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If, in the course of today, you use a mobile phone, drive a car or watch TV, or if you find your children playing with their robot pet, the chances are that at least one of these objects will have been made in Korea. As we all know, Korea is one of Asia's "tiger" economies, provider of high technology to the world. We tend to think of it as a new player on the global stage - but that of course is not how Koreans see themselves, for Korea has always been pivotal in relations between China and Japan, and it has a long tradition of technological inventions. It was Korea, for example, that pioneered moveable metal type, and it did it so well before it was invented in Europe. Besides its technology, the other thing that we all know about Korea today is that, since the end of the Second World War in 1945, it has been bitterly and dangerously divided between a communist north and a capitalist south.
手机、电视、汽车，如果你使用这些产品，或者和你的小孩子一起玩耍的机器宠物，很可能其中至少有一件来自韩国。韩国是亚洲经济四小龙之一，一个高科技产业国家。人们可能会把它当作国际舞台上的新成员，但他们自己可不这么认为。朝鲜半岛一直在中日关系中扮演重要角色，他们在科技创新方面也有悠久的历史。比如，他们最早创造了金属活字，远早于欧洲。除科技外，大家对他们 最熟悉的一点，可能是自一九五三年朝鲜战争结束以来，朝鲜半岛就被迫分为两个国家，北边的共产主义朝鲜和南边的资本主义韩国。
Today's object takes us to Korea around the year 700 AD, to a state, newly unified, that was enjoying great prosperity. To a moment in its history that is inevitably now read differently by north and south, but is still central to any modern definition of Korean identity.
这片瓦当来自公元七百年左右的新罗，当时这个刚统一不久的国家正处于经济繁荣时期。这段历史如今在朝鲜和韩国有着不同的解读方式，但它仍然是全体朝鲜人现代民族认同感的核心。
