Yeonmi Park became a household name for many in America thanks to her extraordinary memoir, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl s Journey to Freedom. It was published when she was just 21 years old. But her story, of course, starts much earlier. She was born and raised in North Korea and escaped to China at the age of 13. Her incredibly perilous, dangerous journey did not end until 2011, when she finally made it to South Korea and eventually to America.
00:29:22.780So you were talking about the punishment, if you break any of these rules. And again,
00:29:28.140it could be something like you said, maybe it was a neighbor who watched an American movie or
00:29:32.940watched a Western movie. How, how do they, I mean, they disappear people, they go off to camps.
00:29:40.540What would lead to a death sentence? And are you forced to participate in that at all?
00:29:47.580Yeah. So it, so there's no concept of minor in North Korea, even though you're five years old,
00:29:55.180literally, I can't imagine. My son had to go to see that, even four years old, two years old.
00:30:01.900You have to go watch public execution. And this is a very often event in North Korea that happens.
00:30:08.940They have these executions like a stadium or the market or the school stadium, like where a lot of
00:30:18.620people go watch and you, you get drafted to go watch it. And teachers announced that which day,
00:30:24.540what time there's a public execution. And as a class, we all have to march together to go see the
00:30:29.580public execution. And for the adult, the same, for anybody, it's the same.
00:30:33.980And how do they commit the executions?
00:30:37.260It's a, I've never seen the hanging. I heard that people literally in the concentration camps,
00:30:45.500uh, they hang the person and they demand the, if it was a mother, then they demand the son and
00:30:53.180husband have to call first person to have to throw the rocks to kill them. They use the family members
00:30:59.100to commit the murder. That's how they do that. To really carry the love and trust between anybody.
00:31:05.820And people have no place to go for. Right. And the execution that I saw was by shooting.
00:31:12.380Uh, they, uh, before they kill somebody, uh, they literally break every bone in the person's body.
00:31:21.340So they can't even walk. And then before they take them out to the public, they, uh,
00:31:28.780put a big rock in their mouth and break all their teeth. The reason they put the rock in their mouth is
00:31:35.420they don't even give you this chance for the last time to rebel, to resist the regime's ideology.
00:31:41.660Nobody can ever have a saying towards the regime, even in their death moment. That's why these
00:31:47.980people come out, the rocks in their mouth and just blood and their bones are just all smooshed
00:31:53.900and they drag them into their bodies. And the, when the time he gives them execute his own uncle,
00:31:59.900people, he used the, the, the, the gun. I mean, that was opium shooting down the airplane.
00:32:07.260That kind of powerful weapon he used and made his body into you really into little pieces
00:32:14.380and then made the dogs eat the flesh afterwards and let the officials to see this execution. And this is
00:32:21.660what's going to happen if the people do not obey the dictator. And do they, do they, do they
00:32:27.900make the children and the spouse participate in the execution every time? Or is that a reserve
00:32:36.220for the most egregious? I mean, I know you're saying there's nothing minor and there are no minors,
00:32:40.460but is that reserved for the most egregious sin? No, every time. Uh, one of my, my executioners,
00:32:49.020my sister friends, her mother was accused somehow being a spy. And then they made her to sit in the
00:32:57.180front, seeing her own mom got killed. And three months later, the office of, and then she got
00:33:02.940all exiled in the countryside and the officers say, Oh, we made a mistake. And she was not a spy,
00:33:09.340but there's no apology. There's not no like condemnation after killing of innocent lives.
00:33:15.820Every single execution, the family members have to be the witness. And then they put the little
00:33:20.780children by height. So if you're two years old, you're going to be the first row, five years of
00:33:26.140second row, seven years, like, and the older standing in the last. So since you grew up in
00:33:31.260North Korea, the first thing you see is people are getting executed as a child. And as you get older
00:33:37.260and get taller, you're going to go standing in your back row to watch it.
00:33:41.740Is there mass depression? You know, now being able to identify what depression looks like,
00:33:46.700I'm sure you can. Is there mass depression there?
00:33:52.700I think it's whatever you fear living in North Korea is going to be beyond depression. It's going
00:33:58.380to be a complete, I don't know, numbness. It's a complete fear. Like I still work with North
00:34:06.700Koreans and try to rescue them. And there are like Chinese brokers that we use to rescue these people
00:34:13.420and send the information and get money out of North Korea and send money into North Korea.
00:34:17.980And somebody tried to, you know, lie to us by being a North Korean. And when I hear their voice,
00:34:24.140I can tell who is calling me from North Korea and who's not. Because even their voice is oppressed to the
00:34:32.060point that anybody, if you hear their voice, but you know, even their soul is crushed by this darkness.
