Shin is building an elaborate three-dimensional city in cyberspace where you can shop, visit an art gallery or a police station, even do the macarena. He suggested adding a permanent memorial to the dead children in his virtual city. An architect at heart, Shin created a spacious hall with slabs of virtual stone to house the memorial. A selection of the children's belongings sits on a shelf below the pictures a red yoyo, robot toys, a purple baseball cap. Visitors can click on icons to see more pictures and video clips of the victims or ponder over messages left by grieving parents.
Parents can even ask to see computer-generated avatars of their children.
One parent took his avatar son for a walk in the garden outside the memorial. Some parents were hesitant about the project, but now most visit the site once a day, sometimes more, says Koh Suk, the head of an association of the children's parents. He lost twin girls in the blaze. When the memorial opened last year, Koh still hadn't accepted that his daughters were dead. Now I believe they are alive and growing in this cyberworld.