Open Borders

I had a strange conversation with some of my students today. We were talking about how Mexico and the US are neighbors, and how the US and Canada are neighbors and that all three countries are on relatively friendly terms. The discussion was normal enough, but then one student asked if people were allowed to drive between the US and Canada. I informed them that people were, in fact, allowed to cross the border and that I had crossed over myself to vacation. All the students seemed really shocked and surprised by this and then they asked if people were allowed to drive between Mexico and the US. I again told them that people were, for the most part, allowed to make that drive (avoiding the issues of immigration and porous borders since these are 9-year-olds) and they looked even more shocked. Imagine their dismay when I told them that mail travels freely among the three countries. At first I had trouble understanding why this would seem like such a foreign concept to these kids, but when I thought about Korea’s neighbors it started to make a lot of sense.

If you look at the geography of Korea, it’s a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides. South Korea’s only land border is the DMZ, the most heavily guarded border in the world that separates North from South. It’s extremely rare that officials from either country cross this border, and almost impossible that a civilian would ever be allowed to cross. That rules out being able to drive to another country.

But the isolationism goes a bit deeper, I think. As much as is possible I want to avoid getting too deep into the inter-cultural relationships of Asians since 1) I’m not Asian and my outsider’s perspective can’t do these relationships justice, and 2) my history of the region is fuzzy at best and I’m sure I’d drop a lot of misinformation. I do, however, want to talk a little about the isolationism so I apologize for treating this too simply or for missing the point completely. This is just my outsider’s opinion. For a part of the world with so much history and so many ethnicities living in such close proximity, all parties are bound to have some historical event about which to hold a grudge. So South Korea’s neighbors are North Korea (‘nuff said), Japan, and China. Between Japan, China, and Korea are thousands of years of disputed territories, invasions and occupations, abductions, and full-blown war. Everyone seems to be playing nicely with each other now, save a few really touchy subjects, but the friendliness seems tenuous at best. With so much distrust under the surface I can understand any feelings of isolation, but I can’t imagine what this is like for the children, who know little or nothing of the history and can only base their opinions on impressions they get from older generations.

I can imagine that if North America had thousands of years of violent history (instead of just hundreds) and more pure blood lines our borders might not be as open and we might look at other cultures disapprovingly or warily, but I think we’ve got a good thing going with our neighbors to the north and south.