by Chris Tharp
“We thought you’d never get here.” Scott greeted me with an open can. My stomach turned at the prospect. “Come on, a little hair of the dog won’t hurt you.”
* * * *
The next day, after an epic breakfast of eggs, homemade Mexican beans, and bacon, Big Welsh Will and I decided to go up the valley and explore this corner of Jirisan. We jumped on our bikes at noon, when the rain had ceased and the sun was splitting the clouds, and followed the two-lane road that wound along the little river.
As we pulled out, I noticed moving dots on the mountainside opposite our lodging: people, walking up to visit the numerous tombs situated on the steep grade. One of the main directives on Chuseok Day is to visit your relatives’ graves and perform jae-sa, the Korean ancestral rite. Such graves are most often located on mountains and hills, but these were the highest I had ever seen. A tiny access road shot up the mountain until it petered out. The rest was an arduous hike to a small graveyard of sorts. Hauling the bodies up must have been a feat.
Will and I followed the main road up the valley, which was lush from the recent rains. Mist moved off the peaks, giving the place an ethereal, even tropical look. We passed small brown houses, many with wood fires burning, no doubt cooking Chuseok feasts. The smell of smoke and grilled pork filled the air, igniting our appetites as well. At one point a rough-looking one-lane road spurred up to the right, heading precipitously up the mountainside.
“That looks interesting,” Will remarked, and at once we were in first gear, pushing our bikes up the track, following a small stream. After about ten minutes, the road reached a dead end in the smallest Korean village I had ever seen. The place was a cluster of little wood and stone abodes, precariously balanced on the mountain, crammed together and movie-set idyllic. We killed the engines and took the place in. Outside of a nearby house, seated on pieces of laid-out cardboard, were five middle-aged men. They stared our way. Will lit a cigarette and stared back.
“What do you reckon they’ll do.”
“Invite us to drink with them, I’m sure.”
And with that, one of their ranks stood and approached, waving us over at the same time.
“Hello! Hello!” He brought his hand to his mouth, making an eating motion, followed by the inevitable mimed cup to the lips.
We were soon sitting in the circle with full glasses of beer. In the middle were several plates: wild mushrooms, carrots, peppers, bean-paste, and one whole, steamed chicken, known as baek suk. They handed us chopsticks, and I immediately dug in, relishing this delicious, fresh, real mountain food.
They were the Kang family, back to visit their mother in their home village over Chuseok. These men, cousins and brothers, were now scattered in cities all over the country, only returning to the mountain for the most important family occasions. I spoke with Kyung-hoon, the youngest brother, who wore glasses and was the most outgoing of the group. When I told him I lived in Busan, his face came alive.
“Busan! Really? I live in Gimhae! We are neighbors! Do you like baseball? The Lotte Giants?”
“Yes, I love baseball,” I replied.
“Great. Next time we must go to a game together! Here is my business card.”
While my Korean skills are by no means great, they’re good enough to move a conversation along, especially when the topics travel along well-trodden ground. Will, on the other hand, despite a respectable time in the country, had mastered taxi directions, restaurant ordering, and not much else. He was reduced to nodding and smiling and relying on my very half-assed translations of what was going on.
The women of the Kang family were all in the rustic little house, working in the kitchen and cooking over the open fire stove. From time to time one of the men would bark an order their way, and a frowning wife or sister would emerge with the bottle of soju, bowl of rice, or whatever else was required. None of the women greeted either Will or me, but rather eyed both of us with tangible contempt–not, I think, because we were foreigners, but because we were men. We were two more mouths to feed, objects of the brothers’ attempts to impress, and we certainly wouldn’t be helping with the washing-up.
One of the Kang men did seem to have a problem with foreigners, which grew with every glass of soju he downed. He took a particular interest in my presence, sitting next to me and grilling me in a slur of indecipherable Korean. While I could make out much of what his more effusive brother said, I understood none of the speech oozing out of this guy’s mouth, save the odd bit of profanity. He obviously didn’t like me, and probably didn’t like foreigners to begin with. This displeasure deepened with each successive, incomprehensible syllable.
