The New York Times; photographs KCNA, via Reuters
SEOUL — For more than six months, Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, has seemingly been giving the world an unprecedented glimpse into his private life. The first set of photos revealed a ponytailed girl in red shoes strolling hand in hand with Mr. Kim around a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile. Later, she’s gazing into his eyes at a celebration for weapons scientists and tenderly patting his shoulder at a military parade. On May 16, the pair wore matching lab coats while inspecting a supposed spy satellite.
首尔——六个多月来，朝鲜领导人金正恩似乎令世界对他的私生活窥见一斑，这是前所未有的。在最初的一组照片中，一个脚穿红鞋、梳着马尾辫的女孩在一枚“火星-17”型洲际弹道导弹附近与金正恩携手同行。后来还有她在一次庆祝武器科学家取得成功的活动上与父亲对目相视的照片，以及在一次阅兵活动上轻拍父亲肩膀的场面。今年5月16日，父女两人据信在视察间谍卫星工作时穿着同样的白大褂。
State media has released the daddy-daughter images on over a dozen occasions since November, assuredly choreographed from curls to gloves. Analysts consider them confirmation of a descendant, though none of the photos can be independently verified. The country has been in nearly complete isolation since the pandemic began. But the regime’s propaganda machine has stayed busy cranking out sajin jeongchi, or photography politics, resulting in buzz, questions and press.
自去年11月以来，朝鲜官媒已发布了这对父女在十多个场合一同现身的照片，从梳的发型到戴的手套肯定都经过了精心考虑。分析人士将这些照片视为金正恩后继有人的确认，尽管无法独立核实照片的真实性。自从新冠病毒大流行开始以来，朝鲜几乎一直处于完全与世隔绝的状态。但朝鲜政权的宣传机器一直在繁忙运转，炮制大量的“摄影政治”，引发了外界的热议、疑问和媒体报道。
Now that the country’s routine missile tests aren’t generating the headlines he craves, Mr. Kim appears to be leveraging his daughter’s global star power. “Chairman Kim is always hungry for attention, but he has been losing the spotlight,” says Kim Young-soo, who leads the North Korea Research Institute, referring to the last time the leader commanded the world media, during 2018 and 2019 meetings with President Donald Trump. The new photos with his daughter distract from Kim Jong-un’s failure to provide adequate food and energy for his people — and, according to Soo Kim of the Lowy Institute, keeps the international community from focusing on a long-term solution to the state’s nuclear capabilities.
既然现在朝鲜的定期导弹试验已不能产生金正恩渴望的头条新闻，他似乎正在充分利用女儿的全球明星魅力。“金委员长总是渴望得到人们的注意，但聚光灯已不在他身上，”朝鲜研究所所长金永洙（音）说，这名朝鲜领导人上次引起世界媒体关注是他在2018年和2019年与美国总统特朗普见面时。这些新近发布的与女儿同框的照片分散了人们对金正恩未能为人民提供足够的食物和能源的注意力，而且，据洛伊研究所苏金（音）的说法，这也让国际社会无法将注意力集中在解决朝鲜核能力问题的长期方案上。
What do we know about this girl? According to South Korean intelligence, her name is Ju-ae, she is about 10 years old, she is probably the leader’s middle child, and as a baby she was once held by the U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman. Mostly everything else is speculation. A favorite debate among North Korea watchers: Is she the heir apparent?
我们对这个女孩有什么了解？据韩国情报部门，她叫金主爱，约10岁左右，应该是金正恩的第二个孩子，小时候被美国篮球明星丹尼斯·罗德曼抱过。其他事情大多都是猜测。朝鲜观察家们最喜欢辩论的问题是：她是确定的接班人吗？
朝鲜官媒去年11月27日发布的照片（左图）显示，金正恩和女儿金主爱向军人表示祝贺。据官媒报道，此前该国在一个未公开地点测试了一枚“火星-17”型洲际弹道导弹。在今年2月8日发布的照片（右图）中，父女两人在平壤出席了庆祝朝鲜人民军成立75周年的宴会。 Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via Associated Press; Korean Central News Agency, via Reuters
Some signs point to yes. The regime has long been obsessed with portraits as part of the cult of personality concocted around each leader of North Korea. The intimate photos of Ju-ae with Mr. Kim could be considered an official endorsement. A successor should also be the embodiment of her or his predecessor, masterly in the regime’s military-first ideology — which the photos certainly seem to illustrate.
有一些迹象指向肯定的答案。朝鲜政权长期以来一直迷恋肖像，它是围绕每个朝鲜领导人制造个人崇拜的一部分。金主爱与金正恩的亲密同框可以被视为一种官方认可。继承人也应该是前任的化身，对朝鲜政权的“先军”意识形态有透彻的理解，这些照片似乎无疑说明了这点。
Ju-ae’s hereditary claim is also bolstered by decades of “embellished stories about the honorable revolutionary blood flowing through the family veins,” as a 1988 RAND report about the legitimacy of her grandfather Kim Jong-il put it. In February, state television emphasized her direct link to the Paektu bloodline, referring to the myth that her grandfather was born on the Korean Peninsula’s highest mountain, with footage of a white horse belonging to the leader’s “beloved” child. State media previously circulated photos of Kim Jong-un riding a white horse around Mount Paektu. Finally, Radio Free Asia recently reported that North Koreans named Ju-ae have been summoned to change their names; the same demand was made of people sharing the names of previous leaders.
