A Crash Course in Korean Culture

The other thing we did in our final days in Seoul other than, you know, pack or something: we made up for lost time by catching up with distinctly Korean experiences that we’d put off seeing for the previous twelve months.  Naturally, we knew that we had to visit the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.  This unique region is critical to Korea’s identity and is the key to understanding the relationship between Korea and the U.S..

But first: Pro Gaming!

Whew, it was just about to get substantial up in here.

For those of you not in the know, there's this computer game released in 1998 called "Starcraft."  It was moderately popular in the US, and eventually spawned a sequel.  Can't say I ever knew anyone who considered it their favorite game; by contrast in the freshman dorm in 2004, "Halo" or "World of Warcraft" claimed the academic careers of dozens of my friends.  But in Korea, though, they took this game seriously.  So when our friend Bill came to visit, he tracked one of Seoul's venues for professional gaming, a career that my parents assured me didn't exist.

From what little I understand of this phenomenon: there are multiple Starcraft teams in Korea, the most major of them sponsored Samsung, SK, and other top-shelf corporations.  The teams compete in various tournaments for prizes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and these tournaments are screened on two TV channels.  The competitors are almost entirely under 30 years of age (after that point, their reflexes start to deteriorate, explained Bill), and they spend upwards of 12 hours a day doing nothing but playing this computer game, day in and day out.  It's a joyless, grueling task for the players, clicking thousands of times and focusing their laserlike attention on the goings-on of little monsters and space zombies, the slightest mechanical mistake resulting in a loss.

That isn't to say that there's no fun to be had here: the announcers live for this stuff.  My understanding of rapid-fire sports-related Korean is poor at best, but I could pick up just how thrilled they were that Fla$h just clicked his thing and made some of sOs's guys blow up.  Behold the crowd going wild for an entirely-predictable ten-minute victory:

Bill was excited to accompany us to this particular match, as his nerd friends back in the States had encouraged him to go and cheer for someone named "Stork."  He also gamely tried to explain the inner workings of the game for us.

And he even made it on the big TV!

I'm sure there's something deep and distinctly Korean about the institution of pro gaming.  The commercialization of Korean culture over the past few decades, maybe, or the desire to excel at something that few others care to participate in at all.  We decided to hash this out like reasonable people: in front of the most heavily fortified border on the planet, in front of dozens of soldiers with hair-trigger tempers and very large guns.

Wheeeeee!  Overwhelming military presence!

So as it turns out, there was this war that happened in Korea awhile back.  And somehow, even though it was like a million years ago, they still haven't quite managed to wrap things up.  Apparently there was some country that cared deeply about Communism and was willing to use its massive military presence to prop up a dictator that would serve their agenda and keep a foothold in the Korean peninsula.  Actually, there were two of them, and one of them was the U.S.

Something we keep discovering while traveling here in Asia is exactly how badly the American educational system has failed us.  Both of us went to fairly excellent middle and high schools, and yet neither of us had ever learned about the American role in the division of Korea or, say, anti-Communist massacres in the Philippines and Indonesia.  Kind of makes the Teapot Dome Scandal seem even less important.  But yeah, every time we dig into the recent history of any of the countries we visit, we discover that US military involvement dictated the course of these countries' history, and the fact that we had never heard that before is pretty damn sad.

Fortunately, we were in for a doozy of an American education on the DMZ tour, operated by a USO-affiliated Korean travel agency.  At 7 a.m., dozens of sleepy tourists shuffled onto buses at the USO office in Seoul and were whisked away to the most defended border in the world.  Our tour guide, Vincent, asked the bus, "Why do you want to visit the DMZ?"  Predictably, there was not a peep, but unlike most tour guides, he persisted.  "No, really, I want to know, why do you want to come here today?"

I started to sweat.  Why did I want to go to the DMZ?  We had always intended to, figured it would be a good experience, but...I mean, it's not like we were going to the World's Biggest Ball of Twine or anything.  This is essentially hostile territory, where we would be stared at by soldiers and would witness such sights as "Bridge of No Return" and "Site of Ax Murder Incident."  We signed waivers that enumerated the things that could go wrong during this tour, ranging from minor inconvenience to complete dismemberment.

Finally someone on the bus spoke up as the pause grew interminable.  "History?" tried Bill.  Vincent praised him for speaking up, then went on to take our lunch orders, the question still largely unanswered.

After an hour and a half, we arrived at Camp Bonifas, the center of US strength in the area.  We were ushered off our bus and handed over to a square-jawed young soldier named Specialist Reese, who gave us some fun facts about the ride.  Now, I may be violating some pretty scary laws if I continue with details, but suffice to say the terms "razor wire" and "thousands of mines" came up.

