William Chong

By the time you read this I’ll be over the Pacific ocean winging my way back to Auckland. But just thought I’d share a bit about my visit into the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and out to the Panmunjom Joint Security Area (that’s the place you see in photos where South Korean soldiers guard one side and North Korean ones guard the other).

The Korean situation seem to me like a contemporary parallel to the Biblical civil warring between Israel and Judah. Families on either side continue to struggle as they wait in hope that one day the country would be reunified.

Freedom Bridge

Located at Imjingak, this railroad bridge crosses the Paju River and is heavily guarded by Republic of Korea (ROK) troops. It was used to exchange prisoners following the Korean War (1950-1953). As the northernmost point that South Korean civilians are able to reach, there’s a monument and shrine that those with displaced families come to each year to pray for reunification, and that the rail line will connect both parts of Korea again. There’s a plaque there that says, “the iron horse wants to run” – summing up the fervent hopes of those separated from their loved ones in the North.

The 3rd Tunnel

Although a cease-fire armistice agreement was signed by North and South Korea to end hostilities, since then there have been numerous flashpoints and small battles. In particular North Korea made a concerted effort to dig numerous subterranean passages towards Seoul, designed for a sneak attack. So far four tunnels (out of an estimated 20) have been found – the 3rd Tunnel was discovered in October 1978.

It was sobering to hear that The 3rd Tunnel goes 435 m south of the Military Demarcation Line (i.e. in South Korean territory), and ended up just 55km from Seoul. My guidebook tells me that the Emperor at the time chose Seoul as the capital of Korea based on geomancy (feng shui) – though one wonders if his feng shui would have predicted Seoul to now be less than an hour’s drive from the most heavily fortified border in the world.

Anyways we got to walk along the South Korean side of the tunnel. You can only walk along 150m of the tunnel: when discovered it was quickly sealed off in three places, including a 5m thick portion of concrete, chemical gas and landmines. Needless to say we listened to the tourguide and didn’t go past the given boundary.

Dorasan Observatory

A hilltop observatory, guarded by troops – it gives a very expansive view of the DMZ. We got to see villages on either side of the Military Demarcation Line – Daeseong on the South side (called “Freedom Village”), and Kijong on the North side (called “Propaganda Village”).

This is a poor picture but you can see the North Korean flag flown from the top of a 160m tower that dwarfs everything else in Kijong village – the flag itself weighs 300kg! There’s a flag tower and flag on the South Korean side too in Daeseong, but it’s not as big. Keeping up with the Joneses never seemed more dramatic…

Panmunjeom

This is the neutral Joint Security Area – all important UN meetings regarding North-South Korea are held here. When we were there, elite ROK soldiers were on guard. They stand in a taekwondo pose, with half their bodies behind the Conference Room walls, the other half shown towards the North Koreans on the other side of the JSA. Our military escort, US Specialist Andrew Pollack (he previously served in Iraq) told us that the ROK soldiers do this to present a smaller shooting target, and also so that their hidden hand can be used to signal anything out of the ordinary. The guards here all hold black belts in taekwondo and are hand-selected by the government to serve in the JSA.

Conference Room

This building sits on either side of the Military Demarcation Line. The MDL runs down the middle of the conference table inside, and on either side’s windows you can see the simple concrete strip that’s divided Korea for over 50 years.

It’s also an eerie feeling to step across to the other side of the room into North Korea. In fact overall, there’s a certain tension in the air when you’re in the DMZ. Everything is more serious, the military buildup and precautions are sobering, and it causes you to reflect on the futility of war.

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