out. After we ate our meager portions of corn noodle soup, the guard, a lean teenager with an angry face, yelled: “It is your break time.” I watched as the other boys lay down and fell asleep instantly. I could tell how precious this time was by how fast they dropped to the floor.

When a famine struck our region of North Korea in 1995, I was five years old and living with my father, mother, and older sister Bong Sook in the province of North Hamgyong. In the difficult years that followed, my father died of starvation and illness, my mother was arrested for trying to cross the border into China, and Bong Sook was either sold into sex slavery or bought as a wife by a Chinese man — I never found out which. After my family scattered, I spent my early teenage years as one of the many Kkotjebi, or “wandering swallows,” homeless children who begged in the marketplace and slept wherever they could. Some had been abandoned by parents who couldn’t feed them; others had watched their family disintegrate under the pressure of the famine, as mine had. In the summer of 2005 — a year before I escaped to China, and two years before I made it to the United States — the Saraocheong, the government branch that oversees minors, placed me in the detention center for three months for not attending school.

Housed in a crumbling building that used to be an art school, and filled with hundreds of frightened youths, the detention center terrified me. My first day there, I’d seen a teenager beaten so severely I was sure his brain had been damaged; darkness brought the shrieks of girls being raped in the next room. The detention center had once been the best art school in Hoeryong, but now, like many things, it was broken and wild, a place of seething chaos.

That second day, I heard a voice calling in my dreams: “Up, up.” I opened my eyes. The guard was screaming at us, kicking the sleeping boys, threatening the slow ones with a long stick — actually just the handle of a garden hoe — which he held menacingly in his right hand. Everyone began scrambling to find his shoes that sat in a pile at the center of the room. My hands shook. I found one shoe but not the other. I was stooped over, hunting among the remaining pairs, when something struck me between the shoulder blades with great force. “Bastard!” he shouted. “Why are you so slow?”

It hurt terribly, but I managed not to fall over. I knew that showing weakness could mean death. I bowed to the guard, his face twisted in a bright grin, as the flesh above my spine throbbed.

“Please, sir,” I said, “I’m looking for my shoes.”

He raised the stick again and screamed “Bastard!” He slammed it down on my left shoulder, trying to break the collarbone. I wanted to kill him, but I thought he must have allies among the other guards, and they would come for me when the sky grew dark.

From then on, the guard chose me as his No. 1 victim. I learned later that his parents were middle class and could have afforded to get him out of the prison, but chose not to. The guard had been abandoned and then sent to detention, where he got a job watching over the other inmates. (There was no formal process for choosing a guard – the job went to the strongest and most intimidating inmates.) To show his dominance, the guard attacked people for no reason at all. And he made a special case out of me.

I learned to put my shoes in a place where I could find them, but the guard didn’t care. Bastard was my name, and beatings were my regular fate. Sometimes he hit me with the big stick; other times he slapped my face with his open hand. I only bowed in response. But rage was building up inside me. I could feel the blood pump hot to my face when he slapped it. Out on the streets, I was considered a good fighter for my age. Some even feared me.

I’d come to the detention center after many months of barely surviving as a beggar and thief. I’d been living with my mother and her abusive partner, who beat me if I didn’t steal enough to feed our makeshift family. Depressed and angry, I’d thought my life had reached its nadir — until I was taken to the detention center.

One day, after weeks of the guard’s abuse, I heard him approach me from behind. “Hey, bastard,” he said, almost jovially. I could feel the eagerness in his voice, the anticipation of a good slap, a release of his hatred and frustration from his skin into mine. It was almost like he craved the letting go of the dark electricity that had built up in him all morning. I could feel how he savored these moments. But today, I couldn’t take the thought of him touching me. I spun around.

“Why are you always picking on me?” I cried, my voice breaking. “Leave me alone, please. Leave me alone or else!” Even as I said it, I knew that I’d opened myself up to danger. But it was too late.

The guard’s face went still with surprise. Then it blushed dark and his eyes slitted. “How dare you talk back to me!” he said in a low voice. We began shouting at each other, the other boys gathering, wide-eyed, to watch. The team leader came running over.

