Anyway, in addition to presenting a paper on space surveillance, I attended a lot of meetings and exhibitions of the world's space agencies. South Korea, Japan, India, China, and even countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore are all taking major steps into space, and it is great to see it up close. Here are some pictures from Korea's Space Festival: MORE KOREA PICTURES
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| From Expoloring Korea 09 (IAC and DMZ) |
And after my long week of work, I had a bit of a wait before my flight back home to Singapore. So I was lucky enough to get a local friend and chaperon from our business partner to take me on a tour with his family to a destination that fascinates foreigners about the Korean Peninsula... The De-Militarized Zone, or DMZ between North and South Korea.
So a bit of history: After the Japanese invaded then vacated the Korean Peninsula following WWII, a power vacuum was filled by two competing ideologies: Communism from the Soviets in the North, and free-market Republican Democracy from the US in the South. The division sparked a fratricidal civil war that divided the country in two and never really ended, but resulted in the longest standing armistice in modern history.
Both sides still long for unification, but neither is willing to give up on their ideology, so the stalemate continues.
Anyway, one of the most interesting attractions of the south side of the DMZ are the North Korean Invasion Tunnels! Lemme e'splain. After the cease fire was signed and a 2 km DMZ buffer was built on either side of the border, the North was still determined to invade the South. So the North Koreans embarked on an ambitious plan to dig miles of tunnels under the entire DMZ so troops could march from North to South towards the Southern Capital, Seoul.
4 of these tunnels were discovered between the 70's and 90's although it is believed that there are up to 20 somewhere under the border! Here are some videos I took as I explored the tunnels and got within 170 meters of the Korean border 200 feet underground! (Don't worry, it has been sealed off by 3 concrete barriers for years).
So while the communitst North is stifled by a strict, communist military regime, the South enjoys a flourishing free political and economic system that has shown such impressive growth that it has become part of our daily lives probably without you knowing it. Brands like Samsung, LG, Kia Motors, and Hyundai are all Korean companies that have gone global and are everyday names in the States. South Koreans don't even think twice about making a video call on their Samsung phones. I never ceased to be amazed by the innovation possible where business is encouraged.
Ironically, these tunnels are not regularly visited by Koreans. They consider Korea one country that just happens to have been split up by a crazy totalitarian leader and his henchmen. Most Koreans still have family across the border, and they are just waiting for the time when the fences come down, and the country is unified. I think the most telling sign of this was literally a sign. The last stop on the train line that runs the entire length of the Peninsula clearly marks Seoul (South Korean capital) in one direction and Pyongyang (North Korean capital) in the other even though now the trains do not cross the border... Hopefully someday in the near future this train can finally reach both destinations with no borders to cross...
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