The Glenn Beck Program - July 24, 2021


Ep 111 ｜ Refugee： 'American Wokeism Worse Than North Korea' ｜ Yeonmi Park ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 14 minutes

Words per minute

150.6968

Word count

11,257

Sentence count

925

Harmful content

Misogyny

11

sentences flagged

Hate speech

40

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Yonmi Park was born in North Korea in the late 1980s. She grew up in a communist country where she was brainwashed into believing she was destined to become a communist spy. She was so indoctrinated in the ways of the regime that she didn t even realize she was a free thinker until she went to college and learned to speak her mind. After graduating from high school, she became a spy for the North Korean regime and smuggled Western culture into the country.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 There is a place called Peace Village. It's a cardboard city on the North Korean side 1.00
00:00:06.540 of the demilitarized zone. It's a facade. It's a lie. Propaganda meant to convince the world that
00:00:13.920 North Korea is a legitimate force to be reckoned with and not some fledgling dictatorship that is
00:00:20.440 slowly starving its own people to death because the actual state never stood a chance to begin
00:00:27.180 with. Today's guest on our podcast knows all about the sophistication and brutality that goes
00:00:34.060 into maintaining this illusion. You are about to hear an incredible story. It is the story of
00:00:40.880 true freedom. It's right there in the midst of the title of her memoir, In Order to Live
00:00:47.540 a North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom. North Korean state media has referred to her as a
00:00:55.360 poisonous mushroom and a human rights propaganda puppet. She has since become part of what she 0.82
00:01:03.820 calls the black market generation, young North Koreans that risk their lives to smuggle Western 1.00
00:01:09.180 culture into the oppressive regime. It is something that unfortunately not enough Americans know about.
00:01:18.780 The North Korean desire for freedom, anything, any desire is banned. Things like freedom of speech,
00:01:27.240 freedom of religion, even freedom of movement are pipe dreams. They're delusions. And when you are
00:01:33.660 confined to absolute oppression, actual oppression, basic humanity seems like an unattainable dream.
00:01:42.880 For North Koreans, the freedom or the ability to even watch a movie made in the West is unthinkable. The stakes are so high. If North Koreans are caught with media or unregistered devices from South Korea, you can go to 15 years hard labor in a prison camp for that. If the media is from America or Japan, the punishment can be death.
00:02:11.600 Let me say that another way. North Koreans can and have been executed for watching American Idol. It's not an exaggeration. Today's guest had a friend of the family killed for the crime of watching a movie from Hollywood.
00:02:27.960 I don't care how much you might like Titanic, but your enthusiasm pales in comparison to the liberating enthusiasm of today's guest experienced when she watched a DVD of Titanic that was smuggled into North Korea at the risk of death.
00:02:49.060 Titanic changed her life. It took her years to escape from freedom. And now she lives in America, 27 years old, but she is starting to have nightmares by the familiar authoritarianism that is now no longer even creeping.
00:03:05.880 It is marching in the streets in our country. Today, I want you to welcome Yanmi Park.
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00:04:37.480 Yonmi, what a privilege and honor to talk to you. Welcome.
00:04:56.180 Thank you so much for having me. I cannot believe I'm actually talking to you right now.
00:05:01.320 Thank you. So, Yonmi, for people who haven't heard your story yet, can we start at the beginning? Because we must seem so grotesque to you as a society, the way we look at freedom so casually. Tell me what life was like in North Korea growing up.
00:05:31.320 Yeah, I think. So, I was born in North Korea at the end of 1993. That was right after, years after the Soviet Union collapsed.
00:05:43.460 And North Korea is a central government economy. So, it's a socialist. There's no private property.
00:05:50.080 And, of course, you know, the regime tells you what to do, what to see, you know. Literally, they decide how much individuals should be fed based on your seongbun, which is a birth class. 0.71
00:06:03.660 So, even though North Korea began as a communist country, the interesting thing is that they made a country into the most unequal society by dividing classes. 0.82
00:06:15.800 So, based on what your great-grandfather did during the Revolution or during the Korean War, that your birth status determined.
00:06:24.100 So, there's a big three categories of classes, and within three categories, they divided into 50 different classes in socialist North Korea.
00:06:36.200 So, before I was born...
00:06:37.220 Is there any way to break out of those classes? I mean, can you advance at all, ever, as a family?
00:06:44.700 No. Because when your great-great-grandfather does something, which means your blood is tainted.
00:06:54.580 So, therefore, in North Korea, this thing called guilt by association.
00:06:58.720 So, you, by being associated to that person, you are just guilty.
00:07:03.240 And that's how they prevent people to rise up.
00:07:06.780 And also, I mean, there isn't such a thing called marrying up.
00:07:10.960 If a woman is coming from high class and a man is from bottom class, when they marry, a woman goes down with a man. 1.00
00:07:18.020 That's how they prevent, mix with a class. 0.95
00:07:21.600 So, they really do everything they can to try to not mix them together.
00:07:27.020 And people stay in their class forever for the rest of their lives.
00:07:29.820 So, where does, honestly, where does hope come from when you are a slave to what your great-great-grandparent did?
00:07:38.080 Hmm. Well, there's no hope.
00:07:42.260 There is no forgiveness. There's no mercy.
00:07:45.460 There's no moving forward. You are forever doomed.
00:07:48.580 But the thing is, the country brainwashed the citizens to the point that we don't even know that we are slaves to the dictator.
00:07:57.520 We don't even know that we are isolated.
00:08:00.440 No, we don't. We don't even have the word for oppression.
00:08:04.820 We do not have a vocabulary for freedom.
00:08:07.820 It's like George Edwards, 1984.
00:08:10.700 Why do they create this double speak, right?
00:08:13.580 Who controls the language cannot control their brain, their thinking.
00:08:18.000 So, the regime purposefully eliminates this concept.
00:08:22.760 Like, even depression, say, how can you depress in the socialist paradise?
00:08:28.800 Therefore, people are not allowed to even know what depression is.
00:08:33.220 And that's how we don't even know what...
00:08:36.100 So, what did you think the world was like growing up?
00:08:39.600 What did you think the outside world was like?
00:08:41.520 So, North Koreans still do not know the existence of internet.
00:08:46.940 They don't even know what internet is.
00:08:49.300 And not to mention that they don't even have 24 hours electricity.
00:08:53.560 And nobody can go into North Korea.
00:08:55.860 Nobody can get out.
00:08:57.420 And therefore, I never even seen the map of the world.
00:09:00.600 I knew Americans.
00:09:02.740 I knew Japanese and Chinese.
00:09:05.280 But that's all about, I think maybe Russia as well.
00:09:08.200 Like four countries.
00:09:09.300 And they didn't tell us even that I was Asian.
00:09:12.440 That was the thing that Kim... 1.00
00:09:13.840 They said that I was Kim Il-sung race.
00:09:16.920 The theolitor's race. 1.00
00:09:19.380 And North Korean calendar doesn't begin when the Jesus Christ was born.
00:09:23.480 It begins when the first Kim was born.
00:09:26.460 And they do not teach us anything before Kim's.
00:09:30.660 And history doesn't exist in North Korea.
00:09:33.300 So, what when you...
00:09:35.940 Because I know Titanic played a huge role in getting you out and giving you the desire to see things.
00:09:49.160 So, when you saw Titanic, that must have seemed like some sort of a fantasy.
00:09:57.120 Because you didn't...
00:09:59.440 Yeah.
00:09:59.860 You didn't know that existed at all.
00:10:02.900 Yeah.
00:10:03.620 It was a...
00:10:04.740 So, in North Korea, there's no romantic love.
00:10:08.120 I mean, recently, 2017, North Korea even banned the Mother's Day.
00:10:12.660 Because he was afraid that people's...
00:10:16.260 But their love for the mother is going to interfere with the love for the party and the dear leader.
00:10:20.680 So, they do not allow the normal people's love other than the leader and the Communist Party.
00:10:26.560 And therefore, like watching Titanic and seeing a guy dying for a woman...
00:10:31.060 I mean, entire life, I was brainwashed to believe that you gotta die for the revolution.
00:10:36.500 And the party and the leader.
00:10:38.560 And someone making other movies such a shameful story.
00:10:41.860 Because love is such a shameful thing that we don't even know the world for it.
00:10:46.340 And I think that's when I was...
00:10:48.200 It was, like, really first time tasting some humanity.
00:10:51.580 How did you get to watch the Titanic?
00:10:55.320 I mean, that's a prison sentence.
00:10:58.700 Yeah.
