Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)

choi

(1) Dateline: Panmunjom, South (and a Little North) Korea. New York Times, Apr 21, 2017 (in page A2).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/ ... -korea-taesung.html

Quote:

(a) I visited Panmunjom in a press tour: "two days earlier, Vice President Mike Pence had also visited Panmunjom.

(b) "A busload of journalists, however, went farther than the vice president: We walked into a building designed for diplomatic meetings between North and South * * *

"As we filed into the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission building, our South Korean military minder told us not to gesture at the North Korean soldiers gazing down on us from a building [presumably another building] on the other side of the demarcation line. Meanwhile, two South Korean soldiers stood stiffly on the north end of the room, their arms bent at the elbows and their fists clenched.

"The building's interior looked like a prosaic conference room except for the startlingly bright turquoise walls. Our minder told us to stand in a circle around the room's large table. 'Those of you on that side are in the North,' he said, pointing, well, north. The other half of the circle was still standing in the South.

My comment:
(a) About quotation (b)(2). I can not figure out why the "two South Korean soldiers" stood "on the north end of the room."  This photo is the only thing you need to view in this report, which is worth a million bucks. There is NO need to read the text.
(b) Isn't that North Korean territory?  Anyway, these two are indeed South Korean soldiers -- not North Korean. Stock photos:

United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission Stockfotos. Alamy, undated.
http://de.alamy.com/stock-photo/ ... ice-commission.html


(2) Motoko Rich, 朝鲜半岛剑拔弩张，边境村民务农依旧. 纽约时报中文网, Apr 21, 2017
https://cn.nytimes.com/asia-paci ... rized-zone-goes-on/

, which is translated from

Motoko Rich, . New York Times, Apr 21, 2017 (in page A4).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/ ... d-zone-goes-on.html

Quote:

(a) "The 197 residents of Taesung [village], also known as Freedom Village, have a front-row seat to the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. They are believed [Why is 'believed' used? See the paragraph after next] to be the only civilians living inside the 2 1/2 mile-wide Demilitarized Zone that separates North Korea from South.

"Two years after the 1953 armistice that suspended the Korean War and created the DMZ, both sides agreed to build model villages inside the zone to demonstrate the superior virtues of the two countries. South Korea built Taesung and the North built a hamlet named Kijong just 440 yards away. Only a field separates the two.

"The South Korean military says no one really lives in Kijong [chon 平和村; also known as Kijong ri/dong 平和里/洞), a sprinkling of turquoise buildings with a North Korean flag flying from a 540-foot pole. But North Korean soldiers patrol the village, and propaganda songs blast from its loudspeakers.

"Taesung, though, is a real community, albeit one with strict limits on who can come and go. The residents are mostly farmers from families that have lived here for generations. They cultivate fields inside the Demilitarized Zone, most of them growing rice sold under a special DMZ brand.

"Their plots — about 17 acres per family — generate about $80,000 a year, much higher than the average farming income in South Korea. * * *

"The village is just down the road from the military demarcation line that Vice President Mike Pence visited this week" (Apr 17 in Korea abd Aor 16 in US time] at Panmunjom

(b) "Because Taesung is officially administered by the United Nations Command, its residents do not pay national income taxes and are exempt from South Korea's mandatory military service requirement.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest of the report.
(b) The print version (in English) is the same as the online version in www.nytimes.com (as far as the text is concerned; the online version has many photos that do not appear in print). However, the above mentioned text includes several paragraphs that are missing in the English/Chinese text of the cn.nytimes.com.

(c)
(i) Daeseong-dong  臺城洞
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daeseong-dong
(also called Tae Sung Dong; 12 km (7.5 miles) from the city of Kaesong 開城特級市, North Korea; Panmunjeom 板門店 is 0.6 mi to the northeast; Daeseong-dong is only one mile from Kijong-dong, a village in North Korea's portion of the DMZ)
(A) This Wiki page does not say in which direction os Kijong relative to Taesung, but maps shows the former is to the northeast of the latter; in other words, further (0.4 mile) away from Panmunjeom.
(B) The nytimes.com translates Taesung as 自由村 is patently wrong.
(ii) dong (administrative division)  洞
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dong_(administrative_division)
(d) The www.nytimes.com shows a report about this village on Aug 3, 2004.