ONE October morning, I stood in the South Korean 'Peace Pavilion' at Panmunjom, overlooking the Line of Demarcation, the white strip that denotes the border between the two Koreas.
The US serviceman showing visitors around pointed to the building on the North Korean side.
'You see that?' he asked. 'It looks like a proper building, but, in fact, it's only a few feet deep. It's not much more than a facade.' I duly wondered at the madness of a hardline communist regime that would go to such lengths to deceive, a country whose 'Cultural Revolution' had continued for more than four decades.
A few weeks later, during a visit to North Korea for the South China Morning Post, I found myself on the other side of the border in Panmunjom, sitting in a reception room in the building that was supposed to have been a facade.
The room was a perfectly reasonable size, and the atmosphere, if anything, was more relaxed than it had been on the South side.
Where the American troops - serving under the auspices of the United Nations - had warned visitors against making gestures that might be construed as offensive, and required people to sign indemnity forms warning of the danger of being killed, senior officials of North Korea's People's Armed Forces merely invited their visitors to take a look around.
