The Megyn Kelly Show - Escaping North Korea, Woke College Students and Professors, and American Opportunity, with Yeonmi Park ｜ Ep. 496

00:00:00.500 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.940 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today we have an incredible,

00:00:17.760 incredible interview for you. This is one of those exchanges I finished recently and said,

00:00:23.440 this is a before and after moment for me, meeting this woman, hearing her story. I've thought about

00:00:29.460 it every single day since we did it and we did it a couple of weeks ago. And I think you're going

00:00:34.420 to feel the same when you hear the story of Yeonmi Park. She's here for the full show. You may have

00:00:40.020 heard her name, possibly her story before, but not like this. Yeonmi Park became a household name

00:00:46.480 for many in America thanks to her 2015 memoir, an extraordinary piece called In Order to Live,

00:00:53.920 a North Korean girl's journey to freedom. It was published when she was just 21 years old.

00:00:59.460 But her story, of course, starts much earlier. She was born and raised in North Korea and escaped,

00:01:07.300 and that is the right word, escaped to China when she was 13. Her incredibly perilous,

00:01:14.000 dangerous journey did not end there, though she was not fully free until 2011, just before she turned

00:01:19.580 18, when she finally made it to South Korea and eventually to America. She's still so young.

00:01:27.200 I sat there listening to her story, and as you hear it yourselves, you're going to think what I

00:01:32.160 thought. This is unbelievable. This is absolutely incredible. And it got me wondering when the

00:01:38.020 interview was over, like, is this incredible? Like, could this stuff have actually happened?

00:01:42.460 We should. We're journalists. Go ahead and do a fact check on it like we do for any of these in-depth

00:01:46.740 pieces we do. And we went back and started fact checking some of the things that Yeonmi told us,

00:01:51.520 and they checked out. As incredible as they were, her descriptions of North Korea checked out. Other

00:01:58.080 people who have escaped have told very similar stories around the same time. A couple details

00:02:03.800 here or there that whatever. But yes, it checked out. And I will tell you that there were a couple

00:02:09.780 things. She went on a reality show in South Korea where she talked about how she was, I guess,

00:02:14.340 a little wealthier than you will hear her portray in this interview, whatever. And there was one

00:02:21.860 sort of report on, oh, she said her mother and father came across out of North Korea with her

00:02:25.960 when, in fact, it was just her mom. She says that was just a translation thing. She didn't claim that.

00:02:30.440 But what's interesting to me is that people have been coming for her as they would, right?

00:02:36.500 You leave North Korea, and you start speaking these kinds of facts about what it's like to live

00:02:42.560 there and you make yourself a target. But you see, Yeonmi Park doesn't care about being a target.

00:02:48.960 She's been one her entire life. Her entire life has been one of people taking advantage of her,

00:02:55.460 people hurting her, people not caring whether she lives or dies, people who have wanted to hurt her

00:03:01.160 from the time she was a very young girl and did. And now here in America, a true survivor,

00:03:07.020 someone who did know victimhood firsthand, her observations on our culture have been absolutely

00:03:14.840 stunning and have opened up an entirely new area for her to discuss. She has a new book out this

00:03:21.700 week called While Time Remains, A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America.

00:03:27.640 And she joined me for an incredible, incredible conversation. Enjoy.

00:03:33.080 Yeonmi, great to have you.

00:03:35.100 Thank you so much for having me.

00:03:37.360 Oh, the pleasure's all mine. So correct me if I'm wrong, you're 29 years old now, just about?

00:03:43.960 Yeah, I just turned 29.

00:03:46.120 Wow. Okay. So it's been an extraordinary three decades on this earth. And I've listened to so

00:03:51.740 many interviews that you've done, and I continue to find your story absolutely riveting.

00:03:56.320 Let me just start with where you are now, before we go back to where you were living in Chicago at the

00:04:01.040 moment.

00:04:01.240 I actually moved back to New York last summer. So I've been back to New York since my college.

00:04:09.840 Okay. And you have one son?

00:04:12.540 Yeah, I do.

00:04:13.980 How old is he?

00:04:14.860 He's about to turn five years old next month.

00:04:20.240 Wow. So how are you enjoying New York, by the way?

00:04:23.360 It's, I, I almost, I was going to university here from 2016 and moved to Chicago right before the pandemic.

00:04:35.160 And I came back to New York last August. And to be honest, I just couldn't recognize the city

00:04:41.440 anymore. Uh, every restaurant that there's meat town in Manhattan, where there's a K town is that I 1.00

00:04:48.140 like to go for lunch. Every corner that I turn around, there are people selling drugs. And what's

00:04:56.180 so shocking is that I walk with my son to go to Korean restaurant, and they sell drugs in this 0.98

00:05:02.920 wrapping purple, pink paper. And my son thinks that's like a lollipop. He keeps asking me to buy

00:05:10.620 him the lollipop from these people. And, and of course, I take away like every New Yorker. And every

00:05:18.120 single time I take this away, I see really unbelievable things that you can discuss here.

00:05:24.420 And I feel like I'm risking my life every single time when I take the subway.

00:05:29.460 So in some sense, I don't feel safe in America anymore. And that's what I was literally crossing

00:05:36.500 the desert for, for freedom and safety. And I don't get that anymore living in New York City.

00:05:43.560 I completely understand. We just moved from there. Not even two years ago, after having lived in the

00:05:50.860 city for almost 20 years, and we have young children. And it is a scary place these days.

00:05:56.960 It wasn't always, I mean, relatively recently, it was a very safe place to raise a family.

00:06:02.600 And then two election cycles of a terrible mayor, de Blasio, coupled with COVID mania,

00:06:10.920 and defunding the police only to refund the police and so on,

00:06:15.000 have changed the dynamic there dramatically for the worse.

00:06:20.500 Yeah, that's the thing. Like I only came to America really 2016. And since then,

00:06:26.380 I do not recognize the city anymore. And so that's very shocking to me how fast things can really

00:06:34.000 deteriorate. And I mean, I went to university in New York City, and I know what they were learning

00:06:39.680 there. So I'm not even surprised at this point.

00:06:41.780 Well, this is the point of your message, how fast things can deteriorate and how quickly

00:06:47.980 North Korea became what it is today. And so your whole message, as I understand it, 0.93

00:06:54.900 since you've gotten here, has been to try to wake up Americans to the dangers of not paying attention

00:07:01.440 to a government that's growing too authoritarian, a far left that's trying to word police and thought

00:07:07.520 police at every level of society, taking control of various cultural institutions. It's not just a,

00:07:13.720 eh, it's fine, it'll work out. No, it's a five alarm fire that could result in the complete

00:07:20.900 transformation of our country.

00:07:23.200 Yeah, I mean, this is a thing where people do not recognize is that they somehow, because

00:07:28.260 Americans, when they're born, they were born in freedom. Like people who were born with two arms,

00:07:34.340 we will never understand like what it feels like not having the arms. And like that for them to not,

00:07:40.380 like not being able to imagine life without freedom is almost an impossible task, it seems like.

00:07:47.080 And if my country from North Korea, you just look at these two Koreas, North Korea and South Korea,

00:07:54.140 exact same people, homogeneous people, had thousands, almost 5,000 years of same history,

00:08:00.880 ate the same food, same genetics, same culture. Under two different systems, one became South Korea,

00:08:08.440 the land of K-pop and Samsung and innovation and freedom. And one country literally became the

00:08:14.960 darkest place on earth. The entire country became a consensual camp. The people in North Korea in this 0.98

00:08:22.260 21st century, they don't even know the existence of the internet. And it's not because something North

00:08:28.400 Koreans in their genetics, they want to be oppressed. It's just because they, they somehow chose a 1.00

00:08:34.680 different system. And it can happen to America, if we choose a different system, that is other than

00:08:40.800 empowering individual liberty and freedom and free market, we can totally can become like North Korea.

00:08:46.560 And I think they somehow think America is the exception to this law, that we are immune to oppression somehow.

00:08:56.060 And obviously playing with the ideology that brought my country to North, the Hermit kingdom, 0.97

00:09:01.720 and they are playing the same ideology in America right now.

00:09:06.460 You know, you're, it's funny to think about, because I, as I was reading up on your story,

00:09:11.160 I was thinking about my nephew, my sister's oldest child who moved to, he's in his young thirties.

00:09:16.660 Now he moved to South Korea, uh, about 10 years ago to help teach English, fell in love with a South

00:09:23.120 Korean gal. Um, she's a lawyer that he married her. They're living there. I think she works for Nike

00:09:28.920 and any of it, they have this lovely life. They have a beautiful child. They're living

00:09:33.040 obviously a perfectly free, absolutely wonderful existence there. And it's not that far away

00:09:40.140 from the existence you've detailed. And it's hard to believe it's hard, it's hard to believe what,

00:09:45.420 what a juxtaposition, you know, between the cultures that could be so closely related geographically.

00:09:52.240 Yeah. It's literally a few miles down. That's a, that was the same Korea back then. There was no 1.00

00:09:57.280 North Korea or South Korea. It was just one Korea. And now the people like North Korea can't even 1.00

00:10:04.800 afford electricity, not even mention internet, that the two different reality, they became even a two

00:10:12.240 different planet. I think whenever I have to talk about my nursing experience, it's almost like

00:10:18.820 describing life on Mars or something that people can't even fathom and relate anymore.

00:10:24.480 Reading your story. That's how it felt. It was like, I don't, I don't understand. So let's get

00:10:28.500 into it so that people can hear the details. That's what's extraordinary about you is you're

00:10:33.120 young. As you say, you're 29 years old and born in 1993. This isn't ancient history. This isn't

00:10:37.720 something that happened. Oh, 70 years ago. And people can't really relate. It's, it's happening

00:10:41.760 right now. Your story remains entirely relevant in present day. So it's a window into something we

00:10:48.520 haven't been paying enough attention to. Uh, and, and also a warning as to where we could be going.

00:10:53.400 Um, so you're born in 1993. And let me just ask you about your earliest childhood memories. Like

00:10:58.260 how was your, you know, you talk to an American person, odds are they spent their childhood,

00:11:02.580 you know, riding a bike, going to school, running around, playing sports, you know,

00:11:06.220 things like that. How do you remember your childhood?

00:11:11.220 Oh, I mean, growing up in North Korea, I just remember not seeing any colors because a, 1.00

00:11:18.620 there's no color. We were just so poor. Nothing was even painted in color.

00:11:23.400 Other than there's one place that we have electricity. Those were the, uh, where the

00:11:29.580 King dictators monuments were. And that place is where children, I remember had to get up

00:11:35.800 at 5 a.m. and go to the monuments and picking up little plants and dust out of the monuments.

00:11:42.300 And that's how we showed our loyalty to the regime. And the first thing I really remember from my mom

00:11:48.940 was actually, she was telling me, don't even whisper because the birds and mice couldn't hear me.

00:11:55.980 And when I came to America, even mice with my son, I helped him to express his feelings and his thoughts.

00:12:03.020 But the first thing my mom had to teach me was that the most dangerous thing that I had in my body

00:12:09.120 was my tongue. If I said one wrong thing, that was not just going to kill me,

00:12:14.460 but that was going to kill the three generations of my family. That's how North Korea punished people

00:12:20.920 and, uh, get rid of any kind of rebellion by punishing up to eight generations families

00:12:27.340 for one person's crime. Eight generations. And that's true. It was not an empty threat. You

00:12:34.460 actually could wind up getting family members killed three to eight generations around you

00:12:40.060 for misstepping in a way that was offensive enough. And it could be a mild offense.

00:12:44.520 Yeah. It's a offense. It's like a watching Hollywood movie. That was a bull-legged Hollywood movie that

00:12:51.660 came from China by smugglers or the most ridiculous, uh, the offenses are like every newspaper in North 0.70

00:12:59.280 Korea, the front page have to have the Kim's pictures and showing how they work so tirelessly for

00:13:05.820 the people of North Korea. And a man one day didn't see the front page and looked back and ripped the

00:13:11.740 paper by mistake. That was his reason, get punished to the concentration camp and along with all his 0.95

00:13:18.540 family. And in, I remember in my room, in every household, every room, every class in North Korea

00:13:27.660 have to have portraits of Kim dictators. And if the fire get caught, what do you do? You don't run with your

00:13:34.940 children or your mother. You have to protect the portraits of your own body. Otherwise,

00:13:40.780 your entire three generation of family is going to get killed.

00:13:43.740 Wow. Do you remember any, is there any joy? Is there any fun for the young ones?

