South Korea: The Enigmatic Peninsula - Softcover

Dake, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 145973145X ISBN 13: 9781459731455

Publisher: Dundurn Press, 2016

Synopsis

A Bill-Brysonesque romp through this often-overlooked travellers’ gem of East Asia.

For seventeen years, journalist, teacher, and coach Mark Dake has called South Korea home. Now, with his longtime Korean friend Heju, he sets out on a four-month, ten-thousand-kilometre road trip, determined to uncover the real country. From the electric street life of Seoul to the tense northern border, where deadly skirmishes still erupt, the pair’s shoestring, wing-and-a-prayer trek takes them well off the beaten trail and across the complicated nation. Along the way are prisons, dinosaurs, anthropology, history, marine life, art, and abundant nature. There are Buddhist temples, fairgrounds, palaces, national parks, bridges, historical sites, forts, churches, and cemeteries.

Whether standing amidst ancient stone tombs and religious architecture unrivalled in Asia, or at military briefings under the steely eyes of North Korean sentries, Mark and Heju are tireless explorers in search of the culture, geography, and beauty of this enigmatic peninsula.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Dake has worked as a sports reporter, a tennis coach, and a copyeditor. From 1995 to 2012, he worked as an ESL teacher in Seoul, Korea, and he has travelled through thirty-five countries in North and South America, East Asia, and Europe. Mark lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.

