DMZ

This weekend I traveled to one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Dun dun duuuuuunn!

I am talking, of course, about the DMZ, or the Demilitarized Zone that separates the democratic, modern and (relatively) normal country of South Korea from the freakish tyrannical communist dictatorship that is North Korea.

Perhaps a little unexpectedly, the 4km that separate South Korea from the country of starving peasants and attempted nuclear attacks is a major tourist destination. I suppose I have always known this, given what I have heard from others who have traveled to Korea, but it is rather unexpected to see a Viking themed fair ground and a bunch of pinwheels at the farthest North civilian zone in South Korea, feet away from barbed wire and camouflaged outposts. I mean, really, I don't think that camouflage will work well when there are about a thousand brightly colored pinwheels squeaking loudly in the wind behind them.

A quick history lesson for any of you who don't know about the situation between North Korea and South Korea. I assume most of you have a good understanding of this, but some of this information was new to me, so I figured I might as well share it. History buffs and disinterested or well educated folks, you can skip this paragraph.

As with many places in the world, Korea has been scarred by the Cold War. When Japan relinquished its hold on Korea at the end of WWII (not their choice, but something Koreans had been wanting for a long time), Russia and the US both tried to set up new governments in Korea. This, of course, did not work and there ended up being a communist government up in N. Kor and a democratic government in SoKor. Again, like many of the other situations from the Cold War, this ended up sparking a civil war in Korea in June of 1950 (N. Kor decided to invade). The war lasted about 2 years, screwed up a lot of families, and killed a bunch of innocent and fleeing civilians before a treaty was signed that separated N. Kor for SoKor officially and established a no-man's land between the two countries so that N. Kor wouldn't invade again. This no-man's land is called the DMZ and extends 2 km into SoKor and 2 km into N. Kor from the dividing line (the 38th parallel).

Okay, history lesson over.

As far as I was concerned, the DMZ was a very strange set of contradictions. I mean, you expect one of the most dangerous places on Earth to seem pretty dangerous... right? But really, it was mostly just a schizophrenic head trip between touristy theme park and really creepy stuff about N. Kor. Take the third infiltration tunnel for example. This is one of 4 really disturbing underground tunnels dug by N Kor back in the 70s as an intended surprise attack on Seoul. We got to go down into it and walk to the point where it entered North Korea. The tunnel is over a mile long, it starts on the N. Kor side of the DMZ and points directly at Seoul. When it was discovered N. Kor claimed that it was a mining tunnel (they painted coal on the walls to try to fool South Korea), but there is no coal in the area and everything indicates that it was an attack tunnel. The point where it enters N. Kor is cut off by barbed wire and looks very dangerous and official. However, topside there were six foot tall letters spelling out DMZ that were colored red and purple with a flower on top of the Z. There were also two very cutesy soldier statues and a propaganda/ informational IMAX-style movie that talked about the war and how now the DMZ was a nature preserve and some day the two countries would be reunited.

So yeah. Weird place.

The other cool place we got to go was to a point on the edge of the DMZ where you can look through binoculars at North Korea. Unfortunately it was rather hazy out, so we didn't see much, but it was pretty crazy to be able to see the North Korean flag flying directly across from the South Korean flag.

What I missed was the room that is split down the middle by the border where a North Korean and a South Korean soldier stand at either end and stare at each other. I will simply have to go back to see that. They apparently make the soldiers wear sunglasses because they used to get eye strain trying to stare each other down.

This would be another place I recommend going if you come to Korea, though I'm sure if you were planning on coming to Korea, you already knew this. I'm glad I went and that North Korea didn't shoot me.