Nov. 22, 2020 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
44:45
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Yeah, so in 2007, I was 13 years old and we didn't have anything to eat anymore. | ||
| So we were thinking, what do we do? | ||
| You know, there were tons of people dying from starvation. | ||
| And I was fortunate enough to live on the border town of North Korea. | ||
| So I was able to see the lights coming from China side. | ||
| So if you look at the satellite photos of North Korea, it is like the literally darkest place on earth. | ||
| You don't have electricity. | ||
| So I was looking at China and then wondering, maybe if I go where the lights were, | ||
| I might find something to eat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
(upbeat music) | |
| I'm Dave Rubin and this is the Rubin Report. | ||
| Joining me today is a human rights activist, author of In Order to Live, A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom, and someone that I'm honored to call a friend, Yeonmi Park. | ||
| Welcome to The Rubin Report. | ||
| Thank you so much for having me. | ||
| It's a real honor to be on your show. | ||
| I'm thrilled to have you. | ||
| Can I call us friends? | ||
| We've only hung out one time, and it was just in the last few weeks, but I feel that we are long lost friends. | ||
| Definitely. | ||
| I've been following you, almost like stalking you for the last three, four years. | ||
| I've been to your show with Jordan Peterson in Chicago, and I was in one of the audience, so yeah. | ||
| Nice. | ||
| Well, I do consider you a friend and I'm thrilled you're here because your story is just absolutely incredible and you've become a fighter for so many of the things that this show is about. | ||
| So, let's just start at the beginning. | ||
| For people that don't know you, let's just do your biography. | ||
| Just tell me your story and then we'll go from there. | ||
| Right, yeah. | ||
| So I was born in the northern part of North Korea in the end of 1993. | ||
| So that was right after the Soviet Union collapsed. | ||
| And North Korean regime stopped providing ration to the people. | ||
| So because in the socialist system, you know, if the trading is illegal, and if the government doesn't give you food, what do you do? | ||
| You starve to death. | ||
| And unfortunately, that's when I was born, when North Korea began going into this I mean, the worst famine in human history in the 21st century. | ||
| I was born in North Korea. | ||
| I had a father, mom, and my sister in a very ordinary household. | ||
| And I had no clue that North Korea was a hermit kingdom or a weird country. | ||
| We are truly isolated. | ||
| You don't even know what isolation means. | ||
| And growing up in North Korea, of course, we didn't have a world for love. | ||
| We didn't have a world for liberty. | ||
| We didn't have a world for a lot of things. | ||
| So you were 13 when your family decided to leave North Korea, is that right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, escape from North Korea. | ||
| It was like we were getting a passport. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Escape is a much better word. | ||
| So can you just tell us a little bit about what that was like? | ||
| Yeah, so in 2007, I was 13 years old and we didn't have anything to eat anymore. | ||
| So we were thinking, what do we do? | ||
| You know, there were tons of people dying from starvation. | ||
| And I was fortunate enough to live on the border town of North Korea. | ||
| So I was able to see the lights coming from China side. | ||
| So if you look at the satellite photos of North Korea, it is like the literally darkest place on earth. | ||
| You don't have interest in lights. | ||
| So I was looking at China and then wondering, maybe if I go where the lights were, I might find something to eat. | ||
| And that was a motivation why we risked our life to escape from China, I mean, North Korea. | ||
| Yeah, and your story of actually how you did it is pretty incredible. | ||
|
unidentified
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So you have to tell that to everybody. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| We had to cross the frozen river to China. | ||
| And there are like every 10 meters, the border guards with the machine guns. | ||
| Now the North Korea buried the landmines and electrified the wire fences to prevent people to escape. | ||
| However, when we were escaping, we had a person, a human trafficker. | ||
| He sold us to Chinese human traffickers. | ||
| And that's how we were able to safely cross the border to China. | ||
| And did you guys know what was gonna happen to you? | ||
| I mean, I know you were just a kid, but did your parents at that point know you're being sold to human traffickers? | ||
| And I know you'll tell what happened next, but did your parents have any idea what that meant? | ||
| Or it was just like, we have to get there no matter what is about to happen to us. | ||
| So it wasn't like my parents deciding it. | ||
| My sister escaped a few days before me. | ||
| And I was in the hospital, and you know, in North Korean hospitals, we don't of course have x-rays or nothing. | ||
| The doctor just like, you know, touched my tummy and told me, you might have some bursting appendix, and we have to operate on you this afternoon. | ||
| And they of course cut my belly without any anesthesia. | ||
| And they realized it wasn't like appendix, it was just malnutrition and infection. | ||
| So I couldn't go with my sister. | ||
| But she left me a note to say, go find this lady and she will help you to go to China. | ||
| And when I saw that letter, I told my mom, like, mom, you gotta come with me. | ||
| I couldn't take my father who was very sick. | ||
| So it was, uh, I took my mom with me and we were crossing that river. | ||
| We didn't even know the word human trafficking. | ||
