Dear Family and Friends,

Six months of living in the Republic of Korea and I had never felt the menace of North Korea.

This ignorance was not willful. Before my arrival in Korea, I had been made aware that there was a serious militarily-armed border between North and South Korea. And while contemplating a move to Korea last summer, I duly contemplated North Korea’s label as an “axis of evil”, eyed its belligerent summer missile launches that were deemed posturing, and after some research, concluded that the situation didn’t seem actively dangerous to me. Admittedly, I momentarily wondered about that conclusion just after my arrival, when an air siren blasted through the peace at school and wondered again when North Korean announced its nuclear test. But my feelings were primarily apprehension, not fear.

But as early morning light flashed through a tall barbed fence just outside the bus window on way to the Korean Demilitarized Zone, my apprehension turned to a feeling of menace that lodged itself deep and distinct amongst my innards - and there parts of it have remained.

* * * * * *

That cold Tuesday February morning, my friend Emily and I sprung from our beds with deep excitement and it was still dark when we were waved through the guarded gates of Seoul’s Camp Kim and walked into the USO. The florescent lights glared on a lobby crowded with suppressed excitement as people mulled about, flashing their passports and chatting in lowered voices. Emily and I waved our passports too while I dazedly marveled at the number of “waygooks” – foreigners - I hadn’t seen that many of my fellow countrymen in a good eight months and it felt very strange. We were herded aboard a tour bus and our elder Korean guide introduced himself as Joseph before sitting down to allow the bus to twist through the unfamiliar streets of Seoul while we passengers apparently absorbed the not-beautiful scenery outside our windows or closed our eyes.

As the sky grew lighter, the bus carried us out of the city on a many-laned freeway where traffic became sparser the further north we traveled. When we had pulled even with a large river, devoid of human life besides the occasional flicker from the regular camouflage forts that sat just below the barbed fence, Joseph again stood to provide us with some background.

In a factual tone pitched low by what seemed to be a mix of anger and sorrow, he reminded us that peace on the Korean peninsula is suspended between 6 parties: South Korea, the United States and Japan vs. North Korea, China and Russia. And that in 1953, war on the Korean peninsula was halted by a temporary suspension of active hostilities; this was an armistice, not a solution.

Today, the active military force of North Korea is comprised of 1.2 million with some 7 million on reserve. North Korea has a military of 8.2 million – near 40% of the entire North Korean population.

South Korea has some 500,000 actives military forces, 3 million in reserve. Less than 6% of its population.

North Korea has one of the largest “special forces” in the world – likely around 100,000.

While in the skies, the North Korean air force has a 2/1 airplane numerical advantage – their 1700 aircraft are now secreted in hollowed hills and underground facilities.

In a war between the two nations, North Korea would have a statistical advantage although their machinery is much aged and sometimes their troops go hungry.

With these stats (which I cannot retrospectively verify), suddenly the barbed wire outside my window had a purpose and North Korea was real. My insides tightened. This was no tourist outing that we were on – we were visiting a war zone, and the hostility was real.

Joseph grimly continued.

The South Korean capital, Seoul, has a prosperous population of 11 million. While Pyongyang, has a population of 3 million. The country is very poor and has very little electricity. There is little electricity even for industry; actual rise apartment buildings are built without elevators as there is no electricity to run them while office buildings are built solely for their facades. North Korean cities are poor while the countryside is barren: long ago trees were taken for fuel and not replaced, the land is eroding and flooding is devastatingly regular. In the city and countryside alike, food is scarce and the average life expectancy is 40 years.

“Life in North Korea is “terrible… unimaginable.” Joseph said sadly.

Passengers on the bus were seriously silent but our minds must’ve all wandered to the same place: remembering the joint smiles and raised hands of Kim, Dae-Jung and Kim, Jong-Il during their meeting at the height of the Sunshine Policy. Joseph informed us that “South Koreans” do not like the Sunshine Policy, the name of which comes from an Aesop fable and the policy is formed of three tenants: no armed provocation from the North will be tolerated, the South will not attempt to absorb the North, and the South actively seeks cooperation. “Why don’t South Koreans like this policy?” I wondered as the highway disappeared and we found ourselves stopped and then waved through the guard post for the JSA.

The JSA, Joint Security Area, is a 1950s era fort bordering the DMZ, shared by UN operations but mostly staffed by Republic of Korea (aka South Korea, in US Military speak “RoK”) and US troops. I craned my head to read the slogan on the water tower (“Infront of them all”) while our group was greeted by a US Soldier who meant business when he instructed us to leave everything on the bus and herded us into a no-frills auditorium where we were handed security badges, made to sign releases (“no need to read it, ma ‘am”), and yanked through a 15 minute debriefing regarding the history of the DMZ and JSA in about 7 minutes. There was a lot to absorb and we civilians continued our quiet as we were placed in different buses by the same soldier who debriefed us, a guy who I quickly summed up as a brilliant, attractive, ball-breaker with a wicked sense of humor and screwed up personal life while equally quickly, he summed me up (accurately) as the annoying woman who would be asking annoying questions throughout the tour. There is always one in the crowd.

After we had put our cameras away, we were driven through fortifications and into the DMZ. The roads were comfortably, if not newly paved, while the surrounding foliage was dead with winter. As we made our way into the interior, we were told about the one remaining village in the DMZ where South Koreans do live and given a glimpse of the famous empty North Korean propaganda village. We stopped at an unused 1990s era building (built for families to reunite) and were escorted into a courtyard occupied by several buildings little fancier than light blue painted huts. These huts, we were told, were on the border between North and South Korea and were where negotiations had previously taken place. We had to wait our turn to enter the building and while waiting, we were neatly lined into two rows strictly instructed not to wave or smile as just beyond the huts was a concrete 1960s era building with one brown clad North Korean solider pacing outside while another soldier just behind a screened window, flashing the lens of a camera. If we had waved or smiled, our faces would be featured in the newspapers of North Korea as people who approved of the North Korean regime and wanted to defect.

Eventually we were allowed past a RoK soldier positioned half out and half behind the hut and into a building furnished with a central, gleaming dark wood table surrounded by smaller, advisory wooden tables. We were let loose to take pictures, as long as we didn’t touch the RoK soldiers, and while we were milling and clicking, we were told a story: once upon a time, a high level official of the United States and Kim, Jong-Il of North Korea had a meeting. The moment, the exact moment that the two politicians shook hands, two brown-clad North Korea soldiers strode into the very hut that we were currently in, and pulled the US and RoK flags down from the wall. One solider spit on one flag, the other stamped the other into the ground and then the two soldiers pivoted and returned to North Korea. The flags have been replaced and placed behind glass – but the US military obviously finds this story… instructive: even while the North appears to be engaging in diplomacy, it is planning and executing ways to tell the world to go ………… itself.

(to be continued). --Laura