North Korea

The Intercept has the best take I've read on the whole situation.

Andrei Lankov's AMA

Andrei Lankov had an AMA on reddit. I'm reading it right now; you should, too.

I just can't bear to let this little blog of mine completely go, I suppose.

Rep. Lee Seok-ki (UPP) to be arrested for conspiracy, treason.

Parliament to handle arrest request for Rep. Lee Seok-ki next week. From the article:

Lee and some members of the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) have been accused by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) of planning an armed revolt if war breaks out with North Korea. The country's spy agency said the people under investigation hatched a plot to attack key infrastructure in the South to aid the North if conflict occurs.

I haven't seen this story surface in any of the blogs I still read or in any news; I guess because Syria is the big international story at the moment. One of my buddies back in Korea has been feeding me the story piecemeal. This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

More Koreaboo Pique

Roboseyo breaks his blogging silence for a rational and sane discussion on the situation in North Korea.

Also, The Korean translated North Korean defector Joo Seong-ha's article on North Korea's "hacker army."

Some thoughts on the situation on the peninsula by another defector. In other words, the only time I'll ever link to CNN with a straight face.

And finally, Anonymous done goofed.

I'm still sitting on some student profiles; I've just been busy working a job and a half. I hope everyone enjoyed their semi-annual candy binge!

A Fit of Koreaboo Pique

American news reporting on North Korea continues to astound me, and I mean that in the least generous way possible. Maybe in another life I would have been an international correspondent or writer covering the situation on the Korean peninsula, but—oh well. Despite the fact that I am probably preaching to the choir, I am still irritated enough that I feel compelled to provide you, dear faithful blog reader/Internet searcher who has stumbled across my blog/family member, with the means to educate yourselves if you so please! Here are Internet things dealing with the Koreas that I like:

• Ask A Korean! - This is the best English language blog on South Korea, for fairly obvious reasons. (Those reasons are: it's written by a Korean who writes well.) If you are an expat blogger you probably follow him already (and if you don't, you should). While The Korean currently resides in Virginia, he keeps abreast of news and I see stories on his blog that I don't see anywhere else in English. He's also written a few well-researched and extensive series on assorted issues in South Korea: the presidents, the suicide rate, the financial crisis, etc.
  
  The downside is that The Korean is a lawyer, so he can get called away from blogging for long periods of time. He also is a bit of a food and language snob, so once in a while there are rants about the purity of Korean food or language or whatever that makes me roll my eyes, but he seems to know that he's being irrational.
  
  For those of you that care, The Korean also does not apologize or care about being flamingly, staunchly liberal.
  
  If you are at all curious about Korea, this is the blog to add to your feed.

• NK News - I don't follow this one but I read it occasionally. Any article here will certainly provide more depth and insight than most American news programs.

• Daily NK - What makes this news site exceptional is that it's run by North Korean defectors who still have ties back home. The result is not only real information instead of meaningless echo chamber speculation, but a more nuanced look into the country beyond the international image of  one crazy (or corrupt, or both) leader and a vague notion of hungry citizens. If you follow nothing else from this list, follow this one. The link here is to their English page; they publish in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese as well.

• Justice for North Korea - The Facebook page for the charity my friend Breda works at. She's a grad student in international relations at Korea University, with a focus on North Korea and reunification, so Breda is not a stupid ignorant American when it comes to the issues. She (and maybe some of the other JFNK volunteers) maintain the Facebook page and regularly post links to assorted articles that are usually insightful and nuanced interpretations of events. (I say "usually" only because I will skim past articles now and then and not read them, so I can't vouch for EVERY SINGLE THING posted.) It's always in English, no worries.

• Despite recent shenanigans with Dennis Rodman and the Harlem Globetrotters (I'm still undecided on if that was good, bad, both, or neither), VICE magazine has a few (mostly) good series on North Korea:
  
  The original VICE Guide to North Korea
  
  The North Korean Logging Camps
  
  The North Korean Movie Industry
  
  Sometimes it kind of becomes more of a "check out this insane country" rubber-necking spectacle than actual journalism, but not so bad it's distracting or obnoxious or whatever.

