Dreams of unification clash with reality
Tour of demilitarized zone reveals amusing contrasts between North, South Korea
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA— A musclebound soldier inspects my passport, sternly eyeing my clean-shaven face. I had been warned not to look scruffy for Cosmojin’s tour of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea. Unkempt tourists are targets for North Korean propaganda posters. As funny as my mates would find it if my grotty-bearded face was plastered on billboards as an example of where the West went wrong, I’d rather avoid the infamy.
First stop, the Third Tunnel of Aggression, one of four discovered infiltration tunnels dug by the authoritarian north since the armistice had been signed in 1953. A distant loudspeaker blasts ritualistic North Korean propaganda. CCTV cameras watch us shuffle down the dingy, cramped tunnel. We can’t take photos. It’s a military facility. Barbed wire everywhere.
On short notice, tours can be cancelled for safety reasons. In 1976, North Korean DMZ troops hacked two American officers to death with an axe. The north regularly threatens nuclear attack on the U.S., and periodically encourages and orchestrates terrorist attacks against their fellow Koreans to the south. It’s a nice spot to despair for humanity.
Yet life is funny if you pay attention. Facing aggressive propaganda wailing from loudspeakers, and the somewhat more concerning underlying threat of nuclear obliteration, South Korea does not get angry. South Korea delivers the most humiliating derision of North Korea I can fathom. It plays Lionel Richie.
“I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in your smile. You’re all I’ve ever wanted and my arms are open wide ’cause you know just what to say, and you know just what to do, and I want to tell you so much . . .”
I love you, South Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his hairstyle a more regrettable decision than the frosted tips of my teenage years, must be livid.
The tour guide, SP Hong, treats grim reality with similar levity. Leaving the tunnel, he points to a Christian cross atop a hill and says, dryly: “Love thy neighbour. Do not bomb thy neighbour.”
He mocks his own country’s propaganda in a “welcome to the DMZ” video that claims, in the same sentence, the “DMZ will live forever” and Korea will one day unify again. “How can it do both?” he asks, gleeful.
On the north side of the four-kilometre wide DMZ, who knows what would befall this astute, svelte and excellently dressed man for such witty observations. A glint in his eyes, Hong jests the tunnels are a “special handmade gift from North Korea to South Korean tourism.”
Hong keeps conversation flowing by playfully imploring the medicinal benefits of South Korea’s favourite root, ginseng, for aging gentleman struggling to match the sexual prowess of their prime.
“Can you imagine the age of your guide?” he asks.
“Twenty-one,” I suggest. I’ve played this game before, my job occasionally demanding I ask grizzled, hardy Scottish women for their ages. The kind of women who can eviscerate you with a handbag.
We go to the second stop, the Dora Observatory. Landmines, indicated by red triangles bearing a skull and crossbones, are scattered next to the road. The observatory looks towards a fake, empty “propaganda” village in North Korea, created to tempt defectors from the South. Apparently they’ve recently painted the village houses green. They used to be white. Ah, that’s why no one was defecting. Flaky paint.
Two enormous flagpoles rise from either side of the demarcation line. South Korea erected a 100-metre pole in the 1980s. In retaliation, North Korea erected one of the world’s largest flagpoles, around 160 metres.
“Human nature is very childish, as you can see,” Hong says.
According to our guide, the Third Tunnel of Aggression symbolizes the past relationship of North and South Korea. The observatory symbolizes the present. We’re now going to the symbol of the future, the empty Dorasan train station.
South Koreans enthusiastically embrace any opportunity for symbolism. In Seoul, at the War Memorial of Korea, there is a statue featuring two clocks. One is eternally set to the time of Korea’s division, the other will start ticking when reunification takes place. The South Korean flag, as prevalent at the DMZ as the Stars and Stripes in any American suburb, features the duelling forces of a red and blue circle, yin and yang, opposites blending, a symbol for the future unification of the democratic south and authoritarian north.
An optimistic sign at Dorasan train station points toward Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. A billboard declares “Not the last station from the South. But the first station toward the North.”
South Korea is Lionel Richie, yearning for the North, asking “is it me you’re looking for” but our guide Hong is a realist.
For decades, he’s heard the North is verging on collapse and nothing has changed. He no longer believes unification is going to be easy like a Sunday morning. David Bateman is a Scottish writer.