| Like it wasn't something, a concept I was aware. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| Thing is like, I didn't even question why the person was helping us. | ||
| I was so desperate. | ||
| It didn't really matter if I was going to get killed in China. | ||
| My fate in North Korea was death anyway. | ||
| So it didn't really matter what it was. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Do you think your mom knew what was about to happen when you got there to China? | ||
| No clue. | ||
| So in North Korea, we have one channel on TV, which is all propaganda. | ||
| And we don't have internet. | ||
| And we only have one newspaper. | ||
| We do not have any outside information coming in. | ||
| I never even seen the map of the world. | ||
| I had no clue the different races existed. | ||
| I did not even know what Africa was. | ||
| In North Korea, the regime told me that I was Kim Il Sung race. | ||
| They didn't tell me that I was Asian. | ||
| So I didn't really know how many countries existed or none of the outside North Korea. | ||
| She of course did not know. | ||
| We just went there and found out what it was. | ||
| Yeah, okay, so you get to China and I think you probably thought you were gonna be safe, but that's not exactly how that worked out either. | ||
| Yeah, so I was 13 and crossing this frozen river with mom and the human trafficker helping us to go there. | ||
| And as soon as first thing I was seeing was my mom raped in front of me. | ||
| And I was 13 and In North Korea, we don't have any sex education. | ||
| So I didn't even know what that was. | ||
| Didn't even know that was a rape. | ||
| It was just horrible and I couldn't believe what was happening. | ||
| And then they told us later, you know, they were like negotiating our price in front of us. | ||
| You know, they talk about slave markets exactly like that. | ||
| They sold my mom for around $65 in 21st century right now. | ||
| $65 in 21st century right now and I was above $200 they bought me because I was a virgin and I was young and | ||
| And they sold us separately to different human traffickers. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And then what? | ||
| I feel like this whole interview, I could just say to you, and then what? | ||
| And then what? | ||
| Because it's such a, it's such a series of things, but I think it's important for people to really understand all these steps. | ||
| So as soon as they were separating mom and me, and you know, even I was like 13 minor, didn't care. | ||
| They were like, they want to make more money out of us and splitting us. | ||
| They sold me to another human trafficker. | ||
| He was like Han Chinese. | ||
| And he, of course, tried to rape me. | ||
| And I was trying to kill myself. | ||
| I was... I couldn't take it anymore, so I was trying to kill myself. | ||
| And he said, you know, if I become his mistress, and he would become... buying my mom and bring my family to me. | ||
| I was, in a way, very lucky that I found the trafficker who wanted to help me that way. | ||
| So... | ||
| At first, I thought like, okay, if I become his mistress, I can save my family. | ||
| And I did become his mistress. | ||
| He raped me and did bring my mom back. | ||
| He bought my mom from the farmer he sold to. | ||
| So, because of the due to one child policy in China right now, there are more than 30 million men cannot find wives. | ||
| North Korean women are demanded by this man and sold as a sexual slave to them. | ||
| Did you think your life was better at that point? | ||
| Like, did you feel better? | ||
| Now suddenly you had seen a wider world, but horrific things were happening to you. | ||
| I mean, the rape of your mom, rape of you. | ||
| It's not that you were free. | ||
| Like, what did you think at the time in terms of like, were things better? | ||
| Was it worth going? | ||
| I stopped feeling things. | ||
| I think through my therapy, that's like my struggle right now, trying to feel again. | ||
| At 13 somehow I just learned not to fear. | ||
| So it wasn't like I was thinking about, am I happy? | ||
| Or like, it wasn't like that. | ||
| It was like every second of a survivor and trying to not get caught by Chinese authority. | ||
| Cause they were like looking for us like every second. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| All right. | ||
| So, so let's get to, I mean, your whole book is about this. | ||
| So let's, let's jump instead of doing the whole story to now where you start becoming free. | ||
| That kind of leads you to now. | ||
| So from China, we learned later that if we go to South Korea, we can be free. | ||
| And how do we go to South Korea? | ||
| We don't have like passports, none of that. | ||
| So we learned that if we walk across the Gobi Desert to Mongolia from China, then Mongolia might help us to go to South Korea. | ||
| So that's exactly what we did. | ||
| Right after Beijing Olympics in 2009, we grew up North Korean defectors. | ||
| And myself, we brought one compass in our hands. | ||
| Yeah, I mean it's hard to believe. | ||
| freezing like minus 40 degrees in the desert. | ||
| We followed the Northern Star to freedom and that route did take us to Mongolia | ||
| and then eventually a few months later, they did help us to go to South Korea | ||
| and that's how I became free at 15. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it's hard to believe. | ||
| So how many people were you with when you were crossing the Gobi? | ||
| We were like seven, eight and we had one baby, like two, three years old total with us. | ||
| And you had a compass and the North Star. | ||
| How long did it take you to cross? | ||
| It took us several days journey to go to Inner Mongolia in China. | ||
| And then from the night, it was just one day. | ||
| But we chose the coldest time in February because during the summertime is so severely watched. | ||
| They can just shoot us. | ||
| But in February, no one think like somebody's gonna be crazy enough to cross desert and like minus 40 degrees. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Did you think that you weren't gonna survive? | ||
