Since 1953, the 250-kilometer-long artificial boundary of the DMZ has cut through the middle of the Korean peninsula. The demilitarized buffer zone created more than seven decades ago between the two warring states often feels impenetrable and permanent. However, the DMZ is livelier and more fluid than it seems. In fact, much of the DMZ crosses water—oceans, estuaries, and rivers. A quarter of this boundary falls upon the Han River estuary (한강하구), a “neutral” zone according to the Korean Armistice Agreement that established the DMZ. This status legally allows civilians to conduct life as they did before the war. Yet the military guard posts, pointed artillery, and surveilling soldiers that outline the estuary indicate a reality that is far from neutral. In the midsummer heat, the receded waters of the estuary revealed a shallow depth. The person sitting next to me on the bus explained that in the past, before the division, when the waters ebbed, people would leave their boats behind and walk across the estuary to meet their family, business partners, and lovers. For centuries, the estuary was the source of life for the peninsula. The mineral richness in the estuarial mixing of fresh and salt water allowed the surrounding agriculture and wildlife to flourish. Today death awaits within its wiry edges, and only the birds are seen flying beyond the barbed wire. ✽ LIKE THE JEBI, I, too, have spent most of my life unrooted on the warmer edges of the Pacific—in California. And I have come, again and again, to this estuary, only to find my relations here were as rooted as they were erratic. The first time I saw the estuary was by accident during a family road trip from Seoul a year before the 70th anniversary of the armistice. Until then, I had little familiarity with the provinces of the north. I had come with my uncle, who had an intimate, lived grasp of this place. As I drove, he looked at me with a stunned, tearful face, requesting I pull to the side of the road. “Why did you bring me to this place?” he asked. “What do you mean? Does this place mean something to you?” I replied, confused.