Abai Village

There is no ferryman on board: passengers hook iron bars onto a steel cable and pull. About five minutes and some 50 m of water later, you step off in Abai Village. This corner of Cheongho-dong in Sokcho was built on a sandbar by refugees from Hamgyeong Province in what is now North Korea, waiting for a day when they could go home.

History: a temporary shelter becomes home

After war broke out in 1950 and Chinese troops entered it, South Korean and UN forces fell back in what Koreans call the 1·4 Retreat of January 1951, and many people from Hamgyeong fled south with them. Several thousand of them built huts on the sandbar at the mouth of Cheongchoho Lake in Sokcho. High tides turned the ground to mud and soaked their homes, but they expected to return north once the fighting ended. When the armistice line was drawn, they never could.

"Abai" is Hamgyeong dialect for an elderly man, a grandfatherly figure. The name stuck because so many of the refugees were old. Residents made their living from fishing and manual labour. Around 70% of today's population are wartime refugees and their families, most of them the children of the first arrivals.

What to see

• Gaetbae ferry: an unpowered barge pulled along a cable by its passengers. You can also reach the village by bridge now, but the ferry is the classic way in.
• Lanes and murals: a few gateless shacks still stand, and murals along the walls express longing for the lost hometowns.
• Refugee statue: in the middle of the village a statue faces north, a quiet symbol of those who could never return.
• Local food: Abai sundae, pork intestine stuffed with glutinous rice, blood and vegetables; ojingeo sundae, stuffed squid; and Hamheung naengmyeon, cold noodles from the refugees' home region. Restaurants line the lanes.

Good to know

This quiet refugee settlement became famous in 2000 as a filming location for the KBS drama "Autumn in My Heart". The variety show "2 Days & 1 Night" and the drama "Encounter" (2020) were also filmed here. Replicas of the refugees' first houses stand in the refugee culture village at the Sokcho Municipal Museum.

Tripto tips

• Ferry fare and hours: one way KRW 500 for adults, KRW 300 for primary-school children. It runs 05:00–23:00 from May to October and 05:30–22:30 from November to April, weather permitting. Sokcho residents ride free with ID.
• Visiting: the village is always open and free. People live here, so keep your voice down in the lanes.
• Time: 1–2 hours covers the ferry, a stroll and a meal.

Nearby

• Cheongchoho Lake Park: a lakeside park along the lagoon behind Abai Village.
• Yeonggeumjeong and Sokcho Lighthouse Observatory: a seaside pavilion on the rocks and a lighthouse lookout near Dongmyeong Port to the north.
• Sokcho Municipal Museum refugee village: reconstructions of the refugees' first homes.