00:10:58.980 I mean, even Mr. Kim Jong-un declared a war against the Western media.
00:11:04.140 But, however, North Koreans are extremely curious about the outside world. 0.82
00:11:09.040 So, there is a border between China and North Korea.
00:11:12.820 And there are smugglers.
00:11:14.940 So, these are bull-leg DVDs.
00:11:17.460 And I think our uncle got the...
00:11:20.520 Back then, it was a tape.
00:11:22.120 It wasn't even the DVD.
00:11:24.380 So, that's how we got it.
00:11:26.480 But if you get caught or distributed, it can be an execution.
00:11:31.300 So, you know.
00:11:32.380 I mean, that...
00:11:35.560 I've never watched a movie where I could be executed for it.
00:11:39.660 Was this a regular thing?
00:11:42.400 Or was this something that you could...
00:11:44.700 So, you...
00:11:46.740 It wasn't like watching it fearfully.
00:11:53.160 It was...
00:11:54.240 I mean, you know the risk.
00:11:55.740 But the thing is, you are so curious.
00:12:00.640 And...
00:12:01.080 But the thing is, even in North Korea, watching a movie like something like Titanic,
00:12:04.800 that is three hours long, can take a month.
00:12:07.760 Because we don't have 24 hours of electricity.
00:12:11.640 Electricity comes once in a while.
00:12:13.780 Especially summertime, they come because the dam, the water is full in the dam.
00:12:18.360 Wintertime, it never is the light.
00:12:20.740 So, it takes a while to watch a movie.
00:12:22.720 Right, and I said...
00:12:23.720 I heard that you said at one point that when you had a day of electricity, it was like a holiday.
00:12:29.360 It was a big, big deal.
00:12:32.140 Yeah, it was...
00:12:33.140 It wasn't even a calm for like...
00:12:35.080 Sometimes comes one minute, five minutes.
00:12:38.320 And an hour is a long time to come.
00:12:40.360 But when it comes, the power is so low.
00:12:43.100 You can...
00:12:43.840 Like sometimes...
00:12:45.340 Very vaguely see the line, like bird.
00:12:47.960 You know, light bird.
00:12:49.040 Wow.
00:12:49.760 And so...
00:12:50.840 Yeah.
00:12:51.180 So, how long did it take you to watch Titanic?
00:12:54.140 That's three hours.
00:12:56.300 Exactly.
00:12:56.900 I think it took a while.
00:12:57.940 I don't know exactly how long it took.
00:13:00.220 But it was like a little segment of something over a period of time.
00:13:04.440 It was like we were sitting and watching an entire movie at one sitting.
00:13:07.980 That's a complete privilege.
00:13:09.960 Yeah.
00:13:10.240 That's unbelievable.
00:13:11.280 Okay.
00:13:11.560 So, you watched the movie and you realized that really everything that you think you know
00:13:19.860 is wrong.
00:13:22.060 And...
00:13:22.780 No.
00:13:23.420 Not to that point.
00:13:24.860 No.
00:13:25.180 Because I was so brainwashed to know even what brainwashing is, right?
00:13:30.800 But it just made me feel really weird, like why there's no political message.
00:13:37.780 Why there's no propaganda.
00:13:39.700 And I was wondering maybe somebody died after this movie.
00:13:44.240 But it wasn't to the point.
00:13:46.600 Though, you know, what the regime saying is lie or, you know, you don't double think.
00:13:52.400 That you can have two contradicting thoughts at the same time.
00:13:55.560 And North Koreans are the masters at this. 1.00
00:13:59.900 Literally, during the day, you sing songs like Nothing to Envy.
00:14:03.500 Because of the great party that we have nothing to envy in this world.
00:14:07.180 That is literally a song that we must sing every single day.
00:14:11.200 But in reality, you see that the body is on the streets every single day out of starvation.
00:14:17.260 So, humans are able to hold these two contradicting thoughts at the same time.
00:14:22.580 And that's what I think George Orwell is talking about, the double think.
00:14:26.220 Right.
00:14:28.920 I just can't imagine what your childhood was like.
00:14:35.500 And we here think that, you know, our founding documents, we hold these truths to be self-evident.
00:14:43.940 And I used to think that you could go to somebody in North Korea or China and say,
00:14:48.800 The government shouldn't have this kind of control and you should be free, right?
00:14:53.820 And they would say, yes, thank God.
00:14:56.200 But that's not true, is it?
00:14:58.180 It's not self-evident to people who have been raised in a authoritarian regime like that.
00:15:07.760 Yeah.
00:15:08.380 I mean, that is a thing.
00:15:10.320 Like, when we born, a lot of people here, like, they think humans know what freedom is, what human rights is.
00:15:18.120 Right.
00:15:18.780 I remember going to South Korea for the first time hearing about animals' rights.
00:15:24.520 And I was like, what do you mean animals have rights?
00:15:27.480 You know, I did not know I had the rights as a human being.
00:15:31.080 So, of course, people in North Korea do not even know what human rights is. 0.58
00:15:37.140 So, these things are, it's a convention.
00:15:40.140 I mean, even founding fathers, it's not like they knew when they were born.
00:15:44.140 And that's why the civilization is important.
00:15:46.480 And we are keep evolving, right?
00:15:49.080 We are, this is an invention of humanity.
00:15:52.480 It's not something when we came to this earth, we just knew right away.
00:15:56.460 Right.
00:15:57.240 So, what is the, after the Titanic, you watch this, you see love between a man and a woman.
00:16:05.540 You had not seen that in your own home with your mom and dad?
00:16:09.020 No.
00:16:09.140 They never even told us they loved us.
00:16:14.060 Because there is no word for love in North Korea.
00:16:17.600 And the romance is something shameful thing.
00:16:21.400 The only reason people marry and meet the other person is because they want to be royal to the party for the revolution.
00:16:29.500 Individuals exist because we are the revolutionaries.
00:16:33.000 And the worst thing that you can be in North Korea is being individualistic.
00:16:38.400 I mean, in North Korea, we cannot even say I.
00:16:41.360 When I say I, I have to say we.
00:16:43.540 We love red color because the regime says red is a revolutionary color.
00:16:48.100 And we love our country.
00:16:49.380 So, there is no word for I in that country.
00:16:52.040 That's how they control our, you know, our minds through the, through words.
00:16:58.720 I don't think most people even comprehend that.
00:17:03.300 That, that, that actually, that kind of stuff actually exists and goes on.
00:17:08.760 All right.
00:17:10.620 So, what happens after you watch the Titanic and you're starting to have these thoughts?
00:17:18.860 What, what happens next?
00:17:22.040 Well, I mean, I watched it and then, but the thing is, you know, the regime makes us starved on purpose.
00:17:31.180 It's a man-made famine.
00:17:33.100 So, the regime knows, as North Korea right now, from there, if I find something to eat for the breakfast, right, 0.68
00:17:39.960 then I'm going to worry about what am I going to eat, like, for lunch.
00:17:43.920 If I make it to lunch, I'm going to make worry about dinner.
00:17:47.380 Once I make the dinner, I'm going to think, okay, I made one day on earth.
00:17:50.960 How am I going to live tomorrow?
00:17:52.840 How am I going to find food to survive tomorrow, right?
00:17:55.520 Every single hour is a survivor.
00:17:58.440 And that's, it's a Hunger Games.
00:18:00.360 It's a North Korea. 0.97
00:18:01.220 I mean, Hunger Games copied North Korea.
00:18:02.720 Here, basically, there's a Kaptar.
00:18:06.060 They divide districts.
00:18:07.940 In the Hunger Games, 13 districts, right?
00:18:10.360 North Korea is more eight districts.
00:18:12.300 And only the people in Kaptar get everything they want.
00:18:15.820 And outside of Kaptar, people are starved on purpose.
00:18:19.800 So, people don't think about the meaning of life.
00:18:22.900 We don't think about, you know, how, what is art, right?
00:18:26.200 What is philosophy?
00:18:27.780 All we're thinking about is how am I going to make the next meal?
00:18:31.780 How am I going to make it until tomorrow?
00:18:34.440 So, that is, you know, so even after watching the movie, it wasn't a thing in my mind.
00:18:39.000 Like, what was that?
00:18:40.340 It just, it was weird why something like that exists.
00:18:43.380 But I had no time to think about those things.
00:18:46.180 It was a survivor.
00:18:47.140 How am I going to find food?
00:18:48.360 And so, to get out of North Korea, how did this, how did this happen?
00:18:56.600 Where did that idea even come from?
00:19:00.000 Yeah, so, there's no internet.
