This 88-Year-Old South Korean Man "Visits" North Korean Hometown for the First Time Since 1947

Born in 1927 in Pyeonganbukdo, North Korea, Kim Gu-Hyeon has no way to visit his hometown again. While he can still recall his riverfront home with the yard full of flowers and the mountain in the distance, as a South Korean citizen, he will never be able to turn his memories into reality.

However, Hyundai’s research teams have provided the next best alternative: Kim was the first person chosen for Hyundai’s “Going Home” project, a virtual-reality service that attempts to recreate the hometowns of individuals who were displaced during the war.

For the project, Kim described his hometown to a team of artists and engineers who did their best to design a 3D version. Despite the lack of outside information available, the team managed to produce a recognizable rendering of his hometown, which they presented to him on a virtual-reality screen set up in a park near the border of North and South Korea.

The result is touching. Watch it below: