The Most Militarized De-Militarized Zone In the World

I have a story to unravel for you folks. It involves intrigue, romance, danger, and war. I went to the DMZ: The Demilitarized Zone...of Korea. On the 61st anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.

For those who don't know, the Demilitarized Zone is the 4KM wide de-facto border between North and South Korea. Within the DMZ are special zones, but other than that nobody is allowed within this defined area. As such, this untouched land has become a nature preserve, housing many endangered species of deer and bird. Apparently there are even tigers in it, which cannot be found anywhere else on the peninsula. Indeed, they even have DMZ spring water because of its reputation as pure nature.

With my trip, I only got a cursory glimpse of the nature part, but it was actually fairly beautiful in its purity and a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of Seoul. Unfortunately, this foray into nature was short. What I'm here to talk to you about is the Joint Security Area and Panmunjom.

We awoke early Saturday morning and were at the USO Office at Camp Kim before 7 AM for our 7:30 departure. The weather looked like it might turn for the worse at any moment, but we headed North past the civilian zone anyway. Once you cross the river North of Seoul, everything changes. Nothing but military check points up to Camp Bonifas, named after Captain Bonifas who was brutally axed to death by North Korean soldiers during the "Axe Murder Incident of 1976," which I will get into later.

Once in Camp Bonifas we met our tour guide, an enlisted U.S. soldier at the camp, who would "debrief" us and give us our waivers to sign in case we got shot or whatever. From that point we watched a fairly uninspiring video on the history of the DMZ and the Korean War and we made our way to the Joint Security Area. The motto here and at Camp Bonifas is "In Front Of Them All." I finally understood what this meant when we got to the JSA. ROK Soldiers stand at a ready taekwondo pose literally facing the enemy every single day.

The gray building beyond is crawling with North Koreans. Notice the group on the top left balcony...

As we chose the 61st anniversary of the start of the Korean War to visit, we were rewarded by seeing a North Korean DMZ tour on the other side of the border. This, apparently, is not common. The blue building on the left is where the tour goes and certain inter-Korean talks are held.

See?

Inside, we were able to step into North Korea beyond this cement plank.
I have been to North Korea...but not really. I literally stepped about three feet into North Korea inside a secured building that was built by South Korea. Pretty lame, I know.

From there we went to a lookout where we got a solid glimpse of Kijong-dong, the North Korean "Propaganda Village" and home to the second tallest flagpole in the world.
The story of Propaganda Village is a rather involving one, but I'm here and you're here so let's get it over with. Part of the agreement (with God or whatever) is that each side could have one village in the DMZ. South Korea built Daesong-dong, a farm collective of 50 odd families with odd perks and restrictions. They are exempt from military service, pay no taxes, and the government will purchase 100% of their crop yield, thus earning them a salary of around $100K a year. The restrictions are that they have to spend 240 nights a year in the village, 11PM curfew, and men cannot marry into it.

North Korea, instead of investing in a farming village, decided to build a gigantic movie set. Kijong-dong is virtually uninhabited, yet someone turns on and off lights to make it seem inhabited. Upon closer inspection, it can be seen that the windows of buildings don't have glass and that most buildings don't even have interior rooms. Then there's the issue of the flagpole. Well, that's just a manhood issue between North and South and the South finally gave up. But the flagpole in Daesong-dong is pretty big too.

We next passed by the Bridge of No Return, named as such because after the Korean War, POWs were exchanged across this bridge with options: they got to choose North or South, but once they chose there was no going back... ...as well as the monument replacing the poplar tree from the Axe Murder Incident of 1976. The story behind that particular incident goes like this: South Korea had a lookout post next to the Bridge of No Return which was surrounded by North Korean lookout posts and blocked from South Korean view by a poplar tree.

Here's a visual aid for you folks of the lookout post in question. Keep in mind that North Korea surrounds this outpost on three sides. The Bridge of No Return is directly to the right of the blue outpost and the poplar tree would be blocking the view of the building if it were still standing.

So one day a dozen or so U.S. and ROK soldiers went over to cut it down (not carrying weapons [besides axes to cut down the tree] per the rules at the time). They were met by about 15 North Korean soldiers monitoring them. About 15 minutes into it, the North Koreans ordered them to stop the tree trimming and attacked, killing Bonifas with an axe and injuring others before escaping. North Korea's reasoning was that "Kim Il-Sung planted the tree personally and nourished it and it was growing under his supervision." The tree was at least 10 years older than Kim Il-Sung.