00:19:02.200 I never even seen the map of the world.
00:19:04.200 You never saw a map?
00:19:07.060 No, I didn't even know what the race was.
00:19:09.940 I told you, I did not even know that I was Asian.
00:19:12.460 I thought I was Kim Il-sung race.
00:19:15.080 So, you know, I had no clue.
00:19:17.060 But there's, like, Arab, black, white, you know, Indians, like, all this, like, race. 0.99
00:19:23.120 I did not even know that.
00:19:24.080 So, but luckily, I was living in the border town of North Korea.
00:19:29.540 But if you see the satellite photos of North Korea at nighttime, it is literally the darkest place on Earth because they don't have lights at night.
00:19:38.800 So, I was able to see lights coming from China at night.
00:19:43.840 And then I was wondering, maybe if I go where the lights were, I might be able to find a bowl of rice.
00:19:51.380 And that's how I decided to risk my life and cross that frozen river.
00:19:55.780 So, it wasn't a political move.
00:19:58.740 It wasn't, let's get out of here.
00:20:00.760 It's just, where can I find food?
00:20:04.120 Yeah.
00:20:04.680 And maybe the lights were, did you even, so you didn't, you didn't really understand the country of China or anything.
00:20:12.580 It was just.
00:20:13.480 None.
00:20:13.820 I mean, I didn't even know what free was, like, so what freedom is, you know, how do I, how do you escape for freedom when you don't even know what escape is and, like, freedom is, right?
00:20:25.820 Literally, for me, it was, okay, seems like there are some bright lights coming from China.
00:20:31.320 And then if I go where there are, maybe I can find some food, right?
00:20:35.240 But when you are so desperate, when in front of your death, there's nothing you cannot do.
00:20:40.620 We'll do everything.
00:20:41.740 Did you go to school?
00:20:43.820 I did go one or two few semesters of school as a child.
00:20:50.140 But even though it's a socialist free education that teachers demand you to bring bribes and money and supplies, if you don't, they beat you up.
00:21:01.440 So, I was so poor to bring those things.
00:21:04.140 I mean, there's no child rights either.
00:21:06.060 There's no concept of minors.
00:21:07.900 They beat kids.
00:21:08.680 They, I mean, they, humans' lives are less valuable than cow and animals in North Korea. 1.00
00:21:14.720 They literally, one of the executions that my mom saw was this young man who had terrible killers, like TB, who was very man-ish.
00:21:23.880 So, he ate a cow in the farm, the collective farm.
00:21:27.940 And then the regime executed this young man.
00:21:31.180 So, you know, that's how North Korea... 0.91
00:21:34.000 So, when you, you say your parents never said, I love you, you never, I mean, that's so foreign to me.
00:21:40.980 It seems like that is something that you just feel, that you would fall in love with somebody.
00:21:47.840 You would feel something different and you would feel that to your parents.
00:21:52.380 So, when a child dies in a family, is it the same as it is here?
00:22:01.240 I don't mean to be insulting.
00:22:02.400 I've just never even, I've never even heard of anything like this.
00:22:07.860 Well, I mean, that's the thing.
00:22:10.000 If the child dies, if it's a boy, I'm sure fathers will cry.
00:22:16.380 But if it's a girl, a girl's life is a lot less valuable than boys. 0.90
00:22:22.260 So, they don't really cry.
00:22:25.260 And it's not like also the love.
00:22:30.420 I don't know how to describe the feelings you fear.
00:22:33.160 But it is definitely some types of love.
00:22:36.000 But we just don't know how to express it.
00:22:38.340 And it's North Koreans are not like cold, but they do not feel emotions.
00:22:42.200 But then we are not just allowed to name the feeling that we fear.
00:22:46.380 And that's how regime makes us keep ignorant.
00:22:50.120 You feel maybe it's just you that feels this way.
00:22:53.980 It must make you feel very different and awkward.
00:22:57.540 If nobody's talking about those feelings being natural.
00:23:01.540 No.
00:23:02.260 And nobody thinks that something should be talked about even.
00:23:07.280 Gosh.
00:23:08.160 Okay.
00:23:08.720 So, you go to look for food.
00:23:11.400 And does your mother go with you?
00:23:15.020 Yeah.
00:23:15.580 Yeah.
00:23:16.060 Okay.
00:23:16.600 So, the two of you go to look for food.
00:23:20.180 So, in 2007, I was 13 years old.
00:23:24.540 I had an older sister who was 16 years old.
00:23:28.680 We were going to escape together.
00:23:31.460 But I got really, really sick.
00:23:33.840 And my sister went with her friend instead.
00:23:36.740 However, she left me a note.
00:23:39.740 And then told me, where do I go find a person to help me to go to China?
00:23:44.360 So, when I found a note, I asked my mom to come with me.
00:23:49.700 And then when I met the lady, she said, okay, oh, of course I can help you to go to China.
00:23:53.960 And that's when I told my mom, can you come with me?
00:23:57.440 And the same day, this lady was helping us to go to China. 1.00
00:24:01.920 But I didn't even ask why she was helping me.
00:24:07.020 We were so desperate.
00:24:08.360 It doesn't matter why they are helping you, you know.
00:24:10.560 If you stay there, you're dying anyway, right?
00:24:12.940 Why does that even matter?
00:24:14.080 And she was not a good person.
00:24:18.080 It's hard to say.
00:24:19.520 So, yeah, basically, she was a human trafficker. 1.00
00:24:22.260 She sold me to Chinese people. 0.98
00:24:24.960 But the thing is that life is that things are not that simple.
00:24:29.580 If she didn't sell me, I would be dead since 2007.
00:24:34.340 Because she sold me that I'm here today, I'm alive.
00:24:37.940 And you were sold.
00:24:39.160 And your life is, I mean, it's conflicting stories, even the death of your father.
00:24:46.640 So, I don't know what's right and what's not.
00:24:51.040 But I have read that you were a slave, sold into slavery, if you will.
00:24:56.760 Was it sex slavery? 0.99
00:24:58.500 Because I've read someplace that you were selling for $260 and your mother was sold for $65.
00:25:05.780 Yeah.
00:25:06.020 Was that a sex slavery thing, or was it just slavery? 1.00
00:25:10.880 It was.
00:25:11.980 So, China had a one-child policy under the Communist Party.
00:25:16.580 And during the one-child policy, they killed a lot of girls, aborted girls. 0.97
00:25:22.300 And then most of them kept the boys, especially in the countryside.
00:25:26.800 Therefore, right now, there are more than 30 million Chinese men who are eligible for marriage, cannot find women.
00:25:36.020 So, this is where human trafficking happens. 0.79
00:25:38.580 When North Koreans go across that border into China, Chinese authority catches us and sends us back to North Korea to get killed.
00:25:47.460 So, then we are so vulnerable, we've got to hide from the Chinese authority.
00:25:51.960 Then, who's going to hide us?
00:25:54.320 That's human traffickers comes in.
00:25:56.340 So, as soon as crossing the frozen river with my mom, the first thing, this guy saying, I want to have sex with you.
00:26:04.340 And I'm 13, I never even seen, I never even knew what sex was.
00:26:08.600 There's no sex education in North Korea.
00:26:11.120 I never even seen people kissing on TV.
00:26:13.300 So, and then my mother offered herself.
00:26:16.880 But afterwards, they told us that if we want to live in China, we have to be sold as sex slaves.
00:26:23.840 And they sold my mom away from me for, I think it's over $65.
00:26:30.100 And they sold me for less than $300 because I was a virgin and that's somehow expensive in China.
00:26:37.640 And that's how I got separated from everyone that I knew.
00:26:40.860 So, how long did that last?
00:26:45.220 It took several months and I was bought by another human trafficker.
00:26:50.600 So, in China, there's a lot of human trafficker ring, there's a gang, almost ring, mafia ring.
00:26:56.160 So, one human trafficker sends me, make a margin, send me to another human trafficker.
00:27:01.320 And that trafficker was a Han Chinese who bombed me. 0.99
00:27:06.260 I was going to kill myself.
00:27:07.800 And then he said, if I become his mistress, he was going to help me to bring my family to me.
00:27:14.840 So, I did become his mistress at 13.
00:27:17.920 And he brought my mom back from a farmer that he sold.
00:27:21.720 And he brought my sick father from North Korea. 0.99
00:27:24.940 And that's how I saw my parents again.
00:27:28.020 So, how do you feel about him?
00:27:30.160 I mean, because he was helping you, but he was also using you.
00:27:34.800 That's the thing.
