I went on a teachers trip a couple months ago to Ganghwa Island off the cost in Incheon. We had this fantastic tofu lunch (I had more varieties of tofu in one sitting than I've had in my entire life... it was lovely) and then I watched as my coteacher slipped on a patch of ice and fell literally 1 minute after I said, be careful you might fall and then fell again while she was trying to get up. Then, we went to an observatory on the top of this mountain and a p.e. teacher said to me, that's North Korea right there, and I got all excited and impressed and then she declared, nah, I'm just messing with you. That was disappointing.
But then we got to the entrance gate and the guard informed us that yes, indeed, that was North Korea after all. And there I stood, less than one mile from North Korea. We went to the top of the observatory tower and listened to a woman speak about North Korea for a while. And by we listened, I mean, everyone listened while my youngest co-teacher (only 4 years old than me!) and I unlocked a locked door (the lock was located atop the door, but I'm really tall so it was no issue) and snuck outside to look at North Korea and get fresh air and then throw snow at each other.
But we returned, nervous that we would either a) get caught and severely reprimanded, or b) Have snipers in North Korea somehow shoot us from just under a mile away for doing nothing but playing outside in the snow.
But I'm glad we returned because I got to hear this story:
Some years ago (less than 20, more than 5), there was flooding in the area bordering North and South Korea, including an area of neutral waters between Ganghwa Island and N. Korea. A result of the flooding was that a cow from North Korea got swept off mainshore N.K. and was carried to a small island in this neutral territory. This North Korean cow was thusly stranded in neutral waters and the neither the North nor the South could send in a rescue party to procure the cow because of the long standing neutrality in and ban on entering these waters. So, naturally, the UN, which only takes a stand in the most worthy of causes, stepped in an retrieved the cow and brought it back to South Korea. Unfair right? Wrong! Because South Korea then had one of it's prized Jeju lady cows brought up to Seoul. And, in a moment of peace and as a sign of hope for reconciliation, the North Korean cow and the South Korean cow were bred together, a symbol for the coming together of two unjustly separate nations.
The End.
But this story leaves me with this question:
The baby cow. What happened to him/her? Did he belong to South Korea, or North Korea, or to the U.N. who so graciously saved this baby's father's life. Was he raised and slaughtered in the hopes of becoming a part of the great reconciliation feast that after such a great sign of partnership between the two conflict-wrought nation was sure was to come without delay? Or did he get shipped off to the North, given that the father has final rights, only to live a life oppressed and without civil liberties? Who knows.
It's kept me up some nights just wondering what happened to the little baby not-south-or-north-just-Korean cow baby and whether he lived a life filled with democracy and justice in the South, oppression and poverty in the North, or general impotence and sanctions with the U.N.
Just something to chew the cud over. HAR HAR.
xoxo
A
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