This Time Tomorrow
Be back in Korea Sunday, August 22nd. BRB, going to Mongolia.
“This Time Tomorrow” – The Kinks
Black Out Korea
This is not an uncommon sight in Korea.
Pictured above, a man in a business suit is seen passed out drunk in a parking garage.
Sometimes on the way to work I will see people like this. One website, called Black Out Korea, specializes in hosting a myriad of user-submitted photos of locals passed out. They range from subways to restaurants and anywhere in between.
BOK, a mainly Westerner-run affair, has drawn some criticism from Koreans netizens. They seem to not like the ideas that Westerners are mocking Koreans passed out in public places (or maybe its a problem they are not willing to confront).
However, I think they should be taken as a compliment to the general safety and lack of crime in the country. In a lot of other countries with higher crime rates, anybody passed out like this anywhere would be robbed, beaten and taken advantage of. Not in Korea. Everybody just leaves the person alone.
Evenings in Korea
This is an excerpt of Philip Glass’ score for the short documentary “Anima Mundi” (and subsequently featured in “The Truman Show”). It embodies my feelings as I sat on the roof of a 10 story building in Kumdan-Sageori, the main intersection of my current home in Korea. This video was taken at about 9:30pm on a weeknight. The red buses go to Seoul. The blue buses service the city of Incheon. The green buses do loops around the village.
DMZ Tour, Part 2: Dorasan Station
This is the second of two entries on my trip to the Korean DMZ. Click here for the first.
Dorasan, Part 2
After going to the Dorasan Observatory we made our last stop in the Paju area. Our bus rolled down the hill to the Inter-Korean Travel and Transport Area, where the main road that links the two Koreas together sits. Cars were parked near the checkpoint and many of them likely belonged to workers of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the only economic link between the two nations.
At Kaesong, 44,000 North Korean workers labor away each day for 121 corporations. Some 500 South Koreans also work at the complex each day. It’s an economic bump for the North, but nothing but a blip for the South. It’s a very weird deal. Forbes describes it as an attempt to expose the North to a market economy. I recommend this New York Times piece from July on the subject as well. After the Cheonan incident that has transpired over the previous four months, the North has threatened to close Kaesong if the South began piping anti-Communist radio messages across the DMZ.
The station’s complex and surrounding freight depot was only 500 meters from to the Military Demarcation Line, the de facto border to the two technically-at-war nations. This was the closest I have been to the North.
The buses stopped in front of the very pristine-looking Dorasan Station. It even looked like a regular metro or Korail stop seen around Korea. However, when I walked into the station, something didn’t feel right. It was empty, clean and looked unused. I figured maybe it was a commuter stop for those working at Kaesong, but it actually served another purpose.
Under closer inspection of a sign near a turnstile, it read: “Tracks to Pyeongyang.”
What? Do the trains actually go to the North? This looks like a normal station, I thought, it even had the poster for the Korean musical version of “Jack the Ripper” I had seen at the KTX station in Busan. After asking my friend Bruce, an English teacher at my school, about Dorasan, he told me that this station was actually a symbol of unity.
Dorasan Station isn’t actually a working, I learned. It was built in 2001 as a representation of the South’s dream of normalizing relations with the North. The imaginary train line would ultimately end South Korea’s geopolitical situation as an island by connecting to Eurasia as a whole.
A map that showed the hope that some day a train could leave from Seoul Station, go to Pyongyang 300 kilometers away then go to Vladivostok, Russia and connect to the Trans-Siberian Railway.
A sign inside the station showing train tracks going into the horizon read, “This is not the last stop of the South, but the first stop toward the North.” This is South Korea’s Propaganda Village.
After doing some wandering, I came to closed glass doors where a customs checkpoint sat. There were metal detectors, x-ray scanners and a passport check. It was dark and had never been used. It was quite eerie. I later learned that on some days, visitors could go on the tracks and even take a short ride between Dorasan and Imjingang (a normally serviced stop) for 1,000 won.
Dorasan was as creepy as it was fascinating. It felt as if I was on a set at the Universal backlot, a complete facade. I understood the purpose of the station, but it just didn’t feel right. The lighted board showed fake train schedules between Dorasan and Kaesong for “commuters.” It had had all the elements of a normal station, but it wasn’t.
While the station has never been officially used for trans-Korean travelers, freight trains have used the tracks connected to the nearby depot. From late 2007 through Nov. 2008, Dorasan Station was used to ship materials to the plants at Kaesong. According to the AFP, this shipping method was seldom used, but Seoul insisted on continuing it as symbolic gesture. When ties worsened after the closure of Mount Kumang Tourist Zone in 2008 the freight shipments stopped.
