Confessions of a Starving North Korean Defector | Charles Ryu

today the incredible story of charles rue this is a guy who escaped by himself from north korea twice now this was the show i thought would take an hour ended up going for three hours which is why it's a two-part episode on the podcast feed those of you who don't know much about north korea this is a place where you can get sent to a labor camp for folding a newspaper incorrectly or for watching a movie that wasn't made literally by the government charles is a great storyteller and what strikes me here is how he stayed strong through this whole ordeal didn't give into resentment nor did he give up in a situation that would have given pretty much anyone a license to do so the story of charles escape is absolutely incredible there's so much in here that's both shocking inspiring and emotional i think you're really going to enjoy this episode as much as i enjoyed recording it so enjoy this episode here we go with charles rue defector from north [Music] korea [Music] did you know who shaq was when you were in north korea i i didn't know who shaq was when i was in north korea but i knew who was james bond yeah really yeah how did you know who james so um i when i was in north korea i was like a huge fan of like hollywood films you know like double seven like action movies you know actually i watched um will smith like the uh bad boys one when i was in north korea really is that popular in north korea bad boys it is super popular like among like you know uh millennials you know among these uh fellow north koreans uh friends that i had yeah it's really popular wait so among young people yeah in north korea who managed to get their hands on western movies yeah bad boys is a very popular yeah bad boy is really popular double seven is really popular um and i remember one scene that this guy has like a cello you know i don't i don't remember what episode is it but this guy is a cello and inside the chili he has like like a gun you know and he pulls it out he shoots it and then he riding a cello the case on a snow i don't remember what episode is that but i don't remember that i don't remember that at all that sounds like a combination between james bond and el mariachi but i don't know what do i know i just thought that was a funny way to sort of kick off the show it's like and you just became an american citizen yeah yeah i just did i became like citizen like a couple of days ago wow i got mine like a certificate you know it feels great you know like now i'm a fellow american you know citizen that's crazy congratulations first of all thank you does it do you feel different being a north korean coming from north korea being in america being an american citizen does it feel different i mean like i've been you know i've been hiding right i've been hiding for the rest of my life uh before i came to united states i mean like you know i was living under the shadow for a while so um having like my own identity you know that's like if as defined as like defined as something you know like oh he's like oh he's american you know i mean like he's not korean i mean like you know i really wanted to have that privilege you know but um now i got my citizenship finally i feel like a lot like responsible you know in a way because like now i gotta pay tax i mean i i was now you can cheat cheat and avoid taxes like every other american you can't now you have to you can't just slide by right you've got to figure out creative ways yeah uh i gotta vote right i can choose you know before i went on oh you could vote yeah i thought you said you got a boat and i was like do you get a boat skipping a couple to understand what that means i think we have to go back a little bit to understand and i know that you probably have been doing a lot of interviews you've talked about your story a lot yeah um i know it must be crazy and maybe sometimes difficult to talk about it but i think a lot of people are very curious and you found two people who happen to be especially curious about you and your story so yeah if you're open to it we'd love to hear how you got here yeah yeah i mean uh first of all thank you so much for having me here today and uh thank you so much for coffee and uh and in and out yeah in and out yeah we stopped by in and out of the way here because i heard that he loved it yeah he's like i could do with something like that right now it's such a good way to kick off in it yeah yeah it was it was really good and uh thank you so much for this opportunity to share my story yeah you know many more people because like one of my the hardest part gabriel before we got here was we had this you know we're in la traffic for like 90 minutes getting him from right where he lives so we're like i just have so many questions but i don't want to ask him in the car because i want to save him for the show so and jen's like so what's your favorite american i'm like no conversation i'm just like so you uh use instagram just any like what what dumb questions i don't want on the show that's totally inconsequential can i said all of the conversation before was like so uh you so you like starbucks coffee you like books and yeah it's got for you yeah it's just like nice day huh yeah just terrible small talk the whole now we got hot weather we got here why aren't these guys asking me such boring questions do they not understand how interesting i am it's gonna be the worst interview ever now we get to talk about the goods yup now we're finally getting to get stuff yeah where were you born i was born in a city called ham young it's a province called a city called tang jingun i've been there so jordan have you i've been there have you been there i have not okay we went there it's in the northeast right north east are you thinking you said chongjin right no okay sure let me stop interrupting you just let you tell your story yeah i thought you were talking about this other city like that super industrial yeah it's like really you know it's developed you know it's like i think it's like fourth biggest like uh city north korea but your hometown is very different yeah my hometown is like really small can you tell us about it a picture of course so um i mean i was born in north korea in october first 1994 under chinese father and the north korean mother wait i'm already how did that happen yeah right yeah yeah i mean from china more more explicitly yeah so my grandfather was a chinese soldier so like between like north and south like when there was a war yeah so my grandfather came out to north korea to fight off like i guess americans and then he never returned to china after the wall uh so he came for the what we call the korean war korean war he came from the war stayed for the space of the women right i mean so he came in 19 what 49 50s if you want but one thing that i'm sure it was like my grandfather didn't speak any korean my grandmother didn't speak any chinese but somehow they managed to you know live you know i know how that works yeah and uh yeah and then my grandfather stayed after the war um and then like kim song gave out like special privilege to privilege to um chinese soldiers whoever that left um uh that didn't leave to china and like saying okay so once you are gonna be here we're gonna give you like you know we're gonna give you everything right complete privilege to like stay here or whenever you want to go back just you can just leave as a reward for fighting right right right um and then my grandfather stayed and and then he had my father and then my father was a chinese he wasn't a chinese at first right so he was um north korean until he turned like 30 or something i think he's like yeah 30 or something and he got his uh he got his passport much later and then um at the time when my father met my mother he already had a family he had um in china i'm sorry yeah in north korea he yeah he uh he had a passport at the time when he met my mother uh but uh when he met my he met my uh even my mother he was already married he had four kids oh wow yeah and then uh basically i was just like uh born out of wedlock got it yeah and then uh when i turned five like my father abandoned me and my mom and he left to china bringing all his kids except me oh man um were you aware of everything that was going on back then i had no idea you just knew that he left yeah i just knew that like oh he's gonna return someday right and then when i was like seven i remember my mom telling me like okay you don't tell anybody who is your who's your like your dad is chinese right if anybody asks tell them um your dad passed away with a car accident okay in the car accident i was like okay i'm like i'm a kid i don't know anything did you have a car we didn't have any cars but like this car accident you know like because like north korea like you rarely find cars so it seems like a bad excuse if there's not that many cars yeah all right i guess you say that and people don't ask questions yeah yeah but what was the idea behind that why did she want you to lie because like she didn't wanted people asking questions right about like because she wanted people to think you were full korean uh i don't think that is the reason but um like a lot of people would ask me because like the reason behind it is that my father borrowed like a bunch of money from our neighbors using our name and he bought um opium in north korea and during 1998 i'm sorry can i just clarify yeah your father yeah bar who had another family yeah but was staying with you guys part-time yeah borrowed a lot of money from neighbors yeah to buy opium yeah to then sell it or yeah so i was gonna get it okay so i just wanna make sure i was yeah just in case this wasn't crazy enough yeah yeah yeah we're like i thought we were going to get into like the huge drama but there's like there's such a story yeah yeah there's a lot of backstory because like my story's like really complicated so without knowing any context behind it like i said wait what what no this is great i just we're totally listening yeah it's totally interesting it's more interesting than i thought because i was like okay traditional north korean escapee dot dot wait a minute there's there's some deals going on yeah okay so go ahead your father borrowed the money right uh yeah so uh at the time like my father was living with my family like he divorced his wife because of my mom and they're still living together and then when i was five he borrowed like bunch of money from the neighbors using our name and he bought opium and then so his idea was okay so opm in north korea is really cheap because we grow them right but in china it's illegal but expensive because nobody has it so the idea behind it was like borrowing money you know from the neighbors idea behind it's like okay i can buy i can just do this once if if i sell it in china make money it's going to be rich you know he's going to hit the neighbors yeah neighbors back you know and then like you know i'll do something so he went to china and he promised us like my mom told me before she died like oh yeah my like will like my father was like oh i'll be back in like the next six months and then he left after six months we didn't hear anything back from my father and then uh and then that collectors started come to her house oh man yeah and then like bidding the like getting the crap out of my mom oh so this is like black market yeah black market this is a big deal yeah really like what is a north korean drug i mean um debt collector like who is that like a mafia guy kinda no it's not mafia guys it's just a neighbors you know neighbors like that collectors means like like neighbors like husband right they're like husbands you know like husbands always come right so it's the people he borrowed money from yeah yeah yeah so uh they come to our house you know they start taking our things you know such as like dishes you know clothings and like pots you know like a cooking pots rice pots and at the end like they took our house they just kicked you guys out yeah let's get the hell out of here you know and then we lost everything and then we went to my grandmother's house when i was seven and that's when my mom told me so if anybody asks tell them your dad has died in the car accident yeah simplify the backstory yeah make it simple and sort of starting over yeah yeah starting over yeah and then you know i i grew up you know i i seriously grew up like without like i have no memories of my dad you know because i was such a young you know five years old i don't remember anything about my father and like because over the time like i must keep hearing my dad is dead you know he's i barely heard of him but uh yeah and then i was living with my grandmother from age seven to eleven and my mom is always traveling around the world around the country to find my dad because like he's out there somewhere you know i know it was your grandmother in the same city yeah some suggestions so you within the same city you moved to your grandmother's house but your mom started going around the country is that doable can people move around the country just to look for somebody actually you can't do that because you have to have like a document like a special pass yeah special pass but during like early 2000's that was kind of easier because a lot of people like that was like after great famine approximately 300 000 to 1 million people were stuck to death in north korea but during that time like the traveling is kind of like a lot easier than nowadays interesting yeah nowadays like you have to have a travel document you know but i'm not saying that it was like like really easy you can just get on the train it's not like that but you still have to get like travel documents you know like passport not not a passport but like um like a visa or something right to move around so you need documents to move around but right easier back then yeah easier back then to get because a million people around million people starved yet right the people who were enforcing movies yeah right busy with other things right right right exactly wow okay so she's off yeah she's off okay i don't know where she's at and then i'm you know going to school in north korea when i i'm only enrolled in um in a elementary school when i was like eight and i remember going to school with like um different pair of shoes you know one side on a winter winter shoes one side on the summer like um like a rain boots wait so you had one different shoe on each foot yeah because i was i was so poor you know i got like nothing um yeah um and then i'm going to school i'm learning about kimi's song kim jong-il's history you know like math like north korean language and arts music you know like pe you know and then my mom comes back when i was nine years old so she's been gone for two years yeah she's been gone for two years but she comes back completely like vegetable like veggie you know like um she's like paralyzed oh she can't walk or she can walk i mean she could walk right but she was barely alive why i don't i don't know because like she's been starving stressed you know and she's a different person yeah she was a completely different person and then uh she had a heart trouble so she couldn't breathe that well uh but uh yeah she comes back when i was nine and then do you remember that day i do i do i um was that like you know i went to school and i came back and i saw um a pair of shoes that was ladies and my grandmother has like you know some shoes too but like it's not that you know