By MARTIN FACKLER


TAEKWANG VILLAGE, South Korea - The soldiers stationed at the bunkers and outposts along this stretch of the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas are on alert as they look across at a nuclear-armed North. But on a recent morning, they were visited by 120 civilians, mostly young women, who arrived in bright red and white buses.

As a South Korean private pointed to a North Korean guard tower visible just 3 kilometers away the women giggled at the military precision of his movements. Their first question was whether he was single. But many grew hushed as they began a guided 45-minute hike along the tall barbedwire fences of the world’s most heavily fortified border.

“It is eye-opening,” said Huh Inyoung, 40. “We tend to forget about the DMZ in our daily lives.”

The group was on a so-called discipline tour, a common practice by paternalistic South Korean companies to build employee spirit and unity, usually with mountain hikes or trips to amusement parks. But a week after North Korea conducted its second nuclear test last month, the company - the government-run operator of duty-free shops at Inchon International Airport, near Seoul - opted for something more sobering for its employees, who are more used to thinking about TAG Heuer watches than Taepodong missiles.

“This is about mental discipline, so they can see this and appreciate all we have now in South Korea,” said Kang Joong-seok, an executive director at the operator, the Korea Tourism Organization. “We take our wealth for granted.”

South Korea’s increasingly affluent population seems largely uninterested in the belligerent attitude of its northern neighbor. In South Korea’s traffic-choked, neon-drenched capital, Seoul, life has not stopped since the North’s nuclear test last month.

In the local news media, the North’s nuclear test and the world’s response has often taken second billing to the national mourning and protests following the suicide last month of a former president, Roh Moo-hyun. South Koreans seem to have grown accustomed to the North’s shows of threat.

But near the DMZ, a 240-kilometer ribbon of tank traps and minefields, the tension remains palpable. In the South, a few points have been opened to tourists, including this stretch near Taekwang, a quiet farming village about 70 kilometers north of Seoul - and 160 kilometers southeast of the North’s capital, Pyongyang.

Until recently, the observatory drew about 3,000 visitors a month, soldiers said. But cancellations have risen along with the tensions since the nuclear test.

For some, the tensions were part of the appeal. “The thrill is why I came,” said Chong Ha-kyun, 51, who said he served as a soldier on the DMZ 18 years ago during his compulsory military service.

“Though I have to say, it’s less tense than I remember it.”

“South Korea has changed so much, but the North remains frozen in time,” he said, expressing the widely shared feeling here that South Korea now enjoys a comfortable superiority in wealth and technology, if not nuclear capacity. “I think all families should bring their children here, to see that our current prosperity is protected by a line of barbed wire.”

None of the hikers said they felt hostility toward the North, though they were fed up with the North’s constant threats and its weapons tests.

“I don’t have negative views about them, even if they are provoking us,” said Kim Hyun-jin, 30. “But I admit I’m nervous to come here. I was half hoping the tour might be canceled.”

Participants said they were glad they had come.

“This discipline tour will stick in my memory for a long time,” said Koo Sun-hee, 36. “North Korea is the closest country to us, but it feels like the farthest country.”


To build employee spirit, some South Korean companies are sponsoring trips to the demilitarized zone.