Edge of the Map

Originally Posted August 11, 2010

Visiting the DMZ is a surreal experience. It is a surreal place, and excites a cocktail of strong-but-difficult-to-parse emotion. I traveled there last weekend, and my writing this is the latest in a series of attempts to sort out what it all means to me.

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A rather po-dunk carnival awaits at visitors at Imjingang, the pick-up point for the tour busses, and the northern-most place tourists are allowed to travel on their own. Vacationers from every corner of Asia are in evidence here the day I visit, as well as a few Westerners. English speaking tours with the USO are often booked up three weeks in advance. Apparently this is quite a popular tourist draw. To me, this seems vaguely sadistic, and perhaps masochistic as well. Fifteen minutes drive from here, people are living in a Stalinist-style dictatorship -- a famine-ravaged, nuclear-armed military state, pariah to the rest of the world, where trivial acts of self-expression are punished with forced labor and death. And this is a tourist attraction? But I am here too, unable to resist the attraction of -- I can't quite say what -- the guy who can't look away from the train wreck.

Everyone crowds around the ticket booth, passport in hand (you can't get in without it), and then stands around killing time until the next tour. Nearby, a row of shops tempt us with fake North Korean souvenirs, including the obligatory hard alcohol and knurled wooden canes. Circus tents and merry-go-rounds offer to separate you from your tourist won in other ways. A giant clock pendulum supposed to resemble a sailing ship is the alpha male of the ride-wolf pack. Its name is "The Super Viking," even though its gunwales seem more inspired by a turtle ship and its figurehead is clutching a scimitar. Finally, the bus arrives and we all pile inside. The bus drives maybe five minutes before reaching a bridge across the Han River. Fences capped with razor wire line the banks. South Korean guards in military fatigues board the bus and check passports a second time. The bus crosses the bridge, passing an army barracks where more soldiers armed with automatic rifles patrol. A feeling of anticipation begins. Like being at the zoo, with the bears' cage just a little further away.

The first stop is Dorasan Train Station, a modern glass-and-chrome facility which provides the only train tracks to North Korea, although these days there is no traffic between the two countries. A sign over the ticket counter points the way to Pyongyang. According to a map, whenever train travel through North Korea becomes possible again, it will be possible to travel by train all the way from Busan to Bordeaux -- from one end of Asia to the other end of Europe. A note of longing is plainly evident in this, despite the less-than-grammatically sound nature of the sign's English. We get back on the bus and take off. The suspense builds as the bus wends its way up a forested hill. We are getting close to something.

Next stop is the DMZ museum. Various East Bloc small arms sit in glass cases, along with digging equipment recovered from the four discovered tunnels North Korea has dug under the border since the armistice. Signs announce that up to thirty thousand troops an hour could pass through the largest of these -- and that there are probably more which have not been discovered yet. Decades of border tensions, occasional commando raids against Seoul, and a bizarre incident involving the axe-murder of some UN troops over the cutting down of a poplar tree are related through more signage.

After a few minutes, we take our leave of the museum in favor of one of the aforementioned tunnels, now the centerpiece of the DMZ's tourist exhibition. This turns out to be one of the coolest parts of the DMZ -- a circular gash, maybe 5'6" in diameter, blasted through solid granite one hundred forty meters below the surface. The air is stale and the walls are moist. Drops of water fall occasionally. It is claustrophobic, and if the lights suddenly went out I wouldlose my mind. I walk for maybe one hundred fifty meters or so and eventually arrive at more razor wire and a steel blast door. A slit window allows no hint of what lies on the other side. Beyond that door lies ... something. Touching the passage's rock walls somehow brings home the fact that the Korean War, a bloody conflict which killed roughly 6 million people, is not over. And this is a tourist attraction. Whoa.

Back to the surface. The final stop on the tour is the Dorasan Observatory. The bus ascends the steep blacktop in mountain gear,inching towards the summit, climbing and climbing until suddenly we are there. Two minutes walk, and there is a wall with large, pay-to-use binoculars. Beyondit lies four kilometers of jungle, deserted, except for the numerous wild animals that live there. Endangered species including Asiatic black bear, several types of crane, and the Amur leopard find a bizarre safe haven inside this death strip. Signs announce the presence of the millions of land mines that lurk unseen. And, finally, mountains, a road, and a rather normal looking North Korean village lie off to our northeast. I shell out 500 won and peer through the binoculars towards the village. Busses make their routes. Cars pass. Leaves flutter. I cannot see people. It's super surreal, because on the one hand, this is supposed to be the edge of the map beyond which there be monsters -- and yet all this kind of looks normal. I have been told repeatedly that North Korea works hard to put a facade of modernization and nonchalance near the border, that if you travel far inland, it all goes to rack and ruin real fast. Despite this, though, the fact that there are still fields and houses and roads -- the trappings of people, that, though citizens of an isolated and enigmatic country, still apparently have some of the same basic desires as me comes as sort of a shock. I am embarrassed to say it, but I guess all the official static from both sides of this border made me believe, if only subconsciously, that I would look over this wall and see Martians engaged in unfathomable work, pursuing unintelligible goals. Instead, I look over the wall, and see the evidence of people doing things not that different from the rest of us. Strange people, for sure. Dangerous people, maybe. But people. And I find this a comforting thought. I hope that someday very soon this border will open, that by a grace no one seems to imagine possible now, the two Koreas end this holdover from the Cold War.

Here's to a United Korea. Dae Ha-Min-Gook!