Looking at around the station, I finally understood why whenever a map or outline of Korea was drawn, painted, put on a sign or TV screen, it included the entire peninsula and not just the South. To South Korean people, the peninsula is one people, one language and one culture. Not two nation-states divided on a map, but a group of brothers and sisters separated.
After Dorasan Station, our bus left the restricted zone and headed to the Gyeonggi English Village (an all-immersive English-language “theme” park). The tour of the DMZ was something I’ve always wanted to do in Korea. So in the end, I’m very happy with the trip and the things I got to see.
I found the trip very interesting and informative. It also gave me a look into the history of a country that considers itself divided.
Other DMZ Sites
Originally, I wanted to take the USO tour of the DMZ. The USO tour included several more stops than the one I took. Those were US Army Camp Bonifas, the Joint Security Area and the Bridge of No Return. All three of those are in the village of Panmunjeom. Given certain UN laws, it would be impossible to do those stops with Korean civilians. I guess they are afraid of provocations or defections.
The JSA is probably the most well known site of the DMZ. It is a circular 800-meter zone where many of the talks have taken place between the two Koreas, and where the cease-fire was signed in 1953. Soldiers from the South and North (and US) all patrol this area. Visitors usually have a chance to walk on North Korean soil (with an armed US Army guide.)
Lt. Zilka and SSG Richardson outside the MAC building during a JDO meeting, flanked by 4 KPA guards. - Public Domain
Due to several past firefights and incidents, Korean civilians are not allowed to go to the JSA. Even then, according to Wikitravel (which may be out of date as of now), JSA tours have been suspended in light of the current tension after the sinking of the Cheonan. So even if I wanted to, I could not have gone.
I guess I’ll have to wait a while longer before I can check it out. Or maybe see it from the other side if things get better some day…
DMZ Tour, Part 1
DMZ Tour & Third Tunnel of Aggression
Two weeks ago, on the last day of the school semester, I went on a trip with my school’s faculty to the Demilitarized Zone.
Those unfamiliar with the DMZ should check out this Wikipedia page. In short, the DMZ is hilariously misnamed as it is one of the most heavily armed regions of the world.
The bus trip was only an hour away from my school. The closer we got Paju, the district the DMZ resides in, the more security I saw. Riverbanks had concertina wire; pillboxes were built into hills; tank stoppers scattered on the highway and armed personnel patrolled the region.
When we got to the main checkpoint, we had our IDs checked by ROK soldiers to make sure we were cleared for the area.
The DMZ is still considered dangerous. Back in the 1970s, firefights and small battles broke out often. Even today, despite the relative calm, seeing warnings for landmines was an uneasy reminder of this fact.
Once we got into the restricted zone the first stop we made was at the Third Tunnel of Aggression. ROK forces discovered this DMZ- passing tunnel in 1978. The Korean People’s Army (KPA) built the tunnel under the heavily mined DMZ in order to move troops and equipment across the border in the event of an invasion of Seoul by Kim il-Sung. It’s estimated an entire infantry division could move through the tunnel in one hour. It was about a mile long, six feet tall, seven feet wide and now serves as a tourist destination.
Visitors get a short video on the history of the region, the war and an explanation of the tunnel. Afterward, we got on some slow trams that looked like mine carts and were taken 1KM into the tunnel at about 70 feet in depth.
Sadly we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. However, the inside was a cramped, wet tunnel that ended with a barricade and a sealed door with more concertina wire. The most hilarious part of the whole tunnel was the granite walls painted black. After the initial discovery (the first two tunnels were discovered in 1974 and 1975 and the fourth in 1990) the KPA denied any involvement. They then backtracked and said they built the tunnel for peaceful purposes to mine coal. The best part is that there is absolutely no coal in the region. Just granite. The granite was painted black to make it look like coal in an attempt to trick the South. Right…
The historical information provided on the tour was much more compelling than the actual tunnel. The simple 500m walk from front to back in cramped spaces with dead-end wasn’t that exciting.
Dorasan, Part 1
The next part of our trip was to the Dorasan Observatory, one of several observatories of the North and the DMZ. This was the most compelling part of our tour as I finally got a solid look at one of the most closed-off nations in the world.
I had seen the North in the horizon on a trip to Gangwha Island several months back. This time, however, I could see a village, some farms and the North’s own military presence. It was all less than three kilometers away.
The observatory was another place where photos were forbidden. I tried to get a good shot from the back of the viewing platform. Ten feet away from the ledge, however, pictures could be taken. I was able to get some shots of the Propaganda Village across the way (more on that later) and some of the vegetation throughout the DMZ by sticking my camera in air taking blind pictures.