“Looks like matey isn’t too pleased with our presence,” observed Will. “Perhaps it’s time to leg it.”
“Good idea.”
With that we took our cue, bowing, shaking hands, promising to call for later baseball dates, sliding onto our bikes and making our way back down the mountain.
Our trip wasn’t quite done for the day. We still had a couple of hours of light, as well as gas in our tanks. So we chose to explore the base of the valley, following the rocky reaches of the river down to where things got flatter and wider, where we found bushy rows of green tea and fields of ready-to-harvest rice. The small valley road eventually joined the busier route we had taken the day before, so Will and I cruised down this flat road, opening up the bikes and breathing in the sweet air of the Indian summer. To our left was a crudely fashioned sign (Parasailing Jump-off Point), followed by a tempting arrow, so we turned off onto the primitive road heading up the mountain and once again climbed. This route was steeper and rougher than anything we had been on previously. It shot straight up, with the surface concrete of the road disintegrating into pure dirt and rock the closer we got to the top.
A small walking path led up to the true top, no doubt the spot from where the enthusiasts launch their parasails, though we saw none gliding that day. What we did see, however, was the whole Jirisan ridge, along with many lesser mountains. The dipping sun hit the heights from low angles, bringing out shadows and colors unseen under the bright midday sun. Low-lying clouds had scudded in under us, blanketing the landscape, covering everything in a grey-and-white mist, out of which rose these ancient peaks of Korea. The moment was complete in its majesty and–best of all–we had the whole mountaintop to ourselves.
Harvest Time
The next few days saw us heading north into the heart of the country–and then back east toward Busan. The riding was pure butter, sliding through the most scenic and empty country any of us had taken in on the Korean Peninsula. We climbed up and dropped down many valleys containing nothing but rock, small pines, and farming villages. I felt like we had found it–that lost corner of Korea–the place that you hear about but never see. For great stretches we saw no Family Mart convenience stores; no blue-roofed industrial complexes; no monstrous green golf driving ranges; no commercial centers, cement trucks, or shitty love motels. We saw none of that, just open nature and small settlements scratching a living out of what the land had to offer. This part of the country is a living time capsule of how life used to be, presented as is, not packaged and theme-parked-up for fleets of tour busses. This old Korea is being erased at a kinetic pace, and there was something deeply soothing about seeing it exist in full splendor.
After spending two days relaxing and hiking the peaks of Deokyusan National Park, we headed back toward Busan. As we rolled through more countryside, we noticed that the rice was now being harvested. In Korea, the first thing they do after harvesting rice is haul it out of the fields in big bags and pour it over blankets set by the side of the road, where the kernels dry out in the sun. It was our last day of the trip and we’d stopped for a rest and pee break. I noticed two locals who were stooped over, spreading out the rice. Both of these farmers were old women, working without complaint. Their faces were etches of lives of toil. I approached the woman working nearest to us and addressed her in the most honorific Korean I could muster:
“Grandmother, that looks like hard work.”
“Yes, it is. It gets harder every year,” she replied in a rough country brogue.
“Where are all the young people?”
“They all left. In our village nearly all the young people have moved to the city. They prefer city life.”
“Do you think they’ll come back?”
“I hope so.”
I nodded, smiled, and almost turned back, when another question urged me on.
“By the way… why doesn’t your husband help you?”
“Ah… my husband died a few months ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“That’s okay,” the old woman said laughing. “I never liked him anyway.”
She bent down and resumed her work. I walked back to my bike and joined the rest of the Rain Dogs as we rode east, back toward Busan.
CHAPTER 20: TENSION
The snow seemed appropriate. It smothered the fields and dusted the tops of the otherwise brown hills, stripped of color by the winter extremes. Outside of Busan, the whole country was bathed in white. It thickened the farther north we went, following the KTX tracks across the spine of the peninsula and up into Seoul itself. Once I disembarked, I found that the sidewalks were impacted with hard snow, that even the mass of the city couldn’t escape the icy deluge. It was piled up on the sides of the wide roads, while still covering the side streets. The scene was frigid and stark–perfect weather for visiting the last outcrop of the Cold War.