Then we hauled it over to the Third Tunnel. More North Korean craziness there. Do you see a trend? So, four man made tunnels have been discovered under the DMZ originating from the North. It is believed that there are more undiscovered ones. The idea is that North Korea would construct a series of tunnels leading to Seoul that would effectively transport troops and artillery underground in the case of an invasion. This particular tunnel could transport 30,000 troops per hour if completed. It was discovered prematurely, however, and the tunnel ends several kilometers shy of Seoul. When North Korea realized the South was aware of what they were doing, they covered the walls in black. "Why did they do that, Steve?" Well, their subsequent explanation for the tunnel was that it was a coal mine. Yeah, pretty lame considering it's in limestone rock with no coal anywhere in the area. Anyway, the tunnel was...a tunnel. It was surprisingly deep though, at about 400 meters underground (for those dastardly Americans, that's about a quarter of a mile).

Here is also where the gift shop was, so I purchased a rare treat (and probably the only interesting, unique thing in there):

"Chiggity check yo-self."

North Korean beer. It was actually better than South Korean beer because apparently Kim Jong-il imported, brick by brick, a brewery from England to create his own beer.

Our final stop was Dorasan Station. This train station was built in the hopes of reunification. It's an unused train station with two significant points of interest: first, it is the northern most train station in South Korea and second, it has tracks going to Pyeongyang. If this reunification were ever to be realized, this train station would be one of a long, long line of train stations running from Busan, Korea to Lisbon, Portugal. Yes, it would be the longest train line in the world. North Korea is literally standing in the way of that...

"None shall pass!"

The DMZ tour offered through the USO is definitely a worthwhile experience for those visiting Korea or living here. Even to those living here, it is a bizarre look into the sensitive relationship between the North and South.

Gangwon-do Adventures

Gangwon-do in Korea is the most rural, rugged, and most mountainous of South Korea's nine main -dos. Highlights of Gangwon-do include: Seoraksan National Park, mainland South Korea's tallest mountain; Pyeongchang, South Korea's 2018 Winter Olympic bid; and the home of Dokdo, the contested islets off the coast. Here's it's location in relation to Daegu:

It's the pink one, guys.

This past weekend, I took the trip up to Daejeon to meet my roommate from orientation who I hadn't seen in over a year. Since last I saw him, he had upgraded to a university job as well as gotten a car. This latter fact enabled us to explore the otherwise mysterious Gangwon-do in ways that is difficult without a jalopy in which to do it. Indeed, I had never been to Gangwon-do before this past weekend.

ROAD TRIP!!!! That's right. We took a several hour road trip to the East coast. You may not think it would take this long, but it took four hours to get to the East coast. Yeah, it's that mountainous over there. However, it is also beautiful. On our way we passed aforementioned Pyeongchang, the Winter Olympic hopeful. Upon seeing it, I could only think how much infrastructure they would have to invest in to make it Olympic worthy. It can't have a population of more than 20,000. Nonetheless, it had a sleepy Alpine feel to it as we passed. I can only imagine that that infrastructure would drown out the quaint sleepiness of it and actually put it on the map. It could even ruin Gangwon-do. Or...they'll host most of it in neighboring Gyeonggi-do where all of Seoul's influence lies and have only the skiing part in Pyeongchang. Who knows?

As we snaked down the coast admiring rolling mountains that spilled into the ocean, we came upon our first destination: The Reunification Park. This is, of course, referred to Korean reunification. It was fairly dinky with a few Korean War planes and...South Korean Air Force One from the 60s. As you were allowed inside, we got to see where da prezident once sat.

What was more alluring about the park was that down the road there were three naval displays. The first was a Korean war ship that was built by the U.S. in 1945 and then donated to South Korea in the 60s.

"Did you get your tickets?" "What tickets?" "To the gun show!"

Granted, it wasn't as exciting as the U.S.S. Missouri, but it was still kind of neat. Second, we had the small dinghy that the 2009 North Korean defectors used to paddle their way across the border.

How'd you like to live on that for a couple of days?

The last was easily the most alluring. A North Korean submarine. A real one. So, turns out in 1996, a North Korean submarine shored up on Gangwon-do to release some spies to do some spying and hopefully assassinate some VIPs attending some function in the area. On the way out (assassination mission failed), their submarine got stuck on some rocks, so the 13 agents abandoned ship after shooting the submarine crew and burning all their documents. 12 agents were subsequently killed in a firefight and one was captured alive, giving us the information we have. The submarine was subsequently made into a little museum to North Korean aggression.

