월드미션프론티어

My friends and I were sitting in a tea room with a group of Korean teachers. The conversation moved to Korea's neighbors. We first asked "how do you feel about China?" They said that China was the origin of their civilization The word "China" means center of the world. They know that China is communist now, but they feel close to the Chinese people. We next asked "What about Russia?" Our teachers said that although Russia borders with Korea, Russia doesn't loom large in the Korean psyche. When we asked about Japan, the teachers clenched their teeth. I could read the dislike in their eyes. They said "Japan is a wicked nation. The Japanese occupied us and abused the Korean People." Finally we asked about North Korea. At first they looked puzzled. They had not thought of North Korea as a "foreign country" We asked "do you hate the North Koreans?" They said "No, the people of the North are the same as us. How can we hate ourselves?" I sensed a feeling of sadness, loss, fear and ambivalence toward the people of the North.

You may know that each issue of National Geographic comes with a large fold out map. These fold-outs have long been my favorite part of the magazine. In this issue, the map featured a view of earth as it would look at night. The map was accomplished by overlapping several night time satellite photographs. The east coast of the United States was aglow with light. Only the Atlantic Ocean seemed able to stop the brightness. I could see the dense population of India along the Ganges River. The continent of Australia appeared as I expected: a few lights along the ocean perimeter with darkness in the interior. The lighting in Egypt was especially curious. There appeared to be a snake of light clinging to the Nile river, not able to penetrate the Sahara desert.

I understood all these natural barriers to light: ocean, mountain, wilderness and desert. But what explained the Korean peninsula? The city of Seoul was bright with light and lesser light followed down the western coast looping toward Pusan. But there was no light in the north. A dim speck in Pyung-yang was all that I could see. Like a desert or a wilderness, the light stopped abruptly at the 38th parallel. ?How sad?, I thought. ?It's politics acting like a desert?. This picture of lightlessness remains with me and describes more than one million words the true plight of Koreans in the north. The lights are out in our northern half, extinguished by a political desert.