We took a tour to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Joint Security Area (JSA) today to get the closest we’ll come anytime soon to North Korea. After having read a few articles about how awful the lives were of people who live in the north (one particular account written up in the New Yorker about nine years ago still is emblazoned in my mind), I wondered if we’d be able to get any glimpse of life of the north side from the DMZ area. Just its name is so ironic since it’s probably one of the most militarized zones in the entire world.

We did get a glimpse — a fake glimpse. When walking to one open area, one of the U.S. army guides pointed to a little village which they found out, after some intense telescoping, is actually fake: the buildings are hollowed; the doors painted on, and the lights that turn on and off operated by a timer. We can hear the North Korean propaganda blazing loudly via loudspeakers while on the south side. And of course, North Korea is hanging their flag on a pole that is 525 feet high, trying to outdo and create a “flag pole war” with South Korea, who has their flag hanging from a pole 323 feet high. This all seems pretty petty and childish… until you hear about all the millions of deaths that came as a result of this war and all the hundreds of thousands of North Koreans who have tried to defect to China, South Korea, Russia, and elsewhere in the region to escape the North Korean dictatorship.

The part of the tour for me that was the most chilling (literally, I could feel my little hairs going up on my arms) was when we were learning about all the infiltration tunnels the North Koreans built in a planned attempt to invade Seoul from underground. We were allowed to tour the third infiltration tunnel up to a certain point, and then we had to turn back. Four tunnels have been discovered, but the South Korean government believes there could be twenty more and are still searching for them.

The idea that a country that broke away could have so much hate to build these massive and incredibly long tunnels to invade their neighbor and likely annihilate a great chunk of their people made me feel so sad and scared for a moment. There are people who really do think like this, and that’s how absurd and terrorizing events like the droppings of the atomic bombs in Japan, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 happened. Innocent people dying for… nothing, people having their lives taken away in seconds and being completely unaware of it — all of that is so terrifying — or is it for nothing? For the people committing these acts, it’s all really in the name of power. Power and control are what drives people.