I signed in at the USO office at Yongsan, the US Army’s sprawling base in Seoul. After killing some time outside, I boarded a bus filled with other Westerners, and soon we were off, snaking through Seoul’s interminable traffic and heading north, out of the city, through the countryside, straight to the border with North Korea. This was a tour, pure and simple, with a chipper guide and backpack-toting tourists. There was an itinerary and a meal stop. It was as if we were visiting a temple, folk village, or famous waterfall. But this tour was different. We weren’t going to a happy place. We had all paid about a hundred bucks apiece to step into what is technically a war zone, what some people describe as “the most dangerous place on Earth.”
As we made our way north, the suburbs of Seoul gave way to snowy rice fields, low hills, and patches of pine forest. Traffic became suspiciously light, and the murmur inside the bus settled into silence. Before long, we passed through a checkpoint manned by automatic rifle-wielding South Korean troops, and soon we were at the site known as the 3rd Tunnel.
The 3rd Tunnel is just that: a tunnel, one of four found over the years by the South. It is assumed that the North has burrowed many more, yet undiscovered, and that 30,000 men, plus light artillery, could pass through the tunnel in just one hour, acting as a deadly portal less than 60 kilometers from Seoul. Today it’s like an exhibit at Disneyland, with an interpretive center and a short film filling us in on the basics of the Korean War, for those who slept through high school history. The tunnel itself is deeper than I had expected, but in the end, it was just a long hole bored into rock. Still, to think about the tenacity it took to build the thing gives you an insight not just into the Northern–but the Korean–character in general.
After the tunnel, we attempted to enter the observatory on top of Dora Mountain, but were barred due to recent tensions. This small mountain holds a viewing platform, from which one can spy into North Korea via those coin-operated telescopes that adorn every tourist attraction with a view. The South Korean army maintains its own presence there… with much better telescopes, to be sure.
After a brief stop at Dorasan Station, the last before the Northern border (the rail lines are linked up, just not in operation), we headed into the JSA, the Joint Security area, in which lies the “truce village” of Panmunjom, a cluster of buildings where North and South Korea face off. As we pulled into Camp Bonifas–named for one of the two American soldiers killed in the infamous Axe Murder Incident by North Korean troops–things became noticeably more militarized. We were now actually in the DMZ. Fences and razor wire ringed the camp. As the bus rumbled into the parking lot, I pressed my face against the numbing cold of the window and eyed a gang of South Korean soldiers who horsed around in the field next to the lot. They wore full camouflage uniforms and were no doubt blowing off some of the steam that must build up from the boredom of working as guards. The buildings that made up the central cluster of the camp were beige and functional, reflecting the practicality of all military architecture. A line of flags drooped in the windless afternoon, representing each country in the U.N. force that fought alongside the South. After a brief wait, a young Latino US soldier wearing an MP armband boarded the bus. He walked down the aisle, checking everyone’s identification, snapping on a piece of gum.
The soldier, Sgt. Dias, exited the bus, and we followed his vehicle to another building. When we stopped again, he instructed the tour group to get off and enter, where a different soldier handed us forms to sign, releasing the military of any liability in the unlikely case that actual shooting broke out and we all were killed. Sgt. Dias then made a small speech–by rote–briefing us on the basic rules for visiting the Joint Security Area. Topping the list of taboos was “pointing or gesturing to the North Korean soldiers.” After the speech, the lights were dimmed and a quick film on the history and function of the site was blazed onto the white screen in front. We then re-boarded the bus and pulled off into the JSA.
The passengers were silent as the bus ground down the narrow road. What I noticed first was the wildlife: the place was lush with birds. This is one of the only cases where a protracted state of war has benefited animal populations: the DMZ–a four-kilometer-wide swath that bisects the whole Peninsula–is now one of the richest nature reserves in all of East Asia. Hopefully it will be preserved as such, long after reunification–though I’m sure the conglomerates of the South already have designs on this precious land.