00:27:36.120 I forgave him a long time ago.
00:27:39.240 There was a lot of times I'm grateful because without him, I would not have saved my parents.
00:27:45.520 So, you know, it's always that I know at this point is that through my journey, most of the things I learned is what it really means to be a human being.
00:27:54.340 Nobody is pure evil.
00:27:55.880 Nobody is pure evil.
00:27:58.180 Even this guy who was so heartless, raping 13 years old, still has somehow a heart helping me to get my family.
00:28:07.300 So, you know, that's the thing.
00:28:10.160 That's why all I can be grateful.
00:28:12.280 I cannot hate that lady who sold me in the Chinese because if she didn't send me, I would not be here today. 1.00
00:28:18.280 You are stuck with this guy and you meet Christian missionaries? 0.52
00:28:26.800 Yeah.
00:28:27.500 After almost two years in China, I met through another nursing defector of missionaries.
00:28:37.020 And she told me, these missionaries would help us to go to South Korea and be free.
00:28:42.860 And that's when the first time I heard free.
00:28:46.480 And I remember I was asking her, I was 15 years old at the time.
00:28:49.920 I was like, what do you mean?
00:28:51.220 What do you mean like I'm going to be free in South Korea?
00:28:53.920 And for us, that freedom meant was wearing jeans, watching TVs.
00:28:59.240 And nobody can arrest you for that.
00:29:01.920 I did not think freedom meant like freedom of speech or like all these things.
00:29:06.480 Freedom meant watching TV and wear jeans.
00:29:09.600 And to wear jeans.
00:29:11.160 Yeah, because in North Korea, you get punished for that.
00:29:14.540 You do not have freedom to even know what kind of haircut you got.
00:29:17.880 It was a joke for Westerners, but that's how little freedom North Koreans have. 1.00
00:29:22.360 We don't even have a freedom to have a haircut that we want to.
00:29:26.820 When every single clothes, the song that you listen to, how you dance, why you what, why you read, what you say, where you go, where you live.
00:29:36.480 Every single thing decided by the regime for us.
00:29:39.040 And you, you didn't have internet.
00:29:41.000 You didn't really, um, uh, you didn't understand freedom of, of speech at all.
00:29:49.420 Did you, were there, when you have the classes, did you know that all of that or some of that stuff existed in Capitol City?
00:29:58.520 Did you, were, or were you so separated from any kind of knowledge that you didn't know life was different even in your own country?
00:30:07.420 I had also, my father was a, uh, did why he was a party member when I was younger until he was sent.
00:30:15.900 So when he was, so when he was in the party member, because he was engaging in the black market trading.
00:30:22.420 And in North Korea, black market means selling rice, dried fish, sugar, and clocks, because in social system, you cannot trade, right?
00:30:34.420 Governments control the means of production and who gets what.
00:30:38.080 So, but the thing is, after 90s, after Soviet Union collapsed, the regime is not, decided not to free the people, not to give us public rations.
00:30:48.320 But then, instead, they start, still banning the trading.
00:30:52.500 So, all we were left to do was dying.
00:30:54.660 That's why, in the 90s, more than 3 million North Koreans died from starvation when I was a child.
00:31:00.940 And that's why North Koreans were forced to engage in the black market.
00:31:06.340 And I think that's why you're saying that I was a black market generation, that regime just decided not to feed us.
00:31:12.040 And the only thing could feed us was through the black market, through trading.
00:31:16.380 And that's how he was forced to join the market.
00:31:19.260 And that, he got caught, because he was selling copper later, silver, like nickel.
00:31:26.140 And then, they, there's an imprison camp.
00:31:29.420 And that's how my blood was tainted.
00:31:31.860 I was a prisoner's daughter.
00:31:34.140 And, yeah, our life became miserable.
00:31:36.900 Wow.
00:31:37.660 Okay.
00:31:38.020 So, the missionaries, and I don't think people understand that there are these Christian, almost underground railroads,
00:31:46.020 that are, that are happening in North Korea, and they're heroic people, heroic people.
00:31:55.120 What is the risk for them, and what, how do they get you, how do they get you out of North Korea and China? 0.91
00:32:03.700 So, there are many, many, many pastors, missionaries got stopped by North Korean agents in China,
00:32:10.700 got murdered, got life sentenced into Chinese prison camps for helping North Korean defectors.
00:32:18.160 So, there's many nameless people who have done that.
00:32:20.960 These are hidden heroes.
00:32:22.920 So, one of these missionaries helped us was helping, putting us in a shelter and taught us Bible.
00:32:30.740 Several months of Bible studying, they told us, they could not literally go into desert with us, right?
00:32:36.900 Only way for us to go to South Korea was getting out of China, but then we don't have ID or passport to get out of China and cross the border,
00:32:46.360 which means then we had to walk across the frozen Gobi Desert from China to Mongolia.
00:32:52.120 Most likely, you might not make it.
00:32:53.880 The chance of making it is like one or two percent.
00:32:56.660 One or two percent.
00:32:59.080 Yeah.
00:32:59.400 And it was also minus 40 degrees in 2009, in February.
00:33:05.680 So, if you don't move in that desert for even 10 seconds, you are going to be frozen to death.
00:33:11.700 If the guards don't shoot you, your next chance of getting killed is also being frozen there.
00:33:18.260 And all the wire fences are electrified, like wire fences, you get electrified.
00:33:24.340 And that's why now nobody really crossing the Gobi Desert anymore.
00:33:27.980 I think you were the one of the last few people tried that path to escape.
00:33:31.640 So, they set you out with food and a map?
00:33:35.840 No, I mean, everything gets frozen, right?
00:33:38.860 I mean, everything gets frozen in that.
00:33:42.080 So, we didn't even have much gear.
00:33:43.960 We didn't even have gloves or scarves.
00:33:46.560 We just had some, like, light jackets.
00:33:49.500 In 40 below temperatures?
00:33:52.160 Yeah.
00:33:52.620 Uh, it was, it was cold.
00:33:56.580 I remember, I've never been cold like that in my life.
00:34:00.000 But, you know, it's, but they gave us a compass.
00:34:03.680 And then say, go north and west direction, between the north and west direction, follow this path.
00:34:10.340 And if you cross eight wire fences, that should be Mongolia. 0.99
00:34:16.340 And then we crossed, I think, for, in my memory, over like 16 wire fences.
00:34:23.640 Some people remember 12 wire fences, depending on how we thought about.
00:34:28.780 But eventually, we got into Mongolia.
00:34:31.760 We got caught by Mongolian soldiers.
00:34:34.400 And they helped us to go to South Korea.
00:34:36.580 So, they were friendly.
00:34:37.880 They helped you.
00:34:38.500 The Mongolian soldiers weren't.
00:34:43.620 So, they, when we got caught by them, they were trying to send us back to China.
00:34:49.260 So, Chinese would send us back to North Korea to be executed. 0.97
00:34:52.680 So, we have brought these, like, poisons and lasers with us.
00:34:56.400 Because going back to North Korea to get tortured and executed is a very painful process than just killing yourself right there.
00:35:03.240 So, we all ready to die when that happens.
00:35:05.460 So, when these Mongolian soldiers were trying to send us back, we all got out, like, laser and poisons.
00:35:12.660 And then that's, they was like, okay, we cannot let all these eight people die.
00:35:16.800 And they decided to reach out to South Korean MNC instead of the Chinese one.
00:35:22.000 God was with you.
00:35:23.540 All right.
00:35:24.260 Yeah.
00:35:24.460 So, you get to South Korea.
00:35:27.260 Take me now how you got to America.
00:35:32.860 Yeah.
00:35:33.660 So, I was in South Korea for five years.
00:35:36.540 I was catching up with education.
00:35:40.500 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:35:41.980 I've heard you say this before, that you were catching up with education.
00:35:47.160 But that's not the same as, you know, we would think, oh, well, you had some elementary school and now you're just catching up.
00:35:56.540 You knew nothing of the world.
00:35:58.580 So, how did you get, in five years, caught up?
00:36:04.040 What was that like?
00:36:06.120 It was, so, when I got there and I was, like, 17 years old, South Korean age, which means kids are in high school, right?
00:36:14.320 And then they did a placement test on me.
00:36:18.160 And they were, like, you need to go to school with six, seven years old.
00:36:21.900 Because I never even knew what the plus or addition or, you know, division or never even seen the map of the world.
00:36:29.620 I don't even know what continents are.
00:36:31.880 Not even mention the countries.
00:36:34.560 So, and, of course, I was not going to go to elementary school.