| I mean, were there moments where... Yeah, I was... Like, I still remember standing on the desert. | ||
| Like, I felt completely alone in this world. | ||
| Like, no one would have known if I died on the desert, right? | ||
| And that's what I felt like so many people were dying without, like, even more knowing about it. | ||
| Completely invisible. | ||
| And I just thought like, what scared me most was not even dying that night. | ||
| It was just like, no one gonna knew that I existed in this world. | ||
| Well, they definitely know you exist now. | ||
| So when you got to Mongolia, what did you have to give people to trade so that they would help you get to South Korea from there? | ||
| What's in it for them at that point? | ||
| Yeah, so Mongolia has some kind of deal with South Korea. | ||
| And as soon as we got caught by Mongolian soldier, And they were, like, using guns trying to shoot us. | ||
| And the first thing I was doing to them was, like, I was thanking them. | ||
| Because I could have been just easily lost in the desert, and no one could have found us. | ||
| At least soldiers found us. | ||
| And they were, of course, trying to send us back to China, and then send back to North Korea. | ||
| But when North Korean defectors, when they escaped, they are, like, during the Holocaust, Jews brought those, like, poisons with them. | ||
| That's what we do. | ||
| We bring lasers and poisons with us. | ||
| And if we caught and sent back, we were going to just kill ourselves before we go through all of that journey. | ||
| And they were trying to send us back to China. | ||
| And then we were trying to take the poisons and to kill all ourselves. | ||
| And they took a pity on us. | ||
| And they actually contacted South Korea instead of the North Korean one. | ||
| And they helped us to go to South Korea as a refugee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Well, since I know from hanging out with you for a couple of years, a couple of hours, I should say, I know what a nice smile you have. | ||
| So let's get to the part where this starts turning into a happy story. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So now you end up in South Korea. | ||
| And what happens? | ||
| Well, I'm learning how freedom is so hard. | ||
| It was very difficult to be free because in North Korea, like, everything was decided for me. | ||
| The governments tell me what to wear, what to listen to, what to watch. | ||
| And suddenly in South Korea, they say, like, what do you think? | ||
| And I was wondering, why does it matter what I think? | ||
| Just tell me what to do. | ||
| And they said, what do you want to be? | ||
| It's like, so the fact that in South Korea, I had to be responsible for my choices. | ||
| It was so hard to adapt in the beginning coming from North Korea. | ||
| And I was thinking like, if someone guaranteed my life safety, I would go back to North Korea and be slave again. | ||
| That's how hard transitioning was coming from, you know, North Korea to free world. | ||
| So how do you make that switch? | ||
| Mentally? | ||
| Books really helped me. | ||
| I was starting reading George Orwell's Animal Farm in 1984. | ||
| But to that point, you know, when I was arriving in South Korea, People were telling me, like, Kims were dictators and you lied. | ||
| You know, everything you learned in North Korea was a lie. | ||
| Americans are not bastards. | ||
| And, you know, like, Japanese are lying. | ||
| Like, they keep telling me the good things about the world. | ||
| And by that point, I was, like, completely lost my faith in humanity. | ||
| I was thinking, so, like, if everything that I believe in North Korea was a lie, how do I know what you are saying is not a lie? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| It was really hard to believe again. | ||
| How do you get over that? | ||
| I mean, that must be... I'm guessing the scars of that have to be with you right now, still. | ||
| No, Georgia, reading his book just made complete sense. | ||
| Like, I could see the little pigs in the animal farm. | ||
| I see myself, I see my grandmother. | ||
| It's like, oh, this is what happened. | ||
| And so I became really good friends with the books. | ||
| And of course, I've been so inspired reading your book, Don't Burn This Book. | ||
| That was years later. | ||
| You were already on your way by the time you read my book. | ||
| So then what did you start doing in South Korea that started getting you some notoriety and people started knowing who you were? | ||
| And then in 2014, it seems like that's where things really started to catch on at an international level. | ||
| So in South Korea, I never planned to be an activist or none of that, but I lost my sister, as I said. | ||
| I lost her. | ||
| She escaped when she was 16 and when I was 13 and I didn't see her for like from 2007. | ||
| So I realized in order to find her I need to get on like the news, the broadcast to find her somehow. | ||
| So I started joining TV shows in South Korea and looking for her. | ||
| And that really led me to activism later. | ||
| But I found my sister though, seven years later, so it paid off. | ||
| Yeah, what was that like? | ||
| I mean, it sounds like such a ridiculous question. | ||
| What was that like? | ||
| I mean, she is the only living family that I got from all of this. | ||
| Because I spoke out against the dictator, all my three generations of my family back in North Korea sent to prison camp or been executed because I'm speaking | ||
| out. | ||
| So I'm not still free from the dictator. | ||
| There are still consequences for me having a voice. | ||
| And she was alive. | ||
| She was the only one that I got from all of this. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then how were you sort of welcomed into the Western world after this? | ||
| I mean, now you live in Chicago now. | ||