00:13:51.260 Um, I mean, we don't even have, so this is the thing why I keep saying that North Korea is a 1.00

00:13:57.820 different planet is that they don't teach us the concept a lot of times. Like we don't have the

00:14:02.940 vocabulary actually. They don't teach us the word stress. For instance, like how can you be stressed

00:14:09.660 living in a socialist paradise? You cannot be. There's no word for PTSD or stress or, I mean,

00:14:16.780 depression. And at the same time, they don't teach us what happiness is. So if you ask North Korean 1.00

00:14:23.740 child, what is happiness? They will not know what that is. So it's not in our mind to think about

00:14:29.820 what joy is. And when you are born in the country, the first thing you know is even as a little baby,

00:14:35.580 you need to survive. That's the, every day is a survival game. Nobody knows. There's no guarantee

00:14:42.380 that you're going to make that day. So I remember every single day when we live in North Korea,

00:14:47.100 if we made one day, not going study and dying, we say, wow, we made one more day.

00:14:52.860 I'm not sure what tomorrow hurts for you. Hmm. I mean, so is it, you know, I don't think I'd be

00:15:00.060 asking somebody who'd been a child in a World War II concentration camp if they ever, if they have

00:15:06.860 fond memories or were laughing a lot or had a lot of joy. But I, my instincts would be to do that

00:15:13.020 because my instincts tell me children are children and they're naturally joyful. Is that not true? I mean,

00:15:18.300 do you, what, what was your experience? What was you, were you able to tap into laughter and

00:15:22.940 something that now you can see as joy, notwithstanding all of your surroundings?

00:15:29.100 Oh, this is something that, I mean, to be honest, um, it healed by having, when I actually had my

00:15:35.500 own son in 2018. And I think that's also maybe the first reason why I chose to have a child when I was

00:15:41.500 22 years old. Um, after North Korea surviving that country, what they do is when you're born in the 1.00

00:15:49.660 oppression, they kind of numb you, they numb all your senses, and they numb the ability to think

00:15:57.500 critically. You are just say, empty shell, as a robot, whatever the government controls you,

00:16:05.500 you have this group think in this totalitarian state. And, but I still, if I really try to remember

00:16:13.180 what I was laughing about is, you know, we get electricity once or twice a year for three hours

00:16:19.980 on the holidays of dictators' birthdays. They have to make us to watch the propaganda films, brainwashes.

00:16:26.700 Then that was the biggest thing that could ever happen to me, seeing that light bulb light up.

00:16:32.300 Yeah. But more like 99% time, even as a child, like you never get to have that, you know,

00:16:41.180 humanity with you. That is completely being denied in the country.

00:16:45.500 Even to the point where you're denied, well, you tell me, you're either denied love,

00:16:51.820 but at a minimum, it could be alternatively, you're just denied the word and the concept of love.

00:16:58.140 Yeah, that's the thing. North Korea is the only country to not have the concept of love.

00:17:05.100 Like, we don't know what romance is or the mother's love. Kim Jong-un literally banned

00:17:11.580 mother states because he was afraid that if children love their mothers, they are not going to love the

00:17:17.420 dictator as much. So that's why he didn't deny that love that child has for their own mother,

00:17:23.340 or the mother has for their own children, or husband and wife have for each other. I've never

00:17:29.020 heard in my life. My father passed away before he ever reached to freedom. He never told me he ever

00:17:35.660 loved me. I'm sure he did. But in North Korea, we do not even have that right to say or feel love for

00:17:42.380 other people other than the dictator. Is there nurturing without that word, without the concept? I mean,

00:17:48.860 I can't imagine a mother holding a baby is loving, isn't holding you, isn't holding your hand, 0.54

00:17:54.940 isn't showing love. But am I wrong?

00:17:57.340 It's a... So when I was escaping North Korea, the lady who helped me to go to China was a trafficker,

00:18:07.660 but she sold her own daughter to Chinese to be raped. And you would think like, what a horrible 0.99

00:18:17.260 person she is. How can she possibly selling her own daughter to be raped as a child in China as a 1.00

00:18:23.660 sex slave? But because that was the only her way to make her child not die from starvation. 1.00

00:18:30.300 And so, of course, we can judge North Koreans all day long. How can that is a lot. And in the 90s, 0.87

00:18:39.980 when I was growing up, it was the worst famine in our country. That's when Soviet Union collapsed,

00:18:45.500 and they will stop helping the North Korean regime. And socialism can never survive without

00:18:49.980 subsidy from other countries. They eventually run out of all the money that people have.

00:18:54.220 And people were dying, millions of millions on top of each other. And during that time, I mean,

00:19:04.300 families had to decide who to kill that day to feed on other children. Because if they don't kill

00:19:11.100 on their child, other child will die. And they forced North Korean people to make these kinds of 1.00

00:19:17.740 impossible choices. And of course, no North Korean should ever die from starvation because

00:19:24.380 Kim Jong-un tested more than 40 missile tests. One missile test, he can feed the entire North Korean 0.58

00:19:31.660 population, entire year. If he did less four missile tests, nobody ever had to die in North Korea from

00:19:38.780 starvation. But he chose not to feed North Korean people. Then because we are so weak, that we cannot

00:19:45.340 think about freedom. We cannot think about the meaning of life. We don't have the energy to fight back

00:19:50.700 and start a revolution. That's why the regime chose not to feed us and force us into that kind of

00:19:57.500 unimaginable situation.

00:19:59.420 And instead focused on their missile tests, right?

00:20:01.820 Yeah.

00:20:03.980 I've heard you describe this before. I mean, of course, you describe your own history as having

00:20:08.300 been starving and that you've seen dead bodies in the streets due to starvation. How did the food

00:20:14.780 distribution system work?

00:20:18.540 So this is a funny thing, right? North Korea began as a communist country that Kim Il-sung

00:20:25.660 was an admirer of Marx and Lenin and Stalin. And he wanted to begin North Korea as this 0.90

00:20:34.140 perfectly equal society, equitable society where nobody's poor, nobody's richer, we are all the same.

00:20:41.420 And with that promise, he said, in order to achieve that, you need to give us all your properties.

00:20:50.620 We are going to abolish private property. There's no private ownership on anything. In North Korea, 0.82

00:20:56.540 you cannot own a house. You cannot own a bike. You don't even own yourself. Everything, including your

00:21:02.460 body, is a state. And from there, the state is going to decide how to contribute that.

00:21:07.900 But then as soon as he took all the rights from people, from the lands and rights from people,

00:21:13.500 he decided to divide North Koreans into, and by the way, North Koreans are the homogeneous country in

00:21:19.420 the same language. There's no like even race difference, into 51 different classes.

00:21:25.900 So after the promise of equality and no inequality, we became 51 different classes. And the regime

00:21:37.420 decided to, depending on that classes, they're going to decide who gets fed and who gets to start from

00:21:44.380 dying from starvation. So mostly only the few people in Pyongyang, like top 10% of the North Korean

00:21:52.220 population living in Pyongyang in capital. That's where dictators lives. And it's almost like the

00:21:58.460 Hunger Games, right? They have 13 different districts, and there's capital. And people in Pyongyang,

00:22:04.620 they have so much food, and they have so much luxury. But the 90% of the population don't get any of that,

00:22:11.660 by design.

00:22:12.380 How do you get your food? I mean, is it different? It must be than here, where you go to the grocery

00:22:19.260 store. You have money in your pocket from a job. You know, how do you get the food?

00:22:25.340 So in North Korea, right, nobody can choose their own destiny. When you're born, the division tells

00:22:31.580 you what to do, what to wear, what to think, what to watch, what to read. And including your jobs, they call

00:22:38.460 something job replacement or allocation. And doctor salary, the medical doctor salary in North Korea is

00:22:47.580 less than a dollar a year. So you cannot buy a kilogram of rice. So the only way that common

00:22:56.060 North Koreans can survive is by being corrupt and go under nature to become almost like hunter and 1.00

00:23:05.020 gatherers. And even that you get punished. So the only way I could find food as a child in North 0.97

00:23:11.580 Korea was, you know, in the fall, I go catch the grasshoppers. And that's what I ate. And the 0.96

00:23:18.300 summertime, I would eat dragonflies, and plants, tree barks, and some children eat the muds. And if you

00:23:27.820 eat the muds, you cannot go to the bathroom, and you're going to die eventually. And children are still 1.00

00:23:34.380 so hungry, they despite best to eat the muds. And that's how North Koreans are the same people 1.00

00:23:41.580 as the South Koreans. But on average, we are five inch shorter than South Koreans because of my nutrition.

00:23:50.060 Wow. I read that when you, when you finally got out at age 13, you were around there, you were

00:23:58.540 between 50 and 60 pounds. Yeah. And because of my child malnutrition, I'm still only like 76 pounds.

00:24:07.100 Because, and it's the same thing with all North Koreans, that our system didn't develop fully. Our 1.00

00:24:13.900 organs and brains never fully developed. Because that early childhood, you needed nutrition to develop

00:24:20.700 your physics and your system. But we failed to do that. So even after they escape, nobody can

00:24:27.500 ever fully recover. And all of us have that problem afterwards in gaining anyway, because our systems

00:24:34.700 are just not used to it. Mm hmm. I read that the average North Korean man is what, under five feet tall? 1.00

00:24:42.300 Yeah. It's a, if you're above 138 centimeters, it's got to be like four one, four two feet. You have to go

00:24:52.140 draft to military North Korea for 13 years. So every man in North Korea are obligated to serve in the

00:25:00.540 military for 13 years, if we are just above four feet. And for women, it's five years. So, and when you go to

00:25:10.300 military, they don't feed you. So women stop having periods, because you can't afford to have periods. 1.00

00:25:16.540 Our body is not going to ovulate because of malnutrition. And you, as a woman, you constantly

00:25:23.180 get raped and not fed. So North Korean regime all hides its backs from the West and the international 0.95

00:25:30.220 society. Now, what about friendship? What about romantic love as a young person? I realize you left before

00:25:40.060 that was really realistic for you, but does it happen? Do people marry for love? Does the regime

00:25:45.500 choose your, your spouse? How is, how is our relationships developed? So about friendship,

00:25:54.220 we don't have the word friends. We only have the word comrade. So comradeship and friendship is a very

00:26:02.780 different thing. When you are being a comrade with each other, you are serving the revolution.

00:26:08.380 You're a revolutionary. You're not an individual. So even when I was a child going to North Korean 0.81

00:26:16.780 state school temporarily. And every Saturday, they do this thing called the self-criticism session.

00:26:25.260 And it reminds me of Americans now, the corporations, they are like re-education. They are

00:26:30.860 doing people to show them their bigotry and, you know, biases.

00:26:35.420 Yeah, the struggle session.

00:26:36.460 Right. North Korea is a lot of severe versions, but they begin with a very like tiny little kids 0.99

00:26:43.340 that brainwashing begins early. And the trick is that every, every Saturday we have this red note

00:26:50.300 and write down the verses that dictators talked about. It's like in North Korea, dictators are gods.

00:26:55.820 They literally copy the Bible, give us 10 amendments and have the book that we people need to live by

00:27:03.180 from their own words that all made up story. And we have to say like, dear leader, I got so merciful

00:27:09.500 that he forgave my sin, even though I was not being a revolutionary this way. And I'm eternally grateful

00:27:14.940 for his love and protection. And afterwards that of that confession, what you have to do is you have

00:27:21.820 to pick your classmate to criticize. This is not something you can skip. So imagine if there are 60 kids

00:27:28.380 in the classroom, 60 kids during the entire week, you need to look for the faults in your classmate

00:27:34.300 to criticize. Otherwise you're going to get punished. So even in children have to constantly looking

00:27:41.500 over each other's shoulders and see who is committing the crime and who is not doing the good job.

00:27:47.980 So in North Korea, it's like that, like if you have three people, everybody is spying on each other.

00:27:53.660 And that's why there's no trust between people or between children's friendship even.

00:28:01.340 So how does it work that you would find a mate? How do you find a spouse in that environment?

00:28:06.940 So a lot of times it's a government assignment. The dictator says, okay, this time, this many

00:28:13.420 militaries each year, they graduate, right? They come out of the military after 13 years of service.

00:28:20.220 Then he said, okay, this 29, maybe a district going to marry them, maybe 17 districts of women

00:28:27.980 who's getting out of military. Like that, just random. Like he just matches, the governments match

00:28:33.980 them up. Or sometimes family members too. But the problem with not being able to marry who you want

00:28:41.660 in North Korea is that, as I said about the class system, right? 51 different classes.

00:28:46.140 And the tricky thing about North Korea region is that they made this way to prevent people to mix

00:28:52.460 around between classes is, if you marry somebody who's lower status than you, that lower person

00:28:59.980 don't marry up. You go down with the woman. So if a guy was a high position, he married somebody lower, 1.00

00:29:06.140 his family, entire three-generation family is going to go to lower class. So what's going to happen,

00:29:13.020 the family is going to oppose a marriage with their life, literally. So the mixing between

00:29:19.180 different classes doesn't really happen.

00:29:22.780 So you were talking about the punishment, if you break any of these rules. And again,

00:29:28.140 it could be something like you said, maybe it was a neighbor who watched an American movie or

00:29:32.940 watched a Western movie. How, how do they, I mean, they disappear people, they go off to camps.

