South Korean music festival plays out against discord in reunification hopes

South Korean music festival plays out against discord in reunification hopes In a National Unification Advisory Council survey in May, nearly half of the 1,200 respondents aged 19 to 39 view the North as ‘hostile’. A stone’s throw from the barbed wire and minefields that separate the two Koreas, thousands gathered for a music festival this weekend to sing about peace in a place synonymous with conflict. The DMZ Peace Train Music Festival, named after the demilitarised zone that has separated the neighbours for seven decades, gathered artists and fans from around the world. It was the seventh instalment since the inaugural festival was held in 2018 under the slogan: “Let’s dance for a world without borders!” “It may be difficult to become one country … but I hope we can at least move forward by letting go of that tense atmosphere and building more peaceful exchanges between each other,” said Jo Seong-bin, a 20-year-old student who came to celebrate the end of his midyear exams.