District 1260 Blog

The other members of the team have already written entries about our visit to the DMZ but here is my take it on it....

'Ladies and gentlemen...no pointing, no pictures, no waving, listen to what I say, no pictures, soldiers shoot you...'

At least thats what I thought my tour guide said as I have not heard such a strange English accent since Lou Bega sang about 'Sandra, Jessica and Rita' in Mambo No.5.

I always knew travelling to the border between North Korea and South Korea would be a slightly surreal experience but this was enhanced by our tour guides rambling' Konglish' conversation.

Our bus stopped outside the 'Freedom House' right in the middle of the Joint Security Area and we were told to walk in pairs into the building with our arms by our sides. It felt as if we were part of a military parade as we marched quickly through the building, past armed guards and into the a hut which contains a table marking the divide between South and North Korea.

A strange mixture of tension and curiousity filled the room containing three armed guards who did not flinch while we stood next to them and posed for pictures. The official dividing line is the middle of the table so tourists can merrily jump back and forth from North and South Korea or, if you are feeling indecisive, you can put your feet apart and straddle both countries.

We were then taken up some stairs into a lookout point where you could see the North Korean version of the Freedom House. Lou Bega began to explain to us what we could see in the landscape around us.

'You see over there enemy soldier...over there site of axe murder where North Koreans killed two South Korean soldiers...over there 'propaganda village' where they build 160 foot flag pole...For a brief moment it felt as if the guards, guns and buildings had all been created for the benefit of the tourists. Outside the building a North Korean guard stood less than 50 feet away, pacing back and forth with his rifle at the ready. He looked bored. Apparently a bus load of Americans had been on the same sightseeing trip in the morning.

On the way back towards Seoul, I kept thinking I had visited the most heavily fortified in the world but had not felt in the least bit afraid. Visiting the JSA is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Korea. The land around the border is filled with mines to prevent tunnels being built but a theme park is open just a few miles South of the border. This uneasy mixture of tension and profit-making seemed to sum up the atmosphere at the DMZ.

There is undoubted tension between the two sets of soldiers who are trained to kill at the twitch of an eyelash. But both sides seem to be locked in a eternal stand-off with the border a place where both sides can bare their teeth at each other. Our guide told us the South Korean's built a 100 foot flag pole on one side so the North Korean's built one 160 foot high. Until recently, anti-captalist messages had been gouged into the North Korean side to antagonise the South.

It seems incredibly sad, and almost surreal, that the two countries seem locked in an eternal dispute that divides families and people of the same culture who have so much in common. The DMZ sums up the tension between the two countries but it does not give any key to how any future conflict would pan out.

The biggest fear of South Korea is the possibility of the North getting hold of a nuclear weapon. The posturing on the border merely reminds both sides of the ever-present threat of a 21st century type of war.