“What’s happening?” he said, pushing boys aside. “What are you two yelling about?”

Before the guard could open his mouth, I quickly spoke up, and described what had been happening under the team leader’s nose. He listened and nodded, gesturing for the furious guard to be silent. When I finished, the team leader nodded. “I don’t need to hear any more. I will do what’s fair! And that means only one thing: you two will fight it out!”

The team leader looked very pleased. He was clearly bored with his daily routine, and here was an opportunity for excitement. I knew that losing would be dangerous. The guard would have total control over me, and because I had humiliated him by defying him in public, he would show no mercy. I decided I would do whatever it took to win.

The team leader gathered all the boys together in the center of our room. I studied my opponent. He was bigger and heavier, but I knew he’d led a more privileged life, while I’d been sleeping rough and learning how to survive on scraps. You are mentally stronger, I said to myself. Whatever you do, don’t give up.

“Ok, begin!”

The guard and I grabbed each other by the shoulders and arms and pushed back and forth, grunting with effort. He quickly slipped his hand away and landed a punch on my jaw, mashing the flesh against my teeth. I tasted blood, and this frightened me. I shoved him back, trying to topple him over. But he was strong. After a few minutes of furious wrestling, my left knee gave way and I rolled to the ground. The guard’s hands went to my throat as he fell on me. We rolled back and forth, punching each other and snorting for air.

After what felt like 20 minutes of wrestling and blows, my arms were slick with sweat. I was exhausted. It felt as if my arms were hanging from their sockets by thin strings. But I had more to lose, and I’d always been a stubborn fighter. I eventually managed to throw the guard to the ground and climbed on top of him, sitting on his heaving chest. I pinned both his hands with my left hand and started punching him in the face as he turned it this way and that, trying to evade my blows. I felt no rage anymore, no emotion at all. I was like a miner gouging out a seam of coal. There was no hatred left in me, only determination. Bang. I gashed his lower lip on his teeth. Again. I took a deep breath, leaned forward, and gritted my teeth. Bang. Harder. Bang.

“I give up!” he shouted finally. A cheer went up from some of the spectators while others blew out their breath in disgust. I rolled off the guard and lay on the floor, gasping.

I’d only wanted to serve my time as quietly as possible, but by winning I’d brought myself to the attention of “the gangster brothers” — the older criminals who essentially ran the detention center. That afternoon, I learned my reward. They named me the new guard. This meant more and better food, and freedom not to work all day in the intense heat.

The guard I had beaten became a regular inmate, and would go out to the fields to weed. The gangster brothers handed me the stick, with the understanding that I would use it indiscriminately, and with great harshness. I didn’t want the long stick, I didn’t want to be a guard, but I had no choice. I vowed to be a better person than the teenager who victimized me — I didn’t want become a brutal creature, like the gangster brothers who ran the detention center. I wanted to keep a part of the old me alive.

But it felt good to have power. In the mornings, older boys approached me and bowed deeply, asking me how I had slept. Most of the time I wouldn’t answer them: it didn’t pay for me to be too friendly with the inmates. As the weeks went by, I sank further into cruelty. If someone disobeyed me and I didn’t punish him, I would be beaten and replaced — the team leaders made this clear. So I beat those who refused my orders; I beat them with my fists as they looked at me with hatred.

Months after I left the center, I’d found a temporary home with a friend of my mother, and returned to a life of thievery. The same boys I had beaten at the center were still chasing me on the streets of Hoeryong, with the same rage in their eyes that I’d felt when the stick rapped me on the spine. We were angry, I think, because of what had happened to us, but also because of what we’d become.

The famine in North Korea killed hundreds of thousands of people. Some of their graves are still visible on the low hills outside Hoeryong. But the famine also did secret things: it dissolved families as if they’d been dipped in acid (mine, unfortunately, was a good example); it broke up deep, committed friendships over something as small as a cornmeal cake. Everyone in the West talks about the oppressive, invasive government of North Korea, but what I experienced was a complete absence of authority. And that was far more frightening.

myx518

通篇都是符合西方口味的，什么“卖做性奴隶”“卖给中国人当老婆”等等。

月下渔樵

小说写得很棒