After a brief slideshow presentation about the establishment of the DMZ, the first stop on the tour was the border itself, the line demarcating the North from the South within the Joint Security Area.  Our guide told us that there is always a single guard standing outside the North's headquarters, and that he is named "Bob."  He also let us know that the Northern soldiers would occasionally line up along their side of the border and hurl insulting gestures and rude comments at the US and South Korean soldiers in a "childish" attempt to goad them into retaliation.

We later moved on to view North Korea's "Propaganda Village," a town near the border meant to convey the luxury of life in the People's Republic.  According to our guide, it's unoccupied, and its buildings are just empty shells.  Also, he told us, this flagpole is a few meters taller than an identical one on the Southern side, and is the culmination of a short-term race to build the tallest pole.  The jokes write themselves.

I wish I could fully explain exactly how this tour made us feel.  Confused, mostly, to be sure.  But I felt that it was very difficult to turn off the critical thinking center of my brain (thanks, Truman State University!), and that colored all of the information that we received from our guides.  Again and again we were told about the childish, irresponsible antics of the North, while as far as we heard, no Southern or US soldier had ever acted as anything but a paragon of discipline and rules-following.  We were told a history of kidnapping, murder, and immature one-upsmanship, all from the point of view of a freshly-stationed, well-rehearsed 24-year-old soldier from South Dakota.  Not that I have any love for North Korea, nor do I have any reason to believe that things are better or less crazy than our guide told us, but all the same, it's very hard to uncritically hear about unchecked aggression and warmongering when you're surrounded by tanks and Claymores.

And this is what we came to do!  We paid for this!  Dozens of us taking pictures, taking selfies in front of a soldier we unironically called "Bob," whatever his name might actually be, shaking our head and tut-tutting North Korea's buffoonery.  We listened, rapt, to stories of defectors streaming across the border to find happier lives in South Korea, as well as to rumors that Specialist Reese had heard that the South Koreans are growing extremely tired of caring for so many defectors.  "Free money," he called the resettlement allowances that the South Korean government offers to defectors, and half the bus shook their heads in astonishment at the luxury provided these...refugees?  Traitors?  Freeloaders?  Question time was over at this point.

What mischief are these two kooky characters up to this time?

After a stop at Dora Railway Station (which connected Seoul and Kaesong Industrial Complex for a few years in the 2000s), we went on to the last stop of the tour, the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel.  I'd read about this before: North Korea had dug a system of tunnels under the DMZ.  Their official line was that the tunnels were meant for coal mining, an argument slightly undermined (get it?) by the fact that there is absolutely no coal to be found anywhere in this region.

The most interesting segment of the Infiltration Tunnel, by far, was the video they played us at the beginning.  For some reason, photography was prohibited during the screening, so you'll have to make do with a half-remembered recap by this schmuck instead.  Over the soundtrack from the trailer to a horror movie, a deep, disembodied voice related to us the horrors visited upon the Korean people by the evil North Koreans.  A map showed glowing red lines stabbing through the DMZ and hordes of faceless soldiers filling the country and turning it blood-red.  Then there was an abrupt shift as the narrator intensely told us about the wildlife to be found in the area.

"The international community has not held North Korea culpable for its incursions," said the video (or something very close to it), "but their offenses have grown ever more cunning and provocative.  This can only be seen as a declaration of war."  Stock footage of missiles launching drove home the point that war is imminent, although I'm still not sure why they were trying to persuade us.

"One day, Korea hopes for reunification," the video continued; reunification is a theme we'd heard many times by that point, though this time it was accompanied not by an image of coexistence, but of the South rising up and swallowing the whole peninsula in a bright, friendly blue.  "Until then, the DMZ will stand...forever."

A concrete line in the sand to last a thousand years.

No one else on the tour seemed particularly fazed by the propagandistic tone of our tour.  They discussed whether "Bob" is allowed to go to the bathroom and were tickled by the antics of the North Korean army.  I'm not really sure what to take away from this trip.  I guess it's easy to pick on North Korea, in a manner of speaking; they're isolated, they're one of the most prominent hereditary dictatorships of our time, and they're scary.  But something that was missing from all the rhetoric during our tour, something that was always mentioned in discussions with our Korean friends and colleagues, was that the people of North Korea are Korean people.  From what I can tell, South Koreans do dream of reunification, but not in the "wiping-out-the-enemy" sense that the video portrayed, more in the sense of "we are all Korean people, and we hate to see our countrymen separated from us and suffering under an illegitimate despot."  They are not the enemy to be destroyed, but relatives to be pitied and aided...but not if you ask the US soldiers at the DMZ.  And we weren't to speak to any of the Korean soldiers, nor was there any information that wasn't provided by the US during our tour.

In any case, we chose not to buy any of the cute cartoon-character-branded objects at the gift shop.