no man's land



We wanted to see something outside of Seoul, so the four of us went to the DMZ - the demilitarized zone - between North and South Korea.  It was the first real rain we'd seen, which seemed appropriately sombre for our destination.  It is almost winter here, a few brave leaves clinging onto their branches, but the overnight frosts have lessened their number every day.

Martin loved the anti-macassars on the bus

Our first stop was to Imjingak, the village that saw the first outbreak of hostilities that June day of 1950. 

The shrine with an enormous bell, called the "Bell of Peace" (I love the shape and sound of Korean bells!), is hugely symbolic for a people who truly believe the two sides will  become one again, and soon, denoted by its 21 stairs and 21 tons and thus readied to ring in the 21st century.

There is also a sad old steam locomotive pockmarked with the bullet holes and blast damage it sustained after being derailed and left discarded in this area during the hostilities.


The so-called Bridge of Freedom, which was built to free thousands of prisoners at the ceasefire in 1953, is now covered with ribbons and paper  flowers and messages, all private prayers and remembrances, especially for those who continue to have divided families across the border. 

Rather incongruous for the seriousness of the place is a comic little statue of North Korea's 'dear leader' that, of course, must be posed in front of. 

At the Dora Observatory it is possible to see sentry towers for both sides, as well as some of the almost 2 million soldiers that patrol every day.  Yes, that's what I said - two million!  One of the most intriguing and innovative ways still used to determine if someone has attempted to get past the barbed wire fences is the placement of stones in various point of the fence.  Any movement will disturb the stones and thus alert the guards.

The day we were there would have been a great day for defectors, as it was possible to see absolutely zilch through the binoculars.  Well, that's the equivalent of 50 cents I'll never see again!


is that North Korea or the Bering Staits?

The best part was tunnel No.3.  There have been four tunnels discovered running deep underground from North Korea and all directed towards Seoul.  Each one is designed to move approximately 30,000 armed North Korean soldiers through every hour.  The first tunnel was discovered in 1974, a bit by accident really. Odd to think that I was back in Canada in high school, watching the TV show MASH while the Korean confict continued! 

When confronted, the North Koreans' first reaction was denial "Tunnels?  We didn't dig any tunnels.You dug the tunnels!"

When that didn't work (except on its own people) it changed to "Oh, those tunnels! Those are coal mining tunnels." The solid granite walls had been painted black to make them look like coal, but as coal is not found in granite and the "coal dust" washed off with water, that was fairly easily refuted.

almost tall enough to walk upright through - but not quite!

Tunnel #3 is over a mile long and visited by way of a hard-hatted steep walk down to the heat of its depths, over 500 feet down, where we all stopped to look through a tiny rectangular opening at another such opening a few metres away on the North Korean side.  Then an equally steep walk back to the fresher and cooler air of the surface.  The fourth tunnel was discovered in 1990, which is not an awfully long time ago, so who knows whether or not #5+  are yet to be found?

Our final stop was Dorasan Train Station, which took 52 years to reconnect to the north-south network.  It's big and empty, with luggage carousels and clean seats and shiny turnstiles waiting for bodies to make use of them.  Two soldiers guard the track access, and the entire country waits with hope to be able to travel on it. 

When you think about it, South Korea is completely cut off from the entire world.  Reunification would connect it to China, Russia, and even Europe, the dream of everyone we've come across.

Everywhere there are statues and art pieces reflecting the DMZ and what it symbolizes.

Perhaps the most surprising tidbit of information we learned was that this 2 km stretch has seen no chemical or other pollutants, making it an area filled with wildlife, especially birds.  Several endangered animal and plant species also exist among the heavily fortified fences and landmines. Lovely to hear birdsong cutting through this dreary landscape!  Another beneficiary is the land itself, which supports a thriving organic farming industry, particularly for ginseng and ginseng products.  Some of these are wonderful, such as the ginseng tea and roasted soybeans.  Some of these are quite awful, such as the ginseng chocolates we bought, which tasted like they are made 32 years ago. Young and single people are exempted from national service as well as from taxes and other costs if they choose to live here and work on the land.  But as soon as they marry and have children they are forbidden to stay, as society would frown on bringing up children in this potentially dangerous location.

barbed wire and soy beans

The last words on our day were ones of hope.