00:34:38.460My God, that's just horrific. Just to think about how that's, again, not, not ancient history. This is recent.
00:34:47.020And still happening right now. Yeah, nothing's changed. It's, it's the same family. It's the same leadership.
00:34:54.060So, so let's go, let's go forward in time to where you see an opportunity to potentially leave. How did that happen?
00:35:02.380Oh, 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.
00:35:21.100And 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.
00:35:36.620And 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.
00:35:49.980And 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.
00:36:45.120And 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.
00:37:03.640So 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.
00:37:14.800Just to have those thoughts, never mind, have a note directing you where to go to get out.
00:37:19.800Yeah, so that is also a thing. Like, in our school, you're so isolated. We don't even know the word escaping.
00:37:29.760And 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.
00:37:43.140So 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.
00:37:55.040And 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.
00:38:06.140Like, I should not get shot. I cannot get shot.
00:38:08.140Yeah, because the guards, they are really machine guns. It's a shoot-to-kill order.
00:38:13.280They don't just, like, catch you. They are going to shoot you to death if they see you crossing the river.
00:38:18.220So that's all I remember. It was, like, I cannot get shot. I have to run as fast as I can.
00:41:59.500And I couldn't understand what she was saying, like, what could this possibly be?
00:42:06.160And eventually I turned around and I covered my ears and he was saying, oh, next time I'm still going to go for her.
00:42:17.220Like that, that broker still wants me.
00:42:21.320And just, I think to me, it's like still like something happened yesterday.
00:42:30.800And I was ready to go to this apartment.
00:42:34.360And 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.
00:42:49.260And then negotiating our price, just in front of our eyes, like we just became an animal and less than an animal for them.
00:43:00.740And they were negotiating to selling us to another human, human trafficker.
00:43:08.540I'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.
00:43:17.760And she did, but there were, there were limits to what she could spare you from.
00:43:23.720These, I believe I've heard you say the number that you were sold for, that your mom was sold for.
00:43:37.240Yeah, so, in this place, they sold us to another human trafficker.
00:43:42.000And 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.
00:46:15.200So 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.
00:46:35.700So 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.
00:48:15.540Yeah, it's, that's the thing, like, how, when the state decides what is right for the individuals, they always mess it up.
00:48:25.020And, 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.
00:48:37.040And, and, of course, we deny slavery all day long in the West.
00:48:41.840And 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.
00:48:50.100The only resemblance that we can find in the human history is not Germany, it's a Holocaust.
00:49:13.280The other places they get sold for is a organ harvesting.
00:49:19.400They buy these girls, buy these women, and put them in the basement and take their organs out and discard their bodies.
00:49:28.080And they sell these people who are suffering and drug these girls and rape them until they die.
00:49:35.940They sell one girl to an entire village.
00:49:38.800So entire village rape her until she dies.
00:49:41.900Or 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.
00:49:51.900So, 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.
00:50:02.340It'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?
00:50:48.160And 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.
00:51:57.400It's amazing your dad had that insight, notwithstanding the life he had led.
00:52:02.020And you, so you, you, you strike the deal with the trafficker and the next day you did get out of China.
00:52:09.500You, as I understand it, was it from China to South Korea through the Christian missionary group?
00:52:16.960So, 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.
00:52:28.600So, 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.
00:52:38.740And by then my father passed away already and then he could not provide food.
00:52:43.420And at this point, if he were a really horrible guy, I think he could have sold me to another guy and got the money.
00:53:04.760So, 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.
00:53:18.000And several months later, I found her back and I ran away with her to another village from that guy who bought her.
00:53:29.660And from there, luckily, I met a North Korean woman, another de facto woman who was like us fugitive.
00:53:35.360And she said, there's a way that we can find food in China.
00:53:39.360It was, thankfully, it was not a brothel.
00:53:42.840It was not a, actually, man rapes me every day, but it was a chat room.
00:54:00.060And they said, there is a, in Chanyang, big city, there is a cam chat room.
00:54:05.840If 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.
00:54:16.080So, I thought, I mean, that was the best thing I could get as a North Korean in China.
00:56:01.620They took us to the border town of China.
00:56:05.260And in the border of China, there's Mongolia.
00:56:08.580And in between this border, there's a Gobi Desert.
00:56:11.440And there are guards, of course, same with the machine guns standing there.
00:56:17.880We chose, this is by now, this is 2009, by the end of February.