00:36:38.840 So, I took GED.
00:36:40.580 I crammed up from, you know, elementary, middle, and high school education 12 years into one year.
00:36:47.400 And I taught myself.
00:36:49.380 And I took GED.
00:36:50.880 I got a high school diploma.
00:36:53.080 And then after I arrived in South Korea, one year after, I went to university.
00:36:56.960 That, I mean, that is remarkable in and of itself.
00:37:01.860 You come to America. 0.97
00:37:03.600 Well, before I get there, tell me, tell me what the experience, I mean, I remember when I was,
00:37:10.580 I'm a self-educated man.
00:37:12.760 And at 30, I really realized I was a dope and I didn't know anything.
00:37:18.340 And so, I really went and applied myself.
00:37:20.760 And it was such a great period of my life of seeking answers.
00:37:26.880 You know, not just going through life and having to go to school, but actually wanting to know.
00:37:31.880 And the things that I learned at that time period, it was a really special time in my life.
00:37:38.240 I got to imagine it was the same for you.
00:37:41.240 What were the things that you learned that you sat back and just thought, this is incredible?
00:37:48.700 Yeah, I think that was the thing.
00:37:50.620 So, after going through all of that, arriving in South Korea, they were saying, oh, you know what?
00:37:57.160 The Americans are not bastards.
00:37:59.740 And South Korea is free and they are not colonized by America.
00:38:04.040 And Korean war started by Kim Il-sung, not Americans.
00:38:08.380 And by the way, Kims were not gods.
00:38:10.240 They were like dictators.
00:38:11.240 So, everything that you believed was a lie.
00:38:15.900 And for me, it's like, so if everything that I believed was a lie, how do I know that what you're telling me is not a lie?
00:38:22.940 That I did not know how to trust again.
00:38:27.160 It was like, I don't know what you're telling me is a lie or not, right?
00:38:31.360 But what helped me was when I was reading this book called Animal Farm.
00:38:37.080 Called what?
00:38:38.700 Animal Farm.
00:38:39.660 Okay.
00:38:40.420 Oh, Animal Farm, but George Orwell.
00:38:42.180 Okay, yes.
00:38:43.060 That book really explained to me what happened to my country.
00:38:47.860 I could see in that young little animals comes up later, right?
00:38:51.980 They have even no clue what the life looked like before the revolution, right?
00:38:57.200 That's like those little young animals comes in.
00:38:59.820 They don't even know the time before that everything happened.
00:39:02.980 And the people, because they were scared.
00:39:05.760 And the price of silence is that what we get.
00:39:09.940 And I was thinking, my grandma knew.
00:39:12.680 She lived before Kims. 1.00
00:39:14.520 And she knew before Kim Communist Party came in.
00:39:17.640 I had no clue.
00:39:19.920 And I think that's when I realized, oh, this is what happened to my country.
00:39:24.560 And that's also when I was really thinking I had to speak up.
00:39:27.880 Okay, so when you come to the United States, you know, there's a TV series called John Adams about one of the founding fathers of America.
00:39:41.580 And he is over in France.
00:39:44.420 Have you watched that?
00:39:46.480 I have watched the first four of them.
00:39:48.920 Okay.
00:39:49.240 So have you gotten to the part where he is in France?
00:39:53.440 I'm not sure.
00:39:54.580 Okay.
00:39:54.980 Well, watch it.
00:39:56.700 It's an amazing thing.
00:39:58.420 He's sitting over there, and they are just a decadent society.
00:40:01.540 And America has nothing, and they're struggling for freedom, and they're all painted up like they used to be in France, and it's the kings and all of the wealth.
00:40:15.960 And I saw that, and I thought, I think that's the way, at some point, we are going to be perceived as we have all this wealth, and we're just squandering our time, and we don't really appreciate what we have.
00:40:34.840 But more importantly, we don't even understand what freedom really is because we've had it for so long.
00:40:42.880 Yeah.
00:40:43.480 That must have been your experience when you saw America, and you started to see how we are treating our own freedom.
00:40:56.800 What was that like?
00:40:59.580 It broke my heart.
00:41:01.440 So after five years in South Korea, I came to America to write my book.
00:41:07.200 And then I was attending Columbia University in New York.
00:41:10.620 And this is when I was actually starting to fear what's going on, right?
00:41:15.840 At Columbia, it was almost like North Korea in some sense.
00:41:20.620 I mean, even North Korea wasn't that crazy compared to America's wokeism.
00:41:25.760 It's a...
00:41:27.620 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:41:28.900 Hold on.
00:41:29.260 Just a second.
00:41:30.360 Even North Korea was not as crazy as American wokeism?
00:41:35.740 Is that what you just said?
00:41:36.700 Yeah.
00:41:38.380 Because, I mean, the punishment, of course, in North Korea is going to be three generations of execution.
00:41:43.820 But the thing is, I mean, in Columbia, they teach you sensitivity training, right?
00:41:52.380 It's mandatory.
00:41:53.880 How can you be...
00:41:54.840 How you should be so sensitive to every oppression, every injustice that you see?
00:41:59.680 And then, of course, in North Korea, we don't have 90 different pronouns, right?
00:42:05.440 Like, instead of, like, before every lecture, especially thinking about this big lecture, like, over 100 students out there.
00:42:12.960 And you serve a class.
00:42:14.940 Everybody say before their name major, they go talk about their pronouns.
00:42:19.340 And then some of them are gender fluid.
00:42:21.740 So they might feel like a boy in the morning and go, like, afternoon.
00:42:25.800 How are they supposed to know that?
00:42:27.480 But instead of me trying to understand who they are as a person, as a character, and their contents, I am obsessed remembering their pronouns.
00:42:37.200 So I don't look like a bigot.
00:42:39.760 I mean, what a waste of time.
00:42:41.680 What a waste of energy.
00:42:43.500 And then, of course, when you go there, like, all they talk is that there's no place for hate speech here.
00:42:48.700 But, like, how do you define hate speech?
00:42:51.020 And these people are obsessed with the feelings.
00:42:55.340 They're like, I feel like I'm oppressed.
00:42:58.380 It's not different.
00:42:59.200 It's different than being actually oppressed and you feel like oppressed.
00:43:02.960 People in North Korea don't know even they're oppressed.
00:43:05.380 That's actually what oppression looks like.
00:43:07.700 I mean, the fact that you know you're oppressed, that is not right.
00:43:11.520 You don't even know the definition of oppression.
00:43:13.400 So did you express any of this?
00:43:15.840 When you were first sitting in class at Columbia University in America, what was the first thing that jumped out at you and you thought, oh, my gosh, I've seen this before?
00:43:28.640 So it was like that.
00:43:31.520 I remember at this orientation before even classes, at the student's mandatory orientation before your courses begin.
00:43:39.820 And the first person comes in and then she was asking, oh, who, you know, this, like, oppression, this infiltration of this hatred is everywhere.
00:43:51.780 Embedded in our constitution, embedded in every system that we see.
00:43:55.520 But, for example, who likes to read Jane Austen?
00:43:59.360 And me, like, I love reading.
00:44:01.800 And in North Korea, there's even no love stories. 0.62
00:44:04.180 I love to read things that was before Kim's, right?
00:44:07.960 And I was like, yeah, me, I love Jane Austen.
00:44:10.260 And she was almost saying, oh, this is the kind of example that you don't notice.
00:44:14.680 She was saying Jane Austen had a colonial mindset.
00:44:18.200 She was benefited from colonialism.
00:44:21.220 And she believed in white supremacy and racism.
00:44:24.360 Therefore, by reading her work, you are subconsciously becoming racist and you're being brainwashed by her.
00:44:33.640 And this is how you need to watch out and be sensitive to every single thing that might, you know, has injustice.
00:44:41.380 And that's why North Korea and the regime always said, you don't know how many layers of enemy infiltration in our country.
00:44:50.300 And that was, like, my first orientation.
00:44:52.880 Did you say anything?
00:44:54.000 No, because everybody was looking at me.
00:44:58.340 And then a few times I tried to speak up.
00:45:00.780 I remember in this class, like, Western Civilization Music.
00:45:04.760 And before even the class starts, the professor asking your pronouns, blah.
00:45:08.640 And then they were saying, who has a problem studying Western Civilization Music?
00:45:12.820 And everybody raised their hands.
00:45:16.060 The reason is, why they have a problem with studying Western Civilization Music is that because white men who silenced and killed all minority groups.
00:45:25.700 Because of their aggression, now we have to study these bigots who are like Mozart and Beethoven.