00:29:40.540 What would lead to a death sentence? And are you forced to participate in that at all?

00:29:47.580 Yeah. So it, so there's no concept of minor in North Korea, even though you're five years old,

00:29:55.180 literally, I can't imagine. My son had to go to see that, even four years old, two years old.

00:30:01.900 You have to go watch public execution. And this is a very often event in North Korea that happens.

00:30:08.940 They have these executions like a stadium or the market or the school stadium, like where a lot of

00:30:18.620 people go watch and you, you get drafted to go watch it. And teachers announced that which day,

00:30:24.540 what time there's a public execution. And as a class, we all have to march together to go see the

00:30:29.580 public execution. And for the adult, the same, for anybody, it's the same.

00:30:33.980 And how do they commit the executions?

00:30:37.260 It's a, I've never seen the hanging. I heard that people literally in the concentration camps,

00:30:45.500 uh, they hang the person and they demand the, if it was a mother, then they demand the son and

00:30:53.180 husband have to call first person to have to throw the rocks to kill them. They use the family members 0.97

00:30:59.100 to commit the murder. That's how they do that. To really carry the love and trust between anybody.

00:31:05.820 And people have no place to go for. Right. And the execution that I saw was by shooting.

00:31:12.380 Uh, they, uh, before they kill somebody, uh, they literally break every bone in the person's body.

00:31:21.340 So they can't even walk. And then before they take them out to the public, they, uh,

00:31:28.780 put a big rock in their mouth and break all their teeth. The reason they put the rock in their mouth is

00:31:35.420 they don't even give you this chance for the last time to rebel, to resist the regime's ideology.

00:31:41.660 Nobody can ever have a saying towards the regime, even in their death moment. That's why these

00:31:47.980 people come out, the rocks in their mouth and just blood and their bones are just all smooshed

00:31:53.900 and they drag them into their bodies. And the, when the time he gives them execute his own uncle,

00:31:59.900 people, he used the, the, the, the gun. I mean, that was opium shooting down the airplane.

00:32:07.260 That kind of powerful weapon he used and made his body into you really into little pieces

00:32:14.380 and then made the dogs eat the flesh afterwards and let the officials to see this execution. And this is

00:32:21.660 what's going to happen if the people do not obey the dictator. And do they, do they, do they

00:32:27.900 make the children and the spouse participate in the execution every time? Or is that a reserve

00:32:36.220 for the most egregious? I mean, I know you're saying there's nothing minor and there are no minors,

00:32:40.460 but is that reserved for the most egregious sin? No, every time. Uh, one of my, my executioners,

00:32:49.020 my sister friends, her mother was accused somehow being a spy. And then they made her to sit in the

00:32:57.180 front, seeing her own mom got killed. And three months later, the office of, and then she got

00:33:02.940 all exiled in the countryside and the officers say, Oh, we made a mistake. And she was not a spy,

00:33:09.340 but there's no apology. There's not no like condemnation after killing of innocent lives.

00:33:15.820 Every single execution, the family members have to be the witness. And then they put the little

00:33:20.780 children by height. So if you're two years old, you're going to be the first row, five years of 0.95

00:33:26.140 second row, seven years, like, and the older standing in the last. So since you grew up in

00:33:31.260 North Korea, the first thing you see is people are getting executed as a child. And as you get older

00:33:37.260 and get taller, you're going to go standing in your back row to watch it.

00:33:41.740 Is there mass depression? You know, now being able to identify what depression looks like,

00:33:46.700 I'm sure you can. Is there mass depression there?

00:33:52.700 I think it's whatever you fear living in North Korea is going to be beyond depression. It's going

00:33:58.380 to be a complete, I don't know, numbness. It's a complete fear. Like I still work with North

00:34:06.700 Koreans and try to rescue them. And there are like Chinese brokers that we use to rescue these people 1.00

00:34:13.420 and send the information and get money out of North Korea and send money into North Korea.

00:34:17.980 And somebody tried to, you know, lie to us by being a North Korean. And when I hear their voice, 0.87

00:34:24.140 I can tell who is calling me from North Korea and who's not. Because even their voice is oppressed to the

00:34:32.060 point that anybody, if you hear their voice, but you know, even their soul is crushed by this darkness.

00:34:38.460 My God, that's just horrific. Just to think about how that's, again, not, not ancient history. This is recent.

00:34:47.020 And still happening right now. Yeah, nothing's changed. It's, it's the same family. It's the same leadership.

00:34:54.060 So, so let's go, let's go forward in time to where you see an opportunity to potentially leave. How did that happen?

00:35:02.380 Oh, I was 13 years old. And I, we were like, you're not able to find food. And luckily, I was living on the border town of North Korea. And as you can see from the satellite pictures that North Korea do not have electricity.

00:35:21.100 And from border town, I was looking across the river. And that was China. And they had a light on the street at nighttime. And that's when my sister and I thought, maybe if we go where the lights were, we could find a boat of rice.

00:35:36.620 And that's initially thought, like why we were escaping, really not thinking about freedom, not even knowing what freedom is or human rights is. We were just looking for a boat of rice. So we would not die from starvation.

00:35:49.980 And first, my sister escaped to China. And I wanted to go with her. But I couldn't go with her because one day I got very, had a bad stomachache. So my mom took me to the North Korean hospital. And, you know, this is a free health care, right? The government provides everything free to the people. But in the hospital, they use one meter to inject every patient.

00:36:15.120 Oh, my gosh.

00:36:45.120 And it turns out, like they thought I had an appendix, like two removed, but I just had a malnutrition. So I couldn't go with my sister. But she left me a little note to say, go find this lady. She's going to help you to go to China and find me there.

00:37:03.640 So as soon as I got out of the hospital, you must have been afraid. If you think that they can read your thoughts and that, you know, everyone's spying on you, it must have been terrifying.

00:37:14.800 Just to have those thoughts, never mind, have a note directing you where to go to get out.

00:37:19.800 Yeah, so that is also a thing. Like, in our school, you're so isolated. We don't even know the word escaping.

00:37:29.760 And also, when you're so desperate, like, you know, if your apartment cuts a fire, you're not really going to think what happens to me if I don't jump out of the window right now, because I'm going to die from this burning.

00:37:43.140 So almost, I think, when I was escaping, I wasn't thinking, and there's no way you could think, like, if you do not go that hour, you are literally dying from starvation.

00:37:55.040 And that's why, only thing I just remember was crossing that frozen river into China with my, like, limping stomach just out of the surgery.

00:38:06.140 Like, I should not get shot. I cannot get shot.

00:38:08.140 Yeah, because the guards, they are really machine guns. It's a shoot-to-kill order. 0.99

00:38:13.280 They don't just, like, catch you. They are going to shoot you to death if they see you crossing the river. 1.00

00:38:18.220 So that's all I remember. It was, like, I cannot get shot. I have to run as fast as I can. 0.71

00:38:25.880 How did you get past them?

00:38:28.160 So the lady who was helping me was, turns out, a human trafficker. 1.00

00:38:33.600 She was North Korean herself, and she was also a lady who sold her own daughters to Chinese to be sold. 1.00

00:38:40.660 And she was telling my mother and myself, too.

00:38:44.420 And she drive the guards. 1.00

00:38:47.720 But the thing is, in the North Korean border, this yellow river, there's every 10 meters, there are guards.

00:38:54.900 So you cannot possibly drive to all these guards, right?

00:38:58.080 This doesn't cost so much money.

00:38:59.920 And a lot of them are not, maybe, as close, they are not going to let us go.

00:39:04.120 So they drive this one guard, the one post.

00:39:07.560 But if other guys see us, they can shoot us from 10 meters away.

00:39:12.860 And each direction, up and down, they are under the ground, they're above the bushes.

00:39:18.280 So that's why it was never, like, chance of making out of that river is now is impossible.

00:39:23.500 Nobody can escape from North Korea under Kim Jong-un right now.

00:39:27.160 Because they put the facial recognition cameras, they put the wire, electrified the wire fences, they buried the landmines.

00:39:36.540 Literally.

00:39:37.540 And Thai or North Korea became a concentration camp.

00:39:41.100 So nobody can escape by my time.

00:39:42.960 Thankfully, there was no electrified wire fences.

00:39:46.340 There were no landmines.

00:39:48.200 I just, if I were lucky to avoid that shot from the guards, I could come out.

00:39:57.160 So you managed to make it.

00:39:59.660 So you crossed this frozen river in the dark of night.

00:40:03.600 And what happened next?

00:40:06.900 Yeah, it's like almost like yesterday.

00:40:09.340 It was 2007, March 31st.

00:40:13.540 Crossing that river with my mother and the one broker, a young man who was helping us to cross. 0.92

00:40:19.100 And then, as soon as we got there, the first thing I was seeing was my mother being raped. 0.59

00:40:27.160 Just right in front of me. 0.99

00:40:29.080 And initially, this broker wanted to rape me. 0.99

00:40:32.140 But my mother offered herself. 0.99

00:40:34.440 She was saying, she's just done surgery.

00:40:36.920 She can.

00:40:37.740 She's going to die if you do. 0.94

00:40:39.200 So she offered herself.

00:40:41.320 Did you even understand what was happening with that?

00:40:44.460 Did you get what rape was and what your mother was doing for you? 0.79

00:40:47.540 I didn't have the vocabulary to know what rape was. 0.99

00:40:51.920 Because North Korea news is a, everything is fantastic.

00:40:56.340 Like in North Korean news, there's not such a little thing as like accent or bad.

00:41:00.660 It's all about how our revolution is winning, how our state is winning, how we are creating the socialist paradise.

00:41:06.820 So we don't know what rape is or what crime is.

00:41:12.660 And I've never had a sex education in school.

00:41:15.200 I never even knew what kissing was.

00:41:17.720 So all I remember was I was seeing possibly the worst thing that a person can see without even knowing the context of a rape.

00:41:26.860 It looked just horrible.

00:41:28.260 And that was my introduction to sex. 0.91

00:41:30.560 So you could tell it was bad, that you, you, you at least could see this is bad.

00:41:35.460 She doesn't want this.

00:41:36.300 This is a hurtful thing.

00:41:37.740 Of course.

00:41:38.720 It's just so.

00:41:40.260 And I remember was my mom was saying, like, turn around, turn around, like cover your ears, like close your eyes.

00:41:50.700 And she just keeps screaming and like turn around, close your eyes and like hide your ears. 1.00

00:41:57.160 And I was frozen.

00:41:59.500 And I couldn't understand what she was saying, like, what could this possibly be?

00:42:06.160 And eventually I turned around and I covered my ears and he was saying, oh, next time I'm still going to go for her.

00:42:17.220 Like that, that broker still wants me.

00:42:21.320 And just, I think to me, it's like still like something happened yesterday.

00:42:30.800 And I was ready to go to this apartment.

00:42:34.360 And there, they, in the light, they checked our teeth and checked our head and our, even our elbows to see how many we are, like, if we are like viable, viable or not.

00:42:49.260 And then negotiating our price, just in front of our eyes, like we just became an animal and less than an animal for them.

00:43:00.740 And they were negotiating to selling us to another human, human trafficker.

00:43:04.680 So, that's unbelievable.

00:43:08.540 I'm so sorry for what you've gone through and you had to watch your mom go through, whose only goal in that moment seems to have been to have protected you.

00:43:17.760 And she did, but there were, there were limits to what she could spare you from.

00:43:23.720 These, I believe I've heard you say the number that you were sold for, that your mom was sold for.

00:43:30.900 What was the number?

00:43:32.580 And then, and then how did they take you away?

00:43:34.620 They split you up after that?

00:43:37.240 Yeah, so, in this place, they sold us to another human trafficker. 1.00

00:43:42.000 And because this trafficker didn't rape me, he could sell, sell me more higher price because there are many sick, sick perverts in China buying child virginity. 0.97

00:43:58.160 So, they sold my mom for around $65. 0.99

00:44:03.840 21st century, they sold a human being for $65.

00:44:07.400 And my price was over $270 because I was virgin and I was a lot valuable than her.

00:44:17.740 And he, I think he was very glad that he didn't rape me because he couldn't make more money out of me.

00:44:23.560 And, and that, I still remember, I think now actually they were making sure that I was virgin.

00:44:31.880 And that trafficker bought us and took us to a bit inner China.

00:44:36.140 And there, I got separated from my mom.

00:44:39.420 They sold my mom first to another trafficker and I was kept there. 0.82

00:44:45.600 And of course, he kept me to rape me and I felt like, I somehow, I felt like hell.

00:44:53.060 And I was sold to another trafficker afterwards and that's also when I couldn't resist anymore. 0.97

00:44:58.740 I got raped there by the third broker. 0.98

00:45:01.640 That's, that's how you lost your virginity in, in a rape to somebody who had purchased you. 0.99

00:45:07.620 And, yeah, but, um, in this rape, there was a deal. 1.00

00:45:13.020 I was going to kill myself. 0.99

00:45:14.500 I couldn't take that shame. 0.61

00:45:15.960 I was, there's no more meaning.

