I had been meaning to get my hands on some water from the De-Militarized Zone for awhile. I figured I’ve never really quenched my thirst yet in this life if I haven’t had the purist water only a heavily fortified, landmine-riddled strip of land separating two nations still at war can provide.

Don’t fear for me — I don’t have to violate an international treaty to get the stuff. It’s bottled and on the market right here in Korea! It’s called DMZ 2km, and it’s finally available in my ‘hood.

Imagine my dissappointment after downing a bottle of DMZ and finding out it tastes exactly the same as every other water.

This may (should) seem incredibly bizarre to you. But it, actually (kind of) makes sense. You see, because the De-Militarized Zone between North and South Korea is strictly a no-go zone, it has actually become a rich habitat for wildlife that can’t be found anywhere else on the peninsula (ironically, it took an ongoing technical state of war to provide for creatures that would have otherwise been rendered extinct by humankind’s less obviously destructive drives).

For their part, the marketers of DMZ 2km admitted to being a little bit concerned people in Korea might not take to it, worrying they might have invoked the negative aspects of the DMZ — such as the aforementioned division of a nation, landmines, war and such.

But, “[spokesperson Chun Woo-chul] said surveys indicated most people believe the DMZ’s ‘ecosystem is the best in the world, [and] has been left untouched by humans for the past 50 years.’” (From UPI)

Lee Sang-hyo, another representative of Lotte (the provider of this great gift), told BBC, “We decided on water from the DMZ because it’s different, and the environment there is untouched, so many people think it’s clean.”

According to BBC, the bottler siphons the water from a spring under a water plant near the South Korean side of the DMZ. They work with the South Korean military to collect the water safely.

Regardless of the purity (bullshit) and the taste of water collected from land not touched by humans for fifty years (also bullshit — it tastes exactly the same as any other kind), the fact that DMZ has been deemed an acceptable marketing brand in Korea is one of the countless examples of how distant the North and South have become in the last 60 years. In South Korea, commercialism reigns supreme. In North Korea, people are eating rats to live.

Yes, this falls into the category of “only in Korea”. As in, “only in Korea” would you take commercial advantage of an international conflict dividing a nation and separating family members to this day. “Only in Korea” could you spin a national ongoing tragedy into one of the very irresponsible aspects of first world lifestyle  — bottled and commercialized water.

The onus is now on the Japanese to make Hiroshima marketable.