Also there are some books that are good. Here are ones that I like:

• Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader - It is definitely a bit outdated (last updated in 2010), but holy shit this tome on North Korea is fairly exhaustive and great and I will definitely be re-reading it in the near future to re-absorb things I missed the first time.

• Korea's Place in the Sun - Bruce Cumings is basically the senior White Expat Expert on Korea, though not without controversy. This book was banned in South Korea for a while (I think by Chun Doo-hwan?) and at least one other Korean specialist has accused him of being a North Korean apologist, so there you go. I haven't read this one, but I did read his history of the Korean war, which I felt was very thorough and as impartial as possible.

• This is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood - This one is a short, easy read that sometimes suffers from language clunkiness (translated from Korean to French to English, as I recall) but is invaluable as a firsthand account of living in North Korea written by a North Korean. It's not Escape From Camp 14 which I can't bring myself to read, despite my interest in North Korea, because I KNOW it'll be depressing. If you feel the same way, this one is a good substitute.

Happy Pi Day! And to my friends still in Korea, happy white day!

Multimedia Monday (On Tuesday): North Korea's Moranbong Band

The topic in my book this week is "favorites," which is pretty useless.

Instead, have this video that popped up on my Facebook news feed. It's a North Korean pops orchestra (in the tradition of Trans-Siberian Orchestra) performing "Gonna Fly Now:"

Doing a Good Turn

I've mentioned before that I tutor North Korean defectors. I've been doing it for a few months now. The whole time I debated whether or not I should mention it here, but I figured there's nothing wrong with encouraging people to do a good thing.

Classes with the North Koreans aren't much different than with my kids, except their English is much more basic and they're much older. They're all rather good-natured and (as far as I can tell) happy to see me. I teach a basic class that has a core enrollment of three students, with two others who drift in and out as it suits them.

The three core students are two men (I'll call them Yunu and Guncheol) and one woman (I'll call her Soon-mi). Pseudonyms are because I'm not sure what their story is so far and I'd rather not inadvertently put them or their families in danger.

Out of all the students, Yunu is the moodiest. He gets frustrated easily, though out of all of them he probably has the highest level. He and Guncheol seem to be good friends, the kind that joke around and give each other shit.  At least, that's what it looks and sounds like, considering my Korean is not much better than their English. They might be actually fighting for all I can tell.

Unlike Yunu, Guncheol is almost always in a good mood. If he makes a mistake or doesn't understand something, he takes it in stride and laughs it off. He also applies himself more than Yunu; even if Yunu's current speaking and listening level might be higher than Guncheol's, Guncheol already understands phonics (yes, we are starting at phonics, that's how basic this is) better than Yunu.

Soon-mi is itty-bitty. I'm sure she's around my age—at most maybe a year or two younger. Yet she stands a full head shorter than me.

In case any of you forgot (or didn't know), I'm damn short. 5'1". Usually I stop towering over people by the time they hit the double digits. I actually have to be mindful of where I write on the board because Soon-mi might not be able to reach it at all. Photos of starving children in Africa are horrible and touching, yes, but something about a grown woman barely coming up to my shoulders is way more personal.

And while Soon-mi is an extreme (the other girls are taller than her), it's still not surprising. The typical North Korean is about six inches shorter than the typical South Korean. (As far as I can tell, Yunu and Guncheol seem average to me, but I am rotten at judging people's relative heights.)

Soon-mi is a sweetheart, though. Her disposition is as sunny as Guncheol's, and the both of them are the hardest workers in the class. The boys joke around with her much like they do with each other, though to a lesser extent.

The classes start at 10:10 in the morning, and while it means I have to get up and out of the house way earlier than normal, I love it. I think it's something every teacher should do, at least a few times. Most of the time, we English teachers have a good life here in the ROK and it treats us pretty well. It's only fair to give something back above and beyond what our jobs call for.

If you're interested in tutoring North Korean defectors, there's a few resources out there:

1. Ask a Korean! has some private connections and will always field inquiries from volunteers to match them with a school. There are also links in the comments.

