"North Korea is dropping white balloons filled with garbage on South Korea."
On the evening of May 29, in Incheon, South Korea, about 70 kilometers from the border between South Korea and North Korea, Lee Ye-eun, a third-year graduate student at Hanyang University, was revising her thesis at home when she suddenly heard the news broadcast on television.
She hurriedly stopped what she was doing and looked up at the sky outside the window to see if there would really be a garbage bomb falling from the sky. As a Korean, this is the first time in her life that she has experienced a "garbage balloon" battle.
At around 11 p.m. that night, Chen Wenjing, a Chinese student, was about to fall asleep when a sharp alarm suddenly sounded on her mobile phone. Chen Wenjing has been attending an educational program somewhere in South Korea for several months.
In the local area, when there is an emergency, the relevant departments of the South Korean government often issue SMS notifications to the public in this form. Chen Wenjing had received text messages about car accidents and people getting lost before, but this time, the situation was a little different.
"At the front of the text message about the 'garbage balloon', it is marked with 'Extreme Emergency Alert'." Chen Wenjing recalled. The text message also said that these balloons will explode at a certain height, and the public should be careful to take precautions.
"A little worried, but more of a joke. The brain circuitry of this is very strange. Chen Wenjing said. The Chinese classmates who were participating in the Korean program with her at the time had fallen asleep and were very angry when they were woken up by a sharp alarm.
Soon, the Chinese project group to which they belong also issued a notice to remind everyone to pay attention to safety.
This "unconventional war" officially started on the evening of May 28. On May 26, North Korea's Vice Defense Minister Kim Gang-il announced the launch of a "garbage war" to distribute waste paper and garbage to South Korea's borders and deep areas, so that South Koreans can experience the difficulty of removing garbage.
On this day, the wind was blowing from north to south. As a result, groups of white balloons with a diameter of 3-4 meters and plastic bags of garbage hanging below them took off from the North Korean border, slowly crossed the "38th parallel" of the border between South Korea and North Korea, and drifted south with the wind. Call them "groups" because some of the garbage is carried by two balloons together.
Judging from the information exposed by the South Korean media, the garbage carried by the balloon includes waste paper, waste batteries, and cigarette butts...... And what they can't stand the most - manure and compost.
The "garbage balloons" were equipped with timers and detonating devices on their ropes, and some of the balloons landed intact on roads, farmlands, and buildings in Gangwon-do, Gyeonggi-do, Gyeongsang-do, Chungcheong-do, and Jeolla-do provinces in South Korea.
In media videos, South Korean personnel are seen in full armor, wearing chemical protective suits and gas masks, testing the composition of the garbage in the balloons.
On May 29 alone, South Korea announced that more than 260 groups of "garbage balloons" had been found across the country.
When dropping the "garbage balloon", the DPRK side made precise use of weather forecasts and geographical advantages. According to the international weather channel The weather.com, in South Korea and North Korea, wind speed has generally been between 2 km/h and 8 km/h, while Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is only 40 kilometers away from the "38th parallel", which means that these "garbage balloons" can reach Seoul and its surroundings in as fast as 5 hours.
Next, the "junk news" about these balloons was widely reported by the South Korean media and even the international media, causing heated discussions among the public. "In those days, a lot of Korean media headlines were about this." Ms. Lee said she had also begun to pay attention to the reports, trying to understand the story behind the "garbage balloon." She also saw Korean netizens asking worriedly, will there be more dangerous items hidden in these "garbage balloons"?
Before everyone could calm down, the second wave of "garbage balloons" came again.
At 8 p.m. on June 1, a new batch of "garbage balloons" crossed the "38th parallel" and spread in a fan shape with the direction of the wind, and then landed in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, Chungcheong-do, Gyeongbuk-do and other places in South Korea, and also landed on the runway of Incheon International Airport, causing flight delays.
This time, however, South Korea has a more thorough warning and response. Yonhap News Agency reported that in fact, on May 31, a relevant person from the South Korean Joint Staff Headquarters said that a north wind would blow on June 1, and North Korea might drop a "garbage balloon" again.
This time, almost all mobile phones in South Korea have received public safety warnings.
Madoka is a Chinese student living in Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, and is currently in her fourth year of graduate school. On the evening of June 1, she received a public safety warning from the South Korean government on her mobile phone about "garbage balloons", in which the public was reminded to "do not approach the "garbage balloons" and call the police immediately.
South Korean media reported that this time, by 1 p.m. on June 2, more than 720 groups of "garbage balloons" had been found in South Korea, more than twice the number of the last time, with a total weight of more than 1.5 tons. That is, one "garbage balloon" carries about 2 kg of garbage.
Some of the garbage also hit the car. Li Yien saw a picture on the Internet, showing a white car, the front windshield was smashed out of a hole by a bag of garbage, and the surrounding glass was cracked in a spider web, "I heard that this is not covered by insurance."
"Fortunately, it's almost the end of the semester, and it's too dangerous for South Korea to stay any longer." In the circle of friends, Madoka saw a Chinese student friend ridiculing like this.
Because of the distance, Chinese netizens have no obvious feelings about this "garbage war". Not long ago, on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese netizen in South Korea who was traveling in Japan posted that the "garbage balloon" had fallen to his school, the Korean University of Foreign Chinese.
She retweeted an image of a bright yellow cordon on the slope next to the entrance steps of one of the university's buildings, littered with confetti, visible yellow-brown solids and stains visible on the ground.
The netizen said that this place is 200 meters away from his home, and he plans to smell the air after he goes back.