00:45:19.120 Like I could not live life anymore.

00:45:20.860 So I put a knife to my necklace. 0.82

00:45:23.760 I'm going to jump up this building. 1.00

00:45:25.440 I'm going to kill myself. 1.00

00:45:26.520 Like, and he said, if I be raped by him and become his mistress to 13 years old child, he said he could buy my mom back. 1.00

00:45:38.120 Because he was the one who sold my mom to a Chinese farmer, supposedly husband, of course, he was the owner of my mother. 0.94

00:45:47.120 And he said he could help me to buy my family and bring my sick father from North Korea to China.

00:45:53.460 And that's when I thought, if I can't sacrifice myself, I can save my family. 0.89

00:45:59.860 So that's why I get, I got raped and didn't kill myself there. 0.80

00:46:05.140 How long were you with this man? 0.72

00:46:10.180 Um, less than two years.

00:46:12.860 Oh, wow.

00:46:13.620 That was a couple of years. 0.98

00:46:15.200 So you, let's just spend a minute on the, the sort of sick, perverted, twisted men, this collection, not, not all, but this collection of men in China. 1.00

00:46:26.240 There's a reason for that. 0.97

00:46:27.440 Um, there's, there's a reason there's such a market for child brides and the sale of women. 1.00

00:46:33.560 What is it? 0.60

00:46:35.700 So there are also, it's, I never knew I would want to say this because back then I was fantasizing killing this guy every single day with the axe.

00:46:46.740 Like, I hated him so much.

00:46:48.940 But the thing is now, as a adult, looking back, he was also a victim of this system.

00:46:53.840 The Chinese Communist Party somehow decided that less people is better for the regime.

00:47:00.560 So why don't we come up with a one-child policy? 0.98

00:47:03.920 We're going to make sure that abort all the women who had a second child and each family keep the one child. 1.00

00:47:11.240 So what Chinese families did is they were aborting girls and they were keeping boys a lot of times. 0.98

00:47:19.760 And they were literally, if they gave birth to a girl, by secret, they would kill the child. 0.94

00:47:25.340 They flipped them up and they murdered this little girl. 0.94

00:47:28.460 And they kept the boys because that one child was the only thing they could keep.

00:47:32.580 If they had second, they would get punished and you cannot keep a second child.

00:47:36.420 So now there's more than 30 million Chinese men cannot find the wives.

00:47:42.040 But there are not just enough women to go around for them. 1.00

00:47:46.100 And here, they demand North Korean sex slaves for their needs. 0.96

00:47:51.360 They just, they just ended that policy in 16, in 2016.

00:47:57.340 It's amazing to think that during our lifetime, that policy was in place, the late 70s, 80s, 90s.

00:48:03.700 It was in place.

00:48:04.860 I mean, we, we didn't do anything about it.

00:48:08.200 I don't know how much we could have done.

00:48:10.360 And there are real life consequences as a result.

00:48:14.160 And you're living proof of it.

00:48:15.540 Yeah, it's, that's the thing, like, how, when the state decides what is right for the individuals, they always mess it up.

00:48:25.020 And, and the worst part of being in China as a North Korean factor, actually, by the way, right now, when I'm talking to you, there are 300,000 North Korean girls are in China right now, are slaves. 0.86

00:48:37.040 And, and, of course, we deny slavery all day long in the West.

00:48:41.840 And when there's actual slavery happening, actual Holocaust happening, this is what, not what I'm saying, the U.S. says, what's happening to North Korean people.

00:48:50.100 The only resemblance that we can find in the human history is not Germany, it's a Holocaust. 0.90

00:48:56.620 So Holocaust is repeating. 0.97

00:48:58.480 The slavery is repeating.

00:49:00.180 And people do nothing about it and trying to silence this. 0.89

00:49:03.220 And when North Korean women go to China, actually, being raped is not even the worst thing. 0.97

00:49:10.540 Actually, it's a fortunate thing. 0.93

00:49:13.280 The other places they get sold for is a organ harvesting.

00:49:19.400 They buy these girls, buy these women, and put them in the basement and take their organs out and discard their bodies. 1.00

00:49:28.080 And they sell these people who are suffering and drug these girls and rape them until they die. 0.98

00:49:35.940 They sell one girl to an entire village. 1.00

00:49:38.800 So entire village rape her until she dies. 0.99

00:49:41.900 Or the families who cannot afford one person, they, brothers and uncles and cousins collect the money and they buy one girl and rotate them to rape them. 0.99

00:49:51.900 So, if you get sold to one guy and you get raped by one guy, it is actually the best scenario that can ever happen to North Korean women. 1.00

00:50:02.340 It's, I mean, as you're talking about this, all I can think is, how is this person sitting across from me, brilliant, with perspective on life, the mother of a young child, giving love, presumably receiving it? 0.64

00:50:18.740 I mean, that's your story.

00:50:20.880 It's the story of resilience and perseverance and strength that you never knew you had.

00:50:28.280 How would you, how, right?

00:50:31.160 You just kept going.

00:50:32.920 I mean, that's sort of how, where we are in the story now.

00:50:35.700 You just kept going.

00:50:39.160 Yeah.

00:50:40.020 I'd say, I mean, there was one time I was going to kill myself.

00:50:45.640 I couldn't take it anymore.

00:50:46.840 There was no hope.

00:50:48.160 And the problem, why there was no hope is that the saddest part of going through all of this is that you don't know there's the alternative life.

00:50:57.920 It can exist.

00:50:58.940 You don't even know there's a free world that exists.

00:51:01.820 I've never seen the map of the world.

00:51:04.820 So all I knew was this darkness and oppression and despair.

00:51:12.140 And I thought like, what is the point of keep living like this?

00:51:15.140 This is all we got in the world.

00:51:16.700 And in the moment when my father eventually was, I brought him to China through the type of the trafficker.

00:51:24.760 And he said, no matter what happens in life, life is a gift.

00:51:31.440 And you have to fight for life.

00:51:34.380 And that's what he told me.

00:51:36.360 And he was fighting for life until his death with his cancer that he got from the prison camp.

00:51:41.760 And that's when I realized, no matter what you go through, life is a gift.

00:51:47.720 I'm going to fight for this thing.

00:51:49.600 So that helped me to come all the way here where I had to always fight for my life.

00:51:56.740 Wow.

00:51:57.400 It's amazing your dad had that insight, notwithstanding the life he had led.

00:52:02.020 And you, so you, you, you strike the deal with the trafficker and the next day you did get out of China.

00:52:09.500 You, as I understand it, was it from China to South Korea through the Christian missionary group?

00:52:16.960 So, yeah, right before the other step is, somehow the trafficker who bought me, he was a criminal himself and he lost all his money by gambling and he could not feed me anymore.

00:52:28.600 So, I could not even buy food to my mother because he bought my mom back from the trafficker and now I had my own mother.

00:52:38.740 And by then my father passed away already and then he could not provide food.

00:52:43.420 And at this point, if he were a really horrible guy, I think he could have sold me to another guy and got the money.

00:52:50.200 But he didn't.

00:52:51.480 He told me, why don't you sell your mother?

00:52:54.320 And I was thinking, how on earth can I possibly sell my own mother?

00:52:59.680 But the thing is, if I don't sell my mother, she's going to die from starvation.

00:53:04.000 Oh my.

00:53:04.760 So, I sold her when I was 14 years old to a farmer and that money, of course, the trafficker took every penny and he spent one night gambling with my mom's life.

00:53:18.000 And several months later, I found her back and I ran away with her to another village from that guy who bought her.

00:53:29.660 And from there, luckily, I met a North Korean woman, another de facto woman who was like us fugitive. 1.00

00:53:35.360 And she said, there's a way that we can find food in China.

00:53:39.360 It was, thankfully, it was not a brothel. 0.81

00:53:42.840 It was not a, actually, man rapes me every day, but it was a chat room.

00:53:47.860 I don't know if you know this. 0.85

00:53:49.180 There are many perverted people pay money to women, touch themselves and show their body in front of the camera.

00:53:58.360 Like, camera.

00:54:00.060 And they said, there is a, in Chanyang, big city, there is a cam chat room.

00:54:05.840 If you go there, if you show your body, you're not going to get raped, but they're going to give you food and they're going to give you shelter so the police cannot find drinks and you're back to North Korea.

00:54:16.080 So, I thought, I mean, that was the best thing I could get as a North Korean in China.

00:54:20.640 Yeah.

00:54:20.980 Because we cannot get a job as a, like, washing dishes.

00:54:25.860 Like, nobody can give us any job without ID.

00:54:29.100 And in the chat room, I met another lady. 0.86

00:54:32.780 And she said, I know these missionaries from South Korea.

00:54:37.080 And they told me that there's a way to go out of China and be free.

00:54:42.480 And she was too scared to go that journey by herself.

00:54:45.320 So, she was asking us to join her.

00:54:47.800 And then we got connected to missionaries, finally.

00:54:51.840 And they told us about the Bible and Jesus Christ.

00:54:55.640 And they said, we can literally cross the desert to Mongolia.

00:55:01.640 And if God allows, and if God guides us, and we can become free.

00:55:06.580 So, that was my path out of China to help the missionaries.

00:55:11.000 What does crossing the desert look like?

00:55:14.980 It's the most surreal thing I think I've ever seen in my life is, literally, we have to cross China.

00:55:25.020 It's like, the missionaries, they don't have a lot of money.

00:55:27.560 So, they have, like, budget of few cents, like, five grand Chinese money, two per person.

00:55:35.560 So, they have to put us in a group.

00:55:38.400 And in our group, we were, like, eight of us.

00:55:40.580 And we had one man.

00:55:42.220 And he had his own son who was, like, American age two or three, like, young little toddler.

00:55:47.700 But, as I said, if you are born in North Korea, two years old, you're going to know how to behave. 0.91

00:55:54.580 He knew that if he cries and give away, we're going to send back North Korea. 0.96

00:55:58.720 So, this baby would not even cry.

00:56:01.620 They took us to the border town of China.

00:56:05.260 And in the border of China, there's Mongolia.

00:56:08.580 And in between this border, there's a Gobi Desert.

00:56:11.440 And there are guards, of course, same with the machine guns standing there.

00:56:17.880 We chose, this is by now, this is 2009, by the end of February.

00:56:24.200 In the site, like, Mongolia, it gets to minus 40 degrees at nighttime.

00:56:29.300 So, we chose the coldest time because the guards would not think somebody who's so crazy is going to cross the desert in this coldest time of the year.

00:56:38.260 And in the summer, like, most likely, you're going to get captured by the guards.

00:56:43.020 And we started walking from China to Mongolia.

00:56:47.500 We eventually crossed 16 wire fences.

00:56:51.220 And a lot of them were electrified.

00:56:52.820 So, we had to dig the hole under it.

00:56:55.540 And luckily, it didn't die.

00:56:58.520 We didn't even have gloves or scarves.

00:57:00.520 Somehow, it did not die from the freezing cold.

00:57:04.080 We made Mongolia.

00:57:05.660 That seems impossible with minus 40 degree temperatures.

00:57:09.720 How long was the journey?

00:57:12.500 It was just one day because we are in a border town and we went as far as we could.

00:57:19.420 And a lot of them take days because the problem when you stand in the literally middle of the Gobi Desert, they say, it's like in the middle of the ocean.

00:57:29.480 You have no idea if you are going straight or going around the circle.

00:57:33.280 If there's one tree, we can at least know we are now keep turning back around and circle and circle.

00:57:40.620 And a lot of them do that.

00:57:42.140 They lose their way.

00:57:44.060 They keep going circle around and eventually they go back to China's side and get caught by the guards.

00:57:48.540 Oh, my goodness.

00:57:49.100 Or keep circling around and circling around.

00:57:51.340 Then they wire the animals in the desert.

00:57:53.640 They're going to eat them.

00:57:54.360 Or just die from pure malnutrition.

00:57:59.720 But we somehow crossing, crossing.

00:58:03.080 And then in the middle of the desert, we could not use a flashlight to see the compass.

00:58:08.080 What the missionaries told us is that go find the north and west direction.

00:58:14.860 Just go follow it.

00:58:16.100 If you cross the eight wire fences, that's going to be Mongolia. 1.00

00:58:19.940 But we cross the 16 of them and still can't find the Mongolia.

00:58:24.000 We don't even know if this is the China side or Mongolian side.

00:58:27.840 And luckily, after like two or something, I don't remember the time, there's a really bright northern star that was there.

00:58:36.560 And we couldn't use a compass anymore.

00:58:38.260 So I told everybody, let's just follow that star and see what happens.

00:58:42.600 So we, in the desert, the most important thing is you should not stop moving.

