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Impor is a coastal country to the southwest of Arstotzka, bordered by Kolechia, Republia, and United Federation.

Events[]

Impor protests Arstotzka's unbalanced trade restrictions on day 18 and claims that Arstotzka taxes Imporian goods unfairly. Impor then blocks all import of Arstotzkan goods on day 19, so the Ministry of Admission, on request of the Ministry of Trade, will order to deny all entrants from Impor. Sanctions end a day later.

Scripted entrants from Impor[]

  • Someone commenting on the size of the checkpoint (day 1)
  • Ava, a Pink Vice worker (day 3)
  • A mother trying to visit her son (day 4)

Interpretations[]

Impor is possibly inspired by Far East Asian countries, especially Japan, where Lucas Pope has moved to before developing Papers, Please.[1]

Impor is probably a portmanteau combining the words "Imperial" and "Emperor" (“Imp-or”). Far East countries such as China, Korea and Japan have all had (or still have, like the tennō in Japan) emperors in their history. Most notably, Japan was actually known as "Empire of Japan" from the Meiji Restoration (1868) to the enactment of the 1947 constitution at the end of World War II. This leads to the speculation that Impor might be a modern empire itself.

Moreover, Imporian cities are heavily influenced by Japan as they actually sound like real Japanese cities' names:

  • Enkyo. The word enkyō (えんきょう) has different meanings in Japanese: “round mirror”, 円鏡; ”salt bridge”, 塩橋; an era name, literally “becoming prolonged”, 延享). More interestingly, kyō could also mean “capital” or “imperial city” (きょう, 京; spelled miyako, みやこ, when it’s not part of a combined word); it can be found in both Tokyo (東京, “eastern capital”) and Kyoto (京都, “imperial city”), suggesting that Enkyo might be the capital of Impor. The En (えん) part is open to interpretation, as it could be written using different kanji with different meanings.[2]
  • Haihan. The word haihan (はいはん, 背反) means “revolting” or “rebellion” in Japanese. However, it could also be a reference to Heian-kyō (へいあんきょう, 平安京, “tranquility and peace capital”), imperial capital of Japan from 794 to 1868, now known as Kyoto (see above). Haihan can also be related to daihan, which is Osaka (おおさか, 大阪) in on-yomi (Chinese-like) reading.
  • Tsunkeido. Despite the Japanese-like name, there is no clear reference to existing words or real cities’ names; without a kanji transcription any interpretation is tentative. The name is somewhat similar to a combination of tundra (ツンドラ, tsundora), and Hokkaido, Japan's biggest prefecture.

References[]

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