The train from Shenyang to Dandong, on the border, takes three and a half hours, so no beds. I was seated across from a retired couple (visiting Dandong, as tourists, for the second time this month) and a Japanese couple. The train was full, and no Chinese people seem to have any misgivings about going to the border. So, I wasn't too concerned about safety. They would probably be aiming at the Japanese anyway.
On arriving at the Dandong international train station, I immediately went to buy my return ticket to Beijing, and was lucky enough to get a sleeper. I had a look at the Mao statue greeting visitors in the station courtyard, then went straight towards the Yalu river, which defines the border. Dandong is quite small, so it didn't take long to walk there.
One of many sculptures on the Yalu riverside.
The weather was somehow fitting - foggy and surprisingly cold, even near noon. The visibility was poor enough that I couldn't see across the river to the North Korean side, but that made the bridge across look all the more eerie.
Dandong's riverfront is quite well-developed, a bit like Wuhan's or even Dalian's coast, so if not for the signs, you wouldn't know there was an evil dictatorship on the other side. It seems to be a popular place for a walk, even for the locals, even in the rain.
I found a Korean seafood restaurant for lunch. Not actually North Korean, the staff were Chinese, but the food was described as "chaoxian". Chaoxian means Korea, but while in the west, that defaults to South Korea, in China it defaults to the North. You can say north chaoxian or south chaoxian to be specific, but the South has its own, entirely distinct name in Chinese (hanguo). Anyway, I had my soup, which was mostly mushroom, with a Yalu River beer, which was mostly water.
I made my way back along the river to the bridges. There are two bridges over the Yalu, one connects China and Korea by rail and probably road (I saw nothing on it all day), and the other stops in the middle. This second bridge, the broken bridge, from what I can gather, was attacked by the US during the Korean war. The Koreans took down their half, but the Chinese didn't bother, leaving a bridge extending from the Chinese side, abruptly stopping halfway towards Korea. It is now a major tourist attraction.
To get on the bridge, you have to climb a stone structure, which is topped with a sculpture of Chinese soldiers marching forward, towards Korea, presumably to aid them in fighting off US aggression. The bridge itself runs close to and parallel with the larger, complete bridge. The fog was such that I couldn't see the end of either bridge from the coast.
They won't get far. The writing below the commander reads "For Peace".
Walking to the end of the bridge, the fog still obscured my view of the DPRK. All I could see were support columns left behind by the Koreans fading into the distance. The bridge at this end is bent and twisted, from either American bombs or Korean demolition equipment. I couldn't see China from here either, because of the fog, so it was a bit strange.
The bridge has signs explaining the history of the bridge, almost all in Chinese. One technically interesting aspect of the bridge, according to the signs at least, is that the bridge had a revolving span to let ships through. The mechanism for this is still part of the bridge and on display.
After the bridge, I kept walking along the riverfront. I wasn't game to go on a boat ride, which apparently would take you up a branch of the river into North Korea, and give you a close enough look at the border guards to chat with them. I could hear a loud banging sound from the other side of the river, and at one point saw a boat which may have been North Korean. One wonders what the North Koreans at the border think, when the weather is clear, looking at the riverfront apartments on the Chinese side, lit up at night.
The riverfront seemed endless and there was nothing left to do on it, so I went to the Museum to Commemmorate US Aggression. The Chinese view of the Korean War is, unsurprisingly, very different from that in the west. It is known by the unwieldy name of the "War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea", which pretty well sums up their side of the story. The museum itself is at the top of a hill, with a huge obelisk, 53m tall to commemmorate the year of the armistice.
Inside the museum are the sort of Korean War relics rarely seen in the west. North Korean medals and awards to Chinese soldiers, letters from Kim Il-Sung to Mao Zedong, equipment used by the Chinese in the conflict, and banners and propaganda from the Communist side. Very interesting to see this sort of thing from the other side. The descriptions, in Chinese and English, made plenty of criticism about the US-led "United Nations Forces" (always in quotes), America's "imperialist running dogs". No mention was made of Australia or New Zealand, even indirectly (we weren't even included in a display of the roundels of air forces participating in the conflict). The enemy wasn't really the focus of the museum though (apart from a few displays of captured equipment), most of it was about the Chinese assisting Korea with their struggle for peace. Dioramas throughout depicted Chinese and Korean soldiers breaking into enemy command posts, chasing American soldiers, and carrying supplies to the front with big smiles.
Letters from Kim Il-Sung to Mao Zedong, in Chinese.
This is the sort of thing the Chinese make really good museums for, and the final display was an impressive panoramic diorama of battle scenes. Of course, Americans were the only enemy depicted here.
Down the hill a bit from the museum is a "National Defence Education Park", which I imagine is a place where students are taken to learn about military history as part of their compulsory military training. This was open and free for anyone to go in, and had an area full of larger relics from the war, which presumably wouldn't fit in the museum. Dozens of anti-aircraft guns and a big radar dish were at one end, and at the other, aircraft dating from the war (presumably, used in it). Nothing I hadn't seen already, except for one decaying MiG-15 with North Korean markings.
There didn't seem to be anything left in Dandong that was still open and worth seeing. The weather hadn't cleared at all, so no point going back to the river. I went back to the train station with an hour and a half to kill, walked around for a bit (lots of Korean supermarkets selling South Korean goods), had some dinner, and talked with the people selling food outside the train station. I also got rid of the rest of my small change buying North Korean souvenirs.
The K28 train from Dandong to Beijing starts in Pyongyang, so while most passengers were Chinese, there were a few North Koreans on the train too, wearing their Kim Jong-Il badges. They didn't bother me, and I didn't bother them. I settled in for the night, and got back to Beijing in time for my second class of the morning. I showed my classmates my own Kim Jong-Il badge. One South Korean was not amused.
No comments:
Post a Comment