00:45:32.120 And it's a shame that we are not studying some guy from China or, like, somewhere in Africa.
00:45:37.340 And I was saying, like, I mean, as a Korean, we would not say studying somebody Korean musician, right?
00:45:44.340 I mean, after all, this is the West.
00:45:46.940 And after all, they did so much for the humanity and advancement of music.
00:45:52.820 And they were like, oh, you are brainwashed to think it's okay to study Western men's achievements.
00:45:59.300 What is going through your mind when you're sitting in there?
00:46:06.260 What was, what were you thinking?
00:46:09.760 It was scary to see that group think again.
00:46:13.280 It was.
00:46:14.640 Wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:46:15.500 I want to make sure I understood you.
00:46:17.260 It was scary to sit and see that group think again?
00:46:22.960 Yeah.
00:46:24.240 Because it's, in that scenario, right, like, you, majority can be very stupid.
00:46:32.100 We know that.
00:46:32.760 And especially when people do this thing, group think.
00:46:36.640 As a group, collectively, we're going to process this information.
00:46:40.660 They are usually tend to be not creative.
00:46:43.900 And they do make a lot of biases.
00:46:46.640 So at Columbia, everybody is echoing with each other, right?
00:46:50.940 It's like echo chamber.
00:46:51.840 And if the people like me who were thinking differently, we are just too afraid.
00:46:57.400 Because we are paying so much money to go to this school.
00:47:00.460 If we cannot afford not to pass a class or graduate.
00:47:05.000 And all might even be expelled from the school.
00:47:07.260 Because they are saying how you say, what you say, how you look, how, whatever you do can cause someone's uncomfortableness.
00:47:15.840 And comfortableness, it can be a reason for the university to inspire you.
00:47:20.100 So now, it seems like everything can be offensive.
00:47:26.420 It's like you are walking on this, like, ice, you know, like, little shit.
00:47:29.700 Like, you don't know when it's going to break.
00:47:31.320 It's like every single thing can be offensive.
00:47:33.780 And all that matters for them is how you fear.
00:47:37.120 And I was like, why Americans are so obsessed with their feelings?
00:47:41.040 It's all about how I feel like I feel like I'm a slave.
00:47:44.520 I feel like I'm oppressed.
00:47:46.500 Then there must be something wrong with the system.
00:47:49.400 That's how they go for it, right?
00:47:50.780 It's just their interpretation is so simple.
00:47:53.120 So, the reason why I said good for you earlier, when you talked about how the woman who smuggled you into China.
00:48:02.560 And you said, I'm grateful for her, and I don't think she's necessarily bad, because, and it wasn't a bad thing, because I'm here now.
00:48:12.540 I got out.
00:48:14.500 And that was a lesson I learned from my father early on.
00:48:19.720 He taught me, he said, there is no bad.
00:48:25.220 There's no bad things that happen to you.
00:48:27.980 It's how you define it and what you use it for, you know, what you learn from it and what you use it for.
00:48:37.700 And I think when you have been trying to figure out what is wrong with my fellow countrymen,
00:48:46.220 and I think the biggest thing that we have lost is gratitude.
00:48:51.640 We have, we are not seemingly grateful for anything.
00:48:58.000 Everything is a problem.
00:49:00.040 Everything is holding you back.
00:49:02.180 Everything is an excuse.
00:49:04.700 And when you lose that, nothing is worth anything.
00:49:10.020 No, I think that's the thing.
00:49:11.440 It's like seeing that America is a type of meritocracy.
00:49:14.820 Like, what have the Western civilization that was merits, competition, let the ideas compete,
00:49:23.860 make people to overcome their challenges and their limits.
00:49:27.560 And humans can overcome so much.
00:49:29.600 I mean, look at the sports players, right, what humans can do.
00:49:33.520 And now the fact, like, Asians study hard, is a sign of white supremacy, sign of privilege.
00:49:42.120 And the fact that you really want to do work well is, it's almost oppression for them.
00:49:50.720 And that's like in North Korea, like, how much you want to work hard, it doesn't matter because there's no incentive.
00:49:57.840 Like, it's just what kind of family and bloodline did you born with.
00:50:03.940 And here in America, it's like the same thing.
00:50:06.380 Like, what the heck is white privilege?
00:50:09.120 What the heck is, like, white guilt?
00:50:11.020 Like, nobody today was born on any slaves.
00:50:15.480 And it's exactly the same thing.
00:50:17.220 Like, I was not participating during the Korean War.
00:50:20.080 I don't even know what the time looked like.
00:50:21.960 It was my decision that I did not fight in the right side of the world.
00:50:25.760 But you are forever doomed, forever punished.
00:50:30.040 Which is the thing that really strikes me as so important to your story, the idea that not only if you commit a crime does your whole family pay for it in North Korea, but your great-great-grandfather committed a crime.
00:50:51.740 And forever, there is no forgiveness.
00:50:54.900 And that is the world we are headed towards right now.
00:51:00.480 Tell me, explain to people who are on that bandwagon why that is a bad idea.
00:51:09.760 It's not just a bad idea.
00:51:15.080 That's not just.
00:51:16.840 Nobody, I mean, when we are born, we are like very independent individuals.
00:51:21.720 We are not the lineage of something, anything, right?
00:51:25.240 And it's not justice.
00:51:28.300 That's not right.
00:51:29.100 That's not fair.
00:51:29.960 And it's like they're saying, blaming these white people for slavery is the same thing we are blaming these little young kids who were born in Japan for Pearl Harbor.
00:51:39.760 Who does that?
00:51:41.060 Nobody is responsible for that crime at this point.
00:51:44.600 And in America, I see this punishment and never letting ever go, right?
00:51:50.740 Even though this country needs so much to fix it and evolving, making things better.
00:51:55.480 And it proved to us that this country is so flexible that wants to fix things and make things better.
00:52:03.420 But no, no, no.
00:52:04.840 What they want is because this country has done things bad, therefore, only way to almost do that is tearing down this country, tearing down the U.S. Constitution.
00:52:16.800 That's like what every single class talking about Colombia is like.
00:52:19.480 That is the only way we are going to actually bring real justice.
00:52:23.280 This is the only way we can do that is by tearing down everything that this country has built.
00:52:28.660 You are when you are looking at people and you say, well, this is, you know, they're they're part good.
00:52:39.300 They're, you know, you know, they're not all bad.
00:52:43.800 They're not all bad.
00:52:44.580 Even though they did bad things.
00:52:45.760 It's the guy who was was having sex with you at 13, yet he saved your family.
00:52:52.820 There is this thing in in people, whether they are actively engaging in what I would call evil acts unknowingly or if they just didn't know any better.
00:53:06.860 It's you can't judge the person just for justice.
00:53:12.300 You have to look at the entire person.
00:53:16.060 And we are throwing out the the the majority of what the West has done because we made mistakes.
00:53:25.720 Well, everybody makes mistakes and you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
00:53:30.640 Exactly. I completely agree that it's like whenever I look at this man, right, he was also a gang member as a child.
00:53:39.680 He's coming from a very poor family in the countryside.
00:53:43.700 He didn't even have elementary school education.
00:53:46.800 All he saw was violence.
00:53:49.240 He never learned how to treat people better.
00:53:52.100 And he never even learned how the world works.
00:53:56.040 And if he wasn't born in that Chinese communist like country, oppressive country, he was born somewhere like nice in European country or America. 0.95
00:54:06.060 He might become a completely different person.
00:54:09.180 His environment was so harsh and different.
00:54:12.200 And that's the thing, even though America has a very, very dark history at some part, is that the judging from our current perspective is is not the way to look at problems.
00:54:24.960 And right.
00:54:26.200 And these people in America, there's no mercy.
00:54:28.200 If you make a mistake, if you make a stupid to you like 10 years ago, they might can bring that back to you and then cancel you.
00:54:36.040 And that's what communists do.
00:54:39.260 There's no forgiveness.
00:54:40.680 There's no moving forward.
00:54:41.940 They are going to forever, forever, like punish you for that.
00:54:47.000 And you can never make it up.
00:54:50.000 Let me ask you a couple of questions here.
00:54:52.480 And just just to get your point of view, when you see the push now to silence voices and to the White House calls it flagging for misinformation.
00:55:05.160 But you can be banned from all platforms is what they're pushing for.
00:55:11.520 What does that say to you?
00:55:14.480 So this is why speech is so important.
00:55:19.560 The unique thing about humans, right, that is I think Jordan Peterson talked about in his book that humans.
00:55:24.900 Why do we go to therapy?
00:55:26.460 Because we think by talking.