| Your friends, we have a ton of similar friends that are all fighting these battles, but you've lived through this battle. | ||
| How did you go from just sort of activism in South Korea to where you are now? | ||
| Yeah, in South Korea, unfortunately, I was heavily, heavily discriminated. | ||
| And I couldn't fit in. | ||
| I had to lie to people that I was South Korean. | ||
| Because there were, you know, so many things South Koreans were discriminated against for North Koreans. | ||
| And that's why I chose to come to America. | ||
| Even though people say this is a racist country, this is the country I've most embraced and included in my life. | ||
| So I chose the U.S. | ||
| as my home. | ||
| Because there's no racism for me here to experience. | ||
| Right, so before we get to the non-racism of the United States, so South Koreans were discriminating against North Koreans. | ||
| Was that simply because they didn't know North Koreans, or they felt that too many North Koreans were coming over, or what is that? | ||
| Because you don't really think that there would be that type of discrimination. | ||
| Just because we are coming from a poor country. | ||
| South Koreans, they discriminate against Southeast Asians, like Vietnamese, Thai, Filipinos, North Korea is also a poor country. | ||
| I don't think they discriminate people as much when they come from France or Europe or Western Europe or like USA. | ||
| But they do that when people are coming from a poor country. | ||
| So even though we are the same people, when I went to South Korea, they were just making fun of my accent because I was speaking with a northern accent. | ||
| And you know, they were asking me, like, are you a spy? | ||
| Why are you talking to me? | ||
| And it's like, if I were a spy, why would I even escape? | ||
| So, it was very tough. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So, what put you on my radar was a few months ago a whole bunch of people started sending me a video of you talking about your adventure and your journey and everything else, and you happened to mention that you read Don't Burn This Book and that it helped you in some way, which is I don't even have the words to explain my gratitude for that. | ||
| I mean, it's just beyond imagination considering what you've lived through, but in essence, you are now here in the United States. | ||
| Do you consider yourself an activist first? | ||
| Like, what do you consider yourself now, really? | ||
| You're an author, obviously, and you're out there fighting all these battles, but what do you consider yourself now? | ||
| Well, I'm a fighter. | ||
| I'm trying to fight against North Korean dictatorship and Chinese Communist Party that sponsors dictatorship in North Korea. | ||
| And I think that's why I began. | ||
| I mean, on cheer, I read your book and it was, I was more trying to be, you know, what I try to do my best to raise awareness. | ||
| And at Hollywood, everybody, they don't pick up North Korean story. | ||
| Like they talk about slavery and they talk about like Malala, who was shot by Taliban. | ||
| They talk about was captured by ISIS. | ||
| And Michelle Obama was standing up for her angers. | ||
| All these people in the mainstream standing up for a lot of girls and human trafficking issues, but nobody here in the U.S. | ||
| wants to talk about North Korea because that upsets the Chinese regime. | ||
| Is it, yeah, is that crazy for you? | ||
| Like you come here and you see the sort of fear around talking, not just about North Korea, but we talked about this a little bit a couple of weeks ago, just that you see the way we are afraid of speaking up here in the freest country in the world about whatever it might be. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, that's like, that's so shocking to me. | ||
| Like, I thought America was a land of the free, the home of the brave, right? | ||
| That's like how I thought of this country to be in coming here. | ||
| And like the movies when they make about North Korea to expose the dictatorship, the Hollywood, like drop the sponsorship. | ||
| And there's no way I can like talk about, because there isn't, Kim Jong Un can never exist without Chinese Communist Party's sponsorship. | ||
| There's no way he can be dictator right now. | ||
| And he's imposing 25 millions of people. | ||
| And the United Nations, they are saying, only resembles we can see what's happening to North Korean people is a Holocaust. | ||
| That's what the Holocaust is happening again, North Korea and the world is denying again. | ||
| And the mainstream, of course, Hollywood and media denying it because they don't want to upset China. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, is it that obvious? | ||
| Like it's that they just, Hollywood just wants Chinese dollars, the last Transformers movie, you know, they really wanted to push to China. | ||
| So they film part of it there and they put all the products and all that kind of stuff. | ||
| I mean, is it really that simple? | ||
| It just comes down to money and they see a new market there and that's it? | ||
| So that's like what I only discovered last few years. | ||
| I've been keep trying to talk to people, and as soon as I talk about that my experience in China has been human trafficking, all of that, they were like, oh, I cannot put my name on that. | ||
| And it's all behind doors. | ||
| Everyone's like, oh, I cannot, like, I care about what you do, but like, I can never, like, support you on this. | ||
| And they have no problem supporting, like, a lot of other causes. | ||
| And also though, I work, I mean, my movie has been trying to make and other movies were being made already. | ||
| And these major production companies gave money, and then as soon as they were purchased by Disney and other platforms, they just dropped the sponsorship, and they said, I cannot show this movie. | ||
| So when you see, like, you know, there was the big controversy six or seven months ago with the NBA players that wouldn't criticize China, and yet they'll tell you how racist and everything else America is, it must just blow your mind. | ||
