North Korea Military Adventure Park
Trip Start
Unknown
1
4
Trip End
Ongoing
Seoul, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, Korea Rep.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
It’s easy to forget that you are visiting one of the world’s hot spots: some 500.000 soldiers are stationed in the area and you are under surveillance of North Korean soldiers. The most surreal place was a Checkpoint Charly like border (see pic). We could see North Korean soldiers and went into the conference room right on the border which serves as the venue for the sporadic talks between the north and south. In the room, the South Korea and US Flag are shielded behind safety glass (because at the last talk North Koreans polished their boots and South Korean soldiers can approach the door to North Korea only in pairs for the risk that they may be dragged into northern territory.
Despite all this there seems to be a firm belief that the reunification is just around the corner. There actually is a Ministry of Reunification, and for most people it is a question of when not if. I don’t want to be the grumpy German here who takes away the punch bowl from the pre-reunification party, but what exactly is this optimism based on? After all, people in North Korea were exposed to 60 years of communist propaganda and income in the south is 30 (!) times as high as in the north. The comparison with divided Germany is not valid – people in East Germany had much more civil liberties and access to information of western media. I can’t see how to unify a militaristic communist authoritarian regime in dire poverty and a modern, western-oriented capitalist society. Interestingly, the younger generation is much less enthusiastic about the prospect of reunifying – maybe because they know who will have to foot the bill. But then again, few predicted the reunification of Germany – I’d be happy if history would prove me wrong.