Mark Anton Dake has worked as a sports reporter, a tennis coach, and a copyeditor. From 1995 to 2012, he worked as an ESL teacher in Seoul, Korea, and has travelled through thirty-five countries in North and South America, East Asia, and Europe. Mark lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I rode the subway in the morning from my neighborhood in southeast Seoul, to south central downtown, to the US garrison in Yongsan, a sprawling army base formerly established in 1910 by the Japanese. I had paid $40 to take a trip to Panmunjom on a government-sanctioned group tour to visit the little village 50 kilometers north of Seoul along the shared North and South Korean border. There is tension in Panmunjom; it can be dangerous there. In 1984, a Russian sprinted across the dividing line from the North into the South in the Joint Security Area of Panmunjom, resulting in a 20-minute firefight and three North soldiers and one South guard shot dead. In 1976, North soldiers mobbed two US officers, bludgeoning them to death with axes. In the JSA, opposing guards stand just 14 meters across from one another; close enough to stare each other down. Throughout past decades there have been scores of incidents along the 243-kilometer border shared by the two nations, including North spies trying to infiltrate into the South, and defector crossings and shots fired. In 1994, a US military helicopter strayed nine kilometers over the border into North Korea and was shot down, the pilot killed. In 2009, a South Korean housewife on a group tour to North resort on the east coast, inadvertently trekked one morning alone into an off-limits area, and was shot dead by soldiers in a North guard tower. When I talk by phone with family or relatives back in Canada, they sometimes ask ― occasionally with concern ― about the situation with North Korea. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is practically next door. The North has thousands of missiles situated along the border aimed at Seoul. In 2003, two North spies assassinated a well-known North defector at his apartment building in Seoul, the murder caught on the apartment’s closed-circuit TV. My Uncle Leslie in Toronto was always insatiably curious about the North. “Is there any chance it would attack the South?” he asked me by phone. “Not a chance,” I replied. “If they did, it would be the end of the North regime. The South and the US have too much military power for them. The North knows that.” About 150,000 visitors from the South annually tour Panmunjom, and although I have yet to hear of a single one of them being kidnapped by North guards, there is always a first time. North Korea plays for keeps, and with my luck, I would be dragged away and made to do hard labor ― tending to turnips and potatoes in dusty, infertile North fields ― for the remainder of my pitiful life. At the USO army compound in Yongsan, I met my tour group comprising about 30 mainly Caucasians. As we boarded the tour bus shortly after nine o’clock, we were introduced to our tour leader, a short, spirited, loquacious Korean man of about 65, who pronounced his words in English as if his mouth was full of marbles, so I nicknamed him Marbles. I could barely understand a word he was saying, and maybe his introduction went something like, “I hope you all enjoy the tour,” but it came out sounding like, “kwak quack wack slack dack mack track.” The bus headed northwest out of Seoul, the landscape becoming mainly barren, rustic, and gently undulating, the colors, dull brown and grey in the April spring. The morning was miserable, cold, rainy and foggy. The bus windows steamed up. We crossed north over the wide, brownish-yellow Imjin River; of the 243-kilometer border, 64 kilometers run through the middle of the Imjin River. My seatmate was a middle-aged woman named Kate from British Columbia, Canada, visiting Seoul to see her daughter, who taught English at a children’s academy. Kate was intelligent and curious, and asked many questions about Korea. When foreigners meet or happen upon one another in Korea, a favorite topic often revolves around discussion of Korean customs and culture, which can be alien to us and sometimes poorly understood. I must admit though that what Kate said next, took even me by surprise. “My daughter told me she was coming out of a public hot bath, and a Korean woman spat at her because she thought she was a Russian prostitute,” said Kate, as Marbles, at the front of the bus talking into a microphone, was producing annoying, incessant background noise. “My daughter is tall and statuesque. She stands out in Korea.” Russian women are recognizable for their pale skin, their height ― they tower above Korean counterparts ― and attractiveness. They are not here to teach English; only citizens from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, are eligible. Young Russian women usually come to Korea on “entertainment” visas for employment at hostess bars or nightclubs. Did the Korean spit at Kate’s daughter? I don’t know. But I had never before heard of such an extreme act. Near Panmunjom we were led on a tour down into Tunnel No. Three, which the North had dug under the four kilometer-wide Demilitarized Zone in 1974, only for it to be discovered by the South in 1978. Four such tunnels were found by the South, the latest in 1990. After a stop for a group lunch, our bus next pulled into Camp Bonifas, originally named Camp Kitty Hawk, but renamed in 1986 in honor of Captain Arthur G. Bonifas, who along with First Lieutenant Mark T. Barrett, were murdered by the ax-wielding North soldiers in Panmunjom in 1976. Camp Bonifas lies just 400 meters south of the southern boundary of the Demilitarized Zone, and is home to the United Nations Command, comprising about 550 highly trained Korean and US soldiers who provide security in Panmunjom. We parked in a lot adjacent to a small auditorium. A young US soldier entered our bus. “This is a visitor declaration page you all have to sign,” announced Sergeant Naumenkof ― his name printed on his uniform, a handsome, boyish fellow who spoke in a flat, slow US Midwestern drawl. Naumenkof walked along the bus isle and handed each of us an official-looking sheet of paper that stated something to the effect that if North guards in the JSA, kidnapped, tortured, maimed or gave us wedgies ― the US Army, the South Korean government, the United Nations, Barack Obama, Naumenkof and the Boy Scouts of America bore no responsibility for our suffering and discomfort. In actuality it read, in part: “The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action.” We signed it. Naumenkof then handed us identification tags. “These must be prominently displayed on your jackets at all times. There will be no flash photography. Turn off your cell phones,” he ordered. We were led into a small auditorium, and sat on chairs. On the stage, Naumenkof began quizzing us on the rules written on our pages which we had to abide by in the JSA. “What do the visitor declaration pages say?” he asked. “No fraternization,” announced a man in our group. “No fraternization,” Naumenkof echoed. “Anything else?” “No rude gestures, no pointing,” said another. “No pointing.” “Stay in your group,” called someone. “Stay in your group,” Naumenkof repeated. “Follow instructions,” declared a tour member. “Absolutely.” “Don’t defect to North Korea,” I proclaimed. Naumenkof stopped and stared at me. My fellow tour members laughed. “Do not defect to North Korea!” Naumenkof repeated in mock seriousness. “That’s like the number one rule around here.” Then he turned earnest. “The biggest thing is, like this area we’re going to go up to, it’s kind of like a dangerous area. As recently as three weeks ago, we had incidents up there. So it’s important you follow instructions from us. Your safety does depend on it. And if you don’t, then you just signed a waiver saying we’re not responsible for anything that happens to you. But most importantly, do not point, do not wave, do not gesture to the North Koreans. These are violations of the Armistice Agreement,” signed at the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953. Then