金主爱的世袭权利也在几十年来“有关金氏家族血管里流淌着光荣革命血液的添油加醋的故事”（1988年兰德公司关于她祖父金正日政权合法性的报告中所言）中得到加强。今年2月，朝鲜的国家电视台强调，金主爱是白头山血统的直系后代（在官版神话中，她的祖父出生在朝鲜半岛最高峰白头山），还播放了朝鲜领导人“最心爱”的孩子所拥有的一匹白马的镜头。朝鲜官媒此前曾发布过金正恩在白头山下骑白马的照片。再就是，据自由亚洲电台最近报道，当局已要求名叫“主爱”的朝鲜人改名；以前也有过要求与前任领导人同名者改名的事情。
Others point out that Ju-ae has no chance of succession. In a country of hidden agendas, historical and current events foreshadow her purpose and fate. Ultimately, this line of thinking goes, the country’s and dynasty’s entrenched patriarchal traditions and gender inequality will prove immovable.
也有人指出，金主爱没有成为继承人的机会。在一个意图隐秘的国家，历史和当前事件预兆了她的目的和命运。按照这种思路，事实将证明，朝鲜和金氏王朝根深蒂固的男性主宰传统和性别不平等是不可动摇的。
From the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung, to Kim Jong-il and now Kim Jong-un, power in North Korea has been deliberately handed from father to son. Each man over three generations has been declared the supreme leader and ruled by a uniquely North Korean formula centered on him, the suryong. The state ideology, called juche, mixes socialism and Confucianism, a hierarchical system that ranks men above women and limits women’s activities. In the North’s socialist theory of the great family, society is an organism consisting of “the suryong (the great leader) as the nucleus, surrounded by the party and the people, each having an inseparable relation within a community bound by a common destiny,” Kim Won-hong wrote in a 2014 report, “Women of North Korea: A Closer Look at Everyday Life.” The nucleus, of course, is the head of the family, the patriarch.
从国家创始人金日成到金正日，再到现在的金正恩，朝鲜政权一直是父传子。先后三代男子都被宣布为最高领袖，并以一套以每一代“圣人”为中心的独有规则统治朝鲜。朝鲜的意识形态（即所谓的“主体思想”）将社会主义与儒家学说混合在一起，儒家学说是一种等级制度，宣扬男性地位高于女性，并限制女性活动。在朝鲜的大家庭社会主义理论中，社会是一个有机体，由“作为核心的圣人（伟大领袖）和围绕其周围的党和人民组成，在这个被共同命运绑在一起的社会里，每个人之间有着不可分割的关系”，金元宏（音）2004年在题为《朝鲜的女性：对日常生活的仔细观察》的报告中写道。核心当然是一家之主，即家长。
For hundreds of years, Korean custom has designated the eldest son as heir; Kim Jong-un, the youngest son, was appointed only after his father rejected his two brothers. The odds aren’t in Ju-ae’s favor when, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, Kim Jong-un is believed to have at least one son, her older brother, and a third child whose gender is not publicly known. North Korea is experiencing “a wind of change in gender,” says Koo Hae-woo, a former high-ranking agent with the spy agency, but he still expects only “a man at the top.”
立长子为继承人的传统在朝鲜已有数百年的历史；金正恩是家中幼子，在他父亲拒绝接受他的两个哥哥为继承人后，才被立为继任。按照韩国国家情报局的说法，人们认为金正恩至少有一个儿子（即金主爱的哥哥），还有一个外界不知性别的孩子，金主爱成为继承人的可能性不大。曾在情报机构任高级特工的邱海禹（音）说，朝鲜也在吹“性别改革之风”，尽管如此，他仍预计“最高领导只会是男性”。
Gender barriers are evident across North Korea, perhaps more so now than when the country was founded after World War II. To build his empire, Kim Il-sung promoted equal rights to galvanize women’s contributions to the economy and society. A law gave women the right to vote and run for office, and the Democratic Women’s Union was started. But in the 1990s, the state collapsed under an economic crisis and deadly famine. Families survived only because married women took upon themselves the dual roles of breadwinner and homemaker.
难以逾越的性别障碍在整个朝鲜都很明显，也许现在比朝鲜“二战”后刚建国时更甚。金日成为了建设国家曾提倡过男女平等，为的是激发女性对经济和社会做贡献。朝鲜的法律赋予女性投票权和参选公职的权利，并成立了民主妇女同盟。但政府在20世纪90年代的经济危机和导致大量死亡的饥荒中陷入瘫痪。能够生存下来的家庭都是因为家中的已婚女子承担起了养家糊口和家庭主妇的双重角色。
“Widespread gender stereotypes” remain the root cause of discrimination against women, according to the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea. “Women are called ‘flowers.’ Women’s appearance — clothes, hairstyle and even makeup — are subjected to control by the state,” wrote Elizabeth Salmón in her February report. She said gender violence is normalized: “Many women in the country have faced sexual assault and rape, particularly by men in positions of authority with total impunity.” Some 72 percent of the people who have fled to South Korea are women, the report said. A dozen female defectors who had been architects and doctors told me that while they could only sell scrap metal or work at public bathhouses in Seoul, they were happier and treated more fairly.
