And so it was that I boarded a tour van the morning of July 24 bound for Paju, South Korea, the gateway to the DMZ when coming from the direction of Seoul. I was the last person to be picked up, and so ended up with a front row seat, and therefore panoramic view of whatever it was that would lie ahead of us. The barbed wire fences and camouflaged military watchtowers became commonplace immediately after we passed out of Seoul's city limits. It hit me then, as it would throughout the day, that this was not a tour into the past. As striking and emotional as places like Dachau and Omaha Beach and Nagasaki have been in my travels, the DMZ took on an altogether different character. While it is a part of history, it has not yet been relegated to the books. It is still very much an active piece of world politics - a rumbling volcano, if you will, that could stir at any time given just the wrong mixture of circumstances.
Our guide, a young, friendly, well-spoken South Korean man, provided us with some background on the present state of the Korean conflict on the hour-long bus ride up to Paju. He spoke alternately of re-unification of the two Koreas and a "Second Korean War", and of both possibilities in such a matter-of-fact way that I was startled. It seems that either no one desires to remain in the status quo, or that people are simply resigned to the fact that it cannot and will not remain indefinitely.
Surprisingly, South Korea runs an industrial complex on the North Korean side of the DMZ. After all, North Korean labor comes cheaply. Up until December of 2008, the complex was supplied daily by a train connecting the two Koreas, but service came to a screeching halt when the current, and more conservative, administration came to power in South Korea at the end of last year. South Korean tourists had also been allowed to visit two specific sites in North Korea...until one of them unknowingly wandered past the wrong line and was shot to death by the North Korean army. Now, the only daily interaction between the two countries are the trucks that have taken the industrial train's place, running up Highway 1 to Kaesong and then back across the border. Relations have once again soured.
Our first glimpse of North Korea came sooner than expected, as our guide turned our attention to increased military presence on the left side of the highway. The mountains on the other side of the river belonged to North Korea. There was no DMZ here, on the westernmost side of the 38th parallel. North Korea had refused to include this maritime region in the DMZ with the knowledge that it claimed a navy far inferior to that of South Korea. The result is the only few miles of unbuffered border in the divided nation (the only divided nation remaining on Earth, by the way). The DMZ lies 2 km on either side of the rest of the border. We continued north, slightly perplexed by the number of civilian cars still accompanying us. When asked where all these people were going, our guide responded that we had yet to hit the northernmost city on this highway, the one where LG is headquartered. That's right - your LG phone probably had its origins just a few miles south of the DMZ.
We eventually pulled into a parking lot in Paju and were told we'd be changing into a government bus for our expedition into the DMZ. As it marks the border with the militarized zone (South Korea buffers itself from the DMZ with a heavily militarized strip of land), Paju plays a significant role for many South Koreans. Some 80% of South Koreans have ties to North Korea, relatives who've lived or died there. Paju is as close as they can come to pay respects to the dead and pray for an eventual peace. An enormous peace bell hangs on a hill here, provided for all of those who mourn the families from whom they are estranged. Also in Paju is the Bridge of No Return. At the "end" of the Korean War, South Korean POWs were allowed to choose which direction to walk on the bridge, which Korea to live in. Once decided, they could not turn back. I place "end" of the war in quotes, by the way, because only an armistice was ever signed. Technically, North and South Korea are still at war.
We boarded the government bus, passed over the hopefully named "Unification Bridge", had our passports checked by South Korean military, and rolled into the DMZ. As it is, by its nature, a relatively undeveloped place, the DMZ has become one of the more unlikely natural havens in the world. Several species thrive there that can live nowhere else. Mother Nature is beautifully oblivious, or perhaps even defiant, in the face of man's squabbles. In any case, heavily forested hills are still pockmarked with a million land mines, dropped by the North Koreans at the DMZ's inception. "You don't want to get out of the bus and wander off the side of the road," we're told. No problem.
