By Park Ji-yeon
Editorial Consultant

Two stones with flower drawings stand on Kyodong Elementary School's wall, with the sun setting on the neighborhood.

The 110-year-old school is on Kyodong-do, an island located only two kilometers away from North Korea?'s mainland. This island is known as a place where "Korea's past is captured in the present." As a place restricted to civilians for a long time, most of its streets and villages have stayed the same as they were in the mid-20th century.