Ball Bearings
Staring and Standing on the Border with North Korea
He stares us down, like a bully on the playground trying to intimidate the new kid. It’s a glare like I haven’t seen in some time. A North Korean soldier and several of his comrades, in a time of high tension, are standing just feet from me and within inches of an American soldier, a true symbol of a 50-year standoff that plays out every single day along the Line of Demarcation between North and South Korea.
His scowl is clear, and he scans my crew and the soldiers around us, trying to make eye contact and get us to avert our gaze. It’s truly a childish attempt, but at the same time, a vivid reminder that the separation between North and South here on the Korean Peninsula runs deep, rooted in hate sold in the North. Here, the separation is literally a curb, separating the same people from very different ways of life.