fancy looking but i saw fancy looking shoes and uh in the doormat and i was like oh like i wonder if it's my mom you know and then i step in the door and my my mom is lying down on the on the ground you know almost like like dying and i couldn't talk to her um because she couldn't speak or hear or see she's like completely like paralyzed wow wow and then yeah and then we had to move her to hospital so so we went to hospital but in north korea like hospital and everything is like um it's free right that's how the like communist right government runs right because it's socialism but it's just like it's the outside you know it's that it's people i mean like like the method right the function itself is like free but actually when you want it to get it it you have to pay for everything so you kind of have to bribe people to give you things that you need is that what you mean yeah you have to kind of bribe out you know like bribe in you know and um you have to buy on your medication and bring it to the hospital so that the doctors can inject to them because like north korea is so poor you know they don't have any medical they don't really have getting medical like you know um care yeah so it's not really free it's not really free yeah you have to pay okay yeah and um yeah so uh you know my my grandparents so uh my grand my mother's side grandparents they were really really rich so uh they used to be a famous my my grandfather was a magician a magician yeah really not magic magician musician musician oh i was like yeah i was like wow the story just gets better and better but musicians also pretty much yeah okay so he used to play really famous band in north korea in pyongyang from for the government right he played for the government that's actually a really privileged position right yeah and we my mom was actually born in pyongyang okay yeah uh and then my entire family lived in pyongyang like like yeah so like governments provides like everything for them that must mean that your mom's family was connected connect what concept yeah and then my grandmother i think like maybe you know i think like the way that i can speak english so well i mean like cats like something really well is because i think i got like my grandmother's brain because she spoke three languages so she spoke chinese japanese and korean yeah so she's a trilango um um i think she spoke russian too but i can't remember interesting yeah but anyway yeah so my grandmother has some money and we used all onto saving my mom right and then about a year she was doing much better she could walk she could talk she could eat and then uh she could like talk to me you know like oh i missed you you know and like um she's like crying you know every yeah and then my grandmother ran out of money so she can't put her in the hospital anymore so we had to take her back home that was when i was 10. so i i completely dropped out of school because i need to nurse my mom right because like she cannot move that well so like i need to give her a bath you know i need to clean her you know i need to take out poop and pee you know i have to bring food inside so i was with her 24 hours and you're 10 years old at this point i was 10 years old yeah and you're taking care of your mom yeah and your and your family now doesn't have money yeah we don't have any money so um we don't have any money and there is no way that we are going to survive this winter uh so when i was 10 my mom gets out of the hospital because we don't have any money to treat her and then we come back home like she seems to be doing really fine but one day she collapsed like she just she just like really collapsed when i'm on the floor and then like she's paralyzed again and then and then she was doing like she would like wake up unconsciously you know and then she would scream you know like ah like ah because i think like she had a tumor in her head or something oh maybe i don't know or the last two years had been difficult yeah really difficult for her speaking of which just to make sure i understand i'm assuming she didn't find your father yeah she didn't find my phone but she just went around looking for him yeah looking for him but she never found she never found her um and that's why she came back yeah so when she came back she was a different person and now you're responsible yeah to take care of her and it seems to be getting worse at this point getting out really really worse and then um yeah and then like she would scream at night you know because like her hat really hurts and then also about a year i had to still take care of her at home you know i have to go i need to clean her i try to fit her you know i try to do any like everything but last about a month you know she couldn't eat like she couldn't even like feel anything she was just lying down there and then eventually um 2011 [Music] may she passed away may 5th she passed away without leaving any last words and no so uh before she died like somewhere around like when she was like conscious she told me like charles if i had a whole like lamb you know i think i'm gonna be i'm gonna be doing just fine you know if i had a whole lamb i would be just fine yeah i'll if i ate a whole lamb yeah whole lamb like i'll be just fine as you are it means like she's starving you know she's really hungry that like that's the last thing that i remember about my mom so you were 10 yeah i was selling no that was in 2011. that no that wasn't 2005. five no 2004. sorry four that makes sense okay got it so how did you decide to escape because i i can imagine that i mean this is a place where if you share a foreign movie with your friends yeah yeah you get executed yeah you know or you get punished yeah so this isn't a light decision yeah and i'm wondering how you went from being 10 years old to you know you're here in the united states obviously a lot of things happen i mean you're growing up with your grandma did she raise you no i mean like yeah i went to like school like but when i was 11 she couldn't take care of me anymore because like you know when i was 11 my mom passed away but like she's an old grandma you know she was like already like 78 you know almost like eight years old she's gonna take care of take care of me anymore so she sent me to um to my aunt's house in uh saudi one and i was living there about like a year and then um i wrote a letter to my father every single day saying like hey father you know because like my my aunt apparently knows like where he is at oh in china so what happened was like my father was in china selling drugs and his soul successfully but he got back traced so he got he had backstabbed so somebody told on him and then he got caught and he threw in the prison for four years in china yeah in china but your aunt knew that yeah and she didn't tell your your mom she didn't tell my mom do you know why i don't know why okay but is this your mom's sister yeah it's my mom's like oldest sister jeez wow okay uh and then i uh yeah and then when i got to my aunt's house she was forcing me to write a letter to my father every single day for every single month for or like 12 months and then eventually my father wrote a letters letter back to me saying okay so uh if you know like nothing like nothing like critical nothing like nothing much you know but like hey you know thank you so much for taking care of my child you know blah blah blah and then my aunts like exchange that letter right to uh like like saying like if you come to my if you come to china i'll help you you know so like a basic like an invitation right and then she bring that to government and saying like okay i got an invitation you know so can i get a passport so your dad extended an invitation to you guys to come to china so he was just saying thank you so much right but my aunt switched the letter saying if you come to china wait she changed the letter yeah i changed how it letters she physically changed she wrote it she forged it yeah she forged that's pretty smart i think oh my god back in the envelope and brought it to the government whoa that is some ninja stuff that's a gutsy move in north korea she forged okay so she changed your father's letter yeah to make it look like he was inviting you yeah so the north korean government would give you a visa did it work yeah wow it worked it was yeah no kidding now she needed money to travel right now because she used everything to get a passport and then this is this is your aunt right this is my is your aunt hoping that all of you guys go to china just her because just her she was going to leave you behind desperate [ __ ] here yeah because like my grandmother had a lot of friends in china so she's not going to china to look for her father but she's going to look for her mother's friends in china because my grandmother worked for government she has a translator between north korean government and chinese this is the family that was connected right yeah yeah had a background in government right and then she was going to china to find them you know not my father but she just needed a bridge connection you know i was the connection which is my father in china and then she gets but now she doesn't have any money to go to china so she writes a black mail letter to my father saying if you don't send me this much money i'm gonna kill your child sell them to the black market as a meat or i'm gonna send them to orphanage bam and my father sees it what the heck you know yeah what he didn't care before he didn't care before but like he's like i'm alive you know but like now like i'm my life isn't threat you know he knows that like because like i send him like my photos like every single month to my father like you're writing him for a year he said yeah what about a year about a year so now he's sort of connected again too yeah about like how what i'm doing right how i'm doing do you know where he was at this time he was in uh he was in tongue because it's called um it's in dylan jillian's song jillian's yeah it's like but he's in china right he's in china so how close to the border is he he's really close very close to the border he's living in puerto rico and where is your city you're living in with your aunt it's right next to pyongyang so that's not close to the border oh it's like really far it's really fun two days train um trip got it um yeah and then my father says it and like oh my son is in risk i need to save him so he sends my stepbrother so apparently my two stepbrothers and two step two stepbrothers who uh were like like 15 years like 20 years older than me they were living in north korea i didn't know this is his other family yeah he got his older family so he sends like this stepbrother to rescue me from my aunt's house so when i was when i was 13 when i was 13 he comes he picks me up your stepbrother yeah my stepbrother and he brings me to his house and a year later when i was 14 i didn't so like that time like before i escaped to china that time i was watching like because my stepbrother was chinese and he was bringing a lot of foreign medias um you know from china he's going back and forth yeah he was going back because he was a passport he has a passport so he can move around as much yeah whenever he wants got it just have to have money so you lived with them for a year for a year yeah and then that time like i watched foreign medias you know and like um like gem spawn you know double seven uh bad boys one uh like south korean dramas you know having all those like uh like a freedom thoughts you know like yeah freedom thoughts yeah wait is this the first time you've seen foreign movies yeah that's actually the first time me watching like i mean like i watched a lot of like soviet union movies in the movie right a chinese like multi-tongue yeah but like will smith is a million times cooler than right exactly so this is new for you yeah this is like completely new what was that like like at first like i didn't believe you know like is this true like i'm like wait like how is this possible you know like if it's not a setup you know like like all i've learned about americans are like with long nose you know long chins like hairy face you know looks like a wolf you know trying to like invade north korea all the time because that was what you were taught yeah that was that that was what i was taught in school right by like watching different media like they're so cool you know like stopping the bad guys you know like you know getting the money getting paid you know i'm like wait what i was like mind blowing you know i wanted i wanted to be there you know i wanted to like experience that so what what goes through your mind when you see that is there a period where you think there somebody lied to me or did you think that the movie was lying at the moment i thought movie was you thought the movie was like right yeah yeah it's a movie set right but when i was 14 i gave my first opportunity to escape north korea and go to china to my father because my father wanted to see me so my brother buys a broker uh in north korea and then the broker buys the this uh guard the the reason it's like a people smuggler yeah can we pause i just want to make sure i understand because this is so crazy what you're describing right now i just want to make sure that we're really understanding this journey yeah so 13 to 14 you're you're with your father's other family yes okay so and the plan is for your father to get you to china yeah plan is to get me to china because the letter that your aunt sent him right yeah but but i mean like that's why my stepbrother came in and he saved me from my aunt's house and he took care of me right but my father wants to see me now uh when i was 14. so whose idea was it to escape others my father's idea okay right at the first time i didn't know anything about you i mean i knew first time yeah first time so you've been you i all right come on let me let me tell myself we are totally enjoying your story we just want to make sure we're understanding because this is so wild so i just want to make it clear so you're 14 the plan is now in motion yeah so now now i was so i went to china right so my my stepbrother buys broker and then my stepbrother then the broker buys the security guard and like okay what time you know during what day what time you know like small kids gonna go to china and he's gonna come back with money you know so don't shoot him and then i went to shop i went to reaper pretending i'm taking a shower you know you went to the river yeah you pretend like you're just going for it yeah yeah so it's going first this is the river on the border yeah it's in is it the yellow yeah it's the yellow river okay so you're far but you have to take a train together yeah i take a train for like two days is that hard to take a train no i mean like my brother bought like you know tickets and everything okay you know so you guys can move somewhat freely yeah to the borders i guess the summer time because i would imagine yeah in the winter like i'm just going for a swim yeah you're talking about 20 below yeah it was uh 2008 june 2008 june 2008 you go down to the river yeah going down going down the river you know i was like i'm leaning i'm just gonna swim over here you know and i was taking a bath you know like was this the plan it was the plan they told you to do this are you alone yeah i was alone yeah how did you know where to go because like because like uh the broker told me like a couple of days like in advance like okay so calls it that way he gave you directions yeah he gave