DMZ

Whenever I hear terms like ‘East Germany’, ‘The Berlin Wall’, ‘Cold War’, or ‘The Soviet Union’ I can’t help but imagine a twisted and backwards era – times so oppressive, painful, and unnecessary for so many people that it’s difficult to believe it was only twenty years ago. Perhaps twenty years from now the world will look back on North Korea with a similar point of view. The final stubborn outpost of the communist frontier; led by a paranoid, blood-thirsty dictator who runs the nation through a personality cult centered around himself and terrorizes the world with constant threats of nuclear catastrophe. It’s hard to believe that such events could take place in such a progressive time in the world, but it’s almost harder to believe that visitors to South Korea can take a thirty minute bus ride from Seoul to be ushered to the border to peek across into Kim Jong-Il’s shell of a country. I didn’t even have to think about whether or not I would visit the De-Militarized Zone while in South Korea… I had to go.

The first evidence that North Korea was nearby came while driving through the suburbs only a few miles north of Seoul. Giant concrete boxes resembling viaducts stretched across the freeway in a few locations. If they hadn’t been pointed out to me I wouldn’t even have noticed we were passing under them, but once they caught my attention it struck me as odd that there was no road on either end of these ‘viaducts’. Our Korean tour guide explained that the boxes were not viaducts, but ‘tank traps’ to protect against a North Korean invasion. Since Seoul is only thirty miles from the border, extreme measures are taken to ensure that the city will be difficult to capture during an invasion. If news ever reaches the capital that troops have crossed into South Korea, TNT in the tank traps will be detonated, instantly collapsing the structures and blocking all roads leading to Seoul.

The first stop of the day was at Dorasan Station, a squeaky clean train station recently built by South Korea at the border of the De-Militarized Zone. The station is miles from the nearest city and has no practical use at all – except for one thing. If immigration agreements are ever reached between North Korea and South Korea the station is ready to be opened immediately – ready to welcome thousands of visitors from North Korea and ready to transport thousands of South Koreans across the peninsula and into Asia and Europe via rail. The strangest thing about the station is a giant sign above one of the terminals that reads, ‘Trains to Pyongyang’. So much tension exists between the two Koreas that it seems ridiculous that a train from South Korea would ever travel to Pyongyang. I had several questions for the Korean tour guide and she was happy to answer all of them. The station was built in 2002, but only one train has ever traveled to Pyongyang – a trip made in May 2007 as a test run for the station. Besides that single trip the station remains dormant, with the exception of sporadic trains from Seoul that bring Korean citizens to visit the DMZ. The sign that reads ‘Trains to Pyongyang’ is an optimistic effort by the South Korean Ministry of Unification to encourage hope for the reuniting of the two countries.

The extreme optimism of the train station contrasted so much with the pessimism of the tank traps that I had to ask my tour guide a few more questions. At our next stop, Dora Observatory, I asked away as other tourists stared across the DMZ into North Korea. In short, both Koreas desperately want reunification – the disagreement is over politics. South Koreans insist on a capitalist government while North Koreans insist on communism (although I honestly don’t understand why – the amount of humanitarian aid they receive from South Korea should be evidence enough that their own system has failed). North Korea has become obsessed with a ‘Juche’ philosophy, meaning ‘self-reliance’. The government is so paranoid of an invasion that defense has become the main objective of the entire country – all North Korean citizens serve an obligatory ten years in the military and weapons development is such a huge priority that the country has been able to sell its technology to Iraq and Iran. It’s such a shame that politics is all that is keeping the two countries from reuniting. If Kim Jong-Il would quit indoctrinating the population into sustaining him as their divinely appointed ‘Dear Leader’ then perhaps the people would learn to think on their own and would choose capitalism and reunification.

North Korean incidents always come with a few quirky stories, and the perfect example of that was a visit to the ‘3rd Infiltration Tunnel’ at the border of the DMZ. The 3rd Infiltration Tunnel is the third of four tunnels discovered by South Korea that were dug by North Korea as attempts to facilitate a quick invasion. South Korea first learned of the tunnel through a North Korean official who had defected to the South. When they confronted the North about the tunnel they denied it existed. South Korea did some further probing and actually located the tunnel. After further prodding the North admitted it existed, but insisted it was an unused coal shaft and not an infiltration tunnel. Determined to get to the bottom of the matter and fully aware that there was no coal in the area, the South bored into the tunnel to explore it. When they got to the bottom they discovered that the North Koreans had recently withdrawn – but not before they had painted the walls of the tunnel black with a thin coal coating.

The tunnel is now open to visitors from the South and I excitedly walked several hundred feet below the surface of the ground to discover the North Korean tunnel for myself today. It was fascinating to see the thin round holes drilled to place dynamite in, as well as the blockade built at the mid-point of the tunnel by the South. My favorite part of the visit, though, was running my hand along the damp interior of the cave and examining the black coal dust that rubbed off onto my fingertips.

The highlight of today’s DMZ experience was visiting Panmunjom, a ‘Joint Security Area’ on the border of the two countries that is manned by soldiers from the South as well as the North. It still blows my mind that tourists are allowed to visit Panmunjom. A United States Soldier escorted the group through the South half of the complex to a United Nations building that sits exactly on the border of the two countries. The building is used for meetings between the North and the South and a door on each end of the building leads into the respective countries. A South Korean soldier guarded the door to the North with a stern look and clenched fists, and I posed next to him for a photograph. It was a thrill to me to be in the North end of the room for the picture – technically in North Korea. Later we visited two nearby viewpoints – one from which we could clearly see a North Korean town across the DMZ, and another from which we could see most of the Joint Security Area. I stared across into North Korea at a soldier on the other side, and the soldier stared right back at the group of us through a pair of giant binoculars.

I ended the day on a lighter note by attending a show called ‘Nanta’ back in Seoul. Nanta is a Broadway-type Korean production that features four chefs beating catchy rhythms and performing acrobatics with basic kitchen equipment. The show has become so popular that it now is the most renowned show in Korea, and has also been performed in over 200 cities in 34 countries, including a Broadway version of the show in New York. Highlights of the show included the four chefs tossing a fury of plastic plates across the stage and catching them all in the most difficult ways imaginable, the chefs deftly and quickly cutting vegetables so they virtually disintegrated in thin air, and the chefs performing an ancient Korean kitchen act where they beat out rhythms on bronze cups of tea. The show was definitely unique and a even little quirky, but it was equally impressive and entertaining and altogether a great way to experience a different aspect of Korean culture.