Land of the lost

SEOUL, South Korea – In our second week in Korea, we left Seoul to visit the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the 155-mile long, 2.5-mile wide area that divides communist North Korea from democratic South Korea.

As one of the world’s few demilitarized zones, it stands as a living memorial to the war that tore Korea apart, and to the ideological stalemate that divided the world for the better part of the 20th century.

From the beginning, security was tight. We had to send in our passports a week before the trip so they could be cleared for entrance into the area. Our Korean tour guide walked with us to the travel agency across town – the only one that is allowed to offer tours of the area – but she left us at the door. No Korean citizens are permitted to visit the area because of an agreement with the North.

When we arrived at the entrance to the demilitarized zone, we boarded a military bus, and the American soldier read us a list of prohibited items and behaviors, including one that read you must stay on the path because there are landmines still buried in the grass, and you must not wear slippers in case you need to run.

It was in that moment that the tension that pervades this place became real to me: We were standing in a place that was literally the last battleground of an unended war.
We passed the Bridge of No Return, where after the stalemate prisoners of war from both sides were taken to the middle of the bridge and asked to choose a side. Our tour guide reminded us that no one has been across since.

Standing there at the dividing line, I had one of the most jarring experiences. We had come to Korea to study globalization, and the way that South Korea had developed and embraced the world, and here I was standing looking over a 50-year-old bridge at a country that I was barred from entering. How could we have been praising openness and free trade when the whole time this bizarre place existed only 50 miles away in South Korea’s backyard?

As a member of the first post-Cold War generation, I could never really wrap my head around what the Cold War actually meant. In the border village Panmunjom, I got a taste of what it means to be in perpetual limbo, always at peace but not really. The demilitarized zone was a terrifying time capsule left over from the Cold War.

Four days after our visit, North Korea launched its second nuclear test in the past year. As Seoul raised its guard, and the West chastised the North Korean aggression, I thought back to our experience at the border.

In so many ways the demilitarized zone is very much like North Korea itself: a stubborn little piece of the past that is still clinging on to old rivalries, oblivious that South Korea and the rest of the world have moved on.