I booked a half day tour to the DMZ. The full day tour wasn’t available because in the second half of that tour you get to go to the Joint Security Area. This is where the North and South meet, a line of demarcation in the middle of the DMZ, a large building where leaders can come and talk supposedly in complete safety. Given the current state of affairs, I guess both sides want to keep the place on standby for future negotiations between dictator… er, Chairman? Kim Jung Un and President Moon Jae-In. So the photo op where I get to put one foot in North Korea and the other foot in South Korea, Twister-style, is a no-go.
Still, we do get to see some pretty amazing things on this tour… mainly because it’s essentially turning the front seat at the razor’s edge of armaggeddon into a tourist attraction.
We started the tour with a visit to the Imjingak Park, which doubles as a monument and memorial to the families separated by the 38th Parallel. When the armistice was signed in July 1953, which paused but did not “officially” end the Korean War, 7 million relatives of South Koreans were trapped in North Korea. There were 25 million citizens in NK (at least 7 million of them unwilling) and 50 million citizens in SK at that time. Tensions ebb and flow and as we all know right now it’s… as complicated as ever.
From the bridge to a tunnel — the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel actually. In the 1970s, South Korea discovered a number of secret tunnels being dug by North Korea to facilitate a sneak attack invasion of the South. Four have been discovered so far with the belief that there are many as yet undiscovered. This third one is particularly famous because when the South discovered it, North Korean claimed it was just a coal mine. But there is no coal in the area… although the North Koreans painted coal onto the walls of the tunnel as if they were a gold mine swindler salting the vein with a shotgun of gold dust.
Before the tour, there was a 10 minute video history of the Korean War, the armistice, the incursions, and the notion that the DMZ is a paradise for wildlife… and a prime symbol of peace and eventual reunification. It was such jingoistic bombast I half expected it to be directed by Michael Bay and produced by Fox News. I wish I could find a copy of it online… I mean… whoa.
We weren’t allowed to take any metal objects into the tunnel. I thought it was a safety precaution in case someone was trying to blow up the thing. But I suspect it was a safety precaution because anyone stopping to take a selfie or photo would only further clog up the walkway. As it was, it was a steep descent deep into the earth and then a 1.5 lane walkway that got tighter, narrower, and more claustrophobic the deeper you went. At the end of the journey was a barrier some 70 meters from the MDL — the Military Line of Demarcation. That’s a pretty serious incursion the North Koreans made. But at the end, you take a moment to look through a slat to the second barrier the South Koreans put up… and also see a tiny tree they planted as a symbol of hope/friendship. Then you turn around and go back the way you came, shuffling past people who are shuffling to where you’ve just been. It was… interesting to see? But it was also kinda bananas. As I said, this is making a tourist trap out of a literal military trap that honestly is STILL a major possibility. There was an odd feeling throughout the day at the various sites.
The Dorasan Observatory offered the best overview viewing we were going to get of the DMZ. High atop the watchtower pavilion, there were free telescoping binoculars I’m used to seeing at the Empire State Building or at national park overlooks. Here, you could zoom in on the fake city on the North Korean side, a backlot facade of buildings meant to make it seem like North Korea was awash in prosperity and wealth. But nothing is real there — the windows are all painted on, the people are dummies. They don’t even apparently bother trying to light it at night anymore. But further afield was another village that did have “civilians” and farmers and you could kinda make them out in the telescope. It was creepy thinking I was spying on them. This great unknown, this other, this sense of observation from afar without any real contact. I guess that’s how I travel anyway — when I’m in foreign country, aren’t I essentially viewing the local cultures and customs and judging them just without the benefit of hiding behind a telescope 2.5 miles away? It was a surreal experience.
We ended the day at the Dorasan Station. This train station and rail line between North and South was built when there was an industrial complex in the DMZ. This was a joint effort by North and South Korea to work together on manufacturing and technology as a basis for greater cooperation and understanding and hopefully eventual reunification. But once the nuclear testing by North Korea and saber rattling got to its latest apogee, all work was ceased in the industrial complex. It’s not just a ghost town area. There’s still a single daily train from Seoul that stops there to bring tourists to see the place. It cost an extra 1000 won to go onto the station platform. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be worth it… until I remembered that 1000 won is 88 cents American.
This was also one of the weirdest moments of the day. Muzak was pumped out of the PA system. It reminded me of the story about the 6 AM wake-up music in Pyongyang I read a few years back. Seriously — listen to this.
Now imagine that in a train station in South Korea with nobody around save for a few tourists.
This place warps the brain… and this is South Korea. I cannot fathom what visiting North Korea would be like. From the little I’ve pieced together over the years, everything is seemingly staged for foreigners to make it all seem happy and shiny. In a world gone mad, with our US Constitution under attack every day by an administration hellbent on creating a Trump World Order, I just felt incredibly discombobulated by this day.
Am I glad I did it? Yes.
And even though I’ve thought this many times in the last two years, this visit reminded me that the world seems off the rails.
I can’t believe it’s 2019 and we’ve got divisions like this, that people want walls separating sides and families and jeopardizing peace. I can’t believe there’s been a rise in strongmen support and a loss of decency and compassion. It all feels like we’ve gone through a looking glass and then through another looking glass but instead of our reality we are in a mystery fun-house looking glass. And this is how the North and South of the Korean peninsula have been living for decades.
On the plus side, I bought DMZ chocolates, the only DMZ chocolates in the world… though I think they’re made in China.
For the record, I skipped the North Korean whiskey… that pancake type thing on the label is apparently not a pancake but a mushroom.
