On Tuesday, I went to North Korea.
Briefly. Inside of a building. With military present. On a tour. Nothing to worry about, really.
I hadn’t planned on visiting the DMZ during my time in Seoul, but when a friend asked me if I wanted to join the tour she’d signed on to, with VIP Travel, I said yes. Why not, really?
Well, one reason why not is this sort of tourism makes me a little uncomfortable. I hated Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, with its fake document check and vendors selling gas masks.
And in some respects, this was a similar excursion. The morning portion of the tour felt extremely touristy. Our first stop was a park, which I’m sure has some historical or political significance, but all we saw of it were preparations for the Ginseng Festival. We’d spent the bus ride learning about the seriousness of the conflict, hearing a story from our guide about her uncle, kidnappe
d as a child by North Korean forces and permanently separated from his family. Then we got off the bus and saw carnival rides.
But it was only a quick restroom break before getting back on the bus, going through a passport check (the first of many that day as we crossed back and forth into and out of the DMZ), and heading to the site of The Third Tunnel.
For those of you who don’t know (I didn’t), North and South Korea aren’t divided by a border, per se. They never signed a peace treaty after the Korean War, only an armistice agreement. So instead of a border, there’s an MDL, a military demarcation line. And two kilometers on either side of it is the DMZ, the demilitarized zone.
There are four tunnels, constructed by North Korea for infiltration, that South Korea has found, though they believe there are as many as 20 tunnels still undiscovered. The third tunnel is open to tourists to walk inside. We first went to a museum that briefly explained the history of the DMZ. Then we watched a short, yet very odd, film. It summarized the Korean War at blinding speed, touched on South Korea’s hope for unification, and then closed on an odd segment about the beauty of the DMZ with slow-motion footage of flowers blooming and a discussion of migratory birds. I left feeling like I’d just watched propaganda but had no idea of its aim.
Going into the tunnel itself reminded me of nothing so much as the salt mine tour Mom was desperate to take in Salzburg. Only with less to see, really; it was just a five-minute walk through a tunnel, hunched over at times (the tall man in front of me hit his [mercifully hard hat-covered] head repeatedly), and then you turned around and walked back. Walking out involved ascending a very steep 350m hill—not my favorite activity, but at least I felt like I accomplished something. No photos were allowed in the tunnel, sorry for that!
Our second stop was the Dora Observatory, a high point from which you could see North Korea. Not much to look at really, just a hazy mountain view, with a small village and a flagpole. (Apparently the two countries went back and forth erecting bigger and bigger flagpoles because of course they did. The double meaning of erection is not a coincidence, I think.) The most interesting thing I learned there is that South Korea uses massive speakers to blare k pop at North Korea. Really, I have video.
Our third stop was my favorite of the morning, Dorasan Station, the unfinished northernmost rail station in South Korea, which they hope will one day link the country to the north. Our guide put it poignantly: “We’re a peninsula, but since we can’t pass through to the north, it feels like we’re on an island.”
Bush made a speech at the station in 2002, the text of which is displayed, and the evenhandedness and presidential qualities it showed just about broke me in light of T—‘s tweets. For the record, every person I talked to this day said he is making things worse here.
After a very quick lunch break, we boarded a different bus and went on to the second half of our tour to the JSA (Joint Security Area), officially the territory of the UN. This part of the day felt different, more serious—more like crossing the Berlin Wall when it was still up, rather than visiting Checkpoint Charlie today.
After we signed the nuttiest waiver I’ve ever seen (and I used to do legal work for a reality show), we watched a PowerPoint presentation on the history of the JSA, hearing again about the acts of violence that have occurred here since the war, before things were regulated as strictly as they are now.
We then boarded a military bus with our designated US solider—both US and Korean soldiers stay onsite—and drove deeper into the area, past a multi-layered barbed wire reinforced by a strip full of land mines, and on to the Freedom House, which we walked through quickly to stand on the steps and face North Korea. Or a building there, at least, with one soldier outside of it.
Our soldier barked orders at us: Stand in a single file line on the top step. Do not take photos to your left or right or behind you, only straight ahead. Do not make gestures. You can take photos for two minutes, now.
The unzoomed view to the other side…
One woman apparently took a photo of something she wasn’t meant to; a soldier was by her side instantly, telling her to delete it.
We then walked in two single file lines into a building situated exactly halfway between the north and south, with the MDL traversing the center. In the photo at left, the microphones on the table—ostensibly for negotiation—mark the MDL. I felt nervous while I was in there, more from my usual anxiety over following rules than any real sense of danger. But again there was the surreality of the contrast between the very serious situation this building represents and the inanity of tourists piling in and taking photos with soldiers.
And then it was back on the bus. The final place we visited before our tour concluded (besides the gift shop; there is ALWAYS a gift shop) was the recently constructed temple, a beautiful commemorative work, from which one day the bell will be rung, signifying peace.
It took me a few hours after returning home to shake my feelings of unease. For as cheesy as parts of the day were, as much as I’d laughed at them, taking the tour intensified the feeling that we’re edging closer to a precipice, which I very much hope we don’t fall over.