a different young US soldier appeared on stage, and gave a rapid-fire, nine-minute, 47-second (I timed it) speech about the DMZ. It was the most quickly-delivered speech I had ever heard, as if he was late for a date with Miley Cyrus. He had obviously memorized it, by rote, word-for-word. He surely qualified for record in the Guinness Book of Records. He concluded his speech with: “Your tour group will be escorted into Panmunjom by soldiers of the UN Security Force, who are above the average aptitude of normal soldiers,” good news if they ever wanted to engage their North counterparts in a game of Scrabble. We were transferred onto a military bus that conveyed us the final leg to the Joint Security Area. This was getting exciting. We passed the tiny South Korean village of Taedongsan, located among trees and fields. Because of Taedongsan’s immediate proximity to North Korea, and due to past cases of kidnappings, villagers are afforded 24-hour protection. “Villagers have to be in their homes by nightfall and their windows and doors locked,” said Naumenkof. Apparently, North Korea is big on kidnapping. We exited the bus into the JSA, a desolate, concrete rectangle. There was a painted line on cement dividing the two countries. Across the line, on the North side, was Panmunjok, a dominating, Soviet-style, large, white building, and on our side, across from Panmunjok, was a state-like edifice, Freedom House, meant to host family reunions between citizens of the two nations, although it has yet to be used for that purpose. Straddling the dividing line was a long row of low, trailer-park type units dubbed Conference Row. In its midst was the Military Armistice Building, and beside it stood two armed South guards across from a pair of North guards. The good guys were in smartly tailored uniforms and wore helmets. The latter had goofy, tall officer hats and baggy uniforms. (The North seemed to provide one-size-fits-all for their 1.5 million-man army). If I were a North Korean soldier, I would insist on having my hat tailored to a more modest size. The South soldiers wore reflector sunglasses. The official line given was that they appeared more macho and intimidating. But US military personnel in Seoul had told me the real reason was because North soldiers’ stares were so menacing and hostile that they scared the shit out of their South counterparts. I looked over at the faces of the two North guards glaring at their two counterparts with menacing, hard expressions. A defector acquaintance from North Korea had told me that North citizens were brainwashed into believing that if they did not die from starvation or illness, they would from a horrific attack led by South and US militaries. They had nothing to lose, so they may as well go down fighting. The two guards’ countenances mirrored this sentiment. Naumenkof led us into the Military Armistice Building, the interior austere, almost barren. In the center was a long, wooden table and chairs. A microphone sat on the table. We were accompanied in by two imposing United Nations Command, South Korean soldiers “Do not try to talk or touch the soldiers,” warned Naumenkof sharply. “If you do they will respond physically,” a euphemism, I suppose, for a taekwondo kick to the solar plexus. “Do not go near the door exiting to the North. There are two North Korean guards standing just outside the door. They have in the past pulled tourists through it and brutalized them.” The South guards assumed the taekwondo ready position; one against the wall, the other by the North door. Continued Naumenkof: “When George W. Bush visited here in 2001, two North guards walked in, and one took the US flag down from the wall and began polishing his shoes with it, and the other blew his nose on the South Korean flag.” Not wanting a future repeat, the South had the flag laminated. We were allotted a few minutes for questions, after which Naumenkof led us outside to the nearby steps of Freedom House. “Do you see the North Korean guard standing on the steps of Panmunjok?” he asked our group. We strained to view the soldier standing maybe 200 meters away. He wore a big hat. “Yes,” we said. “He’s staring back at us with binoculars,” Naumenkof said. I straightened my shoulders to all that I could be. We were driven a short distance to the rear of the JSA, to a lonely guard post called Checkpoint Three, from where we looked north across the four-kilometer wide DMZ. For more than six decades, ever since the DMZ was established in 1953, it has remained untouched by human habitation. Now the 243- kilometer long stretch is overgrown with swaths of trees, bushes, greenery and flora and fauna. The DMZ also has an estimated hundreds of thousands of scattered land mines strewn its length. At Checkpoint Three, a Korean-American US soldier named Han, explained “The North is monitoring us from Checkpoint Five” two kilometers north. “A North radio tower is jamming our hand phone signals at this moment.” He pointed to the DMZ, to what he said was an A-frame building, the North Korea Peace Museum. “It holds the two axes used in the 1976 murders,” he said. I couldn’t see it in the white soupy mist. Han led us to a nearby huge tree stump next to a little one-lane, old concrete bridge, on which a humble road crossed and continued into the DMZ. In 1976, the stump was a 100-ft tall magnificent polar tree blocking the view of guards at today’s Checkpoint Three, across to the North’s Checkpoint Five. Two US officers and a small Korean work crew went to chop it, but North guards raced out from their checkpoint to confront the men. Badly outnumbered, Bonifas and Barrett were separated, surrounded and bludgeoned to death with axes. The US, which had about 37,000 troops in South Korea at the time, was incensed, and President Ronald Reagan was reportedly close to ordering an attack on the North. Instead, hundreds of thousands of US and South Korean troops, and destroyers, fighter jets, bombers, tanks and missiles, were on high alert ready to rumble if needed. Ten days later, another work crew was sent to fell the poplar. The tree was cut down. On the bus ride back to Camp Bonifas, Nuamenkof recounted anecdotes about his combat experience in Iraq. I began to take notes. “Please don’t repeat what I’m saying,” he asked me. “I won’t,” I said. But I don’t think he would mind if I illuminated one small fact about how US soldiers sometimes suffered partial deafness due to operating thundering weapons in Iraq. Marbles entertained us on the drive back to Seoul with more stories in English spiked with Martian dialect. When we arrived back at the USO compound at Yonsan base in Seoul, I treated myself at the snack bar to exquisite American junk food: a chocolate bar, a yummy-tasting sweet bun ladled with hydrogenated oil and a soda pop, my reward for having evaded capture and torture at the hands of the enemy in Panmunjom. I sat and relaxed on a big, comfortable sofa facing a large-screen TV tuned to FOX News. A talk program was airing, a blond female host mindlessly opining and hyperventilating about something or another. I wasn’t sure what would be a worse: having to listen to this woman, or being forced to pick turnips and potatoes for the next forty years in the North. Heju, my Korean friend and translator, and I, were three weeks into our three-month, pan-Korea road trip, Panmunjom being just one of a multitude of interesting stops along the way. Heju had not accompanied me today to Panmunjom because the tour was conducted in English. She remained in the motel in Seoul enjoying a cherished day off. I arrived in Korea in my thirties on June 1, 1995, by way--over the preceding fifteen years--of Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Salzburg and Villach in Austria, Qatar, Edinburgh, Lake Tahoe, Florida and a coterie of little-known locales. I was raised in Toronto; born itinerant. After college I blew like the wind to wherever fate took me. Employment was mainly teaching tennis dur...

About this edition

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 145973145X
• ISBN 13: 9781459731455
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336