The results of two starkly contrasting economic systems in one picture.

The inside of the submersible actually wasn't that exciting, but it was still worth it to see (and you had to wear a hard hat to go inside because it's as treacherous as the North Korean regime!).

We snaked down the coast some more, still taking in those rolling mountains that spilled into the ocean, and eventually came upon a landmark sight. In a sleepy beach town there lies this:
A cruise ship on a hill. "Why is there a cruise ship on a hill?" you may ask. Nobody fucking knows. I'm just kidding. It's a hotel that was built into the shape of a cruise ship. From what I hear, it's actually a pretty nice hotel (not surprisingly). The only problem is, what else is there to see in this town? Well, there is a nice beach and the added bonus of our next destination: Haesindang Park.

Haesindang Park was created under the belief that it would satisfy the spirit of a young woman who drowned in the area. After she drowned, the amount of seafood gathered in the area plummeted, so they built a park to satisfy her. Since then, the seafood yield returned to normal. This is no normal park, although it has wonderful rocky beaches. No, this park is full of giant, erect penis statues.

Not pictured: the giant, erect penis statues.

It seems Korea has an obsession with genitalia between this park and Loveland on Jeju-do. What could it be? Probably a vein attempt at getting their birth numbers back up. Either way, it makes a pretty bizarre, yet entertaining adventure for the occasional Westerner who passes through.

That night we stayed in Samcheok, in the southern part of Gangwan-do. They have some sort of specialization in seafood, so we tried blisteringly spicy grilled eel that was actually not bad despite its blistering level of spice.

The morning consisted of the mostly uneventful drive back. All in all, one of the more eventful weekends I've had in a while.

Moon Me

There was a period of time that I didn't even want to acknowledge this blog existed. It was that shameful to me. Neglecting it for so long. But, something has spurred me back. The tiniest little thing. There are those of you who may fault my reasons to slink back to the keyboard, but nobody gives a crap about your negative feelings anyway. What brought me back was to write a movie review (ewww...).

Before I get into it though, I wanted to let you know that I have no less than three draft posts in my que just waiting to be finished. I had attempted three times to update since May 20th and failed miserably at each one. What did it take for me to get back? A friggin' movie. Not any of your whiney pleas for me to start writing again. Not boredom, not guilt. A movie. It must be pretty good, right? Well, let's just say that it hit a chord with me.

Moon (2009) is a sci-fi flick that somewhat pays homage to the classics (2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and that one George Lucas film he did before Star Wars). Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the solitary contract worker on the moon harvesting Helium-3, the clean energy of the future. His only company is Gerty, a computer voiced by Kevin Spacey. As his three year contract finishes up, Sam starts experiencing strange things and hallucinations. That's about all I knew about the film when I started watching and I really can't say much more without giving up what made it so intriguing a watch.

Moon is the writing and directorial debut of Duncan Jones, David Bowie's first son. After watching it, I can attest that Jones is a solid writer/director. I feel like he must have been an English teacher in Korea by the way I can relate to this movie. The solitude one can sometimes feel living in a foreign country, the silly projects one undertakes whilst within that solitude, the longing to see people, the monotony of a job. All things I can very well relate to. Also there are other strange coincidences that give it another level for me. The base on which Sam lives is called "Sarang." Sarang is Korean for "love" and even the hangeul is written on the base: 사랑. There you go, I helped you with a metaphor.

There are layers to this movie that you only catch by watching and paying attention. First there is the slightly humorous alarm tune that wakes Sam up every morning. Also, it is never suggested, but it can be implied that Korea in the future has a much more global role (and even lunar, asitwere). This is demonstrated by both the name of the base as well as some dialogue. At a pivotal point in the movie, a recording says, "annyeonghi kyeseyo (안녕히 계세요). Goodbye." This in Korean means "stay well," as in "you are staying here. Stay here well while I leave." According to the situation, the recording should have said "annyeonghi kaseyo (안녕히 가세요). Goodbye." This would translate to "go well." However, the fact that they used "stay well" instead of "go well" is pivotal to what happens next and you'd only catch the intention if you knew those Korean phrases. Of course, you still get it eventually without knowing. I love little things like that in movies. It shows attention to detail and foresight that most of your viewers will miss it.

Sam Rockwell definitely expanded his acting chops in this movie, portraying practically the only character we see onscreen. And, despite being a bucket of bolts, Kevin Spacey's Gerty is surprisingly warm and dynamic. All in all, a really well done film that I'd suggest to fans of science fiction. One of them thinkers about the definition of life and all that.