Hyun Mi was 13 when he fled Pyongyang with his parents and five brothers to escape fighting on the Korean peninsula. Chinese troops were approaching the North Korean capital and his family planned to hide further south until they passed.
“I thought it would be a week, but that week turned 70,” said Hyun, who is now 83 years old.
But now, for the first time since the family fled, Hyun has been able to visit her kindergarten (or at least a version of it) using virtual reality technology.
In the absence of real-life family reunions, the South Korean government hopes a new virtual reality project will bring some comfort to aging North Korean refugees, who fear time will run out.
Fleeing North Korea
Thousands of people like Hyun fled North Korea during the Korean War of the 1950s, across the border into China and Russia. Many ended up in South Korea.
Image released on December 26, 1950 of Korean civilians escorted by a military police jeep fleeing to South Korea. The photograph was taken during the Korean War between North Korea and South Korea. Credit: AFP / Getty Images
Hyun said many North Korean women were left behind to protect their homes as men and their children fled, fearing they would be killed by Chinese soldiers, who were considered less likely to kill a woman.
Her family left her two younger sisters, ages 6 and 9, in charge of her grandmother.
They planned to return when the fighting relaxed, but after the war ended with an armistice in 1953, North and South Korea erected an almost impenetrable border between the countries, preventing anyone from crossing either side.
Many families like Hyun’s separated from the places they knew and the people they loved.
In the following decades, North Korea has become increasingly isolated from the world, led by a dynasty of dictators who want the reunification of the Koreans, but under their own terms.
The unlocated photograph from January 18, 1951 shows Korean refugees passing frozen rice fields as they fled south. Credit: AFP / Getty Images
Although the two countries have made it possible to reunite select families for brief, emotional reunions, most families who separated during the war have never been able to see their loved ones.
Meetings are held using a lottery system based on age and the strength of family ties. Meetings have been canceled in the past when relations between the two countries have deteriorated. The last meetings took place in 2018, when 89 South Korean families were able to reunite with their North Korean relatives. Many of those who participated were in their 90s.
Reminders of the past
The anguish of separated families caused the South Korean Unification Ministry to ask the country’s Red Cross to create a project to connect them with their hometowns.
The Red Cross worked with Ahn Hyo-jin, the executive director of Seoul-based virtual technology VR company Tekton Space, to create virtual reality experiences for North Korean refugees.
“There are a lot of IDPs in Korea and they all want to visit their hometown, but they can’t because of the circumstances,” Ahn said.
Hyun, a well-known singer in South Korea, among her hits, includes a song from the sixties about the separation of loved ones, was the first North Korean refugee to make a virtual tour of his homeland.
A 3D artist sketch of Pyongyang based on the memories of Hyun Mi. Credit: Courtesy of the Ministry of Unification
Ahn said it was not easy to recreate places in North Korea, exclusive.
His company interviewed Hyun, asking him to remember vivid moments from his childhood. As she spoke, a designer sketched out what she described, periodically checking if the drawing matched her memories. These sketches became 3D designs.
“It was very discouraging when we started,” said 3D designer Moun Jong-sik. “What if what I did doesn’t resemble his memories?”
But when Hyun put on the VR headset in September of this year, he found he couldn’t stop crying.
“I got to North Korea!” Hyun exclaimed.
A virtual reality recreation of the Pyongyang market, North Korea, where Hyun Mi spent his childhood. Credit: Courtesy of the Ministry of Unification
Pyongyang’s recreation wasn’t exactly the same as he remembered, he said, but it was close. When Hyun examined a snow-covered recreation of the house where he grew up, he said he was still thinking about his parents, who are already dead.
“The faces of my mother, father, sisters and brothers shone before me,” he said.
Hyun remembered the handful of people who had the house with eight siblings around the dinner table and sneaked into his father’s store to eat squid without him finding out. He saw a seafood market in Pyongyang, where he used to play rope jumping, and the Taedong River, where he used to swim as a child.
Hyun still lives with the pain of leaving behind two of his sisters. He briefly joined one of them in China 20 years ago, a meeting that made possible an agent with trade relations in North Korea. Their meeting was filmed by a documentary team and later televised. Her sister was only 6 years old when she left and would live a much harder life.
“If I only came with you, I could have been a star singer just like you,” recalled Hyun, who told her sister at the meeting.
A recreation of Hyun Mi’s house in Pyongyang. Credit: Courtesy of the Ministry of Unification
“I was almost 60, but it looked the same. I saw how I also lost all my hair, all my teeth and toenails,” Hyun added.
In the 1990s, around the time Hyun reunited with his sister, North Korea was hit by a famine that caused an estimated 600,000 deaths, although previous estimates put the figure much higher.
“Even today, when I go to a buffet restaurant, I cry because there’s a lot of food,” he said. “I’m really sorry to see any food being thrown away because it makes me think of my northern sisters.”
Future plans for refugees
While there is no official count on the number of North Korean refugees in South Korea, the South Korean Unification Ministry said in its latest statistics released last month that since 1988, s ‘have officially registered 133,000 people to meet their family in the north. But the chances of such reunions diminish as refugees age. In November, 49,700 refugees were registered still lives in South Korea.
Ahn hopes Hyun’s experience is just the beginning.
The country’s unification ministry has shown interest in expanding the project next year to model other regions where refugees have previously lived, Ahn says. A ministry official said he is currently studying a plan, although they do not yet have a timetable. But it will not be possible to create tailor-made projects for all refugees, he added.
Ahn’s company has interviewed several displaced people who, like Hyun, wanted to be able to visit their hometown. They also want to see their family, but virtual reality technology can’t help it: the experience doesn’t include people.
Hyun said while the virtual reality project gave him some comfort, what he really wants is the freedom to see his family members in real life.
“I don’t want much, I don’t even want unification. I’d just appreciate it if we could visit each other,” he said.