Erika Fatland decided to embark on an eight month journey where she would travel around the border of Russia. In her amazing book, The Border, she describes going through Mongolia, Ukraine, Belarus, Finland and other countries.
Last night I read about her adventure traveling through North Korea, a country that shares a 19 kilometer border with Russia.
In her journey she also visited the 250 kilometer border between North and South Korea and described what is called the demilitarized zone, which is, of course, one of the most militarized places on our planet.
And yet, in that two kilometer buffer between hostile countries, something remarkable has happened. It has become an animal sanctuary.
As Fatland writes, “Several hundred species of birds live there, including the extremely rare Japanese crane. The amur leopard, Asian black bear and the almost extinct Siberian tiger have also taken sanctuary…. Some people say that the Korean tiger, one the rarest tigers on the planet, is to be found there.”
Sometimes in the distance created when we find ourselves in conflict with someone – in our demilitarized zone – good and precious things can overtime appear, like empathy, kindness, understanding, and even a Korean Tiger called… forgiveness.
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On Emotions 