00:58:48.240 When you're freezing to death, you stop like feeling things and you become very dizzy and sleepy.

00:58:55.480 And that's a sign, you know, you're dying.

00:58:58.180 So we had to constantly wake up each other.

00:59:01.500 And every second had to move, not to die from the cold.

00:59:04.740 By the time, around 7.30 the next morning, the Mongolian guards were running with the guns and asking us to put our hands up because they were going to catch us.

00:59:17.460 And they were going to send us back to the Chinese side because they did not want to deal with us.

00:59:23.600 Oh, no.

00:59:25.320 What happened?

00:59:26.900 And this time, at that point, none of us have anything to lose anymore.

00:59:31.600 We know whenever North Korean detectives escape, it's like Jews during the Holocaust, they were escaping. 0.82

00:59:37.340 If you get caught and sent back, it's like the worst thing, right?

00:59:40.600 You're better off. 1.00

00:59:41.280 You kill yourself right there. 1.00

00:59:42.580 So we were ready to commit the suicide. 0.99

00:59:46.920 And the last minute, they stopped.

00:59:49.900 The tragic thing is they did that to the next team that were following us from the missionary team.

00:59:57.560 They've gone too far.

00:59:58.840 So one of my mom's friends, she swore out of the poison.

01:00:04.120 And we later asked Mongolian guards, why did you do this to us?

01:00:08.220 And they said, because it was so fun to see the reactions.

01:00:13.080 And these are little kids.

01:00:14.360 They are like 18-year-old little boys.

01:00:16.820 They thought it was so fun for us begging and begging for life.

01:00:22.520 And so everybody's place, North Korean people, because they know that we don't have protection from any governments.

01:00:31.340 We are just stateless, poor, I don't know, fugitives.

01:00:37.260 Right.

01:00:38.200 So they, and instead of having any sort of a human compassion instinct, their instinct was to abuse you more.

01:00:44.920 But, but, but they let you live.

01:00:48.340 I mean, you made it.

01:00:50.200 Yeah, so two months of interrogation in Mongolia, they are moving us to different detention centers each time.

01:00:58.400 They make sure they verify that we are North Koreans.

01:01:02.080 And two months later, we flew with a fake passport to South Korea.

01:01:06.840 The South Korean governments came up with a fake passport.

01:01:09.180 And they almost smuggled us out from Mongolia, long water to Seoul, into an airport.

01:01:16.680 And that's how I became free.

01:01:23.900 Was there a moment, Yonmi, where you, you were like, this is it.

01:01:28.200 You know, I made, was it when you went into Seoul?

01:01:30.620 Was it when you got into America?

01:01:32.000 Well, or was there never that moment?

01:01:33.780 Was it more of a slow reveal?

01:01:36.700 It's definitely a slow reveal.

01:01:39.180 It's the, the vast, the difference between the free world and North Korea is so different that the first, I mean, literally, I remember at this re-education center in South Korea, they are like telling us that, you know, by the way, Americans are not bastards, because that's what the regime telling us.

01:01:58.620 And they literally show us, and they literally show us the posters of Americans, showing they are called really the libtards. 0.99

01:02:06.040 They are, they are monsters. 1.00

01:02:09.180 And if they see North Koreans, they're going to rape and kill us and eat us alive. 1.00

01:02:14.440 And then South Korean government is telling us, oh, Americans are not, like, they are democracy. 0.99

01:02:19.200 They are, like, great people.

01:02:20.760 They are not, like, monsters.

01:02:21.960 And then, obviously, they are telling us that, you know, dictators, they are dictators. 0.95

01:02:27.200 Kims are dictators. 1.00

01:02:28.420 They are oppressing people.

01:02:30.640 And we were, like, thinking, what's a dictator?

01:02:33.120 You know, what's a democracy?

01:02:35.380 What's oppression?

01:02:37.160 Like, it's not about learning a new language.

01:02:40.240 South Korean and North Korea had the same language.

01:02:42.220 Just we didn't have the vocabulary.

01:02:43.700 And somebody, for the first time, asked me to introduce myself.

01:02:50.560 And I did not know what introduction, like, introducing yourself meant.

01:02:54.200 Like, what do you mean?

01:02:54.880 It's like, okay, just say, my name is this.

01:02:57.660 I like this.

01:02:58.740 I like to be this.

01:03:00.080 And I was, like, I was keep saying we.

01:03:02.960 Because in North Korea, we don't have the word I.

01:03:06.480 We don't know what I is.

01:03:08.020 Like, whenever I say, oh, we like water.

01:03:10.440 We like red color because it's a revolutionary color.

01:03:13.040 We like this country.

01:03:14.720 There's never a time we can say I in North Korea.

01:03:18.360 And then this teacher was saying, then why just don't you tell me your favorite color?

01:03:24.580 And I was thinking, I don't know.

01:03:27.240 Because in North Korea, they told me my favorite color was red.

01:03:30.700 It was a revolutionary color.

01:03:32.640 And in South Korea, they were asking me to think for myself for the first time in my life.

01:03:38.060 And that was exhausting, to thinking for yourself.

01:03:41.440 And literally, I was thinking for five minutes.

01:03:44.060 And I had to take a break.

01:03:45.520 Because I was not used to thinking.

01:03:48.180 And suddenly, I had to think, like, what I'm going to eat.

01:03:50.960 What I'm going to wear.

01:03:52.460 You know, where I'm going to live.

01:03:53.900 What I'm going to study.

01:03:55.660 And everything was just up to me now.

01:03:57.840 Nobody was going to decide that for me.

01:03:59.400 And that was very, very hard to adjust in the beginning.

01:04:01.820 What is your favorite color?

01:04:05.600 Now it's spring green.

01:04:07.920 Ah, great.

01:04:10.240 Yeah.

01:04:10.740 This is, what was the most amazing thing?

01:04:13.580 Like, when you got to South Korea, you know, that you saw, that you thought was incredible.

01:04:17.160 Because it's all new.

01:04:18.200 As you point out, North Korea isn't really even using electricity.

01:04:22.040 So, do you remember, like, what's that?

01:04:24.460 What's this?

01:04:24.980 There's so many, so many things to look at and discover.

01:04:27.660 Yeah, I mean, looking at the toilet bowl at the airport for the first time.

01:04:35.360 And I've never seen that kind of toilet.

01:04:37.560 Like, we had outdoor digging wood toilet.

01:04:41.180 And in North Korea, even poop is collected by the regime.

01:04:45.440 We cannot afford a fertilizer.

01:04:48.140 The regime demands that every person have to bring our own poop to the regime, to the collected farm.

01:04:55.480 Goodness.

01:04:55.800 So, even, there are poop tips in North Korea. 0.56

01:04:58.920 We are that poor.

01:04:59.860 We cannot even waste our own feces.

01:05:02.780 And then I suddenly seen this bowl with clean water on it.

01:05:07.420 I was thinking, like, what do I wash my hands?

01:05:10.160 Like, what do I do with this, right?

01:05:12.700 And I was squatting on that thing.

01:05:15.040 Because I didn't know you had to supposedly sit on it.

01:05:18.480 Yes.

01:05:18.880 And seeing the toilet paper in my life for the first time, this soft thing, it smells so good.

01:05:25.860 I thought it was the only fancy thing.

01:05:28.120 I stole the toilet paper from the airport in my life, you know, shirt.

01:05:31.340 And, I mean, seeing food, like, you know, I've never seen a cookbook.

01:05:38.660 Because in North Korea, like, we don't have, you know, 50, maybe half tons of pork and garlic and different ingredients.

01:05:45.620 There's no such thing called cooked recipe.

01:05:47.900 We just eat whatever grain, whatever plants we can find, whatever jewel that we can make that day.

01:05:54.320 And suddenly, in South Korea, it's like, what's your favorite food?

01:05:58.060 I'm like, I don't know what's out there.

01:06:01.920 You know, it's like, I did not know there are, like, different types of food, even.

01:06:06.320 What was it like seeing television for the first time, or the movies, or the internet?

01:06:11.460 It's, oh, I mean, just even seeing the shower first time, like, we don't have running water at home.

01:06:21.600 We don't get to go to the river and stream to bring the water.

01:06:25.440 And in the morning, like, the hierarchy of family, if our father washes his face, then my mom and my sister,

01:06:31.080 and I'm the last one to use that word to wash face.

01:06:33.780 Then that same water goes back to my father.

01:06:36.260 He washes his feet, then my mother washes his feet, my sister and me.

01:06:40.100 And in the same water, we're going to wash our rags and clean the home.

01:06:44.140 And the last water, we're going to throw it in our, like, little garden in front of us.

01:06:49.360 There's no such a thing called a trash can, because there's nothing to throw away in North Korea.

01:06:56.700 Like, there's no such a thing called waste.

01:07:00.040 And in South Korea, just, I mean, if you hit the button, the electricity comes.

01:07:06.160 Like, if you put a tap, the water, cold or hot water comes.

01:07:12.700 My mom's favorite thing, I mean, she always so happy, makes her so happy, is that when she hears the sound of the refrigerator.

01:07:21.600 The refrigerator.

01:07:23.000 Oh.

01:07:23.300 Yeah.

01:07:24.160 I mean, she heard it, she was laughing, and I was like, why, mom, why are you so many laughing?

01:07:28.940 To hear the sound of the refrigerator, like, what a miracle that is.

01:07:33.940 What a miracle.

01:07:34.960 And just everything we were seeing was just a pure miracle.

01:07:38.200 Do you remember what, what, what was the first, like, when you started eating, and, you know, food had always been an issue for you.

01:07:44.920 So, was there one thing you remember saying, oh, my God, like, I, this has to be a major part of my new life.

01:07:50.880 And it was their favorite, favorite.

01:07:54.380 Yeah.

01:07:55.080 So, so, this is the thing.

01:07:58.520 If you are coming out of a concentric camp, like, your stomach systems are not, like, normal.

01:08:05.040 So, if you suddenly eat the very soily, like, full nutrition food, your stomach cannot digest it and throw it out.

01:08:15.260 So, and I remember, I was like, no, I can eat whatever thing I want.

01:08:18.820 And I was eating, and I was nauseous.

01:08:21.480 I was throwing up.

01:08:22.700 And then I learned, it's like, you need to gradually introduce your system into the, for solid food and a bit of oil, a little bit of butter, and increase a little bit of protein.

01:08:34.480 Otherwise, that our stomach is not used to eating full steak.

01:08:39.820 And eventually, when my system fully adjusted and become a normal person mode, I tasted steak in America.

01:08:48.660 And literally, in North Korea, cows have more rice than people.

01:08:54.600 One of the executions my mom saw was this young man in his early 20s for getting executed because he ate the collective farm's cow, and he was dying from nutrition.

01:09:08.140 So, the regime was killing him.

01:09:10.340 And cows are very precious.

01:09:12.300 It's owned by the regime.

01:09:13.400 They have to work in the farm.

01:09:14.560 And I was thinking, now, finally, I have more rice than animals in America.

01:09:20.680 Even if I eat the cow, I'm not going to be executed.

01:09:23.520 So, to this day, I feel so grateful whenever I eat the steak.

01:09:27.960 How long were you in South Korea before you came to the United States?

01:09:32.060 I was in South Korea for five years.

01:09:36.520 While my junior year of college, I came to America to continue my studies and write my first book.

01:09:45.400 Okay.

01:09:46.040 And was that when you came to New York to go to Columbia University?

01:09:51.500 Yeah.

01:09:52.080 So, I came here.

01:09:53.560 Before that, I was coming here to write the book first, and my agent was in New York.

01:10:00.360 So, while I was writing my book in New York City, I was like, I still want to continue my education.

01:10:05.920 And they told me there's such a great school called Columbia University exists.

01:10:10.720 So, it's like, oh, that's amazing.

01:10:12.520 I heard about this school.

01:10:14.380 And I was applied, and by some miracle, I got accepted.

01:10:19.240 I don't know.

01:10:19.980 I should be thankful or not now after this point.

01:10:22.520 But I started school, which is full of dreams.

01:10:28.100 So, a couple of questions on that.

01:10:30.540 I don't know.

01:10:31.440 You've lived in New York before.

01:10:32.940 You live in New York now.

01:10:34.400 Have you, I assume, have you had the experience yet of going by the Statue of Liberty and taking that in?

01:10:42.060 Yeah.

01:10:42.800 Actually, I've never gone inside.

01:10:45.840 But I've been right there with a boat, seeing it from the front.

01:10:51.060 That's the way to see it.

01:10:51.820 From the water.

01:10:53.440 I feel, even as a natural-born American citizen, there's nothing like it.

01:10:57.360 If you don't get chills as you go by Lady Liberty by boat, there's something wrong.

01:11:02.480 Because I find it such a moving experience that I don't know whether it was meaningful to you at all or whether it's just interesting.

01:11:08.680 Yeah, I think it's what it stands for.