2. Hana Center, which is affiliated with the official relocation centers for defectors, also accepts volunteers. I'm personally acquainted with Jordan Groh, who works with one of the four centers in Seoul. You can email him (username jordan.groh at the famous Google mail server) for more information.

3. Up here in Uijeongbu, Danny Chung is the guy to get in touch with. If you want to email him @naver.com, he's neukorea.

Help Save North Korean Refugees From Repatriation

China is stonewalling but there's a chance that these people's lives—sadly, even if only some—of them may be saved. The Korean has all you need to know about it, including a link to an online petition. It might do nothing, but it might also save lives. Check it out, take a second to click the link, spread the word.

Obligatory KJI Post

Despite knowing fuck-all about international relations, I do have some thoughts on the Kim Jeong-il brouhaha. That's for later.  I just thought that where I was and what I was doing when I (and the rest of South Korea) found out was kind of funny:

I go to a jjimjilbang three days a week to use their "health room" (super-small gym) and get the rare hot shower  whose length isn't dictated by the size of my water heater.  The shower is the bigger attraction than the gym, but I use the gym to justify it financially (7,000 won just for a hot shower seems rather dear, but add in the weight training and cardio and it's cheaper/just about equivalent to a real gym, which may or may not have a sauna).  I had finished in the health room (and technically I do it backwards by doing the health room first and THEN the sauna, but I'd rather finish off by relaxing in a hot tub instead of panting on a treadmill) and was getting ready to shower when I noticed there were way more people hanging around the TV in the locker room than normal.

So there I was, naked and glasses-less, squinting at the TV with maybe a dozen other naked Korean women, sweaty from my workout and the heat in the locker room. Before us, a never-ending parade of North Korean footage and propaganda with South Korean commentary on top of it.  Periodically it cut back to well-groomed news anchors discussing something.  The only Korean in the headline that I could understand was Kim Jeong-il's name.  I tried to wrack my brain for the verb for "to die" or "to kill," but came up short.  The footage had all the unmistakable tinge of "this person's dead now," and as soon as I saw it, I knew.  I posted a question on Facebook to be sure, and I saw a few other women texting furiously or calling people—never mind that some of them were still wet and sweaty from the sauna.

That's a memory I'll probably carry around the rest of my life: me, and the ajummas, and the weird naked solidarity we shared watching the lunchtime news.

Book Recommendation: "This is Paradise!"

Since my first go-round in South Korea, North Korea has become one of my pet interests.  The latest book I read on the subject is one of the few books written by a refugee (with the assistance of a French[?] journalist).  The writing itself is pretty simple and dry; it would be a boring book if it weren't about a first-hand look into what living in North Korea is like.


There's two scenes that I think are pretty telling.



SCENE 1

As a student, the narrator had to fulfill quotas of fecal matter to be used in the communal fields as fertilizer.  He and his friends would go around town emptying out outhouses and collecting animal droppings.   Some other people managed to have gardens, though, and would get fiercely protective over their manure.  At one point he almost came to blows with a neighbor over a frozen dog turd.

A fistfight over dog shit.  Over who gets to keep the dog shit.



SCENE 2

The other story is less surreal and just plain horrifying. The narrator's father escaped into China, found out you could actually make money and eat and not starve to death, and decided his family needed to get out. Patrol guards caught him as he escaped back into North Korea and threw him into prison.  The prison experience itself was horrendous, but that's not the real story. (Though fortunately the father survived and eventually brought the whole family to South Korea, happy ending!)

As Jong-min put it, "It's a North Korean gulag, not a day spa."  The prisoners were often beaten before being thrown in a cell with eighteen or nineteen other people.  One day, this guy gets thrown in their cell who looks especially like hell.  He had obviously gotten a special round of body blows.  The other prisoners noticed and asked him why.  At first he was really reticent about it.  "I stole some meat." No one buys that, of course.  Eventually the truth comes out.

