An Adventure on the N. Korean Border

I woke up that Friday expecting to take a late-afternoon train to Shenyang where I would join Ben for the weekend. Moments later, though, he called to ask me to catch an earlier train. 1:30 found me standing at the ticket counter to trade in my 5:30 train ticket for a ticket on the 2:10.

Ben and Glen met me at the Shenyang station and we hustled to catch another train. No peaceful weekend for us. Instead we took a 14 hour hard-sleeper to Yanji, a small city on the northern end of the China-N. Korea border. We checked into a cheap hotel for a quick shower before heading out to see what we could see.

First stop was the local Korean university, the Yanbian University of Science and Technology, where, even on Saturday, we found several faculty members happy to answer (most) questions about the school. Then out of town to the border crossing where we stood looking into North Korea from just across the river. The difference was depressing. While Yanji isn't exactly modern and sparkling-clean by Western standards, compared to the filthy, dilapidated, colorless buildings across the river, it looked like paradise.


No time to linger, though...it was late Saturday afternoon, but we still had another town to visit before heading home Sunday evening. I gather the plan had been an overnight bus from Yanji to Dandong. Unfortunately, Saturday morning inquiries at the bus station proved that no such bus existed. Since I had to be back at work on Monday and Ben was determined to visit Dandong, we hired a driver. After an early hot-pot supper, we set off for what turned out to be a 12 hour, overnight ride in a small sedan.

6:30 AM saw us checking into another cheap hotel for a couple of hours of decent sleep and a shower before exploring Dandong. The highlight, if you can call it that, of Dandong is the monument/museum on what we call the Korean War, but the Chinese apparently call the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. As I found with the Rape of Nanjing Memorial, the most interesting feature of the museum was not its content but its rhetoric. It seems to be a consistent difference between how information is presented here and how I am more accustomed to seeing it presented in the West. While most of us doubtless harbor strong beliefs about who was wrong and who was right in conflicts our country has engaged in, we make an effort in our national dialog to be dispassionate. Our wars are named for when or where they happened, or, occasionally, for the type of conflict. So, we have the Civil War, the War of 1812, the World Wars, the Korean War, etc. Here, though, wars are named to evoke feelings. To wit, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. I guess that makes sense in a place where the word 'propaganda' has no negative connotations.


We followed a quick lunch with a short stroll to look at the border and then a dash for the bus station to catch our bus to Dalian. We had just time for our third Korean meal of the weekend before heading to the Dalian airport for our flight home.