North Korea is drowning in myths. Some are crafted by its own propaganda machine, others happily recycled by scholars, journalists and internet know-it-alls who really should know better.

Perhaps the biggest myth is that Juche is some mystical word meaning “self-reliance,” a pervasive misconception that stems from both Kim Il Sung’s ignorance of German philosophy and Western scholars’ ignorance of the Korean language.

But there are many other falsehoods and fabrications that surround the DPRK, obscuring the truth around a country that is already extremely opaque. These range from the idea that Kim Il Sung was born near Pyongyang to