01:11:13.820 I think that's, I mean, the reason why I wrote this book is, in some sense, for even my own son.

01:11:22.960 In some sense, like, I was very lucky.

01:11:25.120 When I was escaping from North Korea, even though I did not know that a country like America, free nations existed, I had at least some place to escape to.

01:11:36.700 And I'm eternally grateful for America, the defending South Korea, and kept the country free for me to go to and to be saved.

01:11:45.240 But, I mean, every day I think about what happens if America goes away.

01:11:50.040 Like, where will my children escape to?

01:11:53.380 There's really no places left in this earth right now.

01:11:57.340 That's right.

01:11:57.640 And I think, yeah, it's just such a special place.

01:12:02.180 Like, I cannot run away from this place.

01:12:04.280 You know, this is all I've got, and this is all we've got as a humanity.

01:12:08.380 It's a unique idea.

01:12:10.140 It's worth fighting for.

01:12:11.280 And the fight changes as the country evolves.

01:12:13.740 And you're very much involved in the present-day fight.

01:12:16.660 Before we get to that, one other small question.

01:12:19.500 Just wonder, what was your reaction the first time you saw Times Square?

01:12:23.980 Oh, that's funny. 0.99

01:12:26.040 So, there's a very, always the North Korean region keeps saying, we are going to make American bastards, they land into a sea of lights, right? 0.98

01:12:34.640 By the bombing that made a nuclear weapon. 0.83

01:12:36.600 And the first place that I landed to, after going to mission schools in Texas, I came back to write the book was, they took me a bus from D.C., some Chinese bus, and landed me to a Times Square.

01:12:51.720 And I was literally thinking, I don't think Americans, any of North Koreans have to make their sea of lights.

01:13:00.500 I mean, this is literally the sea of lights.

01:13:03.360 It was brighter than the daytime.

01:13:05.940 I landed in the night, and I've never seen anything like that.

01:13:10.240 It was like literally standing on a different planet.

01:13:14.000 I could not think of a place can be the polar opposite from North Korea than the New York City, and especially the Times Square. 0.79

01:13:24.400 It's fun to think about because it's such a special place.

01:13:28.140 I mean, it's overwhelming, of course, in many ways.

01:13:29.880 But I do think what I love about Times Square for everybody is if you can go there, ideally in a time when it's not peak, peak busy, and stand there and look around, to me, that's the place you feel anything is possible.

01:13:45.620 Anything is possible here.

01:13:46.920 Like, this country came, and from absolutely nothing, all of this went up.

01:13:51.500 These enormous skyscrapers, the beautiful lights, the twinkling signs, the enormous shows of financial success, the billboards, the excitement, the creativity of Broadway.

01:14:04.940 It's all right there.

01:14:06.280 The music, and fun, you know, street artists on the street trying to lure you in to giving them a couple bucks for fun acts and magic.

01:14:15.340 And whatever your heart desires, it's there.

01:14:18.700 I love standing there and just taking it in as possibility.

01:14:23.020 Possibility.

01:14:23.720 That's where I am right now.

01:14:26.060 I think it's funny enough, I took my mom to Las Vegas, and it became her favorite place in the whole world.

01:14:35.820 Not because they did gamble or anything.

01:14:38.680 She just could not comprehend, how can you build this city in the middle of deserts?

01:14:46.300 It is a miracle.

01:14:48.400 Yeah, it's like, mom is freedom.

01:14:50.860 When you are free, you can do anything.

01:14:53.340 You can literally reach the moon, right?

01:14:56.400 And, like, you can build these trees and waterfall and everything in the middle of gigantic deserts.

01:15:03.140 And I think that's the same thing for me, just seeing the New York City, too.

01:15:07.360 It was a completely wasted land before.

01:15:10.340 And looking at the city today, I mean, us and all the besides the crime that is happening, just what this city went through and survived and what it accomplished is like the power of individual liberty and what we can achieve when we can fulfill our potential.

01:15:28.400 And then when we can be in the free land.

01:15:32.700 And I think, of course, North Korea could have become a Manhattan if they were free, but they chose a different system. 0.81

01:15:38.800 Is there anything you're still doing now, like old habits die hard, you know, like only one square of toilet paper or something that you don't, you know, is there anything that you are, have you carried over with you?

01:15:53.180 It's, it's, it's funny, I guess, even to this day, I don't like to have a lot of stuff with me somehow.

01:16:05.980 It, I don't know, it's like somehow like with the food, but like, it's, it feels like if I'm somehow committing a crime, if I waste food.

01:16:16.040 Speaking of Vegas, you must have died when you saw those huge buffet, you know, all you can eat.

01:16:21.700 But it's, it's, everything's to excess.

01:16:25.340 That's my favorite, the buffet is like my favorite.

01:16:27.940 And I mean, this is a thing.

01:16:30.800 So my son is like five years old.

01:16:33.400 His dad is not tall at all.

01:16:34.680 He's like five to six very short.

01:16:36.500 I mean, average, like, right.

01:16:38.780 But my son is like a 99, 9% higher child in the height and weight and everything.

01:16:46.620 And it got to be from my side, right.

01:16:49.400 Because my grandfather was taller than my own father.

01:16:52.680 And my grandmother was taller than my own mother. 0.79

01:16:54.800 Like each generation of North Koreans became, keep getting shorter. 1.00

01:16:57.960 So I never knew what my potential was.

01:17:01.020 Right.

01:17:01.940 Right.

01:17:02.380 And yet you're going to see it.

01:17:03.280 I was so obsessed that like my son not get enough nutrition.

01:17:08.660 I think the obsession with nutrition is still stays with me.

01:17:13.300 And my son still says like, you're feeding me too much.

01:17:16.020 Because when he says like, I'm full, I'm not like, okay, chill about it.

01:17:19.780 You have to finish your plate.

01:17:22.560 I did everything you have there.

01:17:25.060 So I don't think they all have this ever going to go away.

01:17:28.760 May I ask you about your marriage?

01:17:32.040 Because I understand you got married, but then you got divorced.

01:17:35.560 You got married.

01:17:36.380 You had your child.

01:17:36.880 You got divorced.

01:17:37.600 So before we get to the end of the marriage, how did you fall in love?

01:17:41.320 Right.

01:17:41.580 Without any practice.

01:17:44.700 It's that was very hard.

01:17:46.440 It's like after North Korea and I go to South Korea, but this at the end, the intelligence

01:17:53.440 center, when they're extracting all the spies out, they, once I'm confirmed that I'm not

01:17:58.300 a spy, they told me everything you're told when you're in North Korea was a lie, literally

01:18:05.640 everything.

01:18:07.560 And because in North Korea, they said that I was not even Asian.

01:18:11.880 They said that I was Kim Il-sung race, our dictator race.

01:18:15.400 This North Korean calendar begins when Kim Il-sung was born, now when the Jesus Christ 0.92

01:18:20.700 was born.

01:18:22.720 And literally even including my own race was a lie.

01:18:26.940 And I was thinking, like, so if everything that they were told in was a lie, that how

01:18:31.800 do I know what you're telling me is not a lie?

01:18:34.280 Yeah, right.

01:18:35.100 It's like, how do I ever trust again?

01:18:38.420 And of course, how do I ever trust men again?

01:18:42.120 It took time.

01:18:43.200 It took me trusting what that meant was reading George Orwell's Animal Farm.

01:18:48.940 That helped me to understand what happened to my country, what happened to myself, you

01:18:54.860 know, why the country became that way and why these people are saying what everything

01:18:59.180 I told was like.

01:19:00.920 And how to trust men again was also a keeping that perspective that my father was a man

01:19:07.680 too, that I come from man.

01:19:10.840 Part of me is man too.

01:19:13.160 And thankfully now I also have a son.

01:19:16.300 So with that perspective, I think I was able to put my guards down and fall in love in New

01:19:23.520 York City and with American Bastard. 0.95

01:19:26.980 It's like in North Korea, international marriage is banned. 0.99

01:19:30.780 When women in China, like North Korean women get raped. 0.99

01:19:35.400 And if they get pregnant and send back North Korea, the first thing they do is killing the 1.00

01:19:40.820 child. 0.99

01:19:41.260 They put the salt water with a syringe and the guards come kick the women's belly until 1.00

01:19:50.020 baby dies.

01:19:51.640 Or if baby's still alive, it's come out. 0.94

01:19:54.020 They struggle the baby and kill the baby.

01:19:56.820 They do not believe in mixing blood.

01:19:59.120 But even with the Chinese, the regime that happened, they do not accept that. 0.84

01:20:02.940 So imagine if I were in North Korea and had a child with a Caucasian man.

01:20:08.380 I mean, my child would not exist unless he was born in a free country.

01:20:12.960 So I feel like my child is such a unique thing.

01:20:16.600 I cannot believe even today.

01:20:18.240 My mom keeps laughing. 1.00

01:20:19.440 I cannot believe he has a child with American Bastard. 1.00

01:20:24.160 And there's another one. 0.89

01:20:25.220 So, okay, so let's talk about the what you've observed about our country, because you came 0.99

01:20:32.660 here, I presume, yes, you want to write your book, and you went to school here.

01:20:36.100 But you clearly fell in love with America and the idea behind it, because you're now an

01:20:39.980 American citizen.

01:20:41.220 But it was not all rainbows and unicorns.

01:20:44.920 Once you got fully more, more acquainted with America.

01:20:50.580 And I know you've spoken openly about, in particular, your academic experience.

01:20:55.220 And what you started to observe when it came to the messaging about America, about who

01:21:02.260 we are, about our history, about what's important.

01:21:05.700 So talk a little bit about that.

01:21:07.220 Like, what was your first sort of exposure to?

01:21:09.940 Wait, what are they saying?

01:21:10.740 And why is this eerily reminiscent of where I came from?

01:21:15.480 Yeah.

01:21:15.680 So it's, I mean, like, where do I begin the shock that I felt?

01:21:21.720 And so I came to America and thinking, I mean, the story of America is a miracle.

01:21:31.400 It's, it's a, it is literally the best country in human history.

01:21:36.720 It's not just the contemporary world.

01:21:40.260 As the beginning of the humanity to end, this is the best country.

01:21:45.520 And I don't even know why I have to state this obvious fact to anybody.

01:21:50.040 And then the first thing, at Columbia, at the orientation, they said, who has the problem

01:21:57.400 studying Western civilization?

01:22:00.520 And my, one of the instructors asking us, like, okay, who likes to read Jane Austen?

01:22:07.160 And as you know, like, my best friend became after North Korea was a book.

01:22:11.720 It taught me so much about myself, life, and the world.

01:22:15.220 And I love Jane Austen because somebody somehow talked about even romantic love in the 18th

01:22:21.940 century and human emotions, like the things that North Koreans were denied in the 21st century.

01:22:27.840 Somebody was expressing that that many hundreds of years ago.

01:22:31.480 And she was saying, okay, that's how you get brainwashed.

01:22:36.500 And it's like, excuse me, what, like, what, what do you mean? 0.61

01:22:39.300 And she said, because she was living through the white colonial era, and she was a racist,

01:22:46.080 by reading the work of racists, that I'm going to become a racist.

01:22:50.500 And this is why I need to stay woke to notice the bigotry, the systemic oppression that we

01:22:57.480 have for the minority people.

01:23:00.160 And I was like thinking, is this some joke, right?

01:23:03.440 This got to be a joke.

01:23:05.340 And they were saying,

01:23:05.880 I know, and they say, every class, they say, why, every problem that we have in the world 0.98

01:23:13.480 exists because of white men. 0.95

01:23:16.480 And I said, why?

01:23:18.300 Because I mean, my son is white and half white, but then he also has a blood of slave, I guess,

01:23:23.800 right?

01:23:24.360 And they said, because some of the white people were slave owners.

01:23:28.540 And in North Korea, you get punished for your ancestor crimes. 0.93

01:23:35.280 Like my mother's grandfather supposedly had a tiny land in front of his house.

01:23:41.840 So they classed him as a landowner.

01:23:45.580 That's why I was not in a top class.

01:23:48.580 I was punished for my great, great, great father's crime that I was not responsible for.

01:23:54.880 And in America, in the land of free and home of the brave, in this amazing country, they

01:24:01.320 are punishing people for something they have not done.

01:24:04.440 This collective guilt was happening here.

01:24:08.680 And then they were saying, the only way we can fix all this injustice is complete destruction,

01:24:16.520 complete dismantling of the system and repealing the constitution.

01:24:21.540 And I was thinking, they say they stay outraged, stay angry.

01:24:30.300 I'm like, if you cannot be grateful living in this country, where can you be possibly grateful

01:24:35.700 for every miracle that we live through?

01:24:39.620 And as soon as I expressed these thoughts to my professors, they say, you and me, you're

01:24:44.760 brainwashed.

01:24:45.320 And then, of course, they say, if you make somebody feel unsafe, emotion, not physically,

01:24:52.940 not beating them down.