me directions so he's like a coyote like yeah it's like a yeah yeah he's gonna wait yeah he's like a coyote yeah and then yeah and then i cross the river and then like okay so some guy with a hat white hat and a blue shirt and the jeans and what kind of shoes that's your father go find him so your dad was supposed to meet you yeah so my dad was in the older side of the china with a taxi cab right so as soon as i cross the river i get in the taxi cab this bounce down the guards aren't oh because they were bribed to protect yeah because the broker paid them to not yeah to look the other way yeah i'm like how did you not get shot across the board but still that's impressive because it's a huge amount of land yeah yeah so once you're on the other side of the river you're in china yeah i'm in china and you see that you see your dad yeah i saw my dad and i got into a taxi cab and we drove straight hotel i slept one night and then the next day we took like 12 hours bus to a little bit inside of china charles can we can we just ask you like the first night yeah you're in the hotel yeah you're in china yeah you've never been outside of i've never been outside of china what was that like i'm to be honest i'm just lying down on a hotel hotel room you know i didn't think like where am i but were you like what the what the hell dad yeah this is some [ __ ] like i've been stuck in this hell hole for a decade and a half but you know like as a child you know like you never met your father right but you don't feel like that's your father you know stranger you know like strangers was it awkward it was kind of awkward but like he was really good to me he was nice yeah he was really really nice you know he was trying to like get me anything and first time in a farmer's market in china right i see a banana and um i was like oh yeah i've seen you know one of those in like the cartoons in north korea yeah i picked it up i bite it off i just with a pill on right and my my dad just laughing his ass off like you shouldn't supposed to eat like that [ __ ] peel it off and i was like i was tasting it it's so bitter yeah it's not good with the people why is people eating bananas i don't understand you know but yeah that was like first like like uh like a stupid thing that i could just see you be like oh man oh man these things are overrated it looks so much better in the cartoon yeah wait so your your dad the next day yeah you guys go out yeah so the next day we arrived at my father's place right and then near the border no it's it's far yeah it's kind of far okay from border 12 hours away i can show you later too okay um i got to my dad's place and then like i feel like i was like a child again you know because a lot of times like i had to grow up a lot faster than any other kids because of i had to you know i had to be the man you know like i have to be like i had to grow up to nurse my mom and live on my own live in the street for a while so you were homeless for a while i was homeless because like when i was living with my aunt my aunts and my uncle they fought like a lot every single night well she sounds like a horrible person yeah she blackmailed your dad yeah kill you so yeah no kidding that's she didn't get along with her husband either so uh yeah so i got so the the argument that ended me kicking out like kicked out you know from the house oh this was back in korea back in canada you you did oh well yeah there's like more to the story okay that's like i you know like half the year i was sleeping on a street six months yeah six you were homeless yeah in north korea what does what is that like i know we're moving backwards but this is important yeah put a pin in being in china with your dad and go back to being homeless in north korea can you tell us about that yeah being a homeless in north korea it's it's not easy you know it's like life or death you know like like even though you have a candy in your mouth you know but somebody come punch me in the like cheek and just take it was that a real thing that happened it's a real thing you were eating candy somebody punched you to take the candy out of your mouth i mean like i'm just phrasing it that way oh okay but i understand i just want to make sure yeah so you have something you have something you have to like spend it or you have to eat it as soon as possible otherwise they're going to come in and take it over and take it yeah um and you were what 12 13 yeah i was i was like 12 12 and a half yeah so okay so you're you're homeless in north korea you've got to eat it or spend it or somebody will get it yeah from you yeah so like it's always like a fight it's like a war you know you have to be prepared to like like do a punch like every single day because like there's always a guy trying to come to like me and like trying to take the things away from me either i don't have anything right or they're just gonna come to you and just they're gonna beat the [ __ ] out of me can you deal with that they're gonna beat the crap out of me you could say that it's fine yeah where are you living so i was living in uh saudi one at the time on the streets on the street down the street like a train station um like a boy nearby boiler oh near the boiler to stay warm yeah to stay warm because that's the winter it was winter oh my god that's rough korean winters are no joke yeah if you pee right it's going to froze from the bottom if you spit out the saliva you know it's kind of freezes yeah jeez it's that cold yeah is this common homelessness in north korea yeah it's a lot calming so there are a lot of other people yeah in this area yeah right so it's really competitive you know wow and so other people without homes yeah yeah as you put it doing battle with to stay alive okay so yeah so i mean let's go back to go back to china back you've already been through all this stuff yeah i've already been through all this stuff so was it a relief then to be in china yeah it was just so much relief because i feel like i can have like my future right i can't have my dream you know and my dream promised the hope you know and whole promised tomorrow what was your dream at that point just living my life normal you know to have a normal life yeah have a normal life anywhere anywhere but north korea it's just not north korea you know because like i've already i'm like i'm going to like you know pc bar you know it's like a people like an arcade you know i'm going to pc bar yeah i go there you know i play computer you know and i i play like arcade you know street fighter king of fighter you know and all those kind of stuff the older kids do you know are playing arcade and meeting making friends you know i'm pretty like like a social butterfly even though i don't speak any chinese you know i'm like hey i'm from south korea you know you were friendly you said south korea yeah because i had to lie you know because if i told him i'm from north korea ah i'm gonna get into this what happens if somebody finds out you're from north korea i'll get into that you'll get into the yeah so i was living the dream in china right i was like i was still happy you know and uh like because i i don't have to you know beg for a place to sleep overnight where i don't have to beg for food from the strangers on the street right i was living my life in freedom for a moment but unfortunately chinese government didn't recognize north koreans as refugees and they captured me and they've deported me back to normal how did they find you so uh the north korean assault uh the chinese citizen reported me to the government somebody in your neighborhood yeah somebody in my neighborhood how did they find out because like they've been keeping eye on like new like rivals right and then they see a kiss small kid dark you know because like skinny chinese kids are fat you know they're super like pale because they've been eating really well but i'm really dark short you know like they could tell by my eyes you know like holding like gonna try to try to steal something you know wow you know because like chinese kids like they don't do that yeah you stood out yeah i stood out like pretty like wow so the name other people in the neighborhood yeah picked up on that yeah they picked that one and they called yeah they called the police oh my god yeah and then nine months later in 2009 january police came to our house with uh with a gun like with a pistol there's like uh like i think like eight or nine of them and then like when i saw when i looked down there's like a black horse just like surrounded like the apartment that was scary like these guys you know they're just barges into a room and like having a gun in their hand and like looking in the rooms and then they handcuffed me and then they took me to the jail how old were you i was i was 15. was your dad there my dad was there but he couldn't do anything because he he has no way of proving that i'm his son oh man yeah and you know i remember the day i lost all hope you know i was in the back of a chinese police truck chained to like a couple of other north koreans you know um and it's in chinese jail you know i'm in a chinese jail right now with like a couple of all the north koreans and like the living situations you know like the people that how they fed us it's like they've fed us with like the food from leftovers you know food like leftover food from the from the guards and then like finally it's a deporting day so i was out i was in the chinese jail for like two weeks and then it's the it's the day that finally we're getting we're getting deported to north korea and you know like we turned a corner and i could see the north korean border in the distance and i was so scared and afraid that i might be in big trouble you know as soon as i step back into north korea and i knew that you know i'm gonna be in big trouble and then the the truck wrote a stop at the border and the guards were screaming at me to get off the truck and you know i was so scared like like they were just they're like treating us like an animal and that yeah so they uh i was i got onto another another like a jeep with a couple of the north koreans and then we we got transported at transport sorry it's okay yeah we got transported right transport yeah transported to like other like uh interrogation first interrogation part right and then yeah i got to the first interrogation part because like there are so many people so many north korean defectors that are in the jail they have no place to put us in right so i had to stand right in front of the sale right in 2000 2009 january and then like like you have to know like if you get caught in china like if you get caught nearby the border it's fine and like oh they're like so after the interrogation right or if you're trying to go to china for just looking for the food in the border that's fine you know like oh yeah just go to the labor camp labor camp for four years and you're fine i wouldn't say i wouldn't throw that in the fine column uh four years of labor camp i mean yeah that's like the punishment right so i mean they don't like kill you or they don't kill you right but like just like a basically a death sentence you know because it's really hard to survive in a living time for four years um but if you get caught deeper inside of china which is mongolia you know which is like around like really south of china that's a reflect because which means you're moving towards somewhere which is going to south korea right um so it's worse it's worse now you were 12 hours away from the border but i was still you were still with yeah within like the safe range in a safe region and then i was standing right in front of the sail and this one lady she bites off her vein and she bleed to death she bit her yeah he had better wrist wide open because she didn't want to because like she got caught in mongolia and the government knows that like she's trying to defect to like south korea so they wouldn't let her go and i i heard like i heard like a stories about her like from the fellow like prisoners like she she was there for a long time you know it's just getting interrogated like every single day for a couple of hours they wouldn't let her sleep they wouldn't like let her eat they wouldn't like and then like and then the office got cleared out so in the jail there is no room in the jail so they couldn't put us in the jail so they put me in a separate office this is within the detention center no it's it's not enough so this is uh this is a boy boo boy boo is stands for secret place in north korea it's like a secret sacred police you're like in a so do you even know where that was yeah it's it's right across the border yeah but it's near the border there's like a special yeah special place yeah interrogation part and then i'm sitting i'm sitting in the office and across the room i hear scream you know like guys like oh my god my legs are broken oh please forgive me my legs are broken my ribs are broken i'm bleeding to death you know i'm like hearing all the screams you know and i'm like terrified like that's gonna be me and they're gonna they're gonna kill me but luckily i was only 15. so um i didn't get bitten like that i didn't get bit 10 bitten like beaten yeah that bad just like slapped me you know kicked me you know stomach for a couple of times and what is what are they trying to do are they trying to punish you no are they trying to get information from you they're trying to get informations from what sort of stuff do they want to know they ask about everything like everything like literally everything what did you do in china china what did you eat what did you feel what did you see what did you feel yeah what did you feel about you know like okay so you've seen like a couple of social medias you know how did you feel about that you know like you've seen like people talking about kim jong-il how do you feel about that like you've seen a lot of like cars you've seen a lot of like buildings a lot of tall buildings how how do you feel about that what are they trying to to suss out in those questions like i learned that kim jong-il is bad that's the things that they want to get because if you if you say that then they're going to punish you more they're going to kill us yeah if you say that they're going to there is no way out if you say that but i have to say like i know what to say you know like i know like because of the things that i've seen in china but i couldn't say you knew how to lie yeah i i know like i know how to like so what do you say like what else saw capitalism and how it ruins people no i mean i mean like i saw yeah so like the bad boys too was not as good as bad boys i've learned that will smith is awesome but not as awesome he's the badass you know he should be in bad boys yeah so i mean i was a child right so he they didn't like really ask me that questions like a lot like multiple times they're just like let's just get it over with they were trying to get it over with yeah and you're 15 right i was 15 i was like oh yeah i was just living with my dad oh i was just i don't know i don't know like like i don't know i don't know like i don't know and they're like what do you mean you don't know and just get up and punch me in the face for a couple of times um and then like 20 days i was in there you know and i know that and then i got there for three weeks yeah they're questioning you for three weeks charles i just have to ask you you seem really brave i guess is the word and smart do you think you were always that way or had you been through so much stuff already that you sort of knew how to handle a situation like that i mean like when it comes to your life or death like that's i think that's like in people's instinct you know first thing that they would do is like trying to protect your life you know sometimes i heard like people like like when they're you know dying situations like oh please kill me you know i don't think that's something that they would say they're like oh please save me you know like yeah but um i don't know i think maybe it's in my blood you know but um like i believe that everyone could do it you know everyone could like because they've got the guts you know they have it's it's written like it's written in dna you know it's written in code you know so like you can't escape that but yeah but i think yeah if it comes to life or death you will you will do it so at that point you were just you knew you wanted to survive yeah so you were doing whatever you had to do yeah whatever i had to do right and then you know i you know most of like 15 years old kids you know american child kids and sophomore in high school right yeah you know they go to like sports practices you know they're busy with like um um sports practices you know and like doing everything you know sophomore thingy yeah yeah the hardest thing in your life are wind sprints on the football team yeah and a little acne or something yes my wi-fi is so slow yeah yeah on your own screen and you're in a secret police i was in a labor camp so uh right after 20 days i got transported to um to a re-educational detention center now are they actually teaching you things there are they just punishing you there they are brainwashing us right so what you do is you work there as long as they want you to work there right and then at night they'll force us to recite the rules of the camp right so at age of 15 i was in a detention center working like 18 hours i don't know 12 16 18 eating like 50 150 kernels corn a day for nine months you know and you know i thought they're gonna release me pretty soon because like i was only 15 you know and and that's what they told me too you know and i was told that i'll be on i'll be there for only a couple of weeks because i was so young right i was only 15. i worked really hard for the couple of like weeks right because i didn't want it to get bitten again yeah right and months passed and i was not released in that detention center i was only allowed to eat 150 kernels of corn a day right and i started to lose weight and i could see my ribcage and i had to do like whatever i had to do to survive and one morning we were marching in our roast my work site and and on the side i saw dry vomit dry vomit dry vomit in the row somebody like i don't know somebody's sick or somebody drunk so i threw up and then i saw a dried rice and the bun and i was so hungry that i got on my hands and knees and began picking the rice after the dry vomit and so you picked the rice out of the driveway yeah and hit it oh wow it was like it was like um like a sand a dirt you know and i didn't stub it in the rice vomited rice until the bidding from the guards were too unbearable and at night the guards were stolen stolen into ourselves and forced us to recite the rules of the camp and if you misquoted even one rule like they were like forced to stand all night reciting the rules until work began next morning oh my god oh my god what what are the rules of the camp like i know i would never talk about life outside of north korea i'll never talk about like like bad things about kim jong-un what i see how i feel i would never talk about like anything that i saw in china you know i will just leave my life like a like a like a bug you know these are the rules of the camp yeah you have to you have to know these rules you have to memorize those rules how many are there there's like uh i can't remember there's like 40. so it's a list of 40 sort of principles right principles like there's a wall like that there's like a wall a poster on the wall on the wall and that's like the size is twice as big as this this room and then there's like 20 people 30 people you know lying in the the floor and sometimes like until this room is like 10 by 15. and there's 20 people in there double us this size oh double as it's okay yeah and uh like we sit in a rose and then we face those like the posts and then we recite there's like a like a like it's like oh like i'll never do this i'll never do that i'll never do this you know i'll never talk about life outside of north korea i'll be a good citizen i'll never escape you know is this what they mean by re-education yeah re-education they're basically trained trying to train yeah trying to train us and trying to let us trying to like work us off you know like trying to like like let us work right right and what's going through your mind while you're reciting those principles i was starving you were just trying again trying to survive yeah trying to survive was there any part of you that thought maybe i'll maybe i'll actually follow these principles or in your mind you're like this is [ __ ] this is [ __ ] you knew it was [ __ ] even though you were hungry i was so angry i was i was like hangry you know like a new level of angry yeah it's like i'm gonna get the hell out of get the hell out of here and i'm gonna escape again i'm gonna escape until i oh i'll die trying again whoa in the camp you thought in the camp right because like we're working every single day for nine months no rest from seven a.m to whenever they say stop it could be like one a.m it could be 12 a.m it could be 11 p.m like no matter what right eating 50 pieces of caramel per meal right so they have a job for counting those coins right and for nine months nothing else they have a job yeah somebody's job is yes countless coins that just pissed you off yeah it's like the whole thing and then the guards right you're working in a field whatever it is we are building a concrete you know we are uh building a building you know we are farming we are constructing we are on a on a forest cutting down the tree they tell us every day you escape again right we don't care but don't get caught the guard said yeah yeah don't get caught don't get caught if you get caught you're gonna die this is what happens if you get caught we can't stop you we can't prevent you from escaping it but we can do these things to you once you get caught right and i'm listening that every day you know and like and like the main principle is like if you escape if you get caught you know you're dead basically you're dead so like don't have that thought you know that's what they're trying to tell us that's part of the re-education yeah that's part of but in your mind somehow that got translated as i'm gonna do it anyway because i'm gonna do it anyway because it's like because this place is terrible yeah i mean but in other people go ahead i wanna yeah i'm just trying to understand yeah where your mind is at that point like that's like basically everyone's mind everybody in the camp fell down yeah everybody felt in that way because like because like there was like a one another like weak guy you know i was like i was the youngest in the like detention center right and there is like another like weak you know like there's always like a head and there's a tail right and i was below tail but the tail always telling me like you know i'm gonna get out of here and i'm gonna do it okay i'm gonna do it okay i'm gonna do it again and then a lot of people actually feel that way too and then funny enough i was in a refugee uh international refugee camp in southeast asia and then i met this dude from the from the detention center you ran into somebody yeah yeah i ran into someone because i remember that guy because he stole my shoes right because i had a pretty good shoes when i when i got into the detention center that's unreal from china yeah from china so he wanted your chinese shoes yeah so it was really new you know and it was really like comfortable but that guy saw my shoes and he liked it he's like can i have the shoes i'm like no i you can't like what am i gonna wear you know like he's gonna be you can't wear mine and his shoes like fell apart and i'm like no you know but he took it anyway and then he told me his story much later on like yeah your shoes helped me a lot you know so while he was you know doing the interrogation right he stole a paper clip and he swallowed it oh right and then he went to the bathroom he put it out and then he kept it right he kept the paper clip and then while like he's done working at the uh i don't know he's like he's stayed for like a year you know uh detention center while he was like like a transferring to like other facility other like transferring to his like hometown he was handcuffed right he was handcuffed around the table in the in the the train right and then while this um while the police officer right there um their their post officer who's like moving them while they fell asleep he took out the paperclip and he picked his handcuffs yeah he picked his handcuffs and he escaped why he escaped he he escaped and then he escaped to china again and he worked in china about a year and then at the same time i used i'm sorry yeah i'm gonna i'm not gonna spoil anyway how are you gonna come back to that i'm gonna come back okay great you're already like yeah this is the best story and then nine months later i was finally released from the labor camp from the detention center because i have lost so much weight that i was worthless worker you know i couldn't even lift my arm or even stand up you know i have like i was like uh bones and skins so there was no point there's no point of keeping me right so like one one day like this um the head of the center comes out and like counting our heads right how many like and then he's like screaming yelling at these kids like this like guards right what the heck are you guys doing send them home we don't need them you know like we don't need them to work for me you know like why aren't you doing your job you send those guys home you know you send those guys to like whatever they belong you know and then next day two police officers shows up and then they took me away wow what job were you doing in the camp i was thinking everything i was thinking like literally everything that adults do what what what kind of work uh it's everything literally everything what does that mean construction okay uh building bricks building concrete um farming um so you're outside outside always like we are always working outside of the camp right let's say for example it's raining you can't work there's no work right then you go you you still working within campus right so there is a bunch of sandbags and brick bugs yes sandbags and bricks right there's like a a pile of sandbags and then you move the sandbags point a to b in the morning and in the afternoon you move that back sandbag from b to a oh they're just having you do work even if worthless stuff just yeah yeah how much of the work was meaningless and how much was actually supposed to accomplish something like 99 of the work that i that we did was actually building you know like constructions and farmings and uh real stuff yeah real stuff and like one person was like sometimes like it's rains you know i see they just wanted to keep you busy keep us busy you know so that we don't think about you know like escaping again right that's their method is the camp going i was going to say there's there's 80 to 120 000 people in these labor camps so yeah but that's like there's all different kinds of levels of labor camps right so the first level is re-educational training camp right is that what you were in no i was in that detention center so that's another level that's another level that's like really um that's only for note current defectors that's enough for uh that's like a it's like a detention center for north korean defectors so where they get transferred to their hometown and they get judgment and then they go to um re-educational labor camp which is like a four years right and then there is like a re-educational and there is like a work educational like a labor camp for like six months or something that's the lowest for six months and then uh there is like a four years of a race re-educational camp and there is a political labor camp political labor camp is the highest you never get out of there you're born there you die there because like i don't i wasn't there i'm not from political liberty but i'm gonna uh north korean factor like educational detention center okay but yeah so i got out of there and then i went back to my stepbrother's house that was 2000 2009 october so i was in the labor camp sorry i was in a detention center for nine months and then i spent like months trying to regain my strength so you're about 16 yeah i was around six i was around 16. yeah but you have to know there's like um i was born 1994 right and then because like korean age in the united states is different because they count it one year old one year like no when you're in their stuff they're counted from the stomach right right um so when you're born it's already one year oh okay right and so you're really 15. yeah i was at the i was at the 15 right actually when i got released and then spent like months trying to like regain my strength and after spending like months trying to get my strength i need to find a job without any money it was like impossible to support like myself was your stepbrother welcoming he wasn't he was not that well he was because like he was doing i mean he was doing fine but in 2010 there was a currency devaluation happening north korea i'm not sure if you know yeah yeah and it killed like thousands of people like because the the money that they were saving and running for their businesses just became worthless exactly so like a lot of like our neighbors you know committed suicide because like one day they had something when they didn't have anything and they have no hope of living so my brother i sold the business so i got kicked out right and then i had to support myself so i needed to find a job so wait so you're on your own again i'm i'm on my own um do you have a place to live i don't but i found it okay um i was working in a coal mine um like where i'm from like the coal mine is really popular and i had to lie my age to get in there right so i'm like oh i'm 18 you know like i cannot work cause like it was really trendy at the time i find it really ironic that they're concerned with child labor laws and literally no other aspect yeah and meanwhile he just got out of a detention center labor camp yeah yeah you're you're old enough to go to a labor camp and be basically to work tortured but you can't you're too young to work in this coal mine for a proper amount of time yeah but you got this job i got this job did you just wander into a coal mine yeah no so um i started working in a coal mine when i was paid only in rice right six days a week i went into the cold damp tunnels the mine and most of the boys that working in the mine were my age we'll push a thousand pound stick court cart miles into the mine you're pushing the mine cart it's a mineco cart right it's like empty cold card it's already like thousand pounds a thousand pounds thousands metal right right it's all metal and you guys are pushing it yeah and it's the mine field so they're not mechanized they're not like they're like they're like man manual everything is like there is no power and it's all young guys