| I mean, but even though it blew my mind, I couldn't speak out because I was scared, you know? | ||
| Like, they are gonna, what, how am I gonna, like, I need to fight for my people. | ||
| What if all this country gonna make me a CIA spy and blah, blah, you know, being a racist, all of that, like, how do I even get a chance to fight for my people? | ||
| Maybe I still need to be like, somehow being acceptable to them. | ||
| But like, and real, I was robbed in Chicago this year during the summer unrest. | ||
| And I was punched by these two black women. | ||
| And then, and And then I was trying to ask them, like, can you, like, I was asking people to help. | ||
| She was punching me and taking my wallet away. | ||
| And these people were starting calling me a racist. | ||
| Like, this, like, middle of the Chicago, Michigan Avenue, I still have footage of these girls. | ||
| And they said, you are racist. | ||
| You're a bad person. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| Like, color of skin doesn't make them thief. | ||
| I was like, I mean, I have nanny who's Muslim wearing hijab. | ||
| Like, I'm a color of person. | ||
| Like, why would I do that? | ||
| And of course, those girls were thief. | ||
| The police got the footage of them using my credit card, spending $30,000 at Bloomingdale or something. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, Bloomingdale. | ||
| And I just couldn't believe it. | ||
| Like, the people were seeing me. | ||
| I was very petty as you saw me. | ||
| Three black women were like pushing me to call and punching me and then they start calling me a racist and like they're holding me down so they can run away so I cannot call the police on them. | ||
| And that's like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that I have a son in this country. | ||
| Like this is not a safe country anymore. | ||
| Like things are not like okay anymore. | ||
| So what do you make about what's happening in the United States? | ||
| Because one of the things we were talking about a couple of weeks ago is that the chill around free speech, that just people are, you said to me, I think this is exactly what you said, but correct me if I'm wrong. | ||
| I mean, you said this is right now feeling like what it felt like. | ||
| I know this feeling. | ||
| Never, like before I say always, like first thing my mom taught me was not to whisper. | ||
| Because the birds and mice could hear me in North Korea. | ||
| And now, I'm saying the same thing, like trying to teach my son, like, when he cross the, like, walk, walkway, and, you know, like, cross the walkway, there's, like, white man, like, walking sign. | ||
| And he's, like, queer, so, of course, for him, it's, like, white collar and man looking. | ||
| So, I said, white man, I can't walk. | ||
| And people looking at him, like, you cannot say that name, like, you know. | ||
| I'm, like, always teaching him to be, how not to be attacked. | ||
| And, like, this is what exactly my mom did to me. | ||
| Also, what I see in America is that when I was born in North Korea, I was like the third generation of this oppression. | ||
| I didn't even know what the alternative was like. | ||
| But my grandmother knew. | ||
| She was living under the Japanese colonization. | ||
| Before Kim, she lived that life. | ||
| And people at that time who knew what was different existed, they stopped and they kept silent. | ||
| And by the time when it came to us, we didn't even know that we were slaves to the dictator. | ||
| And that's the thing. | ||
| People say like, why there's no revolution in North Korea? | ||
| And I was like, how do you fight when you don't know you're a slave? | ||
| So when you see that now, The way we're afraid of speaking up and the mob's gonna get you and cancel culture and we have these lockdowns and we don't spend time together on Thanksgiving and all of these things. | ||
| Does that strike you as just the perfect storm of all of these bad ideas that could lead us to something like North Korea? | ||
| I mean, I know it sounds crazy at some level and yet here we are. | ||
| So the thing is that I used to think democracy was winning and like, you know, those older like communist socialist countries were falling apart. | ||
| But it's not anymore. | ||
| Look at China. | ||
| We would use new advance of technology. | ||
| And North Korea, as I said, they are getting this AI recognition while they can't even afford food to people. | ||
| They're bringing all these machines from China to surveillance people. | ||
| And that's like what I'm seeing that, you know, we cannot take freedom for granted because it's a very fragile thing that we got. | ||
| And look at China, like China's system is not going anywhere. | ||
| And that's what I'm scared in America is all this technology censorship and this mainstream and you have to somehow conform to their idea and otherwise you get destroyed. | ||
| And I think America is in that. | ||
| I don't know, I'm so scared for sure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| Well, what do you think America should do related to China? | ||
| Like what would be a sensible policy then? | ||
| I know you're not a policymaker specifically, but like what would be a sensible thing we could do in relations with China? | ||
| So it is, I mean, at least talking about it, it's going to be a good start. | ||
| I think that's what Trump elicited, like he was, even though he messed up with what, when he negotiated with Kim Jong-un, at least like he made a point about how China is responsible for so much problem in this world. | ||
| And, you know, the problem in here right now, like if, as soon as I talk about how China sponsors North Korean dictatorship and how they're enslaving human beings right now, not like a few centuries ago, like they're slaves right now, slavery happening in China. | ||
| But like that just get buried. | ||
