THE KOREAN DEMILITARIZED ZONE — The "Do Not Cross" line here between North and South Korea has a prosaic feel to it: a concrete speed bump.
The almost imperceptible hump, sitting between two blue buildings that straddle the 38th parallel, would look at home on a suburban street. Likewise, the swath of grass and concrete of the Joint Security Area resembles a college campus -- uncommonly quiet and devoid of students -- more than a hyper-guarded demilitarized zone.
But hyper-guarded it is. On the North Korean side, flanked by two armed soldiers, a repairman changes a lightbulb on an outdoor lamppost as scores of men on both sides monitor his progress in silence.
As I take a few steps toward Pyongyang, gingerly, a South Korean soldier dressed in a military police uniform stands nearby, his posture designed to intimidate nearby North Korean soldiers: fists clenched, dark sunglasses covering his eyes, even indoors. He reminds me of the CHP officers I've encountered while getting speeding tickets on L.A. freeways.
In recent weeks, the soldiers guarding the world's most heavily defended border have had reason to frown. In late May, North Korea conducted an underground test of a nuclear device, a few days before threatening the South with a possible military attack.
The provocations have given the normally tense, several-mile-wide DMZ a heart-pounding edge. And nerves are especially jangling here, in the Joint Security Area, where soldiers from both sides sometimes come close enough to touch one another.
"The tension here is higher than ever," South Korean Cpl. Yoo Hyun-woo says. "You'll be able to feel it. So, please, do not point or gesture or try to communicate with the North Korean soldiers. Keep your voices low. Don't do anything that might provoke them."
Yoo -- my first-ever tour guide wearing a holstered handgun -- is shepherding a gaggle of journalists to the Joint Security Area so we can describe just how much the stakes have risen here.
But we have to do our jobs without talking to soldiers: Everyone in a uniform is off-limits for interviews. And the brass means business. When one happy-go-lucky radio reporter asks Yoo to repeat an earlier bit in front of her microphone, a steely-eyed commander pounces.
He points a finger in her face. "You've got a penalty," he says, giving her a seething drill sergeant's once-over. "I remember you."
