A few months ago I went on a tour of the DMZ with Friend Erin while she was visiting from America. It was awesome, I'm not going to lie. We went on the day when the North officially shut down the Joint Industrial Complex and ended up meeting Richard Engel. Super cool. But my favorite part was an aside story told to us by our American soldier tour guide.
A fellow tourist asked if there had ever been any incidents between the villagers who live near the DMZ and North Koreans. For those that don't know, there is actually a village in South Korea that is mega close to the border and those people get special military protection because they live in a danger zone. But these people still live normal lives. They mostly farm and just live this fairly normal rural existence. But despite their normal lives, there was apparently at least one incidence that has taken place recently.
An adjumma (literally means married woman, actually refers to older grandmother-aged women) was in a field picking apples when she got captured by some North Korean soldiers. They just took her. For two days she complained and whined and was just generally annoying. And at the end of two days she was so incredibly irritating that the North Koreans just sent her back. No military action, no ransom, nothing. Just happy to be rid of her.
So that's what we're dealing with here. A military that literally couldn't handle the nagging of an elderly woman. That doesn't look good for the North Koreans.
Don't forget the scary adjumma on Udo! I thought we were dead!!
ReplyDeleteThat woman basically held our lives in her hand. She terrified me!
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