To go far, you have to put one foot in front of the other at each step. At first hesitant, I slid my left foot over the edge of the wall. Then without looking down, the right followed. The precipice was so deep that I couldn't see the bottom. The fear of heights twitched my legs which were starting to shake. As if pushed by a friendly pat on the back, I feel myself falling into the abyss. I find myself focusing my mind completely on the flight. I have to fly. I fly. I feel my body stiffen as I straighten up to go up, and relax to turn. I can fly in all directions. The birds began to sing, I look for the forest but see nothing. It took a few seconds for me to realize that the birds were coming from my phone and that I was hovering in a dream. The feeling of flying is exquisite. That of walking at the edge of the precipice too. Today I was going to get as close as possible to the gulf that separates two worlds.
Korea has been split in two since July 27, 1953 after three years of war and millions of deaths and after signing a non-aggression pact. The agreement restored the border between the two Koreas near the 38th parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a fortified buffer zone between the two Korean nations. With the two countries still officially at war, minor incidents continue to occur today. Less than an hour from Seoul and under a freezing sun I saw the first barbed wire. The watchtowers overlooking the great wall. In between, a uniformly flat and empty area. Then the water, the river which purifies souls.
Nature does not make politics, and the ducks land in "no man's land", they pass from North to South or vice versa, without passport or authorisation. The snow falls unconditionally in the North as in the South. The freezing cold freezes hands on both sides. The Earth knows no border, no wall, except the thick mountains of hope.
I felt like in my dream, straddling two worlds. Not just two spaces but two eras, two ideologies. The North and its Communist dictatorship destroying creativity and the individual, and the dictatorship of markets and consumption in the South. As Jean-Louis Barrault said, "Freedom is the ability to choose your constraints", these people are not free. they never chose to be separated from their families and to live in terror of a megalomaniac dictator. But the Sun shines for everyone and we all share the same atmosphere so let's hope to see these two worlds come together one day. T
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