Straddling two worlds at the DMZ as tensions run high

Besides the tank trap, one of the first visual signs of militarization on the highway out of Seoul is where the road follows the confluence of the Imjin and Han rivers, along which the border runs parallel for a while. Here one can see a continuous fence topped with razor wire, and every few hundred yards a manned military watchtower. An armistice agreement signed in 1953 means that while active fighting has ended, the two countries are still technically at war.

At the DMZ I was required to show my passport and sign the Visitors Declaration (UNC REG 551-1), which warns that: “The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and the possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action.’’ It made for menacing reading, but I couldn’t help wondering why there are near-daily tours here if it were so dangerous.

By the time we entered the heart of the security area after passing through Checkpoint Charlie (Korea’s equivalent of the more famous Checkpoint Charlie in divided Berlin), our guide seemed a bit anxious, and mentioned for the third or fourth time that, “you can feel the tension in the air.’’ She warned us not to put our hands in our pockets once we left the bus, lest a North Korean soldier open fire in fear that someone is reaching for a concealed weapon.

From an area known as the Sunken Garden we left the bus in silence in two single-file lines, walked through one entrance of a large South Korean building called the Freedom House, and out another entrance to a terraced set of steps facing North Korea. A couple hundred feet in front of us was Panmungak, North Korea’s main building in the area. Between the two buildings was a row of slender, single-room breadbox-shaped structures painted in UN-blue and bisected by the official border known as the military demarcation line.