Terrorist Tourism: Underlined

*May 29, 2011*

After Freedom Bridge, the DMZ tour group headed to another famous marker within the Demilitarized Zone: Tunnel Number Three. This tunnel, no bigger than a crawlspace directly underneath the Line of Demarcation, was found in the early 1970s through a North Korean defector. Later, larger tunnels were also found for a total of four currently known to be in existence. In each of them, coal dust was liberally smeared on the walls to disguise them as abandoned coal mines, though none such mines previously had existed in this part of Korea.

These tunnels were allegedly hewn by the North Korean military to provide access to the south for foot soldiers, giving a thousand men the ability to reach Seoul within an hour. The North staunchly denies any involvement and instead suggests foul play by the South, but the chisel strikes to dig out the rock indicate that the tunnel’s workers must have been facing southward.

Our bus pulled up to another parking lot like the one from our previous stop, only it was a quarter the size and minus misplaced carnival rides. Round, dark buildings intimately surrounded the car park on three sides, nearly hemming in visitors. A thick forest stood at attention to the left of the scene.

In front of the cars was perched a tall “DMZ” monogram, nearly innocuous in its friendly pastels. To the right of the initials rested a sculpture of the world divided in half, with a circle of chiseled humanity holding up each side. The building just in front of the bus housed an indoor educational theater and a small museum. To the right of that lay a platform for carting older guests mine-car style into the tunnel.

A signed gleamed in the mid-morning sun, prompting us forward. “DMZ Pavilion,” an arrow pointed to the left. The rest of the message sat mute in hanguel letters, with no other English accompanying it to unlock its tongue. The tour group, armed with its limited information, shuffled inside.

In the Pavilion, designed like an amply accomodating home theater with tiered captain's chairs and a wall-sized panoramic screen, we listened to a voiced-over seven-minute explanation of the existence of the DMZ. The narrator listed the end of World War II and the subsequent Korean War as the primary cause of Korea's tense buffer zone.

Announcer-like, we heard the man proclaim at the end that even through the tragedy of war, the land was still teeming with natural life. Supported by a grand trumpet, his deep voice rang out, “The DMZ is alive!” Moments later, the floor-to-ceiling screen in front of us parted like the Red Sea and we walked through it to a museum adjacent the theater.

Fascinated, I tried reading every snippet of facts the displays had to offer: Here was documentation about the defector who triggered the search for one tunnel--here, how they suspected the second. Lost in the dusty details of the past, I failed to note when my large, largely white tour group had exited the room and left me alone with a swarm of Chinese tourists.

“I'll be in the tunnel if you have any questions,” the tour guide had said. From everything I had read in the museum, I was expecting little more than a hole in the ground, much like the shaft used to discover caves at Natural Bridge Caverns in Texas. What I met with, however, was a whole lot of concrete.

Across the from the DMZ Pavilion crouched what loked like a quiet amphatheater juxtaposed next to empty railroad track which led into a pitch-black cavern. “Don't go up there,” I remember my tour guide chiding. “We have legs. We can walk.” Yet I still didn't know what it was I was walking to.

If hindsight is twenty-twenty, it doesn't help you until you actually look back--which, that day, was the one direction I never tried. Instead, I followed the path from the rail line along the other side of the parking lot towards the bathrooms and a little park next to a large building. Spying a pathway, I walked further into the greenery and around the structure.

Inside the park, I discovered a stretch of fence not ten yards long, directly in the middle of the grass. It stood to one side of a small concrete ditch which bisected the peaceful scene. A tiny red triangle with letters in both languages fiercely guarded its chain links.

“Oh, it's a mine!” I exclaimed breathlessly as I got close enough to read the letters. To its right, a companion fence with the same little red triangle screamed its warming as it ran out into the dense vegetation. It was definitely time to find that tunnel!

I stumbled into the back entrance to what at first appeared to be a gift shop. Shifting my gaze the right I noticed the beginning of a ramp spiralling downward and a shelf full of yellow hardhats. This looked easier than being lowered into a shaft at Natural Bridge; grabbing a hardhat, I ventured inside.

“It's going to take ten minutes to get down there,” December warned as she came back up, her words tinged with wise realism. As I checked my watch again, I knew she was right. I had spent too much time babysitting mines and empty railway shafts to have any more to devote to Tunnel Number three. Plus, I didn't know how I would heave myself 100 or more meters back up the ramp. Reluctantly, I returned my barely-warm hardhat to itself and headed back outside.

Just before we boarded the bus again, I glanced back at the world split in half. Pleasantly, Korean after Korean stood on both of its sides bracing for a picture, their hands on whichever half they chose. I couldn't help but notice that their presence mimicked the bronze statues which continue to people the sculpture long after the last flesh-and-blood tourist has gone home. They really were holding up the world, I thought, pushing it together with each caress of its smooth surface.