Our first stop found us at the Third Tunnel, one of the four attempts by North Korea to (literally) undermine the DMZ that the South Koreans have discovered. Chillingly, predictions estimate that at least 20 of these tunnels exist. The parking lot, full of tour buses, also boasted a large, bright, multicolored "DMZ" sign sporting a cheerful flower, in front of which people were posing for pictures - one of the more incongruent scenes I've ever witnessed. In any case, we were instructed to wear hard hats and led down a 350-meter long access tunnel to a depth of 73 meters, then allowed to walk the length of the North Korean tunnel to within 170 meters of the North Korean border. The "roof" was barely 4.5 feet in places, water dripped from the subterranean rock surrounding us, and the walk was hell on one's back - but just this once, it had to be done. I kept imagining an army of North Koreans slamming their heads on the ceiling as they attempted to invade Seoul. In any case, the tunnel was all out creepy, ending at the first of three reinforced walls installed by the South Korean military after the tunnel's discovery. It was creepier for the fact that several more of these things likely lay undiscovered, their exits in proximity to Seoul.
Our second stop brought us to Dora Observatory, an outpost set up for tourists' viewing pleasure. Out across the grasslands lay North Korea. People scrambled to the binoculars set up to catch a glimpse of the land too mysterious for Google Maps. A yellow line several feet behind the retaining wall marked the last allowable inch for photographers. The mountains on the other side of the border were nearly stripped clean - a consequence, we were told, of North Korea's financial inability to purchase oil. Apparently, they strip and burn trees for fuel instead. The South Korean industrial complex was also visible in the distance, a black, shiny behemoth in the middle of, well, nothing. Most striking, though, were the propaganda villages built on either side of the demarcation line. North and South Korea began a "friendly" battle years ago to see who could fly the highest flag in their respective propaganda village. North Korea's flag wins today by a long shot, some 150 meters in the air to South Korea's 95 - but only because South Korea finally decided the competition was too juvenile to care about. Evidently, this is what Kim Jong-Il spends his time worrying about. Team America: World Police isn't so far off after all. I was, of course, fascinated to be staring out over a slice of North Korea, even if it was a tiny slice, and even if it was specifically engineered for my eyes. Regardless, it's a place that may remain shrouded in mystery for the duration of my lifetime, and I simply had a childlike curiosity in catching even the briefest glimpse of it.
Our final stop has ended up enduring the most in my memory. We visited Doraville Station, the super-modern, multi-million dollar station built in 2002 to connect the two Koreas by rail. It served its purpose to some extent up through last December, when the industrial trai
ns were still rumbling through. Today, however, it sits shiny and silent, a very expensive symbolic hope and prayer. A map outside details the railway line running across the border, into Kaesong, up to Pyongyang, and then eventually connecting with the Trans siberian Railroad. A marble wall is packed with the names of Koreans who donated their hard-earned money for the station's construction. Inside, a desk labeled "Inter-Korean Transit Agency" sits empty in a corner. A display commemorates George W. Bush's peace address, made here in February of 2002. A soldier guards the entrance to a waiting room labeled "To Pyeongyang." But the schedule board is conspicuously blank. No trains will be running to the North Korean capital today...or tomorrow...or probably for a very long while. The soldier's job, in actuality, is to pose for photographs with tourists.
We exit the DMZ via a farming village - a quiet, peaceful town, once again incongruent with the reality of its location. Those who live in the DMZ are exempt from taxes and the mandatory 2-year military conscription for South Korean males (10 years for North Koreans). The DMZ is UN territory, after all. If North Korea launches an attack, it will probably be for Seoul, and not one of the inconspicuous DMZ villages. So I suppose life is fairly safe, if not particularly exciting, for DMZ dwellers. On the other hand, they're probably very careful about watching their step.
We return to the Paju parking lot to switch back into the van that will carry us back to Seoul. I notice a little amusement park that I had not seen on the way in. What an odd place for such a thing! How out of place it seems! Yet again, out of place. Incongruity is a theme here. In reality, the nature, the silly primary-colored DMZ sign, the sign to Pyongyang, the quiet little village, the amusement park - are all just part of an entire strip of land that is, quite literally, out of place. When you're in the DMZ, you're everywhere and nowhere at the same time, caught in the still-bleeding wound of the only divided nation on Earth.
Excellent description of a most strange place!
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