00:56:24.200In the site, like, Mongolia, it gets to minus 40 degrees at nighttime.
00:56:29.300So, 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.
00:56:38.260And in the summer, like, most likely, you're going to get captured by the guards.
00:56:43.020And we started walking from China to Mongolia.
00:57:12.500It was just one day because we are in a border town and we went as far as we could.
00:57:19.420And 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.
00:57:29.480You have no idea if you are going straight or going around the circle.
00:57:33.280If there's one tree, we can at least know we are now keep turning back around and circle and circle.
00:58:16.100If you cross the eight wire fences, that's going to be Mongolia.
00:58:19.940But we cross the 16 of them and still can't find the Mongolia.
00:58:24.000We don't even know if this is the China side or Mongolian side.
00:58:27.840And luckily, after like two or something, I don't remember the time, there's a really bright northern star that was there.
00:58:36.560And we couldn't use a compass anymore.
00:58:38.260So I told everybody, let's just follow that star and see what happens.
00:58:42.600So we, in the desert, the most important thing is you should not stop moving.
00:58:48.240When you're freezing to death, you stop like feeling things and you become very dizzy and sleepy.
00:58:55.480And that's a sign, you know, you're dying.
00:58:58.180So we had to constantly wake up each other.
00:59:01.500And every second had to move, not to die from the cold.
00:59:04.740By 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.
00:59:17.460And they were going to send us back to the Chinese side because they did not want to deal with us.
01:01:39.180It'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.
01:01:58.620And they literally show us, and they literally show us the posters of Americans, showing they are called really the libtards.
01:08:22.700And 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.
01:08:34.480Otherwise, that our stomach is not used to eating full steak.
01:08:39.820And eventually, when my system fully adjusted and become a normal person mode, I tasted steak in America.
01:08:48.660And literally, in North Korea, cows have more rice than people.
01:08:54.600One 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.
01:10:53.440I feel, even as a natural-born American citizen, there's nothing like it.
01:10:57.360If you don't get chills as you go by Lady Liberty by boat, there's something wrong.
01:11:02.480Because 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.
01:11:08.680Yeah, I think it's what it stands for.
01:11:13.820I think that's, I mean, the reason why I wrote this book is, in some sense, for even my own son.
01:11:22.960In some sense, like, I was very lucky.
01:11:25.120When 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.
01:11:36.700And I'm eternally grateful for America, the defending South Korea, and kept the country free for me to go to and to be saved.
01:11:45.240But, I mean, every day I think about what happens if America goes away.
01:11:50.040Like, where will my children escape to?
01:11:53.380There's really no places left in this earth right now.
01:12:26.040So, 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?
01:12:34.640By the bombing that made a nuclear weapon.
01:12:36.600And 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.
01:12:51.720And I was literally thinking, I don't think Americans, any of North Koreans have to make their sea of lights.
01:13:00.500I mean, this is literally the sea of lights.
01:13:05.940I landed in the night, and I've never seen anything like that.
01:13:10.240It was like literally standing on a different planet.
01:13:14.000I could not think of a place can be the polar opposite from North Korea than the New York City, and especially the Times Square.
01:13:24.400It's fun to think about because it's such a special place.
01:13:28.140I mean, it's overwhelming, of course, in many ways.
01:13:29.880But 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.
01:13:46.920Like, this country came, and from absolutely nothing, all of this went up.
01:13:51.500These enormous skyscrapers, the beautiful lights, the twinkling signs, the enormous shows of financial success, the billboards, the excitement, the creativity of Broadway.
01:14:50.860When you are free, you can do anything.
01:14:53.340You can literally reach the moon, right?
01:14:56.400And, like, you can build these trees and waterfall and everything in the middle of gigantic deserts.
01:15:03.140And I think that's the same thing for me, just seeing the New York City, too.
01:15:07.360It was a completely wasted land before.
01:15:10.340And 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.
01:15:28.400And then when we can be in the free land.
01:15:32.700And I think, of course, North Korea could have become a Manhattan if they were free, but they chose a different system.
01:15:38.800Is 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?
01:15:53.180It'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.
01:16:05.980It, 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.
01:16:16.040Speaking of Vegas, you must have died when you saw those huge buffet, you know, all you can eat.
01:16:21.700But it's, it's, everything's to excess.
01:16:25.340That's my favorite, the buffet is like my favorite.
01:29:56.480They're outdoors, but they're like child outdoors.
01:29:59.660None of them have any capacity to handle any reality.
01:30:03.220And professors send you this email before the class say, this reading scanner can trigger like rape, memory of oppression, all kinds of difficulties.
