The Front Line

‘I wanted to go to Afghanistan, to be on the front line, I’m nothing but a tour guide here.’

Hearing an American accent surprised me despite the US army outfit, after spending some time in South Korea I hadn’t encountered many fellow foreigners. Looking around the bleakly beautiful landscape of the Demilitarised Zone, the border that separates North and South Korea, I wasn’t quite sure how anyone wouldn’t consider this the frontline. The barbed wire fences and armed guard towers were enough to convince me.

I am greeted by the locals - a group of US army men whose humour and nonchalance couldn’t be any more at odds with the realities of their home. The sole sound the thump, thump, thump of a football being bounced off the wall. ‘Sign these forms, then if you die it isn’t out fault’, I am told. The soldiers have great banter between them. It must make their time here, not easy, but easier. A home with friends, just a very different kind of home.

I enter a huge and imposing cavernous building, filled with –nothing. Rooms built with the hopeful purpose of reuniting families from North and South, unused and lonely.

They are taking us to meet the neighbours, the North Korean army on the other side. They stand motionless across the borderline like silent statues. It’s a whole other World. Do they consider themselves tourist attractions like their US counterparts? Are they sick of ‘posing’ for photos? Looking at them it’s hard to imagine they feel anything.

The neighbours share blue wooden huts, used for peace talks. I’m taken inside and allowed to cross the official border into North Korea. There is a North Korean guard inside. He doesn’t smile.

As I exit I see that the North have their own equally imposing, cavernous building. I wonder if it is as empty. I begin to wonder a lot of things about North Korea and its people. And, despite the warnings of danger from the army on our side, I find myself hoping to visit one day, to see this place again through their eyes.