An Ethnography of the Border City Dandong between China and North Korea: Through the Relations of North Koreans, Overseas Chinese in North Korea, Joseonjok, and South Koreans It is after the 1990s when a living space for four groups, North Koreans, O... An Ethnography of the Border City Dandong between China and North Korea: Through the Relations of North Koreans, Overseas Chinese in North Korea, Joseonjok, and South Koreans It is after the 1990s when a living space for four groups, North Koreans, Overseas Chinese in North Korea, Joseonjok(Korean Chinese), and South Koreans, who ‘read’ the border in various ways through the language of Korean and where diverse understandings and practices of border co-exist began to emerge. While they share the Korean language at this border space, they sometimes perceive each other as different nations and ‘gukmin’. This living space is Dandong, China's biggest border city. It is here where the four groups mentioned above live in the border region. The focus of this study is the relations of these four groups living out their lives in Dandong border city. In the processes of building relations and practicing such relations the border(s) is strengthened and weakened, in turn, influencing the processes. This study is to analyze how these people respond and act out in the processes. What kinds of roles does a border actually play in Dandong? How do people living in Dandong perceive a border and what kind of practices related to a border exist? Are they different by location, meaning, and characteristics with the existing border? How has the particularity of the border between China and North Korea influenced the lives of the four groups? Are the four groups using or taking advantage of not only the border between China and North Korea but also the border between China and South Korea? If so, how? How are the three countries connected and intersected in border trades in Dandong? What kind of terrain of mutual relations between the four groups would form with the border as the medium? These questions are the starting point of this study. According to the state policies of the three countries, phenomena related to the border(s) are strengthened or weakened. These changes, in turn, impact the lives of the four groups. Sometimes, these four groups actively take advantage of the border between China and North Korea in their own ways. For them, a border can be constructed or dismantled. Dandong is a place where people cross a boundary or the border between China and North Korea and communicate and carry out economic activities. At the center of the crossing and culture of the border between China and North Korea, the four groups exist. Whenever the background of how these four groups came together is mentioned, there is always the mention of the word "bukhan(North Korea)" in relation to economic benefits. The desire to form relations with these four groups is the main reason to migrate to Dandong. In Dandong, the four groups cross at least two borders and try hard to not to sever ties with any one side of the borders. For them, it is not the lives in Dandong China itself, but North Korea or South Korea, a state to which they will eventually return in the future that is the basis and reason for living. Whenever Dandong residents talk about Dandong, they always mention the border and their relations with Shinuiju across the border in North Korea. Their modes of living are sometimes influenced by the diplomatic relations between North Korea and China. Sometimes, the modes of living are created in interactions between Dandong and Shinuiju. From the early 1990s, the South Korean government and South Koreans joined in the intercity engagements. However, since the 2000s, South Korean society's preconception of the border between China and North Korea shifted from a boundary of contacts to a boundary of division, and from a role of opening to a role of barrier. News coming out from Dandong itself play a role of border making. Although the current imagination of the border as an economic barrier is not new, Dandong exists in its economic interconnection with Shinuiju. The two slogans "China's biggest border city" and "China's most beautiful border city" both originate from an economic perspective. Interestingly, the former slogan is part of a project of dismantling the border between China and North Korea through a creation of China's biggest economic cooperation zone. On the other hand, the latter is part of a border making project keeping in mind North Korea on the other side of the border. If the dilemma of Dandong development was to discern about the border making and dismantling between Dandong and Shinuiju then the change of economic terrain of Dandong after 2010 is that there are attempts to dismantle the border and to search for a center of Northeast Asian economic cooperation. A statement saying "I have climbed a hill but did not cross the boundary" sums up the behaviors that people of the Amnok River engage in. Their lives are not limited by the border but share what is beyond the border. In addition, they live according to another statement "On the Amnok River, there is no border." What this means is that the Amnok River is a border but it is not a border that hinders exchanges. The Amnok River is more of a path connecting the two countries and a shared zone than a border. Nevertheless, in the 2000s, the Amnok River changed from a shared region to a border that increasingly and more functions as a boundary. Dandong is used as an educational place of patriotism and a place to confirm the expansion of historial border and strengthening of border consciousness fitting for today's China. Not only the barbed wires and the highway along the China side river bank of the Amnok River but also the borderland tourism of the Amnok River itself are used together