01:30:17.320So 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.
01:30:27.120Because it can also trigger you to think about your own oppression.
01:30:31.100And I'm like, we have, we are one of the most expensive schools in the world.
01:30:35.760And if you cannot handle the material that is taught being in the classroom, why would you even go to college at this point?
01:30:43.500It defeats the purpose of a higher education.
01:30:47.160So instead of trying to teach you something, it was trying to protect somehow our made-up oppression and feelings.
01:30:54.080You're the opposite of everything they think you are, right?
01:30:56.760If you had responded to this they person by saying, please, I literally was sold into sex slavery for several years of my life.
01:31:10.040I was forced to attend executions for the formative years of my childhood.
01:31:14.540I really don't need a lecture from you in oppression or hurt feelings.
01:33:22.600So 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,
01:33:29.400and you, who actually have experienced things that have made you a victim, who refuse to stay in that mindset?
01:33:50.600And 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.
01:34:02.860And 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.
01:34:13.840One was that I was born in North Korea, and the second was that I escaped from North Korea.
01:34:18.620It's like, you know, if you can, if you've never seen the darkness, you can never see the light.
01:34:25.080If you're just, all your life was in the light, you're never going to know what darkness looks like, ever.
01:34:30.480And in some sense, like that, like I came to America, and writing my first book, and my agent was saying,
01:35:02.340I have nothing to against with the people going to therapy.
01:35:05.300If you can get help, that's great for you.
01:35:06.960But 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?
01:35:21.360And 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.
01:35:39.540But 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.
01:35:51.720And then if you ask a North Korean, like, what's the climate change?
01:35:55.740I mean, they cannot afford to buy for climate change.
01:36:24.660I 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.
01:36:33.720I mean, it's just we've lost the thread.
01:36:35.720In our last bit together, I want to cover a couple of things.
01:36:41.300There'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.
01:37:38.580If 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.
01:37:48.960If Hong Kongers had guns, the Chinese could never have, Mississippi could never have taken them like that.
01:37:55.120It's a very important thing for the humans to defend themselves for the core government.
01:38:00.640And he was saying, I agree with you, but can you never talk about that?
01:38:05.800And then with the Tengu Random House, there are many, as you know, there's many imprints, right?
01:38:12.760There's great imprints within them and some very unbelievable imprints.
01:38:21.340And 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,
01:38:30.180that there are millions of people oppressed and how we can end the slavery.
01:38:49.240So I had this list of pages of pages that I can never express my thoughts on.
01:38:55.040And back then I was still like thinking, okay, maybe these people know better than me.
01:38:58.360Writing my second book, my agent was asking me, let's write the next book.
01:39:04.780Let's talk about how hard it is to be a woman in the modern world.
01:39:10.120And I was like, what do you mean to have a great life?
01:39:13.540And 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.
01:39:22.380And how a lot of black men are in prison and their conditions are like North Korean concentration camps.
01:39:29.820You can be the mirror to reflect American society that how horrible America is to the minority groups.
01:41:27.820And 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.
01:41:38.860That is injustice, the oppression of women and minority and slavery.
01:41:42.520But 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.
01:41:56.920But 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.
01:42:06.980This is why you've had Ennis Cantor basically kicked out of the NBA.
01:42:13.180This is why John Senna came out and apologized for the comments.
01:42:16.180Like, 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.
01:43:20.980But while you're not being properly platformed with the incredible story you have, may I ask you, is there any fear?
01:43:28.620Because 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?
01:43:39.840I know that they said they're targeting you.
01:43:42.360I mean, are you worried that they actually will?
01:43:52.620So when Kim Jong-un even goes killing his half-brother in Malaysia, this guy does not care about international reputation or anything, right?
01:45:14.960I was invited to speak at FBI Dallas last year.
01:45:20.820And then literally a day or two days before, the head of diversity calls me from FBI and says,
01:45:28.220because 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.
01:46:31.840And it was middle of the Mission Avenue in Chicago, 2 p.m.
01:46:35.520People were starting calling me racist because I was trying to call on these criminals.
01:46:41.160And 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.
01:46:48.460So 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.
01:47:04.980It's very unknown what's going to happen after this book.
01:48:01.440I it's a thing like when you go through something like this, every North Korean is the same story.
01:48:11.320In their dreams, they are never in free country.
01:48:13.860They are always back in North Korea in the prison.
01:48:16.120So 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.
01:48:35.380Like, I, I don't think it's me like who I did it.
01:48:40.220I do think somebody really wanted me to save North Koreans.