DMZ

Howdy,
I'm inside the smokey PC Bung, this is where I go to use the internet and do my lesson plans for school. This is also where many Koreans go to play games for several hours a day (or for 48 hours straight until they die).

Anyway, last weekend I went to the DMZ with Josh, Amber and Kate. Last time we tried, it was cancelled because the North decided to open its dams in preparation for a typhoon - without warning the South ahead of time. A couple of South Korean villagers had to evacuate in order to avoid the released waters. In 2002, the North did the same thing with its dams, but with a more disasterous effect - 100 South Koreans drowned.

We took a bus from the USO in Seoul an hour north to the DMZ, where we received briefing. We had to sign a contract that basically said that if we got killed or maimed by the North, nobody would be responsible (that was the jist of the first sentence of the contract). So I tempted fate two weeks in a row.

Our group transferred to a blue DMZ tour bus that took us to different places along the DMZ. I actually got to stand on the North side while in a building placed halfway on the demarcation line. Across were two North Korean communist officers - one standing guard afront the North Korean stronghold, another in the window of the stronghold scoping us out with binoculars. Five South Korean rock soldiers held posts in front of the South's stronghold. The two clostest to the Northern border stood half-covered by buildings, to lessen the chance of possible enemy fire from hitting them.

One of the most interesting things about the DMZ was the North's "Propaganda Village," a small ghost town where at night they play on a loudspeaker communist propaganda, encouraging South Koreans to defect. Standing in the village is a huge North Korean flag, the fifth largest flag in the world. It stands nearly 200 meters high (do the conversion yourself). In a different area, I actually saw a real North Korean town. A couple of cars and vans were on the roads, but I saw no people. The cars and vans looked the same as the South Koreans,' but the buildings looked bland and sterile. Way out in the beautiful North Korean Mountains stood a signal-jamming tower. There are no radio transmissions in North Korea, at least, not from the outside world. In order for Jong-Il and his cronies to maintain complete brainwash capability, all news is regulated and distributed by the government - alternative non-communist thought is nearly impossible for North Korean citizens. Every year, relatives from both sides are allowed to visit with each other. This started in 2002, I believe, and this certainly has an effect on the North Korean government's ability to shun its citizens from a more positive reality.

After peering into the communist land, I put on a hard hat and went with the group through some tunnels. The North tried digging tunnels into South Korea in the 70s. The South drilled holes in different areas of the DMZ, filled them with water, and observed. The next few times the North blasted deeper toward the south with dynamite, the South was able to observe where the North Koreans were blowing through - the water jumped out of the holes that lay above the tunnels. The South began tunneling of their own and blockaded the North's tunnels, preventing their spies easy entry into the South.

It was an educational, interesting day. And I didn't get shot, which was good.