A conversation among North Koreans at work
On the morning of July 5, an employee at the joint North-South Kaesong (Gaeseong) Industrial Park, located just across the North Korean border, asked a coworker why the North had decided to launch several missiles. Perhaps it was because the atmosphere here has been blemished by international denunciation, but the North Korean didn’t take the question well. "And what does that have to do with the comrades in South Korea? It’s an issue for America and an issue for Japan, but it’s got absolutely nothing to do with our comrades in South Korea." The questioner merely agreed and closed his mouth, thinking there was no need for a verbal spat.The reaction brought to mind an answer given by the Pyongyang spokesman on the issue, printed in "The Choseon Central Dispatch," in which he severely criticized the U.S. and Japan, all the while failing to even mention South Korea. Kaeseong Industrial Park was in a hubbub on the morning of July 5 when North Korea sent a missiles into the East Sea. There are worries that aftereffects of the reaction might have spread into the Kaeseong Industrial Park. But tensions seem to have calmed here. The 13 enterprises located in the Kaeseong Industrial Park are as busy as ever, producing items to be sold all over the world. Some 7,800 North Koreans and more than 600 South Koreans were hard at work. The Northerners at first adopted grave countenances, their lips tightly sealed as the security situation in Northeast Asia had worsened. But their voices, once unceasingly tinged with venom, now appear to have somewhat relaxed, judging by their facial expression. The same effect seems to have spread over the Southerners. Who knows where their true thoughts lie. A conversation among South Koreans on the ride home from work As the sun set behind the western mountains, one group of Southerners headed for Seoul. Debate arose within their bus: How would America and the international community react to the missile launch? What influence would the complicated game of international politics have upon the Kaeseong Industrial Park? Opinions differed, and voices rose in debate, but accord was found on one fundamental point. "Hey Kim, did you get see that movie, "Welcome to Dongmakgol?" "Of course I did." "Don’t you think the Kaeseong Industrial Park is just like the village of Dongmakgol?" "No doubt about it." Staring silently upon the meandering Han River alongside Freedom Road, some other passengers spoke up to voice their assent. "Sure is," they echoed. "Welcome to Dongmakgol" opened last year to box-office success, attracting some 8,000,000 viewers. It depicts the meeting and bonding of a South Korean soldier strayed from his ranks, a private of the North Korean People’s Army, and an American GI, all in the imaginary town of Dongmakgo, Gangwon Province, at the height of the Korean War. The North Korean, South Korean, and American all join forces for their dream of a world free from the tragedy of war. However, many residents end up perishing in an attempt to save their village. At the December Korean Movie Awards, the movie swept up six prizes, including best production, best director, best new director, best supporting actress, best script and best soundtrack. It also received the fifteenth Korean Catholic Mass-Communication Prize, awarded by the Catholic Bishop’s Council, chaired by Choi Deok-gi. The reason for its selection was its "conveyance of warm and pure humanity, peace and love in this age of a prevailing culture of death brought through war, violence, terror, egotism and the contempt for human life." On the other hand, the Chosun Ilbo ridiculed it as "Welcome to Kim Il-sung’s Kingdom." Kaeseong Industrial Park as Dongmakgol Kaeseong Industrial Park is separated by not even a 10-minute drive from the western edge of the Military Demarcation Line. During the Korean War, it served as the main military base in the West, and for more than half a century afterwards as a vitally strategic site of contraposition between North and South. The Kaeseong Industrial Park initially began in December 2004, as factories began operating and the scope of North-South cooperation expanded rapidly. The encounter between North and South that occurs within the Industrial Park is much more deep and involved than that which occurs through tourism or other simple exchanges. Now, aid toward the construction of the Kaeseong Industrial Park is even coming from the Diaspora of Korean businessmen living in Japan, who eagerly count off the days until their people’s reunification, never having forsaken the nationality of the vanished state of Choseon [Korea’s name prior to the Japanese occupation]. Gathering their strength, they temper their brethren’s competitive edge. If the ambitious plans for the 1.6-square-mile Kaeseong Industrial District are realized, perhaps on that day the Korean people will once and for all step out from the dark shadow of war and raise their voices together. Just as the Germans brought down the Berlin wall and attained unification, so will we one day tear out the iron fences of the Military Demarcation Line and open the door to a future of symbiosis. However, we must walk a different path than the sudden "hostile takeover"-style German unification. Kaeseong is the primary representative of the road we must walk to make our dream a reality. The Kaeseong Industrial Park may be called the fulcrum in changing the bloodstained Demilitarized Zone into a DMZ of a different variety - a Dream-Making Zone. Postscript: The following remarks were run July 6 in a Chosun Ilbo editorial entitled, "The strange tranquility in South Korea after North Korea’s missile launch": "...America and Japan, having foreseen the missile launch, were in a state of emergency, while only South Korea, having insisted that it was a satellite launch, was filled with complacency. Infected by the misperceptions of the North held by the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun regimes, the Korean people’s detachment became a topic of global discussion." Right on. Just as before, the Korean people did not panic and hoard ramen, nor did they wait in long lines at gas stations. It is not because they had abandoned themselves to despair. It is because, though the situation on the Peninsula became much more tense, they knew that war would not result. First of all, the flow of North-South harmony and cooperation has continued unceasingly, beginning with the November 1998 Mt. Kumgang Tourist Enterprise and following through the wake of the June 2000 North-South Summit. At the center of this flow is the transformation of the Western front lines into the vast site of production, peace, and harmony known as the Kaeseong Industrial Park. It is also thanks to the ceaseless expansion of the freedom of speech under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. Unlike the periods of the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan regimes, in which the "threat of an invasion" was constantly being hammered into the minds of the people, now people are all too aware of the development of affairs between the North and South. To some extent, they even grasp the true nature of North Korean society. This much is true. Unlike other countries making a big fuss, the people of South Korea were "detached." But what makes that so strange, after all? This article was written by reporter Yi Je-hun for the Economy21 weekly magazine and translated by Daniel Rakove.
