"For me, man-made borders are something that become more absurd the longer you stare at them," photographer Elijah Hurwitz says of his work documenting life near border regions. 

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Hurwitz has photographed both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border, and recently traveled to China's border with North Korea in Dandong. While he said locals were fairly suspicious of an outsider photographer, one of his biggest takeaways was how life along the 491 mile Yalu River, the natural border between the two countries, is in many ways ordinary.

"The strangest thing I witnessed, and paradoxically also one of the least strange, was a community of swimmers who make their laps in the icy cold Yalu River between China and North Korea despite the security presence on both sides," Hurwitz told weather.com. "Some of the stronger swimmers even swim all the way across to the shore on the North Korean side, where they take a brief rest before swimming back to China. They are passionate about swimming, and refuse to let a politically tense climate (or freezing temperatures) interfere with their favorite form of exercise."

The strangeness of being so close to the famously isolated nation wore off for the photographer after a while as well.

"I remember getting a jolt of excitement when I first arrived to Dandong... and looked out my hotel window at the Friendship Bridge to Sinuiju, North Korea, but after a few weeks it became a typical feature of the landscape," he said. 

(MORE: The World's Weirdest Bridges)

China, Pyongyang's biggest trading partner, uses Friendship Bridge to transport supplies into North Korea. Such supplies include food, liquified gas and jet kerosene, Bloomberg reported. Until last year, China continued to purchase and import coal, iron, aluminum, zinc, copper and lead from North Korea, but U.N. sanctions tightened as North Korea’s nuclear ambitions continued.

The U.S. banned Americans from traveling to North Korea in September 2017, so Hurwitz chose to stay in Dandong as it offers views of the border. From across the Yalu, Hurwitz captured photos of North Korean residents gathering water from the river for their homes, riding bicycles and sledding on makeshift sleds. Steam rises from homes in snowy Hyesan, North Korea, and security cameras light up the border at night. 

Hurwitz wasn’t the only person seeking a glance at the heavily monitored North Korean border. Chinese and South Korean tourists pose for selfies near Friendship Bridge and watch as the people on the other side of the river go about their days. 

Even with stricter sanctions, Hurwitz says that there is a heavy Korean cultural influence along the border. Korean barbeque is easy to find, and Korean music plays at karaoke bars. Vendors sell North Korean-style dresses on racks along the road. The photographer told weather.com  that during less tense times, some higher class North Korean families are allowed to send adult children to work abroad in China as hostesses or singers at restaurants.

During his trip, Hurwitz said that the weather was “bone-chillingly cold.” Some days ranged between three and 15 degrees Fahrenheit before wind-chill, killing his camera batteries quickly. Still, the swim club swims their laps in the Yalu, and an elderly woman practices tai chi in the park. Shoppers shop and trucks drive their supplies across Friendship Bridge. 

“People who live here obviously can’t walk around worrying all day,” Hurwitz told Wired. “But at the same time, someone told me how scary it was last year when their building shook from an earthquake allegedly triggered by underground nuclear testing a couple hundred miles away in a North Korean mountain range.”

For more of Hurwitz work, check out his website.