DMZ Tour

Anything and everything you could want exists within Seoul. There is a restaurant, club or network to fill every hobby or desire, because of this it is easy to feel comfortable in South Korea. The Hangeul billboards and indistinguishable conversations going on around you are the only things that pull you back into the mindset that you're living abroad. There is also a rather large reminder that your far away from home.....it lies just north of you, the awkward elephant room, the butt of all the jokes from your friends back home. Well two weeks ago I decided to face it head on. I decided to recognize I live less than 2 hours away from a country that is completely cut off from the rest of the world and visit the Demilitarization Zone between North and South Korea.

I had heard from fellow teachers that  taking the U.S. military tour was worth the extra money. It allowed you to go onto the army base and venture further into the DMZ zone. The normal tour is about 43,000won and ours cost 96,000won. We also had to leave my apartment for the military base around 6:30am, which is quite painful for someone who works in the afternoon and has become accustomed to waking up at 10:30 or 11am everyday.

I'm not going to give you a blow by blow of the tour, but instead highlight some of the sights and things we witnessed that day. I would also like to address the weird propaganda and clashing of forceful opinions that underlined our tour. Altogether it was a very bizarre, yet eye-opening experience. 

One of the first sights your taken to is  the Panmunjeom or Joint Security Area. This area is most notably known for the peace talks that were held here on October 25, 1951 and was designated as the Joint Security Area on July 27, 1953 when the armistice agreement was signed. Once used as a management office, Panmunjeom has been used as now a conference room since the Red Cross held an international conference here on September 20, 1971.It is the only place where North Koreans and South Koreans can come in contact on a daily basis and make efforts towards the peace of Korea.

Your US military tour guide leads you to a staircase where you are required to stand shoulder to shoulder on the top step. He tells you not to make any gestures and to stay on the top step. If either of the following happens to occur the North Koreans could take a sign of threat and use their weapons. In front of you is one visible North Korean soldier, yet he tells you there are several other members of the North Korea army watching you and pointing guns at you. (Sidenote: After our guide told us at least 3 times not to point or gesture the girl next to me pointed at the bland brown building in front of us and exclaimed to her friend, "There's North Korea!" High retention rates these foreigners have!)

Next we were taken to the Joint Security gift shop where North Korean booze among other delightful gifts were available for purchase. I, of course, purchased some high class North Korean brandy (somewhat reminiscent of lighter fluid and very strong- but that's another story in itself).

Another stop on our tour was the site of the 1976 Axe Murder incident, where two US soldiers were hacked to death by the North Korean Army. This was possible because of a forest of trees disguising the two checkpoints and came to be known as the Hatchet or Polar tree incident. 

Then we went to the Third Tunnel, which is one of the supposed 14 secretly dug passage ways from North to South Korea. It  was discovered on October 17, 1978 and is located 52km from Seoul. It is estimated that it took approximately an hour for 10,000 soldiers to move through the tunnel. When this tunnel was first discovered, North Koreans insisted it was made by South Koreans in a plot to invade North Korea. However, this theory proved eventually to be false and that it was actually the other way around.  

At then end of our tour the weirdo factor peaked when we were shown a small selfless promotion video about South Korea was the "country of the future" with such rapid economic growth. It seemed there was some kind of motive from everyone who guided us that day: the South Korean guide telling us how crazy and delusional the North Koreans were and how advanced/ logical they were or the Americans flaunting how they are risking their lives daily in this line of violence. In fact often times details of events would change based on who was telling the story.

At the end of the tour we were given the opportunity to pay 500won to look into North Korea with binoculars. I couldn't help but feeling a bit melancholy and sad. One that there were people who actually lived like this (oblivious to culture and that anything exists beyond their dilapidated nation) and two how their lives had become some bizarre tourist attraction. People pointed and shouted at life beyond that border with a excitement, as if they were at Disneyland or some entertainment show. This was real life not the stage and I couldn't help but feeling a wake up call from my experiences on this day.