| And I think that's what's important. | ||
| American government should inform people what's happening and how CCP is, you know, committing crimes against humanity. | ||
| Yeah, when you hear people talk about Donald Trump and they'll compare him to Kim Jong-un or they compare him to these worst dictators of all time and here you are in America, we're in a particularly weird time at the moment, potentially in between administrations or maybe not, nobody even knows, but we just had elections and obviously we'll find out how legitimate they were and all of that stuff. | ||
| But when you hear those direct comparisons, when they're made about Trump, what does that make you think? | ||
| It's complete ignorance. | ||
| It's just unbelievable ignorance of the people who actually dare to compare Trump to Kim Jong-un. | ||
| There's no comparison on this earth. | ||
| There's no absolute comparison. | ||
| Almost makes... That's the thing I used to talk about, like, media was so busy making fun of Kim Jong-un and his haircut, and how ridiculous this whole harmony kingdom is. | ||
| I mean, something so funny, you lose the gravity of seriousness of the issue. | ||
| And it's like, they are so easily comparing to anybody to Kim Jong-un or Hitler. | ||
| It's like, there's no comparison. | ||
| That is like a line that we should never cross because then we don't realize how evil it is. | ||
| I mean, maybe also it shows a sign that they never have seen like true evilness. | ||
| So they dare to compare Trump to that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so what about the Democrats? | ||
| I mean, you know, now there's a feeling that Biden is going to be much closer to China or something. | ||
| I'm guessing you're not thrilled with that. | ||
| Yeah, obviously. | ||
| And I mean, it's like it's so hard. | ||
| It's so maddening that even I have to talk about North Korea, but I need to choose a political side. | ||
| Talking about the real effects, how China is committing crime against humanity. | ||
| And then as soon as I talk about like how we need to challenge China and talk about freedom of speech in this country, then it's like, oh, you're like ultra right wing. | ||
| Like how talking about those basic common sense makes me ultra like extreme So that is like so unthinkable. | ||
| And I'm here to fight for my people, but now I'm also learning I have to fight for my freedom of speech in America. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What do you make of the sense where, like just where we're at in America, forgetting the election, just generally, like, you know, you mentioned some, some of the negative things that have happened to you, but obviously something truly incredible things have happened to you at the same time. | ||
| So yeah, I've been also starting my YouTube channel and like, I was doing live and talk about how pure socialism can be so poisonous, can never work. | ||
| And of course, I'm sure you know that YouTube demonetize our videos, right? | ||
| And I was wondering like, how like, any idea should be up for debate. | ||
| I thought that's what freedom meant. | ||
| And here we have this like, Cause of like where we have to, I mean, I went to Columbia in New York and how it felt like for me going through another four years of oppression there. | ||
| Like they talk about oppression of white men, but there's another oppression that they cannot see. | ||
| And I think that's why I just don't know like how even to fight. | ||
| I feel like I came to America like four or five years ago. | ||
| And were you guys always like this crazy? | ||
| Like, how this shit happened? | ||
| We weren't, I promise you, we weren't always this crazy, but we need people like you to help us find the way again. | ||
| I mean, that's why I wanted to have you on the show, because you've lived through this stuff. | ||
| You've lived through it. | ||
| And then when I saw the video, and you're somehow referencing my book, and I'm going, this is crazy. | ||
| I mean, you've lived through it. | ||
| I'm talking about this stuff at the ideal level, although I fear that Most of the things that I was worried about in the book are starting to become true. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| It's, uh, I mean, until I didn't get robbed and seeing people, how they're like, you know, this is something you would read, like, on the, like, conspiracy theory, like, news sites. | ||
| These people were standing on the Michigan Avenue in Chicago, like, 2 p.m., like, during the day, near the Macy's, and police cars were nearby. | ||
| And these people seeing me being punched, And calling me a racist because they only see, only thing they could see was a color in their eyes. | ||
| The other girl, black, I was like Asian, that's all. | ||
| And that's like when I thought like, oh, this is like not, it's not like I'm trying to honor people. | ||
| This is a complete gone madness. | ||
| And I don't even know how to go back to the like, the middle zone where some sanity like hoards. | ||
| Yeah, you sort of referenced this a little while ago, but the idea that if you talk about these things, Freedom, free speech, all of the things that you've just described here. | ||
| But if you talk about them, you're suddenly thought of as like right-wing, that this is now a right-wing thing. | ||
| How has that affected your ability to do your advocacy and build bridges and things like that? | ||
| Things are so hard, like how they are just so easy to call names now, right? | ||
| They're so busy making new names for people and then holding them into this little box. | ||
| And it's been very challenging. | ||
| Actually, all my friends were like, you are fighting for North Korean people. | ||
| You cannot do this. | ||
| You cannot talk about any of these problems. | ||
| Just stick with North Korea. | ||
| But in order to serve North Korea, I need to serve China first. | ||
| The problem of North Korea, the root is Chinese regime, the Communist Party. | ||