"There was a 'garbage balloon' that fell on the roof of our school last weekend, but I didn't go to see it, so I'm not sure what's inside. The classmates around me thought it was funny. A Chinese student studying media at Sungkyunkwan University in Jongno-gu, Seoul, said the balloon was still there on Monday and has now been removed.
"The superlative warfare tends to be done in the most modest way." Some netizens ridiculed.
"It's really." In Madoka's view, this time, North Korea did hit South Korea's sore spot.
"South Korea's garbage sorting is very well done and the environment is clean. To clean up this garbage, especially feces, they will be very devastating. She found that some outdoor activities in South Korea had also been canceled for safety reasons.
In Chen Wenjing's view, experiencing the "garbage balloon" incident is also a rare life experience. The South Korean city she lives in is small and safe, and the people live a quiet and leisurely life. In the months since she arrived, some of her previous stereotypes about South Korea have been shattered.
Previously, on social media, she often saw people saying that South Korea and China were competing for "intangible cultural heritage", and felt that the locals were not friendly to the Chinese — but here, people are friendly to her. When she went to the supermarket to buy groceries, she had to pay for the plastic bags, and when she was found to be a foreigner, the salesperson gave her the bag directly, and praised her cuteness, "After settling the bill, I came back happily."
The Dragon Boat Festival is coming, and the locals will also tell her that the Dragon Boat Festival has a lot of roots with China.
She had previously heard that Korean pork belly was too expensive for people to afford. But when I got here, I found that the locals "have a very high income", and the price of pork belly is not as expensive as imagined, "I can still afford it".
In this city, she did not feel the so-called "volume" of Korean education. The students here are less stressed than in China, high schools start at 8:30 in the morning and end at 4:30 in the afternoon, and although students can voluntarily study on their own, there are not many people in the classroom.
She feels that you can't just label a country, and only by having more contact and understanding can we reduce prejudice and misunderstanding.
But when it comes to the national level, the reality of the game is far more complex than ideal. Since the end of 2018, there has been no dialogue between South Korea and North Korea. Since April 2023, the communication line between the two countries has been interrupted.
After the "garbage balloon" was airborne, South Korea condemned North Korea's move as a clear violation of international law, a serious threat to the security of South Korean people, and a low-level act against humanity.
Soon after, on May 29, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un and vice head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, issued a speech titled "The Republic of Korea is not qualified to criticize the freedom of expression of the people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."
Kim Yo-jong said that the "garbage balloon" was a counter to South Korea's behavior of "sending politically incitement garbage to us." According to the data, South Korean civil society groups have repeatedly dropped leaflets to North Korea through balloons when the wind is blowing from south to north, and a wave was just launched on May 10, including 20 large balloons containing 300,000 leaflets and 2,000 USB flash drives.
"We just tried to do what they used to do, and we don't know why they were arguing like they were in flames." Kim Yo-jong said.
Madoka and Lee Ye-eun are friends, and they discussed the matter on social media. Lee Ye-eun told her that some of her friends were angry about it, while others were indifferent.
Out of curiosity, Madoka browses social forums in South Korea. She found that in the days when the North Korean "garbage balloon" landed in South Korea, the complaints and ridicule on South Korean social forums rose into the air as quickly as balloons.
"Is North Korea promoting a new concept of environmental protection?" A Korean netizen asked.
"North Korea is garbage, South Korea is a leaflet." Another South Korean netizen compared the "war" to a quarrel between two children. He felt that in this smokeless battle, both sides seemed to express their positions in the most unconventional way.
There are also Korean netizens who are more concerned about the impact of this incident on their personal lives: "If you quarrel, you will quarrel, can the South Korean government compensate us for economic losses, especially the cost of vehicle damage and garbage cleaning." ”
On June 3, South Korea's National Security Office announced that the government had decided to suspend the 9/19 military agreement with North Korea until mutual trust was restored.
On the same day, Madoka read a report in the Korean media, and it made a deep impression on her.
According to the report, at the opening ceremony of the library of an elementary school in Bucheon, South Korea, the director asked the children about their understanding of peace, and the children said, "Peace means that everyone gets along with each other." "Peace is not fighting." "Peace is about getting closer to each other."
After listening to this, the curator sighed: "Peace is actually as simple as you say, but it is really incomprehensible that adults are waging war in some corners of the world, such as the Gaza Strip. ”
"We've got fights here, too." Before he could finish speaking, a child suddenly spoke.
After a while, another child asked, "Why did North Korea put those balloons filled with garbage?" "The reporter next to me also heard the question." This question makes me sweat. He wrote.
The curator told reporters that he couldn't bear to tell the children that North Korea released garbage balloons "because we sent leaflets to North Korea."
On June 2, North Korea announced that it would suspend the distribution of "garbage balloons" to South Korea, but if South Korea distributes leaflets again, North Korea will resume distributing "garbage balloons" and increase its efforts. As for the specific strength, North Korean Vice Defense Minister Kim Gang-il said in his speech that 100 times as much waste paper and garbage would be distributed depending on the number and number of leaflets found.
The latest development of this "international performance art" is that in the early morning of June 6, South Korean non-governmental groups once again dropped 10 large balloons into North Korea, containing 200,000 leaflets, 5,000 USB flash drives containing South Korean TV dramas such as "Winter Sonata" and music by Korean stars such as Na Hoon-a, and 2,000 $1 bills. The banner above reads: "To the best of heart and love! ”
At present, the North Korean side has not responded, and whether it will take the next step of "throwing away" is still undecided.