yeah so the youngest i've seen is like 12 12 and then the oldest i've seen is like 80. yeah 80 year old old man and they're paying you guys in rice yeah is that common that's really common yeah they don't pay us with like but they provide housing they provide meals three meals a day okay and then at the end of the month they will pay us 30 kilograms 30 kilograms of rice per month so it's just slavery basically it's like subsistence basically they're just keeping you fou uh fed in-house yeah yeah so you were in the coal mine for how long yeah for about a year you know and within that year like like i have made a lot of friends you know i uh you know i was like hanging out with them you know i'm like having really good time you know like with it's all like my age you know it's like we were like at night you know we'll go nuts you know we drink you know we will party you know where'd you get alcohol uh they feed us cause like when you when you breathe coal in your uh in your lungs yeah the only thing that it can wash away is alcohol yeah so um i'm not sure about the science on that but i'm pretty sure they're just getting you drunk so that you forget that you have coal dust in your lungs really yeah i don't think because when you swallow things it doesn't go into your lungs but like when you breathe right yeah it's like a disinfectant though maybe that's what they mean i mean i'm pretty sure they're just getting you drunk so you don't complain about the fact that everybody's got either way you guys didn't mind yeah i this is so wild so this was not a bad period for you really i mean i know it's not ideal but like i feel like relatively relatively this is way better than getting tortured by guards at a camp i'm guessing this was a step up for you yeah just a step up for me but i lost a lot of friends you lost a lot you lost them because the coal mine accident you know cave-ins and like sometimes the cold cards would flip right and sometimes it would land on people so uh like if you if you see if you got out of the coal mine right and then sometimes my my um my rain rain boots it's leaking so i can't tell it's a blood or it's like cold water you know because it's so sticky you know yeah it could be blood you know you know what i mean like because like sometimes you'll land it on people you'll crush people you know there's like people losing arms legs because of the coal mine accidents you know there's like a cool cart right imagine like with a coal you know it's like five kilograms thousand kilograms of like cold right wet cold right and then plus thousand pound obstacle cart so it's kind of a two thousand pound you know and it took a ton right two times one ton doesn't really matter really heavy cardboard no no so uh oh yeah thousand pound is 500 kilograms right which is half a ton two thousand one ton right imagining that kind of like heavy weight is standing on people like it will just crush you this was like a regular occurrence it's not regular but it happened it happened like often you know like cave-ins are really often because a lot of people want to make money you know so they claim that they know how to set up the frame in the coal mine but they really don't you know they just want to get paid more because like if you know how to do that they will pay you a little bit more right they're trying to get out as much coal as possible yeah right the safety assuming there are no like safety regulations there's no such thing yeah there's no such thing as like you just as long as you have a helmet you have like a like a flashlight right and you have a rain boots you have a glove you're safe that's the purpose go away you know so these guys they're they're men i'm assuming yeah they're all men no no i mean like there's women's too they're women a lot of women okay so men and women yeah you guys are hanging out we're hanging out after hours after drinking drinking you know and partying movies you know and like so you can watch movies at this point too yeah yeah it's like illegal you know but coal mine is like the place where like every like you know like criminal you know like with like a bright mind that you know like people with like oh who want to party you know they come in right and then they bring like south korean dramas they bring like foreign movies you know wait i'm sorry why does coal mining attract former criminals i mean i mean like young millennials you know they do that a lot they like that job yeah they like that job because like they get paid right and they they get paid rice and then they can sell that rice and then they make they can make money out of it you know for so like for example like people without any family it's really a good deal for them you know because i have no family to protect i have no family to pay i get i get fit like three times a day right and i have like i have a night off and then i get every single month i get 30 kilograms of rice and in north korea at the time per like a per kilograms of rice was like 5 000 won right so imagining you're selling 30 kilograms of rice and then getting that as a cash no you did that's what i did so you became an entrepreneur yeah yeah so you're like arbitraging your rice reactions yeah but at the same time like i had a lot of like memories of you know china because like you know being free you know and watching all those people you know like injured you know and uh people who didn't make it out and like like i thought about it like oh my god that's gonna be me one day right it's only a matter of time so sooner or later i'm gonna be like that and you know i know how hard it is like it is to escape north korea without any money or food and i knew that if i was caught like i could be killed again like i could be killed this time because i'm like this is second time escaping you know so there is no mercy but those kind of risks overweight at working in the dark coal mine every day until it was my turn to do the limp or die right so which one is it worth it yeah you're like do i stay here and possibly die or grow old doing this crazy job or do i try to get free yeah so while you're working at the mine and selling the rice to make a little extra money in the back of your mind you're already planning yeah planning on like escaping and what does that plan look like all right yeah so um so i worked i worked in a mine about a year and i realized you know that it was my time to skim north korea again and you know i know how hard it is how hard it is you know escaping north korea would be without any money or like food you know because like i wasn't really good at saving money even though i was planning on saving some money but you didn't save a lot you spend it on it's like spending on like you know like partying will smith dvds yeah all right i was a big fan of will smith so uh he's he's a biggest like he's really inspirational too not koreans will smith is inspirational to north koreans yeah yeah like at least like for me you know for me and my friends i want to be a will smith you know but yeah um james bond you know sure but uh yeah you know and i knew how how hard skipping north korea would be without any money or food and i knew that if i was caught you know i could be killed but those risks overweighted working in the dark coal mine every day until it's my turn to the lamp or die so one morning uh instead of entering the mine i walked up the path and began running and i you know i ran ran off from the coal mine and i was living on the street for three months so i escaped in it escaped coal mine in 2011 may of 2011 and then on a humid day in august i was lying down on the hillside i have no plans whatsoever i was just homeless because i didn't want to die in a coal mine i escaped but i have no way how i'm going to get to china but i was lying down on a hillside and in the distance i saw a train come to stop and people were exiting out with train cars middle of nowhere i'm like i wonder if i can steal something and i walked down down the path and i looked at the sign it says pyongyang from pyongyang to his han is like the border town right i'm like oh my god this is my chance i need to get on that train like about like hour so i i walked into like the crowds and i you know i tried to like blend in and i was pretending i was belong there and then as soon as the power came back or as soon as the trim trying to move again people were you know people were trying to get into the train and i joined the line and and the guard stopped me and asked me like oh can i see your documents can i see your birth certificate i'm like oh [ __ ] and i lied that oh my mother had them and that she was already on the train and he nodded and i i headed straight for the train bathroom to hide for the next two days i was hiding on the train you know sometimes i have to climb out of the window hide on the top of the train or sometimes i have to come down and sit on the hitch between the two cars to board the guards and if i was caught you know um if i was caught you know i'll be ended up in a labor camp somewhere most likely in the middle of the i think it was a night yeah i was almost the border town when the hand of guard grabbed the back of my neck and dragged me to a holding cell on the train a guard found you yeah on the train yeah on the train because it was like a midnight and i was so cold and i was like sleeping in the under like a nearby bathroom and then suddenly like i felt something kicking in my back and then the guard dragged me to holding cell on the train and there are there are two other boys in the room who have been caught too and as the guard locked the door to the cell he taught he told us that we will be handed over to the authorities at the at the next stop is the crime taking the train or trying to escape they don't know that you're trying to escape yet they don't know that yeah it's just illegal to write yeah illegal right to change so like like oh you'll be handed over to the police at the next stop you know i was like and then you know i thought about like how terrible the detention center have been you know like long days of manual labor sleepless night that i've you know like spent remembering the rules and the constant feelings of hunger and i refused to happen i refused to let that happen again so as the train began to slow down for the next stop i saw a window was unlocked so i pushed it open and squeezed out of the small opening and i jumped off the moving train rolled into a ditch and began sprinting for some nearby trees i walked for like hours illegally catched a second train and two days later i finally made it to the border town yeah you jumped out of the moving train oh my god yeah no big deal because that was the move the train was preparing to stop so it wasn't that fast okay and then like on the side it was like a it's like a it's like a grass and i feel like a hard rock and i'll probably die i'm pre broke something but i'm fine you know i love how to you this is not a that big of a deal but to us i can't even imagine i would not jump out of a moving train i don't care how slow moving train you're stuck in a room that a guard has put you in i think i don't know i think i just trying to understand the psychology of that because i'd be like no they put us here this is where i have to stay i'll explain myself when i talk to the police but at this point you've been through so much you're just like yeah you know yeah i know what to do you know because like that's like regular day life for north korean like homeless you know because they get caught all the time and they were sent to like um the orphanage but a lot of kids escape orphanage because that's like worse than living on a street because they don't feed you an orphanage so a lot of orphanage kids would escape like you know from the orphanage oh yeah so you're in the border town yeah now i'm finally in the border town right and then when i first escaped north korea in 2008 i i made a few friends at the haitian city and then i went into his house right and like 5 8 5 a.m in the morning and like hey you know like i'm trying to skip again will you come with me because i needed somebody you know because this before in 2008 when i escaped i had somebody in my back watching over me but this time like i'm completely on my own i'm like i don't know how i'm gonna cross you know i don't know how i'm how long i'm gonna like get around the reaper you know because there is like rules you know 7am to 7pm you can only allow to go during that time otherwise if you wander around the river you're going to get shot because like there they didn't think of you as like escaping you know and you don't have the protection of the broker i don't have the protection anymore so i was like trying to like convince this kid not to escape with me right because he said yes he's gonna escape with me i'm like oh my god thank goodness you know because that cat knew like really well around the border and like a river which is shallow you know which is like and then like we're planning on escaping like so we got so yeah we're planning on escaping the next day and at night but like this kid goes out and comes back and saying like i don't think i can escape with you anymore because i met this chick you know she uh so like in north korea like it was august right so there's like a um chestnut farm in the mountain like like a wild chestnut and then you sell at the black market and then you go camping there to collect the chestnut but this guy knows one girl like who he has crush on her right and she finds out that this girl is going to chestnut form and then she invited him to go with her he's like dude this is my only chance to get started i'm like guy what guys will do just to get right i'm like now i'm sitting here i'm like i really hope that that girl was worth it yeah like should i should i leave the most oppressive regime on earth yeah but i might get some of these chestnut farm so sorry bro yeah i might get laid on just the farm skipped escaping for a date yeah so um so he better have married that girl yeah i do you know i'm not did you feel like you had to ask somebody else for help because doing it alone is scary and having somebody with you makes it more possible or did you just need him to tell you where to go like i mean like because like he would be like mental like guide right i mean like having a tool guide yeah having somebody next to me you know even though we get caught you know we have like better explanation right oh we're just friends you know wandering around and just like oh like we just you know escaped you know i'm like no big deal but like by myself like i have to explain myself right so i guess like having him next to me i guess it like gave me a lot of you know like motivation right to like go a little further but for myself i didn't know if i could do it you know but i'm already determined you know even though i'm gonna die like i don't want to die in there you know i'm going to die here so in the afternoon the next day right in the afternoon i walk into the river that divides north korea and china which is yala river and then i hid in the tall grass for i don't know until the darkness and i couldn't really move i had to just remain like like this position like a looks like a shrimp you know because because like it wasn't windy you know and the grass was like stall steel you know and if it's if they see it's moving because they're a flashlight you know if it's this moving they're gonna come down and check right so i couldn't move at all and when i have