| It's not Kim Jong-un. | ||
| Kim Jong-un can never survive one day without Xi Jinping. | ||
| So how do I fight this massive fight without letting people know what's happening and what China is doing to the humanity? | ||
| And then as soon as I, of course, criticize mainstream media for not like highlighting this issue, then, you know, I'm becoming a white, extreme, like crazy person. | ||
| What do you think about our media here? | ||
| So as someone that grew up with, as you said, one channel, our media, our mainstream media kind of feels like one channel at a certain level. | ||
| I mean, it is one channel. | ||
| I mean, I listen to NPR, BBC, New York Times, all one story. | ||
| Why do they even have different publications if they're going to have one narrative? | ||
| They should just make it one channel, like North Korea. | ||
| It's so much easier for people to follow. | ||
| And I think it just reminds me of the animal farm, how it all began. | ||
| And the beginning, just thinking, oh, it's not a big deal. | ||
| It doesn't affect my life right now. | ||
| And then suddenly you start being purged and being executed. | ||
| And we are not in the state where we are executed, but you literally get canceled and you don't lose platform on social media. | ||
| You lose your voice. | ||
| And that is almost like similar execution for activists like me. | ||
| If I lose my people, my influence, then I cannot let them know the truth, right? | ||
| How do I ever fight in this system? | ||
| And like, my fight is depending on the tech companies, their decision on me. | ||
| Like, one day, like, oh, I can let her be heard and I can be heard. | ||
| But if they decide I cannot be heard, I cannot be heard. | ||
| It's not up to me anymore. | ||
| And that's like what just freaks me out. | ||
| Like, how am I in this fight? | ||
| Yeah, you know, it's interesting when people ask me what I love most about doing this show. | ||
| It's this right now, because think about, like, our lives are so different, came from such different places, and the things that you care about are the exact things that I care about. | ||
| Like, it's actually incredible how these sort of eternal ideas just end up bringing us together. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, I think freedom is something that we can... I think that's what I'm so, like, scared for going to Colombia is like they don't understand like like people when you're born with like two arms you never know what it feels like living without two arms and these people like at Colombia keep like wondering about what would it be like without like freedom right they have no clue what it's gonna be without it and they keep trying to experiment this new idea and there's like no I mean I know what it feels like living without this like rights and freedom and why are you trying to keep | ||
| Abandon them. | ||
| Our ancestors fought for our freedom of speech. | ||
| And they bled their blood for it. | ||
| Freedom is not free. | ||
| There was a price they paid for it. | ||
| And now because they got it for free, they just don't want to see what it feels like without arms. | ||
| And it's not that great. | ||
| Your life is going to be so miserable. | ||
| And I think that's what shocks me and horrifies me, how ignorant and This evil, this like ignorant idea he is. | ||
| Can you also talk a little bit about how it's not just like the the bad actors that spread these ideas but how the average person just kind of gives up? | ||
| Like what you saw in North Korea when you were a kid and then China when you were a little bit older about how the average person just sort of checks out because that seems to be the stage that we're in right now here. | ||
| So yeah I was thinking like So in North Korea, if you commit a crime, it doesn't end with you. | ||
| It tracks to three generations of your family. | ||
| Sometimes eight generations, which means like your in-laws or cousins, cousins like that. | ||
| So one defector escapes who was a high level, he's like 30,000 people got purged for that. | ||
| And usually it's three generations. | ||
| So your grandpa, your children, all of it. | ||
| And in America now, it feels like if I say something that I wasn't maybe completely aware 30 years ago, it gets back to me. | ||
| And I don't know what's going to get back to me 30 years down the road. | ||
| And how it's going to affect my son. | ||
| People are talking about something that happened in the time, in the ancestral age, and they have to be responsible for that. | ||
| About the slavery thing, that exactly reminds me of that. | ||
| Because my ancestors did it so many, many lifetimes ago, how does it affect me? | ||
| How does it make me feel guilt? | ||
| Right? | ||
| And it's a complete idea from North Korea. | ||
| I don't know where this idea is coming from. | ||
| Like, we are making people so guilty and shame them. | ||
| And that's why North Korea is all about shaming people and make them feel guilty and punish them. | ||
| God, I mean, just the fact that you see those parallels here and I can just hear the way you say it, you know? | ||
| I mean, it's easier now because we have internet. | ||
| They record everything. | ||
| In North Korea, if I were lucky enough not letting anyone to be hurt, I'll be fine. | ||
| But here, as long as something is recorded, you can never escape from it. | ||
| And that's why redemption is impossible in this culture now. | ||
| And in North Korea, law could play the role. | ||
| But here, I don't even know how rigid is the system of trying to punish people | ||
| and trying to catch people who are not obeying their ideology. | ||
| Do you think there were people in the North Korean system or even in the Chinese system today that just selected out, that just disappeared from any sort of public life whatsoever, or just their families just disconnected from the world in a certain way? | ||
| Because I do sense that we're going to start having a movement Well, I mean, at least in America we have that room for doing that, right? | ||