The man's wife had gone off to look for food, so he was home alone with their young daughter.  They were both starving more or less to death, like everyone in North Korea who isn't a top party cadre.  The girl was so hungry she started crying and asking about food.  The man, irritated, knocked her back.  She fell and cracked her head pretty hard, eyes rolled back and mouth foaming and all of that stuff.

She would either not survive, or would survive with all kinds of brain damage.  So he picked up a hatchet and cracked her a good one on the back of the head.  Then he cooked her up and ate her.

Again: he killed and ate his own daughter.  That is how hungry he was.  That's the kind of hunger that's ongoing in North Korea.

It's a book worth reading, for sure.  It's also a pretty quick read and you'll burn through it in just a day or two.

Quickie: Matchmaking in the ROK

I've seen a couple people link to this silly little article about finding a wife for Kim Jong-un (mostly a goofy promotional gimmick to coincide with White Day). But I thought this snippet was really telling:

The agency claims to have matched 23,000 people over the past 20 years using Korea-specific criteria that emphasize their clients’ jobs and educations, their families’ assets and their parents’ levels of education, especially which universities their fathers attended.

This is what matters in South Korea—or maybe what South Koreans want to believe matters, at least when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Titles, jobs, education, and other assorted things you can list on a resume. Things that are not of you but are around you. I wonder what those matchmaking professionals would say about my own relationship, with a boy whose education and familial assets are in no way similar to mine. Our fathers went to universities in different countries, even.

I've been busy hammering out the details on my new contract in Uijeongbu. With any luck, I'll start on May 30th. I look forward to re-immersing myself in Korea soon!

All We Are Saying...

Facebook is probably my number one source for news, not going to lie. I woke up to find no less than a bajillion links to this story: North Korea takes aim at South Korea with hour-long shelling.

When I was getting ready to leave for South Korea, one of the topics people brought up the most was their wacky neighbor to the north. "Are you going to North or South Korea?" "Isn't it dangerous?" (Runner-up: "Don't they eat dog there?") After all, in the US we're under a constant barrage of "oh, that wacky Kim Jeong-il!" updates. Far more so than in South Korea, actually—when they launched that torpedo/failed nuclear device/failed satellite or whatever last year, I actually found out from an American. South Koreans, we reason, should live under more or less a constant cloud of fear, given their location next to one of the so-called Axis of Evil countries.

And yet, they don't. Stories that made the front page back home, or headlined the international section of the paper, barely got a second glance in SK. Why? One argument that a lot of my fellow teachers put out was simply head-in-the-sand thinking, that South Koreans simply refused (for whatever reason) to acknowledge how dangerous their nothern counterpart was.

Personally, I didn't buy that, and I still don't. Jong-min, currently doing his compulsory patriotic duty, assured me that on a scale of 1 - 10, with 1 being flatly impossible and 10 being altogether certain, that high brass in the ROK army rates an invasion by North Korea as "a 2 or 3." (This even after the infmaous Cheonan sinking.) I don't think armies typically have their heads in the sand. I think after fifty-odd years of unease, tension, and sabre-rattling, you just adjust to a new normal. You have to, in order to survive. Extended periods of stress are just unmanageable in terms of psychological well-being.

Even with this, most reports aren't linking this new shelling to a potential full-scale assault. The BBC (referenced earlier) suggests that it's an attempt at power consolidation, as an ailing Kim Jeong-Il prepares to hand things over to Kim Jeong-un. In addition to power consolidation, The Daily NK theorizes that the attack could be an attempt at forcing dialogue with the United States. An anonymous claim within the article even suggests that the dialogue attempt isn't with the US but with the ROK—striving for "an appeasement policy by raising inter-Korean and military conflict." You know how when you were little, you got your way by repeatedly annoying your older sibling/cousin/friend/whatever? Now imagine instead of poking them or repeating everything they say, you have military shells. Of course, I'm always skeptical of claims that come from anonymous sources. Nonetheless, at the moment I'll entertain it for seeming reasonable.