like it was finally dark and i thought it was my time and then i slowly walked into the water and then i was like walking walking and like my brain is completely blank like i don't think about anything but just i just feel the cold water you know it's so cold and like like my heart is like beating in my throat too and then halfway into the river i heard i don't yeah i yeah i slipped on a rock and i lit out a screen oh man cause like i'm like because the water kerma is so fast and i couldn't do anything about it right and i think a little gasping i wasn't screaming but i let her gasp and then immediately a floodlight was on my back and i heard a uh soldier screaming at me oh man he's like yes come back here and stop stop you know or i would shoot and like at that point i'm like i'm dead anyway you know like i like if i stop here i'm gonna drown and if i you know like i thought yeah i thought like i'll steady the way either he would shoot me or i'll obey and return to the shore only to be shipped off to labor camp right and i decided not to stop and i kept waited ahead and like each stat like took me further away from north korea and closer to dream of my freedom which is china but the guard was kept screaming at me but he never flew the trigger and then five minutes later because the thing was like the river was like this way right your current was like this way but the karma's so fast so if i left it from here i ended up here right down down the bank yeah down like further down right because like he was like keep like chasing me and then i arrived at there and then i went in the cornfield corn like there's like a big corn farm now one in china now i'm in china now and then like i made it so so the current took you faster than he could run yeah it could run so then you ran into yeah like he got lost he got he lost track of me like oh wow yeah i guess the part of the reason that he didn't shoot is that he does she doesn't know where i am yeah he lost yeah i was going to say it doesn't sound like compassion it sounds like he's just like where the hell does this guy go yeah where the hell did he go now you're in a corn field and you're running hiding i cut like you know i catch my breath and i took my old clothes and um running them out yeah ring them out yeah and then like i'm just like sitting there like stunned you know like oh my god i just did it and they don't chase you into china no they can't like it's actually illegal to cross the river even though bullet they should right if the like legally on a legal term if the bullet lands on china that's a war oh yeah oh so they can't shoot across the river they so they can't shoot between in the river because that's not china that's not north korea so in the between the river you're not allowed to shoot it's a it's a law but north korea doesn't care anyway because they shoot anyway and they kill people anyway yeah so like that's what i heard you know that's what i heard like when i was in like a refugee camp because a lot of people like like it's that's actually like a lot in the law you know like you can't shoot the person in the between the river because that's like nobody's land the river no man's land yeah no man's land because it's in border but anyway i never had a gunshot you know and i'm now in a cornfield like think about where i'm gonna go yeah what's the plan now you're just like in a hitchhike i'm like my my original plan was just living in china you know because i knew that like i couldn't get i couldn't find my dad because like i know that he's far away you know but like my only hope like at that time was like okay i'm gonna find some city because i can't stay here because i found the city but that city was like uh like full of like chinese police you know trying to catch north koreans you know so i couldn't stay there so i have to like manage i have to find a way to get away so i'm walking i don't know where i'm going no money no money no food nothing else only thing that i have is like almost like uh almost like like faded away like shoes you know like almost like like i fell apart shoes poor clothes i'm walking and i walked in china for three days i didn't know where i was going without any water or food i was like really hungry i was dehydrated and i was exhausted like really really only hope that kept me going you know was finding a residential district you know and just just finding some water some bread you know and just staying there pretending i'm homeless you know just begging for food begging for money and if i just live like that i'm still free you know because i can do whatever whatever i want you know i don't have to risk my life working in a coal mine you know just to get paid three kilos of kilograms of rice right and then like finally my feet got blisters any star bleed it bled and i can't walk anymore i'm hungry i'm exhausted and i started regretting like why did i left north korea if i was in coal mine i was to get fed i was to a place to sleep i'll still have some money in my pocket and also have fun with my friend and then i really thought about you know like should i go back oh man should i turn back that's how bad it was yeah that's how how bad it was you know shy turn back because it's middle of nowhere like like it's like middle of like really nowhere it's like nothing else but like forest so you're in the for you're not walking on a road you're just i'm not walking on a road i'm like walking in a rope but like there was a side road too but i'm just following the road you know in a foreign off to the side nobody sees me right and you don't speak chinese i don't speak chinese right i speak a little bit of chinese like broken chinese broken chains but this is like scary yeah it's really scary and then at one point yeah so like i don't care anymore because i'm almost dying like three days it's been three days without any food i'm dying anyways so i just i just slide and lie down on the road like do whatever you want don't do whatever you want and then and then i'm i'm religious i'm christian i knew i knew this was coming i knew you're gonna say that sorry but i was like this is why he goes to church now yeah i'm religious and then i pray to god because i i met i met a pastor when i was in china for the first time 2008 and he came to our house giving me some bible and gave me some money cool christians keep up money yeah this is really awesome the first time you went to china yeah first time in china you were going to church back then no i wasn't going to church but he came to our house and he prayed for me and then like when i was in like a refugee when i was in the uh detention center i prayed a lot too like i wasn't praying right i was having a communication like i was like talking like in my like mind right talking to like guess god you know keep talking keep talking keep talking and then yeah in china i was so desperate you know and then i was shouting i was literally like crying and shouting like why why and i pray like i didn't want to die like this you know and i cried and cried until i became more dehydrated i couldn't cry anymore huh and then like like 20 10 to 20 minutes later a chinese dude riding a motorcycle and then he passed by me and then he stops and he turns back and he tempts me and he sees me lying down on the ground like are you from north korea oh wow like nilai yeah right and like like he's like he's like get into a motorcycle wait what yeah get in get on get on the motorcycle yeah yeah so we wrote like couple of hours i don't know i think he must be like 12 hours and then we got to his place and he gave me medication he gave me food he gave me shoes he gave me clothes he gave me a place to sleep overnight and the next morning he connected me to a south korean missionary and then he was like oh like i turn over to south korea i'm like i'm trying to find my father here because like at the time like i wasn't thinking of going to south korea right sure yeah and then i was like oh i'm looking for my father here and it's like oh like if i give you money and if i give you like bus ticket do you know where to go i was like yeah i know where to go he put me on a bus to my father's place and i knew because i lived there for nine months so i know where my father lives and then yeah so do you think it's a coincidence or it's a miracle i mean you certainly got some good fortune having that guy pass by care enough to stop and help you yeah and then like i knock on my father's door and then he just like freaking out like to be honest like 16 year old kid you know like crosstalking like the the world like heavily fortified and most closed-up country escaping that country by himself it's like impossible sure you know like and then he thought i was uh i was a criminal like did you kill someone like are you on the run you know what that's why did you escape i'm like no like well that place sucks remember you used to live there just live there you know yeah and like because i was working in a coal mine you know i explained it you know and i was just hungry and i just wanted to live my life in freedom you know and then he was like okay well that makes sense and then i i escaped in 2011 august but 2010 at 2000 2011 october kim jong-il died the security has been gone like tripled oh they they made the security even tighter yeah so like some like north korean like military came to china to look for north koreans capture them and deport backwards career wow so i couldn't move like i was always staying at home you know i was so scared and then finally my dad was like okay you know what if you stay here and if you get caught you know you're gonna go to labor camp and this time you're going to be 18 so no more you know like you're going to go to four years labor camp you know no mercy for you and then he found a broker the smallest people out of china to sold korea so i embarked on another long journey to southeast asia and i was on a bus to travel to southeast asia and i know how dangerous that journey is because i've seen a lady fighting off her vein killing herself because she got caught nearby mongolia and every single time the bus stops like my heart pounding in my throat you know and like my palms are like sweaty and it's like it's like full of like sweat you know cause like if i get caught here i'm gonna die you know and and like if the bus stops like every single one like every single hair on my body just sticking up you know cause i'm so scared but fortunately i didn't get caught you know oh man are you alone at this point so i wasn't alone there was a couple of other north koreans who's like who's escaping with me and then we had a broker he's with you i don't know who he is you know who i am but i don't know who you are in case we get caught we don't tell new you know we don't know who but he's on the bus he's on the bus but you have no idea i have no idea who it is you know me the person who arranged this yeah he's going to be on the bus yeah he's going to be but you won't know who he is i don't know who it is there were two or three of you yeah yeah three of us and then about a week i finally met so we are on a bus run uh like motorcycle we're in a van you know and then we're escaping to southeast asia you know and i got to i got to southeast asia i got to thailand and then we were on a boat like a really small vote like a really narrow boat a boat yeah okay it's like a it's like a it's like it's like a big tree you know cut it in half like you're like i couldn't move and i heard a story about like crocodiles in the river you know i don't know about mecca river oh maybe yeah i'm surprised you even gave a crap about crocodiles at that point i mean like i'll be like yeah and after this river like i'm free i'm completely free you know and like i'm holding down on it and i'm looking looking at the the light towards the like like thailand like you know if i move a little bit we're gonna flip you know like i was like oh my god i don't know and then we got to thailand um and then we voluntarily surrendered to um thailand police so they're like oh like we're gonna put you in a prison for 10 days like i'm not gonna lie that was the best day of my life going to thai prison going to thai prison wow waking up in a thai prison camp i mean because for me you know i have only a certain experience you know because it's for me freedom like i can't exhale right you know i'm like well now i'm finally free thailand recognizes north korea refugees right yeah so you're like you know you're in good hands yeah i know i'm in good hands you know and then they were sending us to um south korea right so what happened is like you enter thailand without any permission but thailand like they like let you go wherever where they want to go because i'm real refugees right they're kicking us out of thailand to south korea right that's the understanding yeah just understanding so you felt better waking up in the thai prison than you did waking up in that hotel in china a hundred times better and plus they fed us white rice and chicken soup and egg like wait what like i ate like 50 pieces of corn every meal in north korean prison you know i'm like i'm like wait what this is a big step up you know and like they just let me sleep like however do i want i just wake up any time there is food there's water i don't have to do anything and what so this is like this is a five star resort computer yeah right yeah yeah but uh yeah and then um and then i was trying to apply for south korea but they didn't recognize me as refugee because my father is chinese no oh wow yeah so they said like you're in thailand i'm in thailand you're applying for refugee status to south korea they won't give it to you because you're only half half chinese and half korean and i'm like um chinese government doesn't recognize me as refugee and they send me back to north korea i know i went to live i went to detention center and i've been to crap and i got sent back to north korea but you guys don't want to help me and they're like charles like we really want to help you but we cannot change the law we would have to send you back to china i'm like crap oh my god you just thought you were out i'm out like i know there's like like there is no hope for me because like resettlement was the only hope for me right because it's like i'm in thailand thailand won't let you stay tainted they won't let mistakes china will send you back china and now south korea won't take you yeah they won't do so i'm an international like uh orphanage stateless stateless i i really thought of like killing myself at the hair did you really i didn't eat for like a week you know i became like i was like cutting you know i just drink water i just like i can't eat because i'm so stressed you know because like because i got moved to like another cell from north korean cell to international cell to move back to china you know because like oh they already started yeah like this is happening yeah this is happening i'm i'm gonna die you know like and then like every day was a struggle and every day was like a war for me you know because like trying to find like south korean like like embassy like asian you know shouting at them you know like please help me and i'm like they'll just like i don't care i don't give a crap just went away but i met jesus i'm just kidding you can yeah uh but seriously though like one one guy who like recommended me like hey you should apply for un i think they know your situation well i think they might take you and then i applied for u1 and then most of