 

chicken or pork?

The Koreans, or at least those who live in Seoul, seem very keen on cutlets.  There are photos of pork cutlets with sauce everywhere.  Martin is such a trooper - he decided it was his duty to taste them for research purposes.

Here are two photos of cutlets - one is of chicken and the other one is of pork.  Can you tell the difference (I couldn't and I tasted both)

Jesus Meats

Galbi is a gastronomic part of Korean life.  It's communal and cheap and colourful.

You sit on tiny chairs made for tiny Korean butts around a table with its middle cut out and a deep pit added in.  A bucket of blazing hot charcoal is set in place, with a perforated metal disc placed on top.  there's a lot of discussion as to what to have but really it comes down to what kind of beef or what kind of park you would like, because everthing else comes with whatever you choose.  A seemingly endless array of small dishes full of enticing things get plonked down around the table's perimeter.

Then the fun begins!

Grace, as the youngest, pours out our drinks.  The proprietess, a bossy little thing after Martin's own heart, places stips of meat on the metal disk to cook.  They are then dredged in sauce, and eaten along with rice and kimchi, the national obsession, which is a sort of pickled vegetable with chili sauce.  We have several types of kimchi here, as well as two piping hot dishes, one a mixed vegetable stew, and one an egg soup. 

Oh and why did I call it Jesus Meats?  Well, there is a prominent church across the street, and the only way to indicate which galbi restaurant you want to meet at is to identify this one as Jesus Meats.

Not pious perhaps, but precise.  And delicious!

Sad state of affairs

Many young Koreans, women particularly but not exclusively, desire to have a certain look.  I guess you could say that about young people in general, but Seoul is a 'can do' kind of place, so the young people here often do something about it. 

What they do is change their looks.  And what is favoured is the western look: paler faces, bigger eyes, larger noses and pointier chins.  So that means cosmetics to bleach the skin, and surgery to do the rest.  I find it sad to see so many doe-eyed sprites that are trying to look like the Hollywood actresses they see in the movies, or the models they see in magazines, or the wealthy Caucasians they see on TV.  And I find it even sadder to see cosmetic surgery advertisements on the metro, and to hear that parents often give their daughters (and sons?)  a graduation or wedding gift of new eyes or chin. 

Of course if they really do feel that altering their appearance will make them happy I have no problem with that.  But when it's a rejection of who they are, their cultural and genetic selves, in favour of an ideal that is from without and that is also impossible to attain, and to pay large sums of money for it, then I do feel that their society is letting them down.

A Hat trick of Museums

As aforementioned, this trip is about hanging with my brother and his wife, and seeing this part of Korea through their eyes, with no other agenda.

But being me, I did do a bit of research before we came.  Well, okay, quite a lot really.  But I only brought 3 pages of notes which is way less then my usual output.  And they have been stashed in our briefcase for 3 days now, meant only to come out if and when we needed to fill time that was loose and hanging away from other social discourse. 

Tuesday morning both Donny and Grace were of and away with other commitments, so I dug out my notes, smoothed the pages and found the lines relating to Museums. 

Of the dozen or so museums of any real import, I had narrowed the choices down to three.  So, which one to see this morning?

The National Museum of Korea, with its impressively large collection of historical artifacts that represent Korean history and culture?  It is the largest museum in Asia  (the 6th in the world), with a particularly rich store of ceramics, for which Korea has been famously known.

Or it could be the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, designed by Mario Botta, Jean Nouvel, and Rem Koolhaus?  It houses masterpieces of both Western and Korean naissance, and is easily identified by Louise Bourgeois' enormous spider sculture.

And what about the National War Museum, dominantly outlining the 1950-53 Korean War, which could well have become one of the many forgotten wars if it wasn't for the movie and then TV program M*A*S*H*?

It was a lovely sunny day, the War Museum was walkable and free, so off we went to an imposing building littered on the outside with airplanes, helicopters and tanks galore.  I saw a B52 bomber which was satsifying as up to this point I had only drunk them.  The memorial itself is striking, two halves split, which is how the South Koreans see their current situation.  So many of them have family members in the North, felt keenly by a people to whom family is so very important.  But there is a hopefullness that it won't be long before the two Koreas will join together again.  The reunification of Germany is referred to often. 

