DPRK women attend a cross-border trade fair in Dandong. (Photo/China Daily)
Call it dinner-and-dance diplomacy.
We lunched in a Chinese-run riverside restaurant with panoramas of the DPRK.
Hours before, we hopped aboard a cruise from Hekou that coasts alongside DPRK's banks.
It sets sail from under the Broken Bridge the United States bombed during the war. Mao Zedong's son Mao Anying crossed the passageway to fight. He died in battle.
Today, a DPRK soldier waved from atop the crumpled corridor. Cruise passengers can watch DPRK guards patrol. Farmers seed terraces and tow oxen. Villagers ride bicycles and motorcycles.
Women scrub clothes in the watercourse. Children scamper over stones.
We also saw a hospital, terraced hills, village houses, a prison, a coal mine and a military basketball court.
A tour guide points to what she identifies as the DPRK's second-largest industrial city－a handful of multistory buildings across the Shaping Bridge.
Fish farms line both sides.
People from both countries may swim in the shared river but can't climb the banks.
Waterfowl ignore the rules though.
A Dandong saying goes: "Ducks go to the DPRK to eat fish and return to China to lay eggs."
(Yalu, incidentally, translates as "duck green".)
Visitors to Dandong's riverside markets can buy DPRK items, such as chopsticks, ethnic attire and art.
That morning, we stood meters from the border at the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Great Wall's easternmost terminus, Hushan.
The ancient barricade previously separating ethnic Manchu and Han people is a stone's throw from the modern fence delineating two contemporary countries－and worlds.
Signs warn against crossing the fence, wading and speaking or exchanging items with people across the barrier.
A Chinese guard watched over the open gate of the flimsy fence beneath which bobbed a wooden rowboat.
From the wall, visitors can view the DPRK's 4.7-square-kilometer Fish Wing Island. Its nearly 3,000 villagers plant corn for the military.
Some of the Yalu's islets belong to China. Others are its neighbor's.