01:24:53.940 If I can call somebody unsafe in the classroom, I can get kicked out of the university.

01:25:02.440 And that fear made me stay silent until the graduation.

01:25:06.000 I was too scared, too.

01:25:07.540 And it was the most bizarre.

01:25:11.660 I could not distinct.

01:25:13.340 This is so amazing. 0.95

01:25:15.160 The white supremacy and the colonialization and corrupt capitalism is the order of evil 0.94

01:25:21.720 of all.

01:25:22.820 It's the same message that North Korean teachers had to teach me.

01:25:26.960 Wow.

01:25:27.620 Because they had to survive.

01:25:30.100 That's what regime demands them, to teach the young minds.

01:25:32.660 The same message was being taught in the Ivy League school by these professors.

01:25:38.740 So North Korean students and American students are getting the exact same education.

01:25:44.680 Oh, that is shocking.

01:25:46.240 That is deeply disturbing.

01:25:48.360 Yeah.

01:25:48.900 We are getting the exact same curriculum.

01:25:51.680 And what are these students saying?

01:25:53.380 Are the students going along with it?

01:25:54.780 Did you find other quiet dissenters like you?

01:25:57.540 So not when I was on campus.

01:26:01.140 And when I actually spoke about this maybe last year on one of my interviews with Dr. Peterson.

01:26:08.360 And people saw the interview and they emailed me from LinkedIn and emailed me.

01:26:13.280 And they were Columbia graduates and Columbia attendees right now and said they feel exactly

01:26:18.340 the same way, but they cannot express their thoughts because they are also fearful because

01:26:22.280 they want to get a corporate job.

01:26:24.160 Columbia has a very expensive tuition.

01:26:26.300 If you go to Columbia afterwards, if you cannot go to a corporation job, you cannot pay for

01:26:31.700 the students' debt, right?

01:26:33.020 It's almost like slavery.

01:26:34.700 They make sure it's very expensive.

01:26:36.500 And afterwards, you have to get a job that can pay for your debt.

01:26:40.400 And if you have a history of denouncing this mainstream, almost a sermon, like Kim Il-sung's

01:26:46.600 sermon, that they cannot get a job.

01:26:49.780 So your livelihood, your family's livelihood is depending on it.

01:26:54.040 Of course, the Canal North Korea, the three generation, you're going to get punished. 1.00

01:26:58.000 But your actual livelihood and dignity and reputation on the line if you do not agree

01:27:04.020 with the political correctness.

01:27:06.440 So a lot of Americans were afraid.

01:27:10.440 Were the students, you know, we hear a lot of the students, especially at places like Columbia,

01:27:14.560 talking about their own oppression because they fall into whatever racial group or whatever,

01:27:20.120 you know, you could go down the list.

01:27:22.000 Did you hear any of that from the student body when you were there?

01:27:25.760 Yeah, there was a one class that I was taking.

01:27:29.180 And before every class, as you can see, my English is not perfect.

01:27:33.360 I learned American English by watching Friends, American TV show when I was 21 years old.

01:27:38.920 But learning a foreign language as an adult is a hard task.

01:27:45.420 And when the time of Friends, there were no gender fluid people. 0.86

01:27:49.380 There was only he and she.

01:27:51.520 I barely learned these pronouns.

01:27:53.620 And then I come to America to practice in real life.

01:27:56.100 And then going to my first class, they say, OK, so before even say who you are, what you

01:28:02.320 like, where you're from, what your ambitions are, they say, tell us your pronouns.

01:28:08.460 And they were the words like they are more than at the time of the 58 pronouns.

01:28:13.540 Now they're in thousands.

01:28:15.360 Oh, my goodness.

01:28:16.720 And then in every class, people say your pronoun.

01:28:19.960 And then like.

01:28:21.860 They Justin, they they was a gender fluid. 0.99

01:28:25.760 I don't want to mess this up.

01:28:26.740 And they was biological male.

01:28:30.360 And I don't know.

01:28:31.180 I've never met this they.

01:28:32.960 So I called they him.

01:28:35.700 Hey, like Justin told me this.

01:28:37.960 He told me.

01:28:38.580 I'm sorry, but they is not a thing.

01:28:40.640 They is taken.

01:28:41.640 It's too confusing.

01:28:43.400 Right.

01:28:43.820 So at the end of class, in tears, this child, like maybe he's a freshman or sophomore.

01:28:51.560 And says his feelings are hurt.

01:28:56.740 And by this point, I'm from North Korea.

01:28:59.140 I'm like.

01:29:00.740 OK, I'm like, I'm so sorry that my English is not good.

01:29:04.660 I sometimes call she he like because like it's confusing, you know, in Korea.

01:29:09.600 So this person was crying because instead of referring to him as a they, you used the you used he.

01:29:16.560 And this was obviously a biological male.

01:29:19.420 Yeah.

01:29:20.560 My goodness.

01:29:21.080 And he feels not safe with me.

01:29:24.180 And like I, I was, I was speechless.

01:29:30.200 Like there are children when the organs are extracted, when there are people are sold for $65.

01:29:38.280 There is actual injustice that is happening that needs our attention, that needs our collective help.

01:29:46.800 There is such a thing that is called morality.

01:29:49.680 There is such a thing called duty as a free person. 0.70

01:29:53.260 But these kids are brainwashed.

01:29:55.340 I mean, they're not even outdoors.

01:29:56.480 They're outdoors, but they're like child outdoors.

01:29:59.660 None of them have any capacity to handle any reality.

01:30:03.220 And professors send you this email before the class say, this reading scanner can trigger like rape, memory of oppression, all kinds of difficulties.

01:30:17.320 So if this class is not triggered this, if it bothers you, don't come to the class and you don't even need to tell me the reason why it bothers you.

01:30:27.120 Because it can also trigger you to think about your own oppression.

01:30:31.100 And I'm like, we have, we are one of the most expensive schools in the world.

01:30:35.760 And if you cannot handle the material that is taught being in the classroom, why would you even go to college at this point?

01:30:43.500 It defeats the purpose of a higher education.

01:30:47.160 So instead of trying to teach you something, it was trying to protect somehow our made-up oppression and feelings.

01:30:54.080 You're the opposite of everything they think you are, right?

01:30:56.760 If you had responded to this they person by saying, please, I literally was sold into sex slavery for several years of my life.

01:31:10.040 I was forced to attend executions for the formative years of my childhood.

01:31:14.540 I really don't need a lecture from you in oppression or hurt feelings.

01:31:19.480 It would have been amazing.

01:31:20.760 But these folks who have no oppression want you to apologize for not understanding how hard their lives ostensibly are.

01:31:30.720 Yeah, it's a, I mean, that's the thing.

01:31:35.000 They say capitalism is so evil.

01:31:37.460 That's what's wrong with our world.

01:31:39.460 The free market is horrible.

01:31:41.500 And these kids are in their, like, $200 yoga pants.

01:31:44.740 And they're, like, juice detox.

01:31:46.760 Do you know this, like, bottle of juice that costs $10?

01:31:49.660 It's a green-colored thing.

01:31:50.920 They all, like, these rich kids, like, and with their fancy laptops.

01:31:55.360 And I was thinking, do you know without a free market, like, you would not have any of what you are having right now?

01:32:03.260 How would you have internet without a free market?

01:32:06.000 How would you, like, have food without a free market?

01:32:08.260 This is the only thing that we have that makes us who we are.

01:32:12.380 Like, without food, they say this is the end of civility.

01:32:15.920 You cannot even have a civilization without food.

01:32:17.980 And that lack of understanding of human history, because they are brainwashed in the American school education system.

01:32:26.680 And, I mean, after Colombia, I was not even blaming these children, because, I mean, the teachers have taught them this, right? 0.96

01:32:36.460 Like, how would you blame North Koreans to believe that Americans are monsters and call them, like, bloody reptiles?

01:32:41.760 Because somebody brainwashed them even before while they were in their mother's stomach.

01:32:47.980 Why did Yonmi Park not need the trigger warning?

01:32:57.160 Why? 0.98

01:32:57.660 You actually were somebody who had been raped over and over. 0.92

01:33:01.420 And I'm sure they did bring that up in class, and it was in the reading.

01:33:05.060 So why did you not need the trigger warning and actually object to the trigger warnings as an idea?

01:33:11.860 And yet there, I'm sure, were people in that class who have never been the victim of a sexual assault or a rape, who said, I'm out.

01:33:19.920 I'm not going to read it.

01:33:20.920 I can't participate in it.

01:33:22.600 So what is the difference between the people in our country right now who are leaning into that victimhood mentality, even if they're not one,

01:33:29.400 and you, who actually have experienced things that have made you a victim, who refuse to stay in that mindset?

01:33:35.980 That's the thing.

01:33:37.540 Nothing about me is special.

01:33:40.060 Any North Korean is going to not be the trigger warning.

01:33:43.720 It's not because I'm exceptionally resilient or special about me.

01:33:48.120 It just says, life is tough.

01:33:50.600 And if you have seen real life, and if you understand real life, hearing about it, talking about it, is not even close to the worst thing that can ever happen to you.

01:34:02.860 And also, keeping that perspective, you know, it's a, that what made me, I wrote my first book saying that there are two things that I'm grateful for.

01:34:13.840 One was that I was born in North Korea, and the second was that I escaped from North Korea.

01:34:18.620 It's like, you know, if you can, if you've never seen the darkness, you can never see the light.

01:34:25.080 If you're just, all your life was in the light, you're never going to know what darkness looks like, ever.

01:34:30.480 And in some sense, like that, like I came to America, and writing my first book, and my agent was saying,

01:34:38.000 Youngmi, you're traumatized.

01:34:39.380 You need to go to therapy.

01:34:41.280 And talk about mental health.

01:34:42.700 I was like, what's therapy?

01:34:44.220 It's like, about talking how hard it was to survive, and your feelings to somebody.

01:34:49.340 And I asked, like, is it free?

01:34:50.960 Like, does it cost money?

01:34:52.280 It's like, oh, she's going to give you a special rate, like $200 per hour.

01:34:57.700 And I was thinking, like, no, thank you.

01:35:00.860 I'm good.

01:35:02.340 I have nothing to against with the people going to therapy.

01:35:05.300 If you can get help, that's great for you.

01:35:06.960 But the thing is, what is the point of you surviving all of that, and now I'm going to spend the rest of my life to resenting it and complaining about it?

01:35:18.320 It's extraordinary.

01:35:19.900 It's like there's no point.

01:35:21.360 And I think that is the perspective is lost in America, and that perspective is what the professors and teachers have to teach these kids using the history as a perspective and show them and why understanding history that we are not going to repeat it.

01:35:39.540 But they are not teaching them, they are literally brainwashing them to think that somehow the climate change is something going to happen, tomorrow we're going to all die.

01:35:51.720 And then if you ask a North Korean, like, what's the climate change?

01:35:55.740 I mean, they cannot afford to buy for climate change.

01:35:58.100 They don't understand.

01:35:59.140 There are billions of people.

01:36:00.900 Four billions of people in the world are still oppressed.

01:36:05.240 Being a free person is being the minority.

01:36:07.540 They don't understand.

01:36:09.220 People have no luxury to talk about your feelings and oppression and, you know, the social justice they are talking about.

01:36:17.240 It's a luxury they cannot afford and other people cannot afford and they don't have that perspective.

01:36:22.040 That's so clueless.

01:36:23.320 That's exactly right.

01:36:24.660 I mean, here we're worried about banning the word field because it might upset somebody who descended from slaves and we can't say field work anymore.

01:36:33.720 I mean, it's just we've lost the thread.

01:36:35.720 In our last bit together, I want to cover a couple of things.

01:36:41.300 There's a reason why we haven't seen the glossy CBS morning profile of you or the Today Show giving you a double segment to highlight your story of perseverance or 60 minutes.

01:36:56.080 I mean, I could go down the list.

01:36:57.160 As you point out, there's only a handful of people who have escaped North Korea.

01:37:01.080 What do you believe the reason is that you have not been more highlighted on those news outlets?

01:37:15.180 So this is a long story.

01:37:18.500 I came to America and I met somebody in a conference and then he asked me one day, oh, so what do you think about like Second Amendment?

01:37:28.540 And I was thinking, that's an amazing thing.

01:37:30.760 Like if you can't self-defense.

01:37:32.720 Imagine if North Korean people had guns in their hands, right? 1.00

01:37:36.940 The dictator can never take them. 0.99

01:37:38.580 If your family mother gets killed, if your mother gets raped and your child gets executed, they're going to die and you're going to shoot these officials and fight back like hell. 0.99

01:37:48.960 If Hong Kongers had guns, the Chinese could never have, Mississippi could never have taken them like that. 1.00

01:37:55.120 It's a very important thing for the humans to defend themselves for the core government.

01:38:00.640 And he was saying, I agree with you, but can you never talk about that?