More touching I think is the statue portraying two brothers who become reunited from the split.

Inside, the museum is split into historical and other elements relating to war, but we focussed our attention on the Korean war exhibits.  Which were excellent.  Many have been updated very recently with some imaginative use of current technology to make the program interactive and interesting. 

There's even a "4D experience". A maximum of fifteen people sit in a small theatre, wearing 3D glasses.  Then a saftey bar slides down over our laps and a film begins.  Suddenly we are a participant in the most important battle of Incheon, placed in the pilot's seat in a plane buzzing down on hostile territory.  As the plane swooped and sailed, the seats we were sitting on shifted forward or back, tilting as the plane turned to make us feel we are in the plane.  Then we became a foot soldier on a small boat dodging bullets as we moved in formation with other such boats towards the coastline. As the boat bobbed and weaved, our seats did too, and a wind machine made us feel we were part of the action.  All very fun.  The other 13 audience members showed their appreciation the way most high school children do everywhere, by giggling, screaming and shouting.

On the main floor at the back is a lovely quiet circle surrounding a fountain, with a large bowl of water almost soundlessly spilling over its edges to a pool below.  Very moving space to remind us we are all connected in remembering past sacrifices and hoping for no more.

 

Hanging with the Vagabonds

The main point of this little jaunt was to see Seoul through the eyes of our hosts, my brother and sister-in-law, having lived here for a couple of years.  Our first day accomplished that in spades - or did it?

We walking to a little place in Itaewon called "Tartine" where we had a big breakfast that collectively included bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, french toast, real toast, bagel, cream cheese, jam, maple syrup and wicked hot chocolate.

Then a stroll through the neighbourhood where we were stopped constantly by other vagabonds to say hi, share a hug or a quit chat.  Picked up a few things at the local market, then went off to see a middle school production of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night School" produced by a teacher friend.  Next was a huge American Thanksgiving dinner with about 40 others.  We ate turkey and drank sochu shots in a penthouse apartment with views over a night time Seoul


A potluck thanksgiving in Korea
 

Then we had to change clothes to move on to a local bar, the Rocky Mountain, full of vagabonds and those connected to the large US Army base down the road.  Our Vagabonds joined a few others to become the headline band for a fundraising bash. We drank Red Rock beer and danced until the place shut down, somewhere about 2:30am, the street full of drunk young people swirling around busy streets, coming in and out of nightclubs, bars and discos.

The Total A$$holes at work rocking the place

Now tell me honestly, if you didn't know we were here in Seoul would you ever guess?

But this is their life here.  Being at the hub of a large social network of teachers, artists, dancers, actors, singers, musicians, and a selection of corporate executives and army operatives. American, Canadians, Koreans, Britons all jumbled in a lively mix, our two Vs. at the heart of it all. 

We got what we wished for in only one day!

And what a way to beat jetlag.

Soft Landing

Initial thoughts as we started our descent into Seoul's Incheon airport:

1) The Koreans must either be really, really good at golf or really, really terrible, because there sure are a lot of golf courses.

2) The air is a little, hmm, how shall I call it, soupy? (aka polluted)

3)  Whoo-weee, that is some kick-ass bridge!


Incheon Bridge under soupy air

Then we have our luggage and our index fingers scanned and face photographed and we are through the gates and there is Donny, looking spendiferous in a shiny trench coat with fur collar and cuffs and a flat chap, and we are hugging and so happy to see each other again.

The transit system gets us most of the way to their place in Incheon, a taxi takes us the rest, even the scary steep hill at the end, and there is Grace, stirring a large pot of fragrant red mulled wine, and we are hugging and so happy to see each other again.

No member of royalty or political faction ever received as warm a welcome into a new country!

South Peninsula Story

(sung to the tune of "Maria" from West Side Story)

Kor - ee - ah
we're off on a trip to Korea!
And suddenly we're in
An unexpected dream - come true

To visit some family members
Who actually want us to stay there!

Kor - ee - ah
We've just arrived here
in Kor - ee - ah!

Say is loud and it sounds like you're injured
Say it soft and it sounds just like ninja

Kor -ee - ahh
We're glad to be here in Korea!