Word: 38th
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...visitor to Pyongyang soon grows accustomed to seeing the world in a different light, as if gazing through the wrong end of a telescope. On North Korean maps, there is no Demilitarized Zone at the 38th parallel, no boundary between South and North; guidebooks, in quoting figures for the country, often cite the numbers for the two parts of Korea combined. In the 1,100-seat auditorium of the Children's Palace, a 500-room extravaganza rich with 2 1/2- ton chandeliers and 50,000 tons of marble, groups of tiny revolutionaries put on a slick hour-long variety show...
...what was accomplished? The end of World War II sundered the Korean peninsula, leaving half allied with the Soviet Union, half with the U.S. Ready to reunify the country by force -- and, with help from Moscow, strong enough to dare it -- North Korea sent its tanks south across the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950. Communist leader Kim Il Sung hoped to destroy the U.S.-backed regime of South Korean President Syngman Rhee in a bold blitzkrieg. Kim nearly succeeded before U.S. troops and a hastily assembled United Nations force pushed the North Koreans back to the Yalu River...
Today the peninsula is still divided near the 38th parallel -- half communist, half capitalist; half dependent on Soviet military and economic support, half still reliant on the presence of 43,000 U.S. troops. But the old reasons for these alliances are fading. The Soviet Union is no longer eager -- or able -- to finance the aggressive extension of communism by its satellites, and communism itself is a dying ideology. South Korea has risen from the ashes to become an economic powerhouse capable of assuming most of its own defense against a diminished threat from the North. Yet the U.S. is still...
Other vengeful visions proved illusory. When units of the 38th Army, a contingent normally based in Baoding, rolled into the city three days after the Tiananmen bloodletting, residents cheered them on, hoping they would drive out the hated 27th. "Let it be blood for blood!" shouted bystanders. But the 38th Army supported the 27th and martial rule...
...east, away from Tiananmen, only to return a few hours later. Armored vehicles were deployed at a strategic cloverleaf east of the square, as if awaiting attack by another military force. Rumors of skirmishes, even artillery duels between the "bad" 27th Army and the "good soldiers" of the 38th Army, fluttered through the capital. With fear of an armed confrontation rampant, foreign governments ordered the evacuation of their nationals. Beijing airport was packed with diplomats, tourists and businessmen waiting for tickets and specially chartered planes to leave a capital seemingly under siege...