The DMZ

When I was a kid, my family often did car trips. Some were to see Grandma and Grandpa, so they were about 90 minutes. Though to me it felt much longer. But sometimes we did much longer road trips, leaving Iowa and heading to Pennsylvania or Tennessee. I happen to have a brother, let's call him Adam. As any parent (or really any parent with more than one child) knows, two kids, backseat, long car trip, those ingredients lead to explosive results. Frequently, my parents would have to impose a boundary line that neither of us was to cross. But then we would have the fun of poking our fingers super close to the boundary to get the other one screaming "He's about to cross the line!" So a boundary wasn't enough. We needed a wider strip that neither of us was supposed to enter. A buffer, or, if you will allow, a backseat DMZ.

A peace bell. If we had a giant bell in the backseat, that would have kept us from fighting.

One rare thing which Korea has is a demilitarized zone, not in the backseat of the car, but in the middle of the peninsula. It's not the only DMZ in the world, but it is probably the most well known and the most heavily protected by troops just outside of it on both sides. We took a tour to visit it.

Hey, it's me in the DMZ.

First we went to Imjingak. Here we went to a museum called the North Korea Experience. The fact is, almost no one ever visits North Korea. It's difficult to know what North Korea is like, how the people live, what's true and what isn't. But there are defectors, people who flee North Korea. However, it is exceptionally rare that they flee across the DMZ. The DMZ itself is filled with landmines, plus with soldiers on either side of it, that would be a very dangerous thing to do.

A train destroyed during the war and left in the DMZ. Another meaning of a bullet train.

Most defectors flee via China. While we were in the North Korean Experience, we got to hear from a defector. She fled through China with her husband and son. Her plan had been to stay in China, but then she learned that the local Chinese population was given money if they turned in North Koreans. So, they couldn't stay there. She met missionaries from South Korea and they helped her to get out of China and move through Southeast Asia until she reached Cambodia. Then from Cambodia, she and her family came to South Korea.

When defectors make it out, the South Koreans first need to interview them and make sure they aren't spies. Then they are given three months of re-education. The economy of South Korea works very differently than that of North Korea. North Korean defectors need to understand the lifestyle and culture of South Korea.

We learned a lot of interesting things from the defector we got to hear from. The first leader of North Korea was Kim Il-sung. The North Koreans loved him. Life worked pretty well under his leadership and he was seen as strong. But after he died and his son, Kim Jong-il, became the premier, things took a bad turn. The way the economy functioned was that the people did their work and in return they got a food ration. Under Kim Jong-il, the food ration system imploded. Now citizens weren't getting enough food. That had been the defector's main impetus to leave, so she could feed herself and her family.

The current premier is Kim Jong-Un, the son of Kim Jong-il. He is actually much crueler to the citizens of North Korea than was his father or grandfather. He has taken authoritarianism to its logical extreme.

In South Korea, there is a dream of reunification, one Korea again. It doesn't seem likely in the near future. And I'm not sure it is economically feasible. But I do understand the desire. There were families ripped apart when the two halves of Korea separated. People would like to be able to be together with their families again.

After the North Korea Experience, we went to the Dora Observatory. To get there, we had to pass through military control. A soldier boarded the tour bus and we each had to show our passports as he went through a roster, checked our names and that our faces looked like our passport pictures.

At the Dora Observatory you can look across the DMZ and see North Korea. Really, you can't tell you are looking at the DMZ or North Korea except for two things: One, you are being told you are. Two, flags. Each country has one village within the DMZ. And in each of those villages, there is a super tall flagpole with that country's flag flying on it.

You are not allowed to take pictures at the Dora Observatory. Definitely not of North Korea. Again, all you would see is mountains and countryside and a village, but photography is not allowed.

After the Dora Observatory, we went to the Third Tunnel. South Korea has discovered four tunnels leading out of North Korea and into South Korea. The tunnels were meant for a surprise invasion. The thing is, there could be more than four. No one knows how many undiscovered tunnels there are.

You can't take cameras into the real third tunnel. Here is Alrica at the fake third tunnel. The real one is not this tall.

As you might have guessed from its name, the tunnel we visited is the third one the South Koreans discovered. The South Koreans heard from a defector who claimed to have been an engineer who had been brought in to inspect the tunnel. So the military placed lots and lots of PVC pipes filled with water and drove them into the ground. One day, about three years later, a gush of water came out of one of them. So the military places several more around that location and they were able to locate where blasting of dynamite was occurring underground.

Today, when you go the third tunnel, you have to leave your belongings behind, because you pass through a metal detector. Then you go 350 meters (1150 feet) downhill in a bore tunnel that South Korea built to intersect the North Korean tunnel. Here you reach the furthest point that the North Koreans got to. Now you go through the North Korean tunnel. Everyone is given a hard hat and that hat did its job. The number of times I bumped my head on the low ceiling was not insignificant. I would have had quite a headache without the helmet. You walk about 255 meters (835 feet) until you reach a concrete wall with a small window. Inside there is a lot of greenery growing and there are closed circuit cameras so the South Koreans can watch to make sure the North Koreans don't come back into the tunnel. At this end point, you are 70 meters (230 feet) below ground and you are 170 meters (560 feet) from the North Korean border.

This sculpture is called Unifying Earth. It represents the desire to reunite Korea.

Then you have to go back up. It's pretty steep. You are breathing heavily when you're done, good cardio!

On one side of the split globe North Korea is raise and South Korea indented.

On the way out of the restricted area, you must again pass through the checkpoint and another soldier enters the bus. Again, we held up our passports. His job was to make sure everyone who went in is now coming out.

On the other side, South Korea is raised and North Korea indented.

It is really somewhat amazing to think that South Korea's capital city, Seoul, is so close to the border with a hostile enemy. There have been proposals to move the capital, but by the time the peninsula was divided into two countries, Seoul was already the economic and cultural heart of Korea. Perhaps you could move governmental offices, in fact, South Korea is moving many of them, but you can't move the center of culture from Seoul.

I think it's comparable to my parents saying we couldn't just make Adam ride in the trunk. Though, as I very logically pointed out, it would have quashed all the backseat battles. My first foray into diplomacy failed. Still, Adam and I are friends today. Let's hope the two Koreas can be friends again too.