Yesterday
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Land of the Morning DongChim (Kancho)
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 Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 9:59 pm Post subject: Complete opposite to what we are told? |
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Ok - it has taken me a couple of weeks to get through reading this (written many years ago) - but wow - you wouldn't know - the next time you go on a DMZ excursion - this is how they think of you.........
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The first stop on our itinerary was Panmunjon inside the 4,000 metre demilitarised zone, divided in the middle by a line of concrete markers right across the country to denote the border between North and South. Panmunjon is the place where the armistice that ended the Korean War was signed in July 1953. A short drive from there we came to the hut that straddles the demarcation line where the two sides from time to time engage in futile dialogue. Beside the hut, in one of those ludicrous vignettes that sum up the hopelessness of the human race, North Korean human beings in military uniform stand to attention on one side of the line while American human beings in a different colour uniform do the same thing a few feet away when they are not busy taking lots of photographs of me for the CIA files. When we had been shown round and were having a cup of insam tea, the officer asked if there were any questions. I asked him whether, as the soldiers spend several hours daily almost within touching distance of the GI's, with whom they must become quite familiar, any human contact ever developed, any exchange of greetings, nods and smiles. He assured me that both parties carried on as if the other had no human existence whatsoever. They ignored each other completely. However, he went on, on the odd occasion when South Korean guards are present, then his men do try to engage them in conversation and offer cigarettes to them. But should a South Korean soldier make any response, he will not be seen again on that particular duty.
Two days later we were taken to the border again, this time to an observation post on the North's front line from which we could observe the concrete wall which the South has built across the whole width of the peninsula. Apparently the air is usually loud with the sound of artillery as military manoeuvres are rehearsed, but we went on a Saturday. At weekends silence and sunshine prevail. There was even a lull in the propaganda war. Both sides are usually assaulting each other's ears through elaborate loudspeaker systems. I asked our guide what sort of things the South say to them. He told me that they say that the North is a bad place to live and people in the South have a much better standard of living. As I looked through the telescope he directed by gaze to where they had mounted a cut-out of a car with an attractive Korean lady in traditional dress in the passenger seat. The tell the North's soldiers that this is what they could look forward to if they came over to the South. He shrugged his shoulders in magisterial disdain. I had to admire his attitude, but personally, after eight and a half months in Pyongyang, I was sorely tempted to make a run for it across the demilitarised zone right there and then and bugger the minefields |
( http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang_p.html ) |
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