Does this change my decision to go back to Korea? No. I tend to agree with the ROK army's stance on "a 2 or 3." I think Kim Jeong-il is perfectly aware of the fact that anything approaching a full-scale assault would end with his ass being handed to him on a platter. He may have one of the largest standing armies in the world, but as Napoleon taught us, "an army marches on its stomach." The food situation in North Korea is, and has been, so dire that the average North Korean is now 6 inches shorter than their democratic counterpart. Likewise, the DPRK's strongest ally has been tepid at best in their support of the Kim dynasty as of late—it seems they don't want a repeat performance of their involvement in the Korean war.

Not to mention all of these incidents are taking place relatively far north of where I would be in Korea, along disputed borders and waters. Here is a map:



(Admittedly the action is slowly creeping southwards! Maybe I should be worried. :O )

(An armchair international studies student is me!)

Unfortunately, though these skirmishes are minor when compared with the Beowulf clusterfuck that is full-scale war, they still take their toll. Two South Korean Marines are dead as a result of this latest incident; three civilians and fourteen more Marines are injured, though how badly the BBC doesn't say. This is in addition to the forty-six sailors killed in the sinking of the Cheonan last March, and however many North Koreans suffered through the ROK's returned fire. My thoughts and well-wishes are with all of them, South and North, especially as we approach the winter holidays—Christmas as well as Lunar New Year. I don't see how a reconciliation would be possible any time soon, but at the least we can hope that Kim Jeong-il/Kim Jeong-un will move away from a strategy that punishes people who have nothing to do with political policy.

And since the title of this entry is a not-so-subtle nod to John Lennon, I leave you with this spectacular rendition of another Lennon classic:



(The sound quality is awful, but Pavarotti is still Pavarotti.)

Transfer of Power

It seems pretty clear that Kim Jeong-il is getting ready to step aside for his son Kim Jeong-eun. Back in January, Jeong-eun's birthday was declared a national holiday (source: the AFP). Then in March came the sinking of the Cheonan (which granted is arguable, but either way suggests that THINGS ARE AFOOT in the DPRK), and now this: a shrine dedicated to Kim Jeong-eun. According to the article, the official hand-off may come as early as September.

The all-knowing Wiki cites a lot of information about Kim Jeong-eun (alias Kim Jeong-oon, alias "Yeongmyeonghan Dongji" ["Glorious Comrade"]) from a former private chef to the family, who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto and occasionally appears on Japanese television specials as an "expert on North Korea." Tidbits include:

• "Jong-un is 'exactly like his father'"
  
• "He has superb physical gifts, is a big drinker and never admits defeat."
  
• When Jong-un was 18, Fujimoto described an episode where Jong Un questioned his lavish lifestyle and asked, "We are here, playing basketball, riding horses, riding Jet Skis, having fun together. But what of the lives of the average people?"
  

Mr. Fujimoto has written a few books on his tenure as chef to the infamous Kim dynasty; one of them will probably be next on my library check-out list.

Mostly I'm posting this because there are hilarious comments in the Yahoo! news article. They're not hilarious for their insight or razor sharp satirical wit, however; they're hilarious in a way that also kind of depresses you.

BRONZE MEDAL
From "RBT", a male in Cambridge, Mass:

I thought Kim Jong II son's name was " Mentally ILL ".

Hah! Hah! Hah! It's punny, get it? Hah!


SILVER MEDAL
From "I Voted Obama," a male from...somewhere:

Forget pissing off china, they have no oil, therefore little or no interest there.....

Clearly he is an expert on foreign policy, with such a nuanced, insightful view of a complicated political situation!


And finally, the

LOL'DGOLD MEDAL
From "Richard," male from Texas:

has anyone ever found it hilarious that these guys are Asian, but have the name "Kim"? Kim!, lol, i've never heard of an asian with a english name! KIM! LMAO!

Really, the comedy just writes itself with this one.

DPRK Alert: Trip to North Korea!

My friend Mark posted this on Facebook; I'm passing it along here for anyone interested.

2010 DPRK (North Korea) Tour

Saturday August 14th to Sunday August 22nd, 2010

Sorry about the short notice need to fill about 3-5 more spots....
I will be fantastic! Many places I haven't been...