| out of control here. People will be so afraid to say anything that I think a | ||
| lot of celebrities are just gonna disappear. I think a lot of people with | ||
| the means to do it are just gonna disappear. But I also think just regular | ||
| people will figure out ways to just not have anything to do with anything that's | ||
| public. Well I mean that's at least America we have that room for doing that | ||
| right but in North Korea you can't. Like if you literally get executed if you | ||
| read the newspaper that has Kim's face on it. | ||
| [BLANK_AUDIO] | ||
| That's how insane it gets later. | ||
| Like, North Korea, I think, is almost like the perfect example of where we're going to end up with if we are going this route of, like, keep pushing people and to make them, like, think the one way, right? | ||
| Like, there's no diversity of thoughts. | ||
| They don't allow that. | ||
| Like, they talk about diversity, but It's not about diversity of ideas. | ||
| And North Korea always push that no diversity of thoughts. | ||
| Like one idea always hold the truth. | ||
| And in China, at least there's some distance, but you never meet, | ||
| you never hear about distance in North Korea 'cause they got zero tolerance for any dissent. | ||
| They just Persian right there, we do like all their family members | ||
| and they're gonna be banished. | ||
| All right, so since your story ultimately is a good story, but obviously we're talking about some scary stuff here. | ||
| Tell me a little bit about your work now, the way you're affecting people now, and some of the hopeful parts of this stuff. | ||
| Yeah, some of the hopeful stuff, okay? | ||
| That's something I have been trying to more like tackling the symptoms of the dictatorship, which I was trying to work with the NGOs in South Korea to rescue defectors like myself. | ||
| Right now, if you have $2,000, you can rescue one North Korean defector from oppression to freedom. | ||
| That's what I have been doing, and also I've been trying to get information inside North Korea As I said, there's no other information and trying to get North Korean people understand that they are slaves, that they are oppressed. | ||
| But the thing later I realized I cannot be just keep rescue people. | ||
| This is not going to ever change North Korea. | ||
| In order to change and bring down the dictatorship, I need to get China to convince and they stop the sponsorship of this dictatorship. | ||
| So that's why I began starting my YouTube channel and trying because like no newspaper pick up my story. | ||
| As soon as I talk about China, they don't pick it up. | ||
| They drop that line, and I can never talk about how crucial it is to solve North Korea. | ||
| Whenever people say, like, how can I help North Korea? | ||
| And there are many ways, but the main way is raising awareness about Chinese regime's role in this. | ||
| So they stop repatriation of North Korean defectors. | ||
| So North Korean defectors are not like other Syrians, other refugees. | ||
| They have a country try to accept them, which is South Korea. | ||
| South Korea has their constitution say that anyone who was born in Korea is a potential citizen. | ||
| So when we escape from North Korea to South Korea, we become citizens automatically. | ||
| All China has to do to help North Koreans is that they don't catch us. | ||
| We are not even asking China to accept us and stay there as refugees. | ||
| They just have to let us go through to South Korea, to Mongolia. | ||
| It's not that hard. | ||
| It doesn't cost them anything. | ||
| But they don't want to do that because they don't want the regime to collapse. | ||
| And this is what I really want to highlight. | ||
| We need to somehow make the campaign so China doesn't do this most barbaric repatriation policy against North Korean people. | ||
| And they stop this human trafficking. | ||
| Right now, if you go to Baidu and Chinese Google, tons of information about how to buy a North Korean girl. | ||
| It costs like $900 right now to buy a girl. | ||
| And while we are busy talking about slavery that happened hundreds of years ago, it's happening right now. | ||
| And how can we allow this as a humanity? | ||
| It's like Holocaust happening again. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, there are literally concentration camps in China, active concentration camps right now. | ||
| I mean, the whole country, North Korea, is like a prison camp. | ||
| Entire country's border was sealed with wire, like fences and landmines. | ||
| How is that not a camp, right? | ||
| We cannot go to North Korea right now and do journalism, right? | ||
| So who comes to prison camp and nobody's talking about this? | ||
| All right, Yanmi, for people that wanna follow you, that wanna help you, because I think you're gonna get a nice burst of people right now, where can they follow you? | ||
| What's your YouTube channel like? | ||
| Let's blow up the Yanmi Park brand right now, come on. | ||
| My YouTube channel is called Voice of North Korea by Yeonhee Park. | ||
| And they can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not on TikTok, though. | |
| Not on TikTok. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Very good. | ||
| Well, obviously, we're going to put all the links down there. | ||
| And I know you're in Chicago now, and I'm here in Los Angeles. | ||
| We're in oddly authoritarian places. | ||
| But I hope that we can meet up soon. | ||
| And it's just great to see you again. | ||
| So great to see. | ||
| Thank you for having me again. | ||
| Yeah, thank you. | ||
| If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about international issues instead of nonstop yelling, check out our international playlist. | ||
| And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, check out our full episode playlist. | ||
| They're all right over here. |
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