| Devil's Attractions |
April 24, 2018
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| Once people get something, they never want to release it. In this country, the dictator took an elaborate method and ruled his people for a long time. The dictator's method was simple: he strictly prohibited people from going abroad and getting information from abroad. Only a limited number of people like diplomats were allowed to the outside world. As the country had diplomatic relations with many countries, diplomats and tourists came from the outside, but they were under very close surveillance from the government. So normal people didn't know what was happening outside of their country. If citizens got caught receiving information from the outside, they would be sent to a labor camp. So people minded their own business. People in this country were very poor. The reason why people were very poor was because of the military of the country. The dictator always had fear that other countries, even his own citizens, might attack his kingdom. So he gave a priority on developing high tech weapons, and because of it, it made this country's finance and economy bad. But, one day the situation changed. The country succeeded to develop rockets. Rockets are the ultimate weapon. Their destructive power is enormous. They started to sell rockets to other countries. As the rockets were very expensive, the country's finance and economy recovered. Using the money from selling their rockets, the dictator bought electric appliances from other countries and distributed them  to the people. Some people enjoyed TV for the first time. Although the programs were only educational, people enjoyed them. In this country, people were told that the other countries' TV programs were poison, they called it the Devil's Attractions. They emphasized that those movies had many violence and sex scenes. Also, the silly dramas, variety shows, and quiz shows on TV would block their brains, thus making people lazy and not able to think deeply. The dictator thought he was a genius. A couple of years had passed. People realized that all the tourists from abroad had cell phones. People started to say that they wanted cell phones. Talking to anybody from any place seemed like a dream to them. At that time, there were PCs at school and at job places. They didn't think that they wanted PCs. Because in this county accessing to the Internet was prohibited. The function of accessing the Internet was removed in advance for personal use. So people were not interested in PCs. But, cell phones were different. For the dictator, cell phones were different, too. Of course, they could import cell phones from other countries. They maybe could change some parts in order not to access to people in other countries. But it was too risky. The dictator knew that some cell phone companies were located in countries that they didn't have diplomatic relations with. They might make their cell phones to be able to eavesdrop into conversations for spying purposes. He got an idea. They made rockets, rockets have the most advanced technology, so why couldn't they make cell phones? It would be a piece of cake, he thought. Half a year later, the first cell phones of this country were produced and distributed to the people. People were very happy and used their phones with their families and friends. They admired their dictator. The dictator thought he was a genius. A couple of years passed. People started to say that they wanted smart phones. By those days all the tourists' phones changed into smartphones. The dictator ordered engineers to make smartphones that could not communicate with people abroad and couldn't access the Internet. After a while, all the people in this country had their own smartphones. The government strictly prohibited to use SNS like Facebook, Twitter, Line, etc. because it might foster and spread people's opinion against the government. Even so, people were very happy taking pictures and exchanging them with their family and friends. Half a year passed. Suddenly a riot occurred in a city, and it immediately spread all over the country. The dictator's kingdom had an easy ending. The gist was this: A foreign diplomat sent a music video to a friend who was in this country. The diplomat was a new comer, and didn't know this country's rules and regulations well. He heard that his friend didn't know the existence of a certain pop music female group, who were very popular all over the world. The video was a promotional video of the group. With bright music, they sang. Scenes from all over the world's major cities were shown. The members had gone to each country and took this video. Each city was full of energy, people's smiles, and showed various famous places and ethnic dishes. The friend was very surprised at the gaps between what he was taught by the government and the video that he received. He sent the video to his friends, who then sent it to their friends and it spread all over the country before the government would start to censor it. |
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*elaborate :入念な
*diplomat :外交官
*surveillance :監視
*mind one's business :自分のことに終始する
*destructive :破壊的な
*distribute :配給する
*thus :それゆえ
*eavesdrop :盗み聞きする
*foster :助長する
*riot :暴動
*gist :要旨
*promotional :促進の
*censor :検閲