tattered 復習
中国の航空は6日、昨秋から休止していた北京と平壌を結ぶ定期便の運航を再開することを発表しました。
HUNCHUN, China — In the Chinese border town of Hunchun, garment factories gladly employ squads of North Koreans, who are valued as skilled and dutiful workers. Live crab from the North wriggle in huge tanks in the fish market. Informal bankers promise to deliver the equivalent of thousands of dollars in Chinese currency to North Koreans across the border in a matter of hours.
Up and down the 900-mile border, in fact, Chinese businesspeople export and import things like Chinese-made street lighting and exotic North Korean-grown mushrooms.
By all indications, China has at least officially enforced the international sanctions that have been imposed on the North to curtail its nuclear weapons program. But on the border, the signs of North Korea’s economic dependence on China are evident in a shadow economy of cash couriers, short-term workers and gray-market trading that has persisted despite the sanctions.
And with President Trump’s summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, back on track, excitement is growing about the opportunities that could open up should the sanctions be eased.
“Kim Jong-un is popular,” Mr. Lankov said. “Everyone supports him.”
China is anxious to repair its tattered alliance with the North and is determined to play a dominant role, along with South Korea, in any reset of the North’s economy. In perhaps the most telling sign of a revival in trade, Air China announced Tuesday that it would resume regular flights from Beijing to Pyongyang on Wednesday. The sudden resumption came after flights were suspended last November because of negligible demand, the airline said.
The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, met in Beijing last month with a delegation of North Korean mayors and governors, an unusual gesture by the powerful Chinese president to meet such low-ranking foreign visitors. The North Koreans were given a grand tour not just of Beijing but also of Shanghai and the rural central province of Shanxi, traveling on state-of-the-art bullet trains and receiving tutorials on how China rapidly built up its cities and industries.
Since Mr. Kim’s surprise meeting with Mr. Xi in the Chinese city of Dalian last month, where economic development was reported to be at the top of the agenda, there have been suggestions that China might help rebuild the North’s primitive roads and ports. Such aid may become part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s signature effort to extend its influence by helping other countries finance large-scale infrastructure projects.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/world/asia/china-north-korea-trade.html
tattered /tˈæṭɚd/ を取り上げます。『ジーニアス英和辞典第5版』(大修館) によると「ぼろきれの、滅びた」といった意味があります。『ケンブリッジ英英辞典』をみてみると “(especially of cloth or paper) badly torn” または “(of cloth) damaged by continuous use or age, esp. torn in strips” と定義されていて損傷を受けていたり疲れ果てている様を表していると窺えます。
tattered は古ノルド語 (中期英語) で「切れ端、ぼろの」という意味のある “tturr” から派生した “tatter” の形容詞形であるとわかりました。また「めちゃくちゃになって、地に堕ちて、うち砕れて」という 意味がある tatter を用いたフレーズである “in tatters” もあることもわかりました。
来週に迫った米朝首脳会談を契機にアメリカを含む国々が北朝鮮に対しての制裁を緩和する意向にあるということが窺えます。(Happidra)
in tatters 復習 - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から