with the Great Wall to make the past and present Chinese border. One of the characteristics of border trades in Dandong, the cross-section of the trades between China and North Korea and North and South Koreas is the dismantling and making of border. However, with the statistical index of China and North Korea trades alone one cannot read the border dismantling practices carried out through the economic activities of the four groups. Especially, South Koreans' border trades are not visible. The borderland tourism at Dandong takes advantage of its geographical feature of bordering North Korea. Chinese and South Korean tourists come and see the border that separates China and North Korea without any economic exchanges. As a result, the experience of borderland tourism is to compare North Korea which is perceived as a poor country with their own and, in the process, strengthens the national(Chinese and South Korean) identities. As the Korean language plays a role of medium in economic exchanges, it is Korean, not Chinese, with which the four groups communicate in economic activities. For them, Korean is not only a tool of life but also a basis of life, in other words, the foundation of economic and social capital. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to consider them in terms of having a single and fixed cultural identity based on a nation and state. At some points in time, their boundaries provided by a state and a border become meaningless while in other times, the boundaries of ‘gukmin’ and nation between them are clearly demarcated. It is the ways in which they engage in economic activities and encounter each other that create a perception that there is no connection between them. However, without considering all four groups, the total picture of the border trades in this region will not be fully grasped. In their relations with each other, ‘gukmin’ or nations connect, crisscross, and become ambiguous. At the border between China and North Korea, crossings are allowed or restrained according to a gukim or nation, thus, providing opportunities to affirm and rearrange ‘gukmin’ or national identities. The strategy and means of living that utilize a border teaches them to take advantages of a ‘gukmin’ or national identity. The four groups sometimes root themselves in a ‘gukmin’ or nation and sometimes do not depend on either identities. In the processes, ‘gukmin’ and national identities are revealed, concealed, crisscrossed, and reaffirmed. As such, the border between China and North Korea at Dandong cannot be drawn with a simple line. It is a border that shares the Amnok River, but, sometimes, it is where borders are created and, sometimes, dismantled. The lives of the four groups in connection with the border show similar patterns. They adopt a strategy of constructing and dismantling borders through the relations of the four groups. In addition, the Dandong border region is a host to abundant materials for deeper studies of the change of the dynamics in Northeast Asia(China, North Korea, and South Korea), political and economical relations between China and North Korea and between North and South Koreas, historical debates between China and South Korea(Border and ‘Dongbukgongjeong’), North Korea(North Korea policy of South Korea) and the reunification of Korea, and gukim and national identity. For this, it is necessary for Dandong studies to reconceptualize the border from a 'research site' to a 'research object.' The case of Dandong suggests that the existing concept of border with a dichotomy of border strengthening and weakening will no longer suffice in any border studies today. In addition, border researchers need to give attentions to who is doing border crossing. In Dandong, the four groups not only build relations and move across the boundaries of their identities in their lives but also cross the border itself. As a result, various cultural elements related to border making are mobilized in Dandong. This is not something that happened a long time ago or will happen in a long future, but is happening right now. Especially, the border between China and North Korea in Dandong does not function only as the border between China and North Korea. There is also a juxtaposition of different images and roles of border that exist between North and South Koreas. The China-North Korea border trades cannot be analyzed only as bilateral trades between China and North Korea. There are also economic activities for profit making at the individual level. North Koreans are not an exception here. In addition, the statistical index of the China-North Korea border trades must consider the fact that South Koreans are also involved in the trades. Dandong is the center of the North and South Korea economic exchanges. Furthermore, the changes of economic terrain and concretization of development discourse on Dandong and Shinuiju suggest that the two border cities are heading toward not only functioning as a distribution center of the China-North Korea trades but also playing a role of a production base through industrial cooperations and international cooperation and development. Aside from the border making of North and South Koreas and the politics and diplomatic relations of North Korea and China, the border dismantling of the individuals of the four groups in Dandong, in other words, the personal and material exchanges have been going on for the last twenty years on the Friendship Bridge between China and North Korea, the so called Joseon Street, and the boats on the Amnok River. Such an analysis not only illuminates the history and current situation of the North-South economic cooperation but also suggests what must be considered in order to overcome the division of the Korean peninsula and achieve the reunification.
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