Korea - DMZ Villages

There are two villages in this area, Unification Village and Taesong-dong. These villages mainly farm rice and ginseng. There is apparently only one restaurant in Unification Village so that’s where we had lunch. We ate a traditional Korean meal of bulgogi (beef) with rice and kimchi on the side. Despite what most people think about kimchi I think most of it is not half bad. There are kinds I like better than others but I think it gets a bad rap in the states. It does smell bad though!

The people who live in these villages do so because they are descendants of the people who lived here before the Korean War and returned to their ancestral villages after the war. The villagers are subsidized by the Korean government and don’t pay taxes. Their homes are built and maintained by the government and they are provided with modern cars as well. The only way to live in the two villages is to be a direct descendant of a village family or, as a woman, marry into one of the families (women can marry into this village but men cannot). The purpose for such a high level of government sponsorship is so the N. Koreans can look over the border and see happy, prosperous people living in nice houses and driving modern cars. Also I’m sure there’s some “danger pay” component to the fact that they are living in the middle of a battlefield. The villagers must be back in their homes around sunset and must have their doors and windows locked after midnight. Ironically the rice grown here is considered to be the best in Korea and fetches a high price on the market. Our tour guide said that particular area of the valley has great soil which produces high quality rice. Appropriately enough it’s called “DMZ rice”. I’m guessing they served us DMZ rice at lunch but you never know; it didn’t really taste all that much different at any rate.