The meaning of the DMZ has changed quite a bit over the years. This 2KM wide, mine-ridden space may bisect the Korean Peninsula, but it also serves as one of the most pristine nature preserves in the entire world. Unlike other nature preserves, this literal no-man’s land has allowed many endangered species to flourish in relative peace. There have been reports that the Asian tiger still inhabits this region. With the knowledge of this preserve, Koreans have sort of taken pride in it. So much so that in Korea, one company sells “DMZ Mineral Water.” The image of the DMZ as a space of natural splendor is embodied on the water bottles label. The thoughts of war, division and history are completely removed from the idea of the DMZ as a nature preserve. It’s quite an interesting thought.
So, after looking across this thin strip of nature, I could see the country that the world fears, despises and is also fascinated by. I am staring at a relic of the Cold War. This is one of the remaining pre-9/11 “Good Guys versus Bad Guys” countries. America now fights ideas, strategies and thought, not an evil incarnate in the form of a totalitarian leader. How could a victory over a strategy like terrorism have the same feeling of satisfaction as a VJ-Day parade? How do we even claim victory over ideas? Now, our bad guys aren’t red, but gray. Politics, economics and history now create frenemies and ambiguity to what is just and unjust.
Some people in America are wistful for a time of intense heroics with black and white politics, evil nation-states and their leaders. Nothing is more evident to me than video games like “Modern Warfare 2″, in which a modern Russia invades the US, just like a Cold War fantasy. In another video game, to be released in 2011, North Korea invades and occupies the United States. Called “Homefront,” and written by John Milius, who also wrote the original “Red Dawn,” this first-person shooter pits American rebels in Colorado against a now-unified and mighty KPA. It’s all crazy talk. Here’s the trailer to prove it:
But back to my trip…
Looking across the DMZ, I didn’t see a country that could one day invade the South, all of Asia and the United States. I saw a poor, starving nation trying very hard to save-face against the rest of the world. I saw a nation so poor and entrenched in ludicrous ideology that its leaders would rather have its people starve to death than ask for help, or compromise the tarnished veneer of its military force. That’s where the Propaganda Village comes in.
Almost on the immediate North Korean side of the DMZ stands the world’s tallest flagpole with the blue, white and red DPRK flag waving about. At the base sits a small village, called Gijeongdong, that almost looks like a Christmas model display. There’s a school building, a hospital, several gray late-1950’s Soviet-style housing blocks and an empty road. It’s vacant, lifeless and very odd looking. That’s because nobody actually lives in this village.
The DPRK maintains that 200 families live in Gijeongdong. However, experts and defectors have said that the village is actually empty. It was built at a time after the war when both Koreas were rebuilding after the cease-fire. It was meant to show residents in the South that life in the North was worth defecting for. Electric lighting was installed at a time before most people on either side even had electricity. Supposedly, skeleton crews go through at night and maintain much of the village’s image to make it look clean and nice. To everyone else, it just looks silly.
I didn't take this one
Party With Children
Summer.
It’s that magical time of the year for Native English Teachers at Korean public schools to do absolutely nothing but sit at a desk. This sweet time is known as Desk Warming Season.
That’s when schools have their teachers sit at their desks, doing literally nothing. The reason is, in our contracts, all NETs have to teach summer camps during their school’s vacation period. However, not every school has summer camps for the entire six week break period. In the past, some schools would let their teachers go on extended vacations because they had nothing for them to do at the office.
The teachers who did have teach for the entire summer got angry and complained to the Office of Education. So now, the education system has simply uniformed the entire EPIK program. No going home early when you’re done teaching, no coming in late and no free days off. A lot of people hate this time, some relish it. This “Downfall” parody and blog post of the situation succinctly describes it all: (via The Waygook Effect).
To pass the time when I’m not teaching (which is five of eight hours each day), I’ve been reading, doing a bit of writing, watching movies and going home for lunch. Earlier this week I spent the bulk of my desk warming time editing video.
The hours I am teaching, I show students the difference between American and Korean school systems, play Scrabble and have scavenger hunts. Hard stuff, I know.
A few months ago, the band Ratatat posted a “music video” for their then-upcoming release of “LP4.”
The video is for their song “Party With Children” and featured a white parrot in front of a green screen. The video was mind-bogglingly posted in 1080p HD. After not having touched Adobe After Effects in several years, I decided to jump back on the train by remixing the video. It’s more or less and attempt to get my creative juices flowing again. There’s no real cohesion to it. Try not to have a seizure while you’re watching, please.
I had a short online discussion with my friend Steve, who lives in Daegu, about the video and why I did it:
StevenDoes this get the juices flowing again? Are you warmed up?MeI guess. I realized that I could make any effect that I want, but I have to be in a situation to necessitate it.StevenOK that’s fair.MeThen I realized, I need to create some sort of narrative for my next video. That way I could think outside the box more for my effects.StevenJust be careful not to use effects for using effects sake.MeRight. I feel like this video was the only case where its acceptable.
Basically, the point is, my next video won’t be so psychedelic and involve a repetition of a bird cleaning itself. It will have a story.
