Virtual reality helps South Korean woman return to North Korean home

Hyun Mi was 13 years old when she fled Pyongyang with her parents and five siblings to escape the fighting in the Korean peninsula. Chinese forces approached the North Korean capital, and her family planned to hide further south until they passed.

“I thought it was going to be a week, but that week turned 70,” said Hyun, now 83.

But now, for the first time since the family fled, Hyun has been able to visit her childhood home – or at least a version of it – using virtual reality technology.

In the absence of real family gatherings, the South Korean government is hoping that a new virtual reality project will provide some comfort to older North Korean refugees who fear time is running out.

Fleeing North Korea

Thousands of people like Hyun fled North Korea across the border into China and Russia during the Korean War in the 1950s. Many ended up in South Korea.

Hyun said many North Korean women stayed behind to guard their homes while men and their children fled, fearing they would be killed by Chinese soldiers, who were believed to be less likely to kill a woman.

Her family left her two younger sisters, 6 and 9 years old, with their grandmother.

They intended to come back when the fighting subsided, but after the war ended with a truce in 1953, North and South Korea created an almost impenetrable border between the countries, preventing anyone from crossing either side.

Many families like Hyun’s became separated from the places they knew and the people they loved.

In the decades since, North Korea has become increasingly isolated from the world, led by a dynasty of dictators who want the reunification of Korea, but on its own terms.

While the two countries have allowed selected families to reunite for brief and emotional encounters, most families separated during the war have never been able to see their loved ones.

Meetings are led by 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 had deteriorated. The last meetings took place in 2018, when 89 families from South Korea were able to meet their North Korean relatives. Many who entered were in their nineties.

Memories of the past

The fear of separated families prompted the South Korean Ministry of Unification to ask the country’s Red Cross to set up a project to bring them in touch with their hometown.

The Red Cross teamed up with Ahn Hyo-jin, the CEO of Seoul-based VR company Tekton Space, to create VR experiences for North Korean refugees.

“There are many displaced people in Korea and they are all eager to visit their hometown, but the circumstances cannot,” Ahn said.

Hyun – a well-known singer in South Korea whose hits include a 60s song about being separated from loved ones – was the first North Korean refugee to take a virtual tour of her homeland.

It has not been easy to recreate places in reclusive North Korea, Ahn said.

His company interviewed Hyun and asked her to recall vivid moments from her childhood. As she spoke, a designer sketched what she described, checking regularly to see if the drawing matched her memories. Those sketches were then converted into 3D designs.

“It was very discouraging when we started,” said 3D designer Moun Jong-sik. “What if the thing I made doesn’t look like her memories?”

But when Hyun put on the VR headset in September of this year, she found herself unable to stop crying.

“I’ve reached North Korea!” Hyun exclaimed.

Pyongyang’s recreation wasn’t exactly what she remembered, she said, but it was close. While looking at a snow-covered recreation area of ​​the house where she grew up, Hyun said she kept thinking about her parents, who were now dead.

“My mom, dad, sisters, and brothers’ faces flashed in front of me,” she said.

Hyun remembered how busy their house was with eight siblings around the dining room table and they sneak into her father’s shop to eat squid without him knowing. She saw a fish market in Pyongyang where she played skipping rope and Taedong River, where she swam as a child.

Hyun still lives with the pain of leaving two of her sisters behind. She recently 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 televised. Her sister was only 6 years old when she left, and would live a much tougher life.

“If only I went with you, I could have been a star singer just like you,” Hyun recalls her sister saying at the reunion.

“She was almost 60, but she still looked the same. I saw her losing all of her hair, including 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 had put the number much higher.

“Even today when I go to a buffet restaurant I cry because there is so much food,” she said. “It pains me a lot to see food thrown away, because it reminds me of my sisters up north.”

Future plans for refugees

While there is no official count of the number of North Korean refugees in South Korea, the South Korean Ministry of Unification said in its latest statistics published last month that since 1988, 133,000 people have officially registered to their family in the north to meet. But the chance of these meetings decreases as the refugees grow old. In November there were 49,700 registered refugees still alive in South Korea.

Ahn hopes Hyun’s experience is just the beginning.

The country’s unification ministry has expressed interest in expanding the project next year to model other regions where refugees previously lived, Ahn said. A ministry official said it is currently considering a plan, although they don’t have a timeline yet. But creating tailor-made projects for every refugee won’t be possible, he added.

Ahn’s company has interviewed a number of displaced persons who, like Hyun, wish they could visit their hometown. They want to see their family too, but the VR technology can’t help that – the experience doesn’t include people.

Hyun said the virtual reality project gave her some comfort, what she really wants is the freedom to see her family members in person.

“I don’t want much – I don’t even want unification. I’d just appreciate it if we can visit each other,” she said.