01:38:05.800 And then with the Tengu Random House, there are many, as you know, there's many imprints, right?

01:38:12.760 There's great imprints within them and some very unbelievable imprints.

01:38:18.120 And they gave me a media training.

01:38:21.340 And the training is not about me, how I can talk about my story or how can I make sure that people know that what Chinese Communist Party does,

01:38:30.180 that there are millions of people oppressed and how we can end the slavery.

01:38:34.300 Slavery never ended.

01:38:36.260 It's continuing and it's happening right now.

01:38:38.940 It's worse than like ever before.

01:38:40.820 More people are enslaved than in human history before.

01:38:44.340 Not about that.

01:38:45.480 It was about what not to talk about.

01:38:49.240 So I had this list of pages of pages that I can never express my thoughts on.

01:38:55.040 And back then I was still like thinking, okay, maybe these people know better than me.

01:38:58.360 Writing my second book, my agent was asking me, let's write the next book.

01:39:04.780 Let's talk about how hard it is to be a woman in the modern world.

01:39:10.120 And I was like, what do you mean to have a great life?

01:39:13.540 And they said, okay, if you don't like the topic, let's talk about, let's write this book about how horrible America treats the black men in their prison system.

01:39:22.380 And how a lot of black men are in prison and their conditions are like North Korean concentration camps.

01:39:29.820 You can be the mirror to reflect American society that how horrible America is to the minority groups.

01:39:37.040 And I was like, it's simply not true.

01:39:39.080 I would take, compare being in American prison in North Korea free society.

01:39:43.180 I mean, North Korean society, I can choose American prison anytime, any day, right?

01:39:48.280 There's no comparison between these two systems.

01:39:51.960 And, and then when I was pretending, not pretending really, I was closeted, a classical labor.

01:39:58.880 They, I was invited to events.

01:40:02.100 It's in my book by Jeff Bezos to something called a campfire.

01:40:06.940 He brings Tom Cruise, all these celebrities and writers and come share their stories.

01:40:13.880 And in this story, I shared my story.

01:40:17.320 Everybody was in tears and they say, what can we do?

01:40:21.100 And I told them, these billionaires, the movers and shakers of this world.

01:40:25.240 Can you talk to China when you have business relations with China?

01:40:28.460 Can you talk to them so they can, they do not enslave these women? 0.98

01:40:32.920 And they said, I can't.

01:40:35.560 And first of all, I really support what you do, but do not ever talk about that.

01:40:40.240 I know you, or we know each other that I heard you.

01:40:43.020 So whenever I go and there was a time, the Hollywood, somebody was trying to make a movie about my story.

01:40:51.300 And I got a movie script and he said, when I arrived in China, China was the promised land.

01:40:58.440 They protected me, they gave me freedom, and they gave me thingy.

01:41:03.980 And I called this producer.

01:41:06.540 I was like, this is not even remotely close to truth.

01:41:11.540 How can you do that?

01:41:12.840 And he said, this is the only way I can make a movie in Hollywood right now.

01:41:18.600 And this is America.

01:41:19.680 We are not colonized by China.

01:41:21.180 And I said, I don't need a movie to be made about my story.

01:41:25.340 And I canceled that movie deal.

01:41:27.820 And because I talk about China, they come after me and they do not want to talk about my story because I represent whatever they want to fight for.

01:41:38.860 That is injustice, the oppression of women and minority and slavery. 1.00

01:41:42.520 But even though I have all of that, but still because I condemn China and they want to make money from this corrupt regime, they do not want to do anything to do with my activism.

01:41:54.480 Oh, my God.

01:41:55.660 This is horrifying.

01:41:56.920 But we've heard we've heard similar stories, not those same as yours before, that they you know, this is why LeBron James won't criticize China.

01:42:06.980 This is why you've had Ennis Cantor basically kicked out of the NBA.

01:42:13.180 This is why John Senna came out and apologized for the comments.

01:42:16.180 Like, we've seen time and time again how these people of note, celebrities or athletes, won't criticize China because they're afraid of losing the Chinese money.

01:42:29.220 It's outrageous.

01:42:31.460 Yeah.

01:42:32.120 Even politicians, even even.

01:42:34.960 Yeah, it's that's the thing.

01:42:36.400 Like, they have no problem hanging up the signs like Black Lives Matter.

01:42:40.580 They have no problem condemning the slavery that happened by the white people, according to them.

01:42:47.840 They do not want to condemn the slavery that's happening by CCP. 0.99

01:42:52.360 The hypocrisy. 0.87

01:42:53.360 Right now.

01:42:54.620 Yeah, that's exactly right.

01:42:55.680 It must be infuriating to you.

01:42:57.860 And and it's obviously one of the things playing against you.

01:43:00.580 You're not saying the right things.

01:43:01.760 You're pro Second Amendment.

01:43:03.220 You're not woke.

01:43:04.300 You're calling out fake victimhood.

01:43:05.840 And you have the standing to do it because of the life struggles you've had.

01:43:10.740 And you're openly critical of China.

01:43:12.680 And this is the reason.

01:43:14.180 That's the reason why we probably won't see a movie on the big screen of your life.

01:43:17.980 Although I have some ideas.

01:43:19.140 So we'll talk later.

01:43:20.980 But while you're not being properly platformed with the incredible story you have, may I ask you, is there any fear?

01:43:28.620 Because given how vindictive the North Korean regime is and what they do to people down the generations and kill the entire family, I mean, are you worried?

01:43:39.840 I know that they said they're targeting you.

01:43:42.360 I mean, are you worried that they actually will?

01:43:44.220 You have a son.

01:43:45.420 You have some family back in North Korea still.

01:43:47.520 So can you update us on that and on your thoughts about it?

01:43:52.180 Yeah.

01:43:52.620 So when Kim Jong-un even goes killing his half-brother in Malaysia, this guy does not care about international reputation or anything, right?

01:44:03.620 He really does whatever he wants.

01:44:05.240 Because he, I mean, Biden calls North Korea and he does not pick up the bunker for like two months.

01:44:11.820 Even, like literally, that's how weak America is now.

01:44:16.260 And North Korea, how they're that strong with the help of China.

01:44:20.740 Oh, I was informed by the South Korean intelligence years ago that I was on his killing list.

01:44:27.800 And I cannot go to many countries, like for instance, in Malaysia and many countries where the North Korean operatives 0.94

01:44:34.880 operate, especially China.

01:44:37.980 And in America, I have friends who are Iranian activists, Masi, and the gun then showed up in her door in Brooklyn a few months ago.

01:44:49.820 And America just would not protect these activists that get threats from dictators. 0.64

01:44:56.900 So I don't get any protection from the U.S. government.

01:44:59.900 And South Korean intelligence is the only country that was keep informing me until a few years ago that I became an American citizen.

01:45:07.240 And now I'm not their responsibility anymore.

01:45:09.560 So now I don't get any more updates from the intelligence.

01:45:13.280 And I actually get canceled.

01:45:14.960 I was invited to speak at FBI Dallas last year.

01:45:20.820 And then literally a day or two days before, the head of diversity calls me from FBI and says,

01:45:28.220 because my political opinions, that my values do not align with theirs, they cannot invite me to talk about how they can help the North Korean people.

01:45:37.280 And we agreed.

01:45:39.700 I'm not going to talk about Columbia experience.

01:45:41.400 I'm not going to talk about anything about American life.

01:45:45.420 I'm going to purely help them so they can help these North Korean people.

01:45:51.380 And they don't want to do that.

01:45:52.720 They were just canceling me.

01:45:54.100 Of course, I can cancel the Samsung.

01:45:55.760 I mean, they have business in China and many corporations in America.

01:46:00.300 It's like countless.

01:46:01.280 But American intelligence, they actively try not to help me and silence me at this point.

01:46:10.260 And not only that, like the reason I wrote my second book is one day I was walking down the street of Chicago during the BLM protest. 0.86

01:46:20.280 Informed my son I was attacked by black women. 0.99

01:46:23.860 And they stole my wallet and they punched me. 0.97

01:46:27.360 It was a violent attack.

01:46:29.440 And I was trying to call the cops.

01:46:31.840 And it was middle of the Mission Avenue in Chicago, 2 p.m.

01:46:35.520 People were starting calling me racist because I was trying to call on these criminals.

01:46:41.160 And they were saying the color of the skin does not mean there are dips, even though they were seeing these women taking my wallet and punching me down. 1.00

01:46:48.460 So I don't know, like, am I going to be attacked by the woke people or the crowd that's gone so mad in America that they can never see that everybody can become a criminal and everybody can be, somebody can be innocent.

01:47:04.980 It's very unknown what's going to happen after this book.

01:47:09.640 You've got to get out of New York.

01:47:11.540 My audience knows.

01:47:12.800 We pulled, my husband and I pulled our children from these woke New York City schools, private schools, a year plus ago.

01:47:19.580 That city's gone.

01:47:20.800 It's too far left.

01:47:22.440 And, you know, Chicago's on the same track.

01:47:24.860 It's already gone.

01:47:25.680 And so you really got to get out of there.

01:47:27.640 There are more reasonable places to live where I think you'd be more protected and more loved and supported.

01:47:35.240 And you'd feel all the feelings that you thought you would when you got to America.

01:47:39.420 That's that's my feeling on it right now.

01:47:42.180 How are you going to support yourself?

01:47:44.000 You're writing.

01:47:44.660 Obviously, we are all buying your book.

01:47:46.400 We're going to support you that way.

01:47:48.300 But how what's your future plan?

01:47:50.740 I mean, I I want you to run for office.

01:47:53.520 I want you to do something where your voice is elevated and even more powerful.

01:47:58.900 Oh, no, I don't want to be.

01:48:01.440 I it's a thing like when you go through something like this, every North Korean is the same story. 0.84

01:48:11.320 In their dreams, they are never in free country.

01:48:13.860 They are always back in North Korea in the prison. 0.60

01:48:16.120 So and as you said, like how on earth, what love would that explain among I became one of 210 North Korean defectors made it to America for the last 80 years and learned English and got to have this chance to talk to you.

01:48:35.380 Like, I, I don't think it's me like who I did it.

01:48:40.220 I do think somebody really wanted me to save North Koreans. 1.00

01:48:43.200 And I have that obligation with me.

01:48:46.880 And in some sense, I can awake the public.

01:48:52.160 If slavery was wrong back then, it is wrong right now.

01:48:57.080 And it shouldn't be some partisan issue.

01:49:00.160 What I'm fighting for is not a partisan issue.

01:49:02.120 And they keep trying to say I'm a right wing.

01:49:04.580 I'm like, oh, so what?

01:49:05.460 I'm a right wing.

01:49:06.140 That was lost meaning long time ago.

01:49:08.700 It doesn't mean anything.

01:49:09.880 And anybody who doesn't agree with the mainstream, they say I'm a racist.

01:49:14.360 They call me a racist and they say I'm a white passing person.

01:49:18.040 Therefore, I can never understand what oppression is.

01:49:21.660 That's how they shut me down.

01:49:23.640 By denying who I am.

01:49:26.820 And also, I have obligation to protecting the sanity of liberty in this country for my own son.

01:49:32.240 Because unlike me, he has no place to escape war.

01:49:36.380 Imagine the world without America.

01:49:38.260 That place is an unimaginable world.

01:49:41.700 I don't want to imagine it.

01:49:43.920 So I don't have plans for office.

01:49:46.880 I'm not even like, oh, I never chose to want to do this.

01:49:50.560 I never wanted to have any ambition.

01:49:52.680 I just want to stop the madness that is happening in China, North Korea, in America.

01:49:58.280 I guess around the globe right now.

01:50:00.280 You are an extraordinary human being.

01:50:04.380 What an honor to get to know you.

01:50:07.040 I hope you'll come back.

01:50:08.540 I want to talk about your thoughts on politics and daily news and not just your backstory.

01:50:14.280 Because you have such a smart and unique perspective.

01:50:17.040 And what an example of strength you are for our young girls, for our young boys, for all of us.

01:50:25.100 Yonmi, thank you for being here.

01:50:26.420 All the best to you.

01:50:27.600 And please let me know if I can do anything to help you.

01:50:31.100 Thank you so much.

01:50:32.320 What a journey.

01:50:35.480 Oh, my goodness.

01:50:36.580 Let me know what you thought of the interview.

01:50:38.420 You can email me at megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at megankelly.com.

01:50:43.840 You can also post on Apple reviews.

01:50:45.940 I do still read them every day.

01:50:48.440 Happy Friday.

01:50:49.120 We're off on Monday because of President's Day.

01:50:50.920 But back on Tuesday with Glenn Beck and more.

01:50:54.080 Have a great weekend.

01:50:59.780 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:51:01.760 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - February 17, 2023

Escaping North Korea, Woke College Students and Professors, and American Opportunity, with Yeonmi Park ｜ Ep. 496

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