A Platform Signposted for Pyongyang: Booking the DMZ — Epoche B1
The DMZ — the four-kilometre strip that has divided the Korean peninsula since the armistice of 1953 — cannot be visited alone. You go by guided tour, and the booking is the first part of the journey. 1. Before the day I sent my passport number to the tour company several days ahead; the names go to the military for clearance. The rules that arrive by email are specific: bring the passport itself, wear ordinary clothes, and expect to be told where you may and may not photograph. Some sections are closed for months at a time when relations sour, so nothing is certain until the morning. 2. North from Seoul The bus leaves early. The road follows the Imjin river, and after a while the wire fence appears on the left and stays there. At the checkpoint a young soldier climbs aboard, walks the aisle, and compares each face with the list. It takes four minutes. Nobody talks. 3. What you see The observatory, where the fields and hills of the North lie under a haze, quiet and entirely ordinary. An infiltration tunnel, cut through rock, cold and low enough to make you stoop. Dorasan station: clean, empty, with a platform sign pointing to Pyongyang. Trains ran a short way north for a while in the 2000s, then stopped. What stays with me is the calm. There were herons in the paddy fields inside the fence, undisturbed because nobody may walk there. A border can be turned into an itinerary, with a departure time and a gift shop, and still remain what it is: a line that a train is waiting to cross. References Korean Armistice Agreement (1953), Article I — establishment of the Military Demarcation Line and the Demilitarized Zone. Kim, S.-Y. (2014). DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship Along the Korean Border. New York: Columbia University Press. Korea Tourism Organization. Visiting the DMZ: official visitor information. Seoul: KTO.