Including: Pyongyang, (Mass Games, Mass Dance, ect.) Nampo, Kuwol Mtn, Sinchon Village, Sariwon, Kaesong, Mt. Myohyang and more

From Seoul via Shenyang (or Beijing) to Pyongyang

Guide- Michael Spavor email - mpspavor@gmail.com

TOUR WILL INCLUDE:
Kumsusan Memorial Palace, Pyongyang Zoo, Foreign Languages Bookshop, Moranbong Park, Funfair, City Walk, Mass Dance (expected)

Fountain Park, Mansudae Grand Monument, Mangyongdae Native House, Pyongyang Metro (extended ride), Juche Tower, drive to Mt. Ryonggak for picnic, Chonsam-ri co-operative farm, drive to Nampo, West Sea Barrage, to Hot Springs Guesthouse

Drive through Kuwol Mtns, Sinchon Village, Atrocities Museum, on to Sariwon, Tour around Sariwon (folk street etc), on to Kaesong, Concrete Wall
Panmunjom/DMZ, Return to Pyongyang Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, War Victory Monuments, USS Pueblo

Grand People’s Study House, Korean Revolution Museum, Monument to Party Foundation, Senior Middle School, Railway Museum, Metro Museum, Drive to Mt. Myohyang

International Friendship Exhibition, Manpok Valley Hike Return to Pyongyang, Circus, Kim Il Sung University Museum

*flight / train may be changed from Shenyang to Beijing if flights trains not available.
*itinerary may change slightly
* Note: American citizen's are alowed but will not be allowed to take the train out, they must fly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COSTS:
From Seoul to Pyongyang:
$2,500 USD per person
(Deposit for trip is $1400 USD)

Applications Due: Friday July 16th, 2010
Deposit Due: Monday July 26th, 2010

Once application is approved Bank Account Information in Korea will be offered.
These prices are the same for exit by train or by plane (option A. or B. in the itinerary)

Tour fee includes the following:
1. transportation from Seoul to the DPRK and back
2. all meals on the tour except on the train into/out of the DPRK
3. hotel accommodation
4. Korean tour guide(s) and a driver
5. all transportation in the DPRK
6. all entry fees for attractions such as museums etc in the DPRK

Not included in the tour fee:
1. single room supplement unless otherwise specified (EUR 30 per night)
2. spending money for drinks and souvenirs
3. DPRK visa fee (EUR 30 thru Beijing)
4. Double entry Chinese Visa From overseas Embassy / Consulate
5. tip for the guides (approx EUR 20-25 total)
6. meals on the train out of DPRK (EUR 5)
7. entry tickets for special events if applicable – for example Revolutionary Opera if being staged, or rides on the funfair, games of bowling
8. the lift up the Juche Tower has to be paid in the DPRK (EUR 5)
9. Optional Mass Games Tickets: Euro 80 100 150 300
10. meals will have a complimentary beer but you will have to pay for extra drinks above those provided (these are inexpensive though)
11. expenses while in Shenyang (or Beijing), China

For more information and application form contact:

Michael at mpspavor@gmail.com

(Ground Operator: Koryo Tours)

** All subject to slight changes

** NO JOURNALISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS OR AUTHORS OF PUBLICATIONS ON NORTH KOREA

Obligatory Korean Tourist Spot #2: The DMZ

The DMZ is actually a huge tourist destination in South Korea. The only other time I've been in such a large group of foreigners was at the Irish pub in Itaewon a few months ago. You have a variety of options (lots of private Korean tour groups offer trips) but we (me, two coworkers, and another foreign friend of ours) opted for the USO tour.

The process to get in was a bit arduous. You have to submit your full name and passport number (for a passport check) a couple weeks in advance. You also have to bring it with you the day of, to confirm you are who you say you are.

So my day started at about 4.40 in the morning; I woke up and got dressed, since we had to be in Seoul by 7.30 AM. We filed in to the USO office and milled around for a few minutes before they told us to queue up, passports open to the picture page.

