Hyun Mi was 13 years old when she fled with her parents and five siblings from Pyongyang to fight on the Korean Peninsula. Chinese troops approached the North Korean capital and her family planned to hide further south until they passed.
“I thought it would be a week, but the week turned 70,” Hyun, now 83, said.
But now, for the first time since the family fled, Hyun was able to visit her orphanage – or at least a version of it – using virtual reality technology.
In the absence of real family reunifications, the South Korean government hopes that a new virtual reality project will provide some comfort to older North Korean refugees who fear time is running out.
Flight from North Korea
Thousands of people like Hyun fled North Korea during the Korean War in the 1950s, across the border into China and Russia. Many ended up in South Korea.
Photo released on December 26, 1950 of Korean civilians escorted by a military police jeep, fleeing to South Korea. The photo was taken during the Korean War between North and South Korea. Credit: AFP / Getty Images
Hyun said many North Korean women were left behind to guard their homes while men and their children fled, fearing they would be killed by Chinese soldiers, who are considered less likely to kill a woman.
Her family left her two younger sisters aged 6 and 9 in the care of their grandmother.
They intended to return when the fighting eased, but after the war ended in a ceasefire in 1953, North and South Korea established an almost impenetrable border between the two countries, preventing anyone from side could cross.
Many families like Hyun’s separated from the places they knew and the people they loved.
In the decades that followed, North Korea became increasingly isolated from the world, led by a dynasty of dictators who wanted the reunification of Korea, but under its own conditions.
Unlimited photo taken on January 18, 1951 shows Korean refugees passing frozen rice fields as they flee south. Credit: AFP / Getty Images
Although the two countries allowed certain families to reunite for brief and emotional meetings, most families separated during the war could never see their loved ones.
Meetings are held through a lottery system based on age and the strength of family ties. Reunions have been canceled in the past when relations between the two countries deteriorated. The last meetings took place in 2018 when 89 families from South Korea were able to meet their relatives in North Korea. Many who participated were in their 90s.
Memories of the past
The anxiety of divorced families has prompted the Ministry of Association of South Korea 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, CEO of Seoul-based VR company Tekton Space, to create VR experiences for North Korean refugees.
“There are many displaced people in Korea and everyone longs to visit their hometown but cannot because of the circumstances,” Ahn said.
Hyun – a well-known singer in South Korea, whose hits include a 1960s song to be separated from loved ones – was the first North Korean refugee to undertake a virtual tour of her homeland.
A sketch of a 3D artist from Pyongyang based on Hyun Mi’s memories. Credit: Thanks to the Ministry of Unification
It was not easy to recreate places in the withdrawn North Korea, Ahn said.
His company interviewed Hyun and asked her to remember bright moments from her childhood. As she speaks, draw a designer she describes, and regularly check to see if the drawing matches her memories. Those sketches were then converted into 3D designs.
“It was very scary when we started,” said 3D designer Moun Jong-sik. “What if the thing I made did not look like her memories?”
But when Hyun put on the VR headset in September this year, she found that she could not stop crying.
“I came to North Korea!” Hyun exclaimed.
A virtual reality recreation of the market in Pyongyang, North Korea, where Hyun Mi spent her childhood. Credit: Thanks to the Ministry of Unification
Pyongyang’s relaxation was not exactly the same as she remembered, she said, but it was close. When Hyun examined a snow-covered recreation of the house where she grew up, she said she was thinking of her parents, now long dead.
“The faces of my mother, father, sisters and brothers flashed in front of me,” she said.
Hyun remembered how crowded their house with eight siblings was around the dinner table and sneaked into her father’s shop to eat squid without him knowing it. She saw a seafood market in Pyongyang, where she used to play skipping rope, and Taedong River, where she swam as a child.
Hyun is still living with the pain of leaving two of her sisters behind. She briefly reunited with one of them in China 20 years ago, a meeting made possible by a broker with business ties in North Korea. Their meeting was filmed by a documentary crew and later broadcast on television. Her sister was only 6 years old when she left and would lead a much harder life.
“If only I had come with you, I could have been a star singer like you,” Hyun remembered her sister during the reunion.
A relaxation of Hyun Mi’s house in Pyongyang. Credit: Thanks to the Ministry of Unification
“She was almost 60, but she still looked the same. I saw her lose all her hair, all her teeth and toenails,” Hyun added.
In the 1990s – around the time Hyun met her sister – North Korea was hit by a famine that led to 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 is such an abundance of food,” she said. “It hurts me a lot to see food thrown out, because it makes me think of my sisters in the North.”
Future plans for refugees
Although there is no official calculation of the number of North Korean refugees in South Korea, the South Korean Ministry of Unification said in its latest statistics released last month that since 1988, 133,000 people have officially registered for their family in the north. But the chances of these reunions decrease as the refugees get older. As of November, there are 49,700 refugees of those registered still living in South Korea.
Ahn hopes Hyun’s experience is just the beginning.
The country’s unification minister has shown interest in expanding the project next year to other regions where previously refugees lived, Ahn said. A ministry official said he was currently considering a plan, although they have no timeline yet. However, it is not possible to create tailor-made projects for every refugee, he added.
Ahn’s company has interviewed a number of displaced people who, like Hyun, wish they could visit their hometown. They also want to see their family, but VR technology can not help it – the experience does not include people.
Hyun said while the virtual reality project gave her some comfort. What she really wants is the freedom to see her family members in real life.
“I do not want much – I do not even want unification. I would only appreciate it if we could visit each other,” she said.