00:55:28.720 So when you make people stop talking, it means you're going to make them stop thinking.
00:55:35.080 If the population stops things, it's a lot easier for the authoritarians to rule the country and control the population. 0.89
00:55:43.280 That is why whenever there is authoritarian rises, the first thing they go after is freedom of speech.
00:55:48.920 Because that's how you control people's minds.
00:55:51.540 That's how important it is for us to keep talking.
00:55:55.160 That's how we only pursue and think and find truth.
00:55:59.480 And this country now, it's almost like I think, you know, fish is in the water, never know that they are in the water because they were just born with it.
00:56:07.820 And for Americans, the same thing.
00:56:09.520 They're born with the freedom.
00:56:11.420 So they don't even know what life would be like without freedom because they just never experienced it.
00:56:15.940 So they are like so naively because I think majority people are good.
00:56:21.040 Not the extreme on the left, not the extreme on the right, those few really bad people.
00:56:26.420 I think majority people have good intentions.
00:56:29.520 And these people now is like, oh, because we don't want Nazis to speak.
00:56:33.460 We don't want the racists to speak.
00:56:36.220 So I don't mind giving up a little of my liberty and then silence those people and let government decide who is racist.
00:56:44.400 But where is the guarantee that that government is not going to corrupt?
00:56:49.200 Because nothing is harmful to individuals than the government.
00:56:55.020 Nobody, even this pandemic didn't kill as much as, I mean, Stalin or Mao killed human beings.
00:57:01.780 The government is the most dangerous thing to humanity.
00:57:05.440 And the fact that we are going to give this, like, right, I mean, that is the thing people don't understand.
00:57:10.780 That is the price of freedom that we have to listen to some people that we don't like.
00:57:16.700 But the thing is, there's difference between action and speech.
00:57:21.900 This is mere talking and ideas.
00:57:24.000 And the people here have no resilience.
00:57:26.800 They are, what is this thing called trigger, right?
00:57:29.720 All about safe space.
00:57:31.140 If you hear something that you don't like, these people are, like, popping in tears and they break down.
00:57:37.820 And this is so, so sad.
00:57:41.540 What happened to these people?
00:57:43.520 Well, I do know education, bad education.
00:57:48.680 When you said when you lose the freedom of speech, you lose everything else.
00:57:54.800 Can I just go through just a couple of amendments that we are constantly violating now in our Constitution?
00:58:03.980 The first one is freedom of the press, which includes the freedom to question your own country and say, what are you doing?
00:58:13.440 We have a right to petition our own government.
00:58:16.020 We have a right to gather on the streets and and freedom of association without fear of the government and and the freedom to not just speak out, but the freedom of the press to question the government and even get it wrong sometimes.
00:58:36.280 But they have a right to do that.
00:58:38.100 Those are all things that you never grew up with, never even heard of, never even heard of the.
00:58:48.460 Tell me about your thoughts on the Second Amendment, which is the right to keep and bear arms.
00:58:54.700 How would that have changed things for you?
00:58:59.880 Well, I talked about it on my YouTube channel.
00:59:02.860 Of course, that video got flagged.
00:59:05.520 So last time, a few years ago in Hong Kong, we all know that when the Chinese Communist Party taking over Hong Kong, 75 percent of the Hong Kongers went on the street and demanded freedom and independence from the central government.
00:59:21.780 But Chinese regime still took it over.
00:59:25.180 Nobody without even taking the tanks because nobody in Hong Kong had the guns.
00:59:31.860 Imagine those 75 percent of people had the guns.
00:59:35.520 Chinese government could not take them over like that.
00:59:39.620 And right now, under Kim Jong-un, if the people, not even like 100 percent of the population, just even 40 or even 20, 30 percent of the population had the guns in their hands.
00:59:51.360 The regime cannot do that to the people.
00:59:54.000 And of course, you can say, yeah, yeah, then the government has, you know, nuclear bombs.
00:59:59.780 They can bomb you guys.
01:00:00.920 But the thing is, the regime is going to kill your oil population.
01:00:04.920 But then who they are going to rule over?
01:00:07.300 Nobody.
01:00:08.240 Right.
01:00:08.600 That is unthinkable.
01:00:09.660 And the thing is, even if, say, government is going to get rid of 80 percent of the population and 20 percent lives, but that 20 percent is so the bloodshed of 80 percent of their population not going to be a slave to the regime.
01:00:24.340 They're going to fight to their death.
01:00:25.700 So it's impossible for enslaving people like that, like North Korea, if the population owns the right to guard themselves and defend themselves from the government.
01:00:36.120 And the thing is, like, it's about, like, even capitalism and, you know, a defense is that even money itself isn't bad.
01:00:44.540 It can cure diseases.
01:00:46.420 It can feed a hungry child.
01:00:48.700 Now there is so much attack on capitalism.
01:00:51.500 And the thing is, nothing lifted human beings from poverty more than capitalism did.
01:00:56.400 And poverty sucks.
01:00:57.980 It kills people.
01:00:59.980 And really, nothing is worse than poverty.
01:01:02.360 And people in America, almost they think this inequality is the same thing as poverty.
01:01:09.320 They are so hating inequality that, therefore, they want to get rid of everywhere and let's be poor.
01:01:15.240 All the dirty people like North Korea. 1.00
01:01:17.040 Well, people here in America think that they are poor.
01:01:20.500 I mean, the poorest people in America are better off than some countries where you're rich.
01:01:28.440 I would imagine that even the poorest among us here are far better off than those except for the very elite in North Korea. 0.85
01:01:37.400 Even very elite is not going to have 24 hours electricity.
01:01:41.180 So you guys are way better off.
01:01:43.320 I've been to homeless shelter.
01:01:44.620 I've been working at the homeless shelter and feeding them, cleaning their bed.
01:01:48.080 At the homeless shelter, they had this fridge filled with soda that was working 24 hours.
01:01:53.820 Four hours, they had a heating in North Korea.
01:01:57.520 Even elites in Pyongyang don't have a heating.
01:02:00.440 So that's the thing, like inequality does not mean poverty.
01:02:05.100 And of course, inequality exists.
01:02:07.260 And look at North Korea.
01:02:08.360 There's one guy is a god and 25 million people are slaves.
01:02:12.320 So do we want that instead?
01:02:14.300 People here will say, well, that's just that's just that's just communism gone awry.
01:02:19.680 And that's not what we're looking for.
01:02:22.340 We just are going to do it right this time.
01:02:25.180 How do you respond to that?
01:02:27.040 People have tried every single time it failed.
01:02:30.300 And whenever government decides the means of production, because, I mean, people as a person being, I don't even know what I want all the time.
01:02:38.420 How do you think government is going to know what is best for every individual?
01:02:42.940 That is impossible.
01:02:44.180 That's not even rational.
01:02:45.460 Right.
01:02:45.720 So the fact that you believe somehow government is going to have the best interest for you as an individual, that's impossibility.
01:02:54.660 And that's why they make mistake.
01:02:56.780 And these people have no real education.
01:02:59.680 They don't know what it has done to humans whenever we pursue the paradise.
01:03:04.820 Whenever you pursue this paradise perfection where nobody suffers, everything is equal, everything is the same.
01:03:11.500 It brought us hell.
01:03:13.400 When you hear people here in America talk about China and and make excuses for it to say that, you know, our own capitalists here say that China is the model for the future for the West.
01:03:29.700 And the fact that we are buying and embed with the Communist Party and we are using and accepting the use of slavery to make our products cheaper.
01:03:45.680 What do you say about that?
01:03:47.380 This is a complete hypocrisy of America's mainstream cooperation and Hollywood and media.
01:03:52.460 And secondly, do you know that why North Korea exists?
01:03:57.680 I mean, the United Nations in 2014 with their COI report called what is happening to the North Korean people right now?
01:04:05.040 The only resemblance that we can find in the human history is the Holocaust. 0.85
01:04:09.680 So UN said Holocaust is happening again.
01:04:12.500 And here in America, we are denying again.
01:04:16.420 Why are we denying again?
01:04:17.920 Because North Korea is funded, sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party.
01:04:23.660 Michelle Obama has no problem for the standing up for the girls who were captured by Boko Haram and ISIS.
01:04:30.360 Every Hollywood celebrity has no problem standing up for all these causes.
01:04:34.520 But nobody wants to standing up for the North Korean girls who are being raped and sold in China. 0.79
01:04:40.600 Right now, slavery is happening.
01:04:42.940 And these people have no problem talking about the slavery that happened in this country hundreds of years ago.
