The DMZ

So, the DMZ. Last weekend, a couple of us from Best Kids and a couple of KCTY folks made our way to Seoul's USO to begin a tour of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. It's a pretty cool tour because it goes pretty far into the DMZ and only certain nationalities are allowed to go on this tour. I will do my best to relay most of the information I received on the tour, but I can't promise its complete accuracy!

The DMZ is an area about 248 KM long and runs the length of Korea approximately on the 38th parallel. It is about 4 KM wide, with 2 KM on the North and 2 KM on the South. In World War II, the 38th parallel was the original border between the Soviet occupied North and the US occupied South. During the Korean war, the border was pushed down south several times, but in 1953 the DMZ was created as an armistice between the North and the South. The place where they signed the armistice is pretty much in the center of the DMZ. Technically, the countries are still at war, but the armistice was sort of a cease fire. There are still lots of threats thrown out there by the North, but nothing has really become of it since the cease fire.

The word demilitarized is a little misleading too, since both sides are allowed to patrol the DMZ with a limited and specified amount of weaponry. There are also markers inside the DMZ that if crossed, will lead you into a mine field.

So, the tour we went on let us go with the US Army into the DMZ. We were allowed to go to the Joint Security Area(or JSA), where there are both North Korean and South Korean buildings, and where official meetings are held. I'll just explain the rest with pictures.

First, we were given a briefing on the specifics of the DMZ. Good ol' homeboy(army boy) from Modesto gave us the speech. His accent was sort of hick and hard to understand because he spoke so fast, but we were able to get the basics.




These two pictures are from the JSA. The blue buildings are South and the silver buildings are North.




This is inside one of the blue buildings where UN meetings are held. This soldier is in both North and South. The right is North the left is South.


We were allowed to take pictures with them, but we couldn't cross in front of him and we couldn't touch him, or he would probably hit us :)



Here are a couple of pictures of the North Korean soldiers watching us. We were only allowed to take pictures at certain times when they told us and we were being watched the entire time we were on tour. Kind of creepy. These guys were so close!




Looking over into North Korea. Notice the line of trees blocking the view into NK. Also, on a clear day, you can see how the rest of the country side is barren because North Korean's have resorted to cutting down trees for firewood and possibly for eating since conditions are so bad there.



The Bridge of No Return. We weren't allowed to get out of the bus here because it was "too dangerous". I think they mean that if someone had the sudden urge to run across, they would probably have to be shot. At the end of the Korean war, Koreans had to decide if they wanted to live in the North or South. Once they made the decision they couldn't go back. Because of the war, many Koreans had family on both sides. Imagine having to make that decision! They used this bridge to cross over into the chosen side, hence the name, Bridge of No Return. Pretty crazy.


That's about all the interesting photos. We also got to see a nice informational video about the North and the South and how their relations are getting better everyday. It seemed a little optimistic to me, since this zone is still heavily secured and it doesn't really seem like its going to change anytime soon. In the late 70's, the South Korean's discovered tunnels that the North was digging under the DMZ to try to attack the South. The tunnels they dug could have fit 30,000 troops. North Korean's tried to disguise the tunnels as coal mines by painting them black. (We got to go into one of the tunnel's they found). They think there are probably still some out there that they haven't discovered yet. And they say relations are getting better? I feel perfectly safe here since there are so many US bases and I could probably get out very quickly if I needed to(sometimes its nice to be American), but it is very strange to me that it can be so divided here still.