We piled on to two coach buses, where a tiny Asian grandfather gave us the rundown of the day: first we'd take the bus to Fort Bonifas, where we received a short briefing on the history of the Korean war and the basic rules to follow while in and around the DMZ.


The entrance to Fort Bonifas.

We piled back on the bus and there we were, tourists at the world's most militarized border. We had an American military escort/tour guide with us on the bus, who answered questions about the DMZ and also pointed out various sites of interest along the way (there's a one-hole golf course, for example). We got to see one of the buildings where the North and South held peace talks after the war, which technically involved stepping in North Korean territory.


Our tour guide.


North Korea also brings tourists to the DMZ. But not nearly as many and not nearly as often.

That's right, I was in North Korea.

This was probably the number one photo op on the tour, since this is the closest most foreigners will ever get to North Korea. Plus, the ROK soldiers look like such badasses that it's hard not to get your photo with them.



Then back on to the bus to the souvenir shop (yes, a souvenir shop, I got a t-shirt), after which our military guide/escort was relieved of his duty with us. We went to a lookout tower afterwards, largely unremarkable because it was foggy and you couldn't see all that much of North Korea.




Those buildings and hills you can kind of see in the distance are North Korea. That's the most of the DPRK you or I will ever see.

After we gawked at the North, we piled back on to the bus and had mediocre, mass-produced Korean food for lunch at a "restaurant" that seems to exist for the sole purpose of feeding tourists. Usually Korean food is made fresh and right for you (if it doesn't actually cook right at your table); this was like the high school cafeteria version of Korean food. Unimpressed and unsatisfied, I bought a snack bar and some biscuits at the pseudo-grocer's attached to the eatery.

Our last stop was one of the incursion tunnels that the North tried to dig under the DMZ. South Korea has found four of them so far, there might be more. Ideally, the tunnels would lead directly to or near Seoul and could deploy infantry from the North into Southern territory in one hour. A comforting thought, living out here in Uijeongbu. First was a movie about the DMZ, then a small, two-room museum, and then the tunnel itself.


The entrance of the Incursion Tunnel.

The entrance was walkable, but steep, and we had to don hard hats to enter. Interesting note: the tunnels were blasted through granite, of all rocks. (Which I noticed with my keen cave eye and then confirmed on Wikipedia. Go team geology!) It was, for the most part, just a giant tunnel, without any sort of signage or displays to spice it up. We walked for a while and then it just terminated at a small steel door, through which we could see light on the other side. Then we turned around and walked out the way we came.


Rice grown in the fields at Daeseong-dong, a village within the DMZ.


North Korean soju.

The whole trip was surreal. Here's a busload of big fat foreign tourists, and on either side of the road there's minefields. There are strict rules about where we can take pictures and where we can't, and they don't hesitate to confiscate cameras if they catch you being sneaky. South Korean guards were posted everywhere, looking very serious, and we weren't allowed to attempt any sort of communication with them, not even pointing. A lot of us laughed and joked around, since there are actually funny stories about the DMZ, but we had to sign a waiver before we left saying that we understood we were entering into "hostile territory" and ran the risk of "injury or death."

Was the Berlin Wall ever as big a tourist attraction?

Our Neighbors to the North

Background information: The Vice Guide to North Korea, a well-documented peak into this surly hermit of a country.

Latest goings-on: Woman publicly executed for handing out Bibles in North Korea. Since religion is more or less illegal under the leadership of Kim Jong-il the Eternal President Kim Il-sung, I suppose the government felt that they had to make an extreme example of her. Bonus points: they threw her surviving family into a political prisoners camp.

Quoting from the article:

The report sites [sic] several unidentified documents it says were obtained from North Korea.

The claim has not been independently verified and there has been no mention of her case in the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Public executions would mark a harsh turn in the crackdown on religion in North Korea, which has four authorized state churches that cater to foreigners only; North Koreans are not permitted to attend.

Emphasis my own, so take with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, I have to say I wouldn't be at all surprised.

On Friday, I return to the land of freedom and tacos for a few days. I set foot back in Korea on August the fifth.