people they have to wait a year to get a first interview right but for me i got my interview within a week so who is this guy that told you to apply to the un for international refugee status jesus oh yeah qualify that yeah so he is another north korean dude yeah who's going to united states and he's waiting to be processed where did you meet him uh international the international refugee camp he's he's there too yeah he's in a some cell as me okay right but all the people there are international they're not just but there's only there's a cell for only north koreans and there is stuff like international people that they're going to america you know they're going to like like i know like um japan you know all over the world right and he was like oh yeah you should um apply for america they might be you know accepting they might help you out so i applied for un and then i got my first interview in the first week second interview in the second week third week fourth week i went hospital i got my body checked out everything's good and then you're gonna go to america wow how did that happen so quickly because i was a minor at the time how did you fill out the paperwork i don't even understand yeah i mean there was a there was like a korean you know like a translator helped me out he worked at the prison no no no yeah he's working for she's working for un a un worker helped you yeah apply it yeah apply for the the day that i got my plane ticket i could not sleep i was so excited you know like all the things that i can do right all the things that i how i'm gonna live like i'm trying to map out you know how i'm gonna live you know my rest of my life you know like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna live my life so good you know i'm gonna be really good i'm gonna become rich i'm gonna help out i'm gonna do like all things you know i'm gonna go to church like my thoughts are like full of like like plans you know like and at the same time i'm so excited you know like i couldn't sleep for the whole day until that point you didn't plan to go to america i i didn't know like i didn't know like i mean i knew about america but like i didn't even like imagine going there because you know it's such a foreign country it's such a foreign to me south korea was only like my option you know but like even better way better like and then like yeah so i didn't know about america i mean like i i knew about america but like i didn't think of coming to america you know it's like imagine you think you're gonna die in a north korean labor camp and you end up in los angeles instead it's blowing my mind yes so you're you get on the plane did you fly from thailand yeah from thailand to south korea and i remember looking for you went from thailand south korea south korea to los angeles to los angeles did you know anybody here no what was your plan so uh so uh so uh irs so international refugee like international refugee service so they had uh people much friendlier than me i was about to say yeah i didn't know the irs helped refugees get settled a different international refugee service yeah i i think it's irs i'm at it um look that up but it's that kind what's irs it's our internal revenue service they take you'll learn all about them now that you're paying taxes oh irs the tax service tax collectors right yeah this is the file not as helpful as the ones that you're talking about yeah yeah but it is not under like a service um is it a non-profit it's really big it's really a big nonprofit it's a non-profit it's like like an ngo yeah ngo yeah it's really big they help refugees get settled in different places yeah so they knew about your case yeah they knew them how did they know did you did you write them yeah so i told them everything about like i told them every specific like i told them okay so if you go to china this jail you'll find about my paper you'll find everything about me if you go this north korean location you'll find everything about me and then i guess they have connections are they part of the process of getting a visa to go that was i mean like that was interview that was an interview right that's all part of it all part of it okay right to like accepting me as a refugee right so they have to make sure that i'm like i'm like like identified you know yeah and you're not a criminal i'm not a i'm not a you're not you're not part of a group a terrorist group or something or a power of like any like organization you know i'm not yeah yeah what was your first plane ride like well i remember looking out the windows the plane began to land in california you know i've never dreamed of being on a plane like even coming to america you know it's like i'm so high up you know i was so terrified of like turbulence you know i'm like when's the plane shaking you know i was like all the plane writes but like i got used to it because i wrote like 16 hours or something like from thailand to southeast asia south korea and south korea to here and let's take like so i got used to it you know and how about that airplane food huh are you like i'm going back to the coal mine yeah this is terrible like healthy food like what is this give me that thai prison yeah oh like the vegetables and like a brown rice i'm like are you kidding me like what you're not even interested in yeah give me some good stuff you know like a wheelie you know like a dripping oil that's right like like the internet you know like pandas like you know like dripping with like oils you know like dripping with like fat and oh i know but yeah um and then um you know i i didn't even imagine bringing a plane or even coming to america you know and like as i step up the plane i felt these strange feelings that i've known before you know it's safety like i was finally safe and didn't need to hide anymore what does safety feel like like if you could describe it how would you describe it like feelings are relaxed you know like every single part of your body muscles you know it's like relaxed you know and like you can't breathe you know like you can't breathe that air you know i used to breathe like fear you know i used to breathe like fear in china because every single breath that i'm taking is a fear because i'm afraid of like getting caught and afraid of being you know bitten you know afraid of being taken away you know but finally like breathing air like a normal air right and i could feel that i could feel like like a safety in the air you know what i mean like like like i don't need to hide anymore you know i don't need to be afraid of like government anymore i don't need to be afraid of something you know i don't need to fear anything because i'm i'm i'm protected you know what was the first i'm immigrating from another country is hard but you're basically immigrating to the 21st century from north korea yeah i mean it's like time warp yeah right for me it was like yeah getting into getting into like time machine you know because like a lot of north koreans say this you know getting into like time machine you know fast forwarding like 50 years 70 years you know where it's like there's technology there is like phone there's computer there's touch screen there is like there's a drone you know there's like camera and everything like and it's it's really unique experience like it's it's just mind-blowing and it's just mind-blowing experience to have all those kind of like technology in my hand you know and i don't know what to do with it you know like is this like eating thing is it food is this like a something that you wear you know is there something that like did something was saying you know i don't know what i'm doing with it but the most thing that i uh i did like i had a first smartphone in 2012 as soon as i got here i got my smartphone samsung galaxy s2 i think yeah and i remember looking through that phone you know it's so like it's a small tv you know it's a small television and it has more than one channel yeah more than one channel it's like a 24 hour you know like it has a youtube you know and yeah in north korea we only have like a one channel which is like educational broadcasting you know like uh brainwashed propaganda no but like more than one channel like i was so distracted like watching like i'm like a kid you know i'm like five years old watching every will smith yeah yeah watching will smith cliffs you know and like watching all those family guy and watching the rick and morty like rick and morty by family guy american dad you know it's my wife's favorite american dad yeah yeah did you like i know you had seen movies yeah but i'm sure a lot of that was new yeah was that did you understand it i didn't understand anything i just like the main characters right characters like how they act you know and um i didn't understand like anything like two years later you know and then like i could speak you know oh yeah because you didn't speak english i didn't speak any like only thing that i could say was like thank you you know and like two years later like like my ear was like opening you know like my ear was like but i could understand you you know like it's it's a magical moment and then like somehow like i'm not afraid to like speak anymore because i was always shy you know like if i try to speak something like my face turn red you know i couldn't like say anything but like i understand like a better you know and like movies like became like my friend you know because like like i understand and then like it's somehow i turned it into like um um like why do you call the people with like just communicating with like a device like just only on the computer like keyboard heroes i don't know keyboard jockey i don't know geek he just you're only communicating online no i mean like i'm just watching you know tv all day you know oh yeah couch potato but yeah i was in high school so i was like every night after school i've done homework and just like sitting on a tv and all day i think that's how i learned english so you went to high school high school yeah i went yeah i went yeah so i went to high school so you know funny thing is so i arrived in 2000 september 21st 2012 and i went to high school there right next day the next day right next day wow wait you landed in la though right no i landed in l.a and then i i um i was on like like jetblue or something and then i went to sac san jose airport you went to northern california yeah so i i resettled in norcal yeah norgal yeah and they just put you in high school like he'll be fine he doesn't speak english he's been homeless working in coal mine yeah wait you i i dodged the bullet you know and and just escaped twice from yeah the most repressive regime wait so you drop it how old are you at this point i was 17 and like like american age i was like 17 and 11 months old so almost 18. almost 18. and then you went to an american high school the day after you landed yeah you don't speak english i don't speak any english what is that like it was chaos i don't i don't know anything like i'm like i gotta survive this this is another whole different level of like stress i need to deal with a whole other level what are you talking about you come from a labor camp in chemistry class is freaking you out i don't understand anything like i i got i have to get this like i need to understand you know i need to write down everything what they're saying but i don't know anything oh my god i mean can you even write in english no did anyone know that at the school no i mean like so how did they knew that i couldn't speak in english they knew that i couldn't write anything but like they put me in an esl class right but i'm going to school with like like freshman kids i was almost 18. there's a 14 years old kid just sitting right next to me talking something about something something something i don't understand anything i'm like yeah yeah uh-huh yeah i don't understand anything does anybody know that you came from north korea they didn't know only principal and a couple of teachers knew that i was from north korea but they helped me a lot like they would keep like helping me you know helping with math you know they're helping with english but it was it was really tough it was really really tough it was even even tougher than like i guess in a certain extent i was tougher than working in a coal mine because like american high school is tougher than working in a north korean coal mine yeah because i don't unders there's a quote for the episode but in a way i i can understand that because you don't speak the language yeah probably i don't know the culture you know i don't know like because i grew up i'm a i'm a 11th street dropout in north korea yeah i didn't go to school at all and even if you did you'd know about like kim jong-il and yeah not a whole lot more i don't know anything about history you know but i learned that america dropped a bomb on hiroshima in in japan and that's how they surrendered but how i learned in north korea is that kim yong-sang armed japanese soldier japanese like crap ton of like army and uh kim kim sung came in and he beat the crap crap out of them and just like kicked them out from north korea and they freed us from like japanese right they taught you that kim il-sung was responsible for ending world war ii yes not just the korean war but not just korean war but winning the japanese you know kicking the japanese out of like north korea are there other historical like are there other versions of history that you remember learning about in the states that you were just like oh my god what i was told was completely wrong do you remember any of those moments like for example like kim jong-il you know kim il-sung fighting japanese right like kicking them off from north korea that's like that's how he fought you know it's a thought of japanese right head to toe armed kim jong-il kim il-sung winning the war korean war korean war yeah it ceased fire it's never ended you know and kim jong i think kim no sung kind of lost the war you know but he doesn't tell us he lost he prevented america invading north korea you know that's the two things like the majority those are the two big moments yeah and they both have to do with kim il-sung yeah they both have to do with kimo sam right so i'm like what what surprised you most about americans after you thought we were all werewolves and evil and then you end up in like san jose high school they're kind they're so kind like like caring you know because like they all helped me you know my social worker was um like white lady she um she was like she was in like late 20s you know and then she would always be kind to me you know and i was so surprised you know like like she was like really nice to me you know i didn't i thought like i would expect like they've been like so like stubborn you know they've been like so like violence you know but like they're so kind you know yeah there's so much that's great and it's just like i was just taking that in we never talked about that kid who stole your shoes right yeah yeah right so um going back to that point so i met that's not a kid actually he's like in his like mid 30s right uh at the time and he stole my shoes in the detention center and he i don't know what happened from then right because he stole my shoes and then he went off i was working in a detention center for a while and then i met him in thailand the prison camp did he have your stinking shoes no it's been like two years later so he doesn't have he has like a better shoes right you should have stolen his shoes right i know i