The tour guide pointed to the spur road on our left which led to the South Korean “peace village” of Daeseong-dong. A massive taegukgi (South Korean flag) flew over the village, which is home to over one hundred farmers heavily subsidized by the government. They’re said to be the best-paid rice growers on the peninsula. Daeseong-dong’s counterpart in North, Kijong-dong, came into view moments later. According to both the representative from the US Army, as well as our guide, the village is actually uninhabited; the whole thing is just for show. A gargantuan North Korean flag loomed over the propaganda village, menacing the landscape from atop a high tower. It is, in fact, the largest flag in the world. There it was: North Korea. I could see buildings, a road, and, in the distance, the city of Kaesong, where companies from the South maintain an industrial park manned by North Korean workers, one of the dividends of the South’s Sunshine Policy.
The bus turned the corner and pulled into the JSA parking lot. A large grey building stood in front of us: the South’s Freedom House. Directly opposite was the North’s own structure, a Stalinist-behemoth called Panmun Pavilion. We exited the bus, formed two lines, and were led into Freedom House by Sgt. Dias, along with Sgt. Morrison, a young blond-haired soldier from California. They were disarmingly relaxed for just having entered one of the tensest places on the planet. They quietly joked and even laughed as we went upstairs and entered the structure–just another day’s work, it seemed. Inside of the building were a number of South Korean guards, in olive-green helmets and mirrored sunglasses. Unlike their American counterparts, these guys were all business; I couldn’t detect even a hint of a smile. They played their roles like committed actors, part of the theatre that is the JSA.
We shuffled through the Freedom House and out the front doors, right to the edge of the Southern border. Three sky-blue buildings straddled the demarcation line–a slightly elevated concrete slab–that ran straight into the middle of the structures. Southern soldiers occupied positions on their end of the buildings, facing the imposing Panmun Pavilion in the North. At the top of the buildi
ng’s front steps stood a solitary North Korean soldier, who periodically spied us through a pair of binoculars. He was noticeably smaller than his beefy Southern brethren, almost swimming in the khaki-green uniform. The gum-chewing US soldiers told us–encouraged us, even–to snap photos. I latched onto my Olympus digital and zoomed in for all it was worth, capturing photographic evidence of this other human being. For a moment, a wave of shame crept up from inside: I felt cheap and exploitative, like a visitor to the zoo. I quickly extinguished this sense of guilt, however, when I gazed at the buildings, at the soldiers on “our side,” at the thirty-or-so other camera-wielding tourists who were attempting to glean the same thrill as me. Here we were, at the money shot of the DMZ tour, and it wasn’t really thrilling at all. There certainly was no overt sense of danger. Instead it felt hollow and strangely routine, even.
We were then led into the middle blue building. It was narrow and long, with a table directly in the middle. Two South Korean guards accompanied us, blocking one of the windows and the exit to the North, respectively. They clenched their fists and assumed rigid Taekwondo stances.
“You’re welcome to take photos with these guys, but don’t stand too close, ‘cuz they will hit you,” Sgt. Morrison warned us. I posed, assuming my dourest face while our Korean guide pushed the button on my camera.
I then casually walked to the other side of the room, near the soldier guarding the opposite door. As I passed by the middle of the negotiating table, I entered into Northern territory. I had literally crossed the line, which was painted across the floor and table. I was in North Korea. This was it, what we all had really paid for.
We made it out of North Korea and the JSA without incident, just another busload of the one hundred thousand or so folks that make the trip annually. (Get ‘em in and get ‘em out. Isn’t that what the tourist industry is all about?) We had our proof that North Korea is a real place, that it’s not some realm invented by our governments to keep us up at night. We snapped our photos and crossed the line and saw the big flag with its blood-red star. In one sense it was entirely unimpressive–boring, even. But when I think about the greater context, about the millions butchered in that terrible war, and how the ember that still smolders could reignite at any time, then, yes, I do feel a thrill… or is it dread?
