The 38th Parallel

To this day, when I hear Blind Melon’s No Rain, I think of the 38th parallel — the demilitarized zone that divides South and North Korea — and writing fiction on a bus.

On a clear day several years ago, eight journalists stood on the lookout at the DMZ and had a glimpse of North Korea, the most isolated country in the world.

That they even had tourist telescopes to view the control zone along the 38th parallel north was fascinating to me…and so was the fact that the blue skies extended into Pyongyang and did not end at the South Korean side of the border.

Only 44 kilometers from Seoul, the DMZ is a tourist destination complete with a park that sells souvenirs including blueberry vodka made in Pyongyang (or so the bottle says). It has two kilometers of buffer zone on both sides to prevent military collision and restrict civilian access and was originally established five years after Japan ended its colonial rule of Korea. Then the two countries went under the trusteeship of the US for South Korea and the Soviet Union for North in 1950.

How different the world was when that demarcation line was drawn and split families apart: a newly independent country “needing” trusteeship from two other super countries. And look where it got North Korea — headed by a buffoon with the world’s worst haircut, an ego the size of China and, in all likelihood, a very small penis.

What’s interesting are the many anecdotes coming out of this buffer zone. One is that when South Korea built its flagpole, the North built a taller one and hoisted a much bigger flag. Then the South built an even taller flagpole for its new bigger flag. This contest went on until NoKor built the world’s tallest flagpole and a flag that takes several soldiers to raise. At this point, SoKor just said, fuckit.

Apart from the daily stare-downs and trash talk between soldiers, a NoKor soldier once tried to pull his counterpart through a door that would have put the latter into the enemy’s territory and he would have been held a prisoner. The SoKor soldier managed to escape, kicking and screaming. Our guide also said that the conference desk is marked in the middle down to the millimeter to establish territory and bolted to the floor so no one side occupies the other’s land.

Another is that the tunnels dug up by North Korea to attack the South are unguarded on the other side because no one ever wants to defect to North Korea (except for that idiot who did everything to be thrown in jail so he could stay in Pyongyang).

Today, Pyongyang accepts tourists but they are highly restricted. You are never left on your own, a tourist guide is with you like leech that won’t come off no matter how much you try.

Two years ago, a friend showed me a video he took of Pyongyang from his hotel room, the only place he was unaccompanied by a guide. At 7 p.m., when the rest of the world is stuck in rush-hour traffic, the roads and highways of Pyongyang are empty. The only illumination is from streetlights, not from car headlights because there isn’t a single car on the road.

A capital city that feels like a ghost town. And yet, in its own bizarre reality, it lives on.

* * *

We had driven from Seoul to the DMZ — print journalists from Europe and Asia that were on a fellowship grant at Seoul National University. The routine was that after a week of lectures and talks, we would take off for the weekend to places like Jeju island, where we ate live octopus caught by the old women divers of Jeju (the youngest was 50 years old) with nothing but vinegar and chili sauce; second-largest city Busan, where we ate more seafood on the beach (cooked this time); and Pamunjon at the border of the two Koreas.

I was on a deadline with a magazine for a short story whose editor and I were mentored by the same man at different times. He had read the fiction I published when I was younger and working for a political magazine and compelled me to write fiction again — after 15 years! But I kept putting it off for months. And so on this road trip out of Seoul, I was writing on the bus.

It was nearing autumn and the weather was being eccentric and yet when we were about to step out on a road trip or go for a night out to eat “real food” (burgers and fries), the rain would become a slight drizzle and pretty soon the skies would clear up.

It was like that on that day at the DMZ. We had blue skies and then it rained while we were on the bus and then it let up in the afternoon.

One day, on a visit to a temple, the drizzle stayed with us. One of the guys started singing. All I can say is that my life is pretty plain, I like watchin’ the puddles gather rain. Pretty soon, we were all singing. And all I can do is just pour some tea for two and speak my point of view. But it’s not sane, it’s not sane.

It was nearing autumn and the weather was being eccentric and yet when we were about to step out on a road trip or go for a night out to eat “real food” (burgers and fries), the rain would become a slight drizzle and pretty soon the skies would clear up.

It was like that on that day at the DMZ. We had blue skies and then it rained while we were on the bus and then it let up in the afternoon.

One day, on a visit to a temple, the drizzle stayed with us. One of the guys started singing. All I can say is that my life is pretty plain, I like watchin’ the puddles gather rain. Pretty soon, we were all singing. And all I can do is just pour some tea for two and speak my point of view. But it’s not sane, it’s not sane.

Some nights on campus (we were staying at the visiting faculty house), we would gather in one room with a guitar and drink whiskey and beers — having had our fill of soju or Korean vodka at lunch or whenever we sat down at a table. In Seoul, it seemed that if you went into a restaurant and ordered coffee, they would bring you soju instead and you couldn’t say no.

Back in 2007, the idea of reunification seemed like a real possibility. They said it was only a matter of time and diplomatic maneuvering. They said families would be together again. But in Seoul, the young Koreans were unsure — what would that mean to the economy, to jobs that weren’t easy to find, to the prosperity they enjoy?

In Pyongyang, the highway leading to their side of the DMZ is called the Reunification Highway. On it is the “Reunification Arch” — two Korean women symbolizing North and South and holding a sphere bearing the map of a one Korea. At the DMZ on South Korea’s side is the Unification Sculpture. They put it right outside the Third Tunnel of Aggression, which the North was going to use for an attack on Seoul (the DMZ is only 44 kilometers from the capital) and was discovered with the help of a defector.

I thought it was telling that they didn’t use the word “reunification,” which refers to restoring political unity, and instead used “unification,” which is the process of making something whole again.

And that is what the sculpture represents. It is a globe split in half depicting the division of Korea. On both sides are figures of people, including children, pushing the two halves to make it whole again.

You’d think that after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, previously divided countries would be whole again. Except the exact opposite happened. The Soviet Union fell apart, Yugoslavia split, and autonomous regions became independent republics — at the cost of bloody wars and so much human loss.

For the two Koreas, the Unification Sculpture might as well be a monument to what will remain a dream for broken families as long as Kim Jong-un is in power.

Because no matter how hard you try or whatever you do, you just can’t negotiate with crazy.