01:04:48.080 But they do not want to talk about that slavery is happening right now under Communist Chinese Party.
01:04:53.160 Right now, there are almost like 300,000 North Korean girls in China are being sold and killed and raped every single day. 1.00
01:05:01.120 Not even one single corporation is standing up for that.
01:05:04.520 Why do they talk about slavery?
01:05:06.060 I mean, look at LeBron James.
01:05:08.020 Look at John Cena.
01:05:09.300 All these people bowing to the Chinese Communist Party.
01:05:13.360 And this is why it scares that there's no murder.
01:05:16.860 The chaos in modernity is no value.
01:05:20.080 And they sold their souls to the Chinese Communist Party. 0.51
01:05:24.600 And it's an invisible world that we are in with the Chinese Communist Party.
01:05:29.520 And I don't think people know how serious this thing is.
01:05:32.200 When you look at what we have here as far as tech, you must, it must, the Internet and everything must be almost miraculous to you.
01:05:44.140 I mean, 12 years ago, you were being raped every night by a man and really didn't know about all this technology.
01:05:57.240 Now that we have it and you see it, the way it's being used by Silicon Valley in China and the way we are beginning to use it.
01:06:10.560 Is it a blessing or a curse what's coming our way?
01:06:14.280 I think it's like that.
01:06:20.140 Tech itself is a very neutral thing, right?
01:06:23.480 As long as we use it in the right way, it can help us immensely.
01:06:27.440 And it has when it comes to medicines, education, right?
01:06:31.420 It's like exactly like that.
01:06:32.840 It's like the gun.
01:06:33.900 There are good people can use it to kill enemies, bad people.
01:06:36.680 And bad people use it to kill good people.
01:06:38.780 What's concerned with the Chinese technology, especially facial recognition, is to know who is committing crime. 0.75
01:06:47.900 And they give social credit scores.
01:06:50.060 So if your social credit was low, then you cannot even buy a bus ticket to go see your parents.
01:06:55.860 That's what Chinese regime does right now.
01:06:58.300 And I thought that was only happening under the authoritarian communist party in China.
01:07:03.020 But it seems like it's happening in America.
01:07:06.380 Right now, I mean, U.S. government, I was recently hearing that they decided what is fact and not.
01:07:12.460 And they're going to let Facebook know.
01:07:14.020 So Facebook knows which one to block and which one is not.
01:07:17.640 So they are basically working for the government.
01:07:21.300 And the thing is, I'm not an anarchist.
01:07:25.080 I think we need the government to break down these tech monopolies, right?
01:07:28.720 Like, this is not something like a small individual company does something.
01:07:33.600 And it's not like some cake shop who wants to follow their religious belief.
01:07:38.560 That is okay.
01:07:39.360 But when it comes to the scale of Google, Facebook, Twitter, this is the biggest monopolies in the world.
01:07:46.380 And if they set the narrative and tell us what is true and not, then are we really free now?
01:07:53.020 So I do think we are, it's unbelievable how fast this erosion of Americans' freedom is going away.
01:08:04.740 I could talk to you all day long, and I know I've taken up too much of your time already.
01:08:10.100 But let me just ask you two more questions.
01:08:13.020 The role of God and faith, you had no hope.
01:08:24.780 Your God was the Kim family.
01:08:29.320 Yeah.
01:08:30.420 How important is that for a free people to have a God that is a God of love and harmony and peace?
01:08:41.520 I think that, I mean, after North Korea, right, and I was so hated that something is not verifiable.
01:08:53.100 What scared me about the North Korean regime is that when it's your being God, you don't have to be logical.
01:08:59.520 You don't have to bring evidence to show you to believe because now Kim says I'm a God.
01:09:06.080 So therefore, even if you suffer, you can die for me.
01:09:08.740 And I don't even have to explain it to you because it's a faith.
01:09:13.220 That's a different thing.
01:09:15.000 So I do not deny that.
01:09:17.000 There are some religions that are bad, very harmful. 1.00
01:09:21.380 And there's a lot of extremists.
01:09:23.360 We know that.
01:09:24.840 And that's why I cannot fully support any kind of faith.
01:09:30.140 But the thing is, when, I mean, we don't even, how little do you understand about science, right?
01:09:38.760 The things are, that's what hung by the humility is what's lacking in here, in America.
01:09:43.460 When you go, like, talking to social justice warriors on campus, they know every single truth.
01:09:49.020 They know every single fact.
01:09:50.320 They know how to solve the world.
01:09:51.700 And they do not understand the complexity and the difficulty of knowing how things are actually working.
01:09:59.640 And that, a little bit of humility would really work.
01:10:02.240 And they calm them down a little bit.
01:10:04.460 But to me, as I'm getting older, I became a mom a few years ago.
01:10:09.080 And I do send my son to church.
01:10:11.680 It's, for me, it's more like that.
01:10:15.440 It's important to hear what is good and what is bad.
01:10:19.620 Because current society now is almost like, yeah, if you identify yourself as a unicorn, it's okay.
01:10:26.500 Go, be a unicorn.
01:10:28.040 Be a vampire, right?
01:10:30.000 There's people not even identifying themselves.
01:10:32.660 Not just a bit different gender, even different animals. 0.76
01:10:35.780 And different race.
01:10:36.840 It's like one, this British guy saying, now I identify myself as a Korean, right?
01:10:42.520 There's a complete mortal chaos.
01:10:45.520 And I think this is, like, what's the scary thing about without God is, when you don't have a God, people is willing to believe in anything.
01:10:55.320 That anything is scary, isn't it?
01:10:57.700 You sound like Nietzsche.
01:11:04.380 Why did you come here?
01:11:05.600 Why did you come to the West?
01:11:08.920 You could have lived anywhere.
01:11:12.040 And, you know, speaking Korean, it would have been easy for you just to stay in South Korea.
01:11:22.040 Well, there are a few reasons.
01:11:24.020 South Korea, I'm on the target list of Kim Jong-un.
01:11:26.740 I mean, Kim Jong-un assassinated a half-brother, right, in Malaysia a few years ago.
01:11:30.960 Kim Jong-un did not allow people to challenge him, even after they escaped.
01:11:34.880 So, I've been warned by intelligence that I'm on the killing list.
01:11:39.100 So, I don't know when I'm going to be poisoned or killed.
01:11:42.680 And geographically, getting away from Kim Jong-un was a good idea.
01:11:46.680 But not only that, why did I not go to the UK or other European countries and came to America?
01:11:51.840 Because, simply, this is the greatest country in human history.
01:11:57.160 Like, how can we deny that?
01:11:59.020 Despite all the problems this country had and has, still this is the best human experience we've ever done.
01:12:06.340 And, I believe in the possibility of this country.
01:12:12.000 And, I applied to become a citizen this year.
01:12:15.480 And, if the country will grant me, I will fight for this country.
01:12:19.880 Like, I'm fighting for North Korean people.
01:12:22.560 How worried are you that we're on the wrong path?
01:12:25.640 Pretty worried.
01:12:27.080 Pretty worried.
01:12:27.760 I, last summer in Chicago, I was robbed by these three black young women. 1.00
01:12:34.640 And, bystanders on the street, like these white people on the Michigan Avenue, were calling me a racist.
01:12:41.780 While I'm being beaten by these three black, it was during the ruling, too, during the BLM protests. 1.00
01:12:46.780 And, that was the first time I was judged by my skin color in my life.
01:12:53.440 I lived in China, Mongolia, South Korea, and many countries.
01:12:56.880 First time I was discriminated for my skin color was in America.
01:13:01.540 Now, almost like nothing of color became a discrimination.
01:13:06.120 This country is regressing.
01:13:08.660 Right?
01:13:08.860 We know that.
01:13:09.760 It's destroying everything that civil, even movement, has built.
01:13:14.240 What Martin Luther King Jr. fought for, they are destroying that terror part.
01:13:20.640 We cannot lose hope.
01:13:22.200 You are, you are, I think you give a lot of people hope.
01:13:27.760 You are a remarkable individual.
01:13:31.760 The accomplishments that you have achieved, the education.
01:13:36.820 I mean, you haven't hesitated on anything that I have thrown your way.
01:13:43.900 And, to think, 15 years ago, you knew nothing.
01:13:50.620 You are truly a remarkable human being.
01:13:54.740 And, it's an honor to talk to you.
01:13:56.960 Thank you so much.
01:13:58.220 Thank you.
01:13:58.960 Thank you.
01:13:59.040 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast
01:14:09.080 and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.
01:14:12.000 We'll see you next time.