据联合国朝鲜人权状况特别报告员的说法，“普遍存在的性别刻板印象”仍然是歧视女性的根本原因。“女性被称为‘花朵’。女性的外表——衣服、发型甚至化妆——都受到国家的控制，”伊丽莎白·萨尔蒙在她2月的报告中写道。她说，性别暴力被正常化了：“该国的许多女性面临性侵犯和强奸，尤其是被身居高位、完全免受惩罚的男人性侵犯和强奸的问题。”报告说，逃往韩国的脱北者中约72%是女性。十几名曾是建筑师和医生的女性脱北者告诉我，虽然她们在首尔只能靠卖废金属或在公共浴室打工为生，但她们活得更开心，受到的待遇也更公平。
朝鲜官媒去年11月19日发布的照片（左图）显示，金正恩和金主爱在平壤国际机场视察导弹。今年3月20日发布的照片（右图）显示，父女俩正在参加据官媒报道是导弹发射演习的活动。 Korean Central News Agency, via Reuters
Long before Ju-ae, the Kim regime was spinning elite women into political symbols. In the 1970s, Kim Jong-il’s grandmother Kang Ban-sok and his mother, Kim Jong-suk, were featured as role models in the magazine Joseon Women. Ms. Kang was promoted as the “mother of all Koreans” through popular songs, paintings and revolutionary poetry. She consistently appeared wearing native Korean dress and a traditional hairstyle. The regime depicted Ms. Kim as “the mother of the revolution.” Women were educated to reproduce her virtuous womanhood and wifely devotion.
早在金主爱之前，金氏政权也曾将精英女性塑造成政治偶像。在20世纪70年代，金正日的祖母康盘石和母亲金正淑都曾被《朝鲜女性》杂志奉为榜样。康盘石在流行歌曲、绘画和革命诗歌中被宣传为“朝鲜之母”。她的形象一直是穿着朝鲜传统服装、留着传统发型。朝鲜政权奉金正淑为“革命之母”。对女性的教育要求她们做贤妻良母。
While Kim Jong-un keeps several women in his inner circle, they nonetheless serve his purposes. “Kim Jong-un has been an expert in utilizing his female entourage by giving them different roles,” says Yun Byung-se, a former foreign minister of South Korea. For example, his sister, Kim Yo-jong, plays the bad cop in diplomatic rows with the United States, while the first lady, Ri Sol-ju, acts as the “mother of the state.”
虽然金正恩的核心圈子里有几名女性，但她们都是为他的目标服务的。“金正恩一直有通过赋予她们不同的角色利用女性随员的专长，”韩国前外交部长尹炳世说。例如，金正恩的妹妹金与正在他与美国的外交分歧中扮演坏警察的角色，而第一夫人李雪主则扮演“国母”的角色。
With Ju-ae, Mr. Kim wants North Koreans to know that future generations of the Paektu bloodline are ready to defend the dynasty, says Mr. Yun. And he wants to be seen as a “loving father to all his citizens,” says Choi Byung-seop, who spent three decades monitoring North Korean television for South Korea’s Unification Ministry. Mr. Kim has floated Ju-ae as a trial balloon to “test the reactions within and outside his regime,” Kim Young-soo says. Gauging elite society’s loyalty is a way to measure his power consolidation; showing off a daughter could mean he feels reasonably secure, Mr. Choi explains.
尹炳世说，金正恩展示女儿是想朝鲜人知道，白头山血统的子孙后代已做好了保卫金氏王朝的准备。他想让朝鲜人看到他是“所有公民的慈父”的形象，曾在韩国统一部监视朝鲜电视台广播长达30年的崔炳燮（音）说。金正日把金主爱作为试探气球释放出来是为了“探测他政权内部和外部的反应”，金永洙说。探测精英社会的忠诚度是衡量权力巩固程度的一种方式；崔炳燮解释说，把女儿拿出来炫耀也许意味着他感觉相当安全。
The photographs of Ju-ae reinforce what we already know about North Korea and also tell us more. She is just the latest in a line of elite females to be idolized and propagandized. In February the regime printed Ju-ae’s picture on five new postage stamps. We can only guess at the sincerity of Kim Jong-un putting all eyes on his daughter.
金主爱的照片既加强了我们对朝鲜已有的了解，也告诉了我们更多的信息。她只是一系列被偶像化、变成宣传品的精英女性的最新一员。今年2月，朝鲜政权将把金主爱的照片印在了五张新邮票上。我们只能猜测金正恩将女儿推到众目睽睽之下的真实意图。
Chun Su-jin是一名韩国记者，有朝鲜背景。她为韩国最大报纸之一《中央日报》对朝鲜进行了近20年的报道。她著有《North Korean Women in Power: Daughters of the Sun》一书。
翻译：纽约时报中文网
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