Gyodong Island: Life on the frontline with North Korea

Gyodong Island, South Korea – Soldiers toting assault rifles anticipate residents and guests as they trip via a militia checkpoint to receive onto Gyodong Island.

North Korea is legal about a kilometres away – separated totally by a aloof stretch of water – as they map on a protracted bridge that connects Gyodong to mainland South Korea.

No subject the proximity to the North, and the shut to-constant chatter about the chance of battle on the Korean Peninsula, once on the island guests create no longer safe a neighborhood bracing for battle. As a substitute, longtime residents are busy finding out to address rising numbers of newcomers, whereas looking out out for ways to receive by in what is silent a low-profits, rural build.

South Korean media most regularly check with Gyodong as a « land the build time stopped ». For the rationale that first bridge connecting the island to the mainland become constructed in 2014, tourists had been coming here to see a build that also seems take care of conventional South Korean villages did in the Seventies. Others seek the suggestion of with looking out out for a breather from the tense lifetime of South Korea’s bustling cities.

And at a time of rising snort over the chance of battle with North Korea, folk are moreover coming to Gyodong for an up-shut peer at the communist country legal a stone’s throw away.  

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The market build on South Korea’s Gyodong Island [Steven Borowiec/Al Jazeera]

Lee Younger-jin, Forty eight, moved here seven years ago to safe a job as a schoolteacher. A section-time translator and avid reader, she had longed for a quieter life. In selecting to spin to Gyodong along with her younger son, Lee says she didn’t dismay about the chance of battle with North Korea, at the side of she silent lives without effort.

« Americans on the island assume that if there become battle, North Korea would assault Seoul or some other astronomical build. Gyodong is simply too small to contain any symbolic importance, » she says. « Ironically, take care of being in the peer of the storm, it be truly safer here. »

Just a few elements contain combined to isolate Gyodong. One, it’s positioned a long way off the beaten path, in the northwest corner of South Korea, in an build that has considered quite loads of deadly naval skirmish between the South and North. Furthermore, in the route of the Korean Battle in the early Fifties, properly-organized numbers of North Koreans fled to Gyodong looking out out for safety. Within the stressful put up-battle duration, folk from the North had been suspected of being communists or spies, and heaps South Koreans prevented them.

These North Koreans space up what is silent the island’s predominant industrial build, which is small more than about a decrepit alleyways lined with feeble outlets. Ji Gwang-shik become among them. In 1952 he heard that preventing become nearing his place of origin in North Korea, spurring him to safe the boat throughout to Gyodong – unaware that he would by no map return.

He and others from North Korea in the reduction of down trees to develop small wood huts to stay in and, since they would well now not safe jobs, started to space up their very hold businesses. Ji bought by doing menial projects corresponding to sweeping floor.

« I become hungry. I become willing to attain the rest, » he says.

Ji Gwang-shik [Steven Borowiec/Al Jazeera]

Just a few years after arriving in Gyodong, Ji realized true work in a barber shop, which he at last took ownership of and silent operates. The inner seems largely take care of it did when it opened decades ago, with a decor that capabilities campy floral print wallpaper and beige linoleum floor.

Unbiased no longer too long ago, Ji selected to create one alternate that’s more than legal beautiful: He modified the shop’s clear windows with frosted glass. Ji wanted the translucent windows to forestall tourists from lurking outdoors his shop, gawking at him and his prospects.

Start air of the small industrial build the build Ji’s shop is positioned, Gyodong is a build of unspoiled start build. The island’s physical isolation map that, in incompatibility to most areas in South Korea, there’s virtually no alternate here. The dearth of autos and constant sea traipse imply the air is orderly and unique. Swallows rating at ponds and reservoirs in the route of the island, which has a network of scenic trails for mountain mountaineering and biking.

‘Time to imagine and write’

Lee Ghang, a 54-year-feeble man, moved here from the mainland three years ago, section of a small spin in South Korea of parents leaving behind city life to begin again in the nation-speak. He works as a supervisor of a small Confucian temple, and has change into one thing of a native newbie historian, asserting a blog with photos of Gyodong and essays on the island’s history.

« My dream become to stay in a small home on an island, having time to imagine and write, » Lee said. He would now not develop mighty cash in his recent vocation but says the advantages of life on Gyodong are charge it.

« I could maybe live on off of nothing but this island’s sunshine. »

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Lee Ghang at the temple he manages [Steven Borowiec/Al Jazeera]

Lee Younger-jin has loved her abilities on Gyodong passable to construct down roots. Two years ago she bought land and constructed a cafe and guesthouse, which opened in September.

Silent, Gyodong is take care of other South Korean communities in that training is the element that shapes the trajectory of life. South Korean families usually elevate the build to stay in step with access to quality faculties. Her son, her totally small one, will enter high college in about a years, and she or he would take care of to receive him into a more aggressive college in a astronomical city. In South Korea, an adolescent’s high college can contain an stamp on what university she or he can receive into, which then has a principal close on job prospects.

Employment alternatives are restricted for teenagers residing on Gyodong. The island has a good deal of fertile rice-rising land, but nearly no alternate or any other offer of properly-paying jobs.

Ji says his barbershop industry is doing properly for the time being, that he’s busy passable to use two body of workers. On most days he has so many shoppers that he would now not contain time to safe a lunch crash. Nonetheless he worries once he and his colleagues retire, the shop will shut.

« For the time being youngsters create no longer are seeking to attain this create of work, » he said on a chilly November afternoon, two horny heaters giving his shop an amber air of secrecy.

When asked about the island’s rising connection to the mainland, or the chance of battle with neighbouring North Korea, Ji says he would now not ask any astronomical adjustments one day.

« Here is silent legal a easy island the build folk develop and sell rice, » says Ji.