was gonna do that and then like and then so um i was a new recruit right so right after the next day i arrived in thailand they they put me in a truck and they drove me to a local like a prison camp right and then i was like we're all like you know searched out you know make sure we don't have any drugs or anything else and then we're all searched up and then we went into like with handcuffs right and then we went in the present cell and then that when we entered the prison cell they uh they uncuffed us and they oh sorry we don't have handcuffs but we have like a leg uh guys yeah yeah leg irons but i see this dude is looking so familiar but he's not korean he's speaking korean right he looks so familiar i was like i think i've seen you somewhere and then oh my god it's the dude but he doesn't remember me i was like i saw you at the at the tong jin like the detention center and you took my shoes and now he remembers it oh my god thank you so much for your shoots because of the shoes i could escape and then he tell he's telling me this story right so he stole my shoes and then he was on a train with this two police officers who's like uh transporting him and then he told me that also like when i was like when i was in interrogation like an office i swallowed a paper clip and then he went to the bathroom a couple days later and he put it out and then he kept the paper clip right and then like he he kept it under the tongue while he was like transporting it and then he he took it out and he unco unhanged yeah he picked the handcuffs and then he's running through the like in between the trains but the train was moving right so all the doors are closed and then all the windows were closed too right so he's so like as soon as like he got away like maybe like a couple of like feet and then did the guards realized he's gone and then he's chasing him right he's like chasing him and he's seeing all those windows like closed and the door's closed too but he sees one window that are that are like open and then he's running through that window and then he's just like you know yeah he dope out the window i don't know how fast the train is going and i don't like his explaining all the like streamlines for going pretty slow wow and then he just died well out of the train and he rolls in like in a you know like um like a like a rocky yeah and then he walked for a couple of like days and then he get back to china and then he working in china for a while he saved enough money he bought a broker and then he now he he's on a journey to south korea and then that's how he met me and then he took because like he was really old and he had some money i didn't have any money i didn't have anything in thailand so like he was with me about like a month and a half i was staying thailand for like eight months but he was with me for the first month and a half within that month and a half he paid for everything like he bought me food he bought me snack he bought me a cigarette he bought me like everything you know because like he's like yeah because of your shoes and like it's like a meeting um like a hometown person you know it feels really good because you know that person from north korea right and then like meeting him like it's like say what yeah how random that is such a weird coincidence brian's like it's worth so small you know life is so crazy it is so so wild so actually you still keep in touch with them no actually i lost contact with them when he got to south korea he gave me like one numbered call but like he doesn't pick it up so i must think he changed his number or something yeah do you remember do you remember his name yeah i didn't remember his name you want to just say it maybe he'll email us uh maybe not maybe not yeah got it maybe not it's uh how long have we protect so sure yeah i understand how long have you been in america it's been six years now and i assume do you do you think you'll stay here for for the rest of my life yeah i got my citizenship right so i'm just gonna be here yeah this might be a weird question but is there anything about north korea that you miss i do actually i do have like i have a lot of things that i miss about north korea like north korea it's like it's like clean land you know it's it's not exposed by a mankind a human kind you know so it's very very like original right it's like it's not developed pristine yeah like yeah i got clean you know the nature is beautiful you know the water you know the air is fresh and of course my friends you know and like during summer and during hot day you know i go out to like a river you know you know like i smell gra grass you know and like smelling the river and just swimming in there you know the water is like delicious even the like a river the water is delicious and you know like a lot of people think think that like north korean people are brainwashed trying to kill everyone trying to kill america from trying to like have war with americans you know but actually that's not true you know i mean like a lot of young millennials you know like us you know they know about you know america they know about south korea they know about capitalism you know so it's not like that you know it's not like and i know that a lot of people thinks that north korean people are starving to death like most of them but that's actually not true either some rich like north korean high government officials they live like better than like middle class american does you know they have a lot of money they're so rich people who have connections with like governments you know they are rich they can do whatever they want they can kill someone and they can buy their way out you know what did you tell me earlier at starbucks about people who are fat and bald oh yeah right right i'm sorry you know like no offense but people coming from north korea right i you know when i came here like culture shock was like people who is really like people who are rich they're skinny people for poor they're fat like i mean i didn't understand like how is that possible i know like like people who's rich shouldn't you be fat and like people with pores should you be skinny because you cannot eat really well and you know in north korea if fair people if you go no offense but if you go to north korea you're going to be just famous as kim jong-un you know because i'm so fat yeah because you're so fat you're bold you know and not [Music] that's so weird like in america it's the opposite right yeah it's the opposite right but not korean people like if you go to north korea right and people are starving right so they they don't have big tummy and people who is bold like that indicates like you have like you have you're educated right and you have like high classes i learned so much all my hair fell out yeah so uh north korean people like they think that if you have a big big like belly and like a like a bold hair like bald head they think you're working for government right you're a government official so like you get like free bow free bows people have to bow to you free bows yeah you're bold yeah because like they like think that oh like he's he's a government official official okay government like he's working for the government right so he comes through and he says they have to bow to you yeah are there other things about life in america that you're still adjusting to or that don't make sense i mean like i'm still adjusting to like a racism you know adjusting to racism yeah like like you know like i didn't know about the racist medal you know it does i i just thought there's only yellow no but there you didn't know there were other yeah i didn't know there was all the colors you know like a white yellow like black you know but i'm still learning that and i'm still adjusting it you know and i'm still like there's it's not the culture it's it's about like 257 other cultures that are you know all together right and i'm still learning about the capitalism you know and like i you know i learned that my capital is capitalism enough is not friendly you know it's always not friendly it's not friendly you know people always trying to make money off of you you know people trying to like take advantage of you you know if you were if you don't speak any language if you're not smart it should take a tr they're trying to take like advantage of you know that's that happened like so many times to me oh how does that show up like when does that happen to you so uh when i was saying uh when i was in school you know i really wanted to get a car you know i really wanted to get a car so i had a 2 000 in my hand i worked my butt off to make the money and then i walked into a car dealership i have two dozen bucks what kind of car can i get this guy comes out with the audi car key audi car key right okay yeah drive it test it i have i don't even have a driver's license i have a permit right you have a learner's permit yeah right and then i had a permit and then i handed to him and like oh yeah sure there you go and then i tend to have test drive the car so nice you know the goal is like crazy fast and i'm like i'll take it how much is it he's like don't worry about it just give me your money and we'll just get you the car okay and then yeah sure and then this guy's like used my credit right credit to like apply for the credit like a loan from the bank so they sold me as like thirteen hundred thousand dollars wait thirteen thousand dollars thirteen thousand dollars yeah yeah and then this car it was it was overheated once this car engine is almost dying wait so they they sold you the car they sold me the car for only two thousand down or something yeah only two thousand dollars down so i have 11 to go okay right that guy should be that's ridiculous insane that like that's unbelievable right and then i bought the car and from that day the engine oil is licking right engine oil is leaking and it gives me a problem every single day for the next like six months and i drove nine thousand miles and then the car blew off oh my gosh right sold you a lemon yeah i stole that car right and i still have like like eleven thousand dollars to go on a bank and then the car completely blew off yeah that sucks so i went to the dealership and like hey look what's happening and he's like yeah you signed the paper you have everything like i can't do anything for you because this you signed it and apparently you bought the car i'll say it is uh we can't do anything for you and then i'm like off yeah i'm screwed um and then i'm like i have to have a car because like i wanted to drive left you know and i wanted to like i have to go to work i have to go to school at the same time so it's like okay so i'm not gonna go to like small dealership i'm gonna go to big dealership and also they will give me a good car and then i had another three thousand dollars in my hand so i wanted to buy a used car in a big dealership right i walk into the door in a honda dealership in conquer he's super friendly yeah like he's super friendly he's like okay you know like yeah he's like he have a big smile on his face you know he's super friendly and then he's like are you buying any cars you know like i'm like yeah i'm looking for a car you know to buy here and he's like yeah come on in you know like he's like bend over in the table right now he's like come on in you know you're welcome you're always welcome you know i'm looking for a a person like you to you know screw over you know and then he sold me a car honda civic 2015 honda civic so um i had the eight thousand dollars on the audi a4 and then this guy sold me their cars at twenty one thousand dollars in a maximum interest so you could have purchased as a fourteen thousand dollars but yeah yeah but um yeah fourteen thousand dollars but this guy is like oh yeah this is a kid you know like he doesn't know anything so like let me [ __ ] you over you know he's like so plus the eight thousand dollars twenty one thousand dollars plus tax plus eight thousand dollars so i got almost like twenty nine thousand dollars for a honda civic 2015 honda civic wow and then um i had to pay like a lot of you know so i learned like really big mistake i made like yeah i made a lot of big mistakes you know and i had to learn that this is not something that i know friendly you know and you had to you know that must be hard oh it's really hard you know it's really really hard after everything you've been through yeah then you get screwed over by like two used car salesmen yeah the worst kind of humans jeez yeah um i have to you know really really learn you know from mistakes and then um yeah and you know capitalism is really not friendly you know and um like one thing that one thing that you know like i learned and this you know society it's like why people just have empathy you know why people don't why do people not have empathy yeah empathy for each other you know like if you're rich like they don't care if you're rich i don't care about you why should i care about you you know like do you think there was more empathy in north korea i i yeah because like i mean you know i mean like i guess within my friends you know fellow friends you know like and even though if we're starving we're starting all together right and if you're struggling or struggling all together you know we're in a one boat but like in here like everyone is like different levels of like you know so it's really hard yeah and most people here i imagine can't begin to understand what you've been through uniquely yeah you know but you know i you know i believe that this is land of opportunity right there is still hope there is a lot of good things about you know all the things so if i work hard you know work smart you know i think i can achieve my dreams you know whatever i have and you know like everything that i do i do it with like hope you know excitement you know i don't i mean yeah i've been through a lot so what i mean i don't live in the past i live in present you know so you know today let's make it today the best you know why not you know so it's yesterday happens what can i do learn from it don't do it again you know and just look forward you know keep going you know just keep just walking you know and you'll be fine do you think you had to learn how to become that way or are you just that way but i'm sure yeah i'm just that way you're just that way my personality is like just don't worry yeah if you weren't that way it would have been harder it would have yeah it would have been harder like i wouldn't know like which place i would end up today if i wasn't like that you know like i can't imagine you know i will probably working in a coal miner i'll probably that for now i want to end on something a little lighter you know first of all well maybe this isn't later but how come when we went to north korea people on the subway and things like that they move away from us nobody will talk to us people won't look at us some people will look at us like out of the corner of their eye but there was very little interaction aside from hotel staff and things like that yeah like i'm not sure about that because like i've never told you know there is like american people visiting north korea you know the only thing that i've learned and only thing that i've heard was like like foreign country people coming to north korea to praise kim jong-il you know because his like leadership is so great you know so they come to perform in his birthday party you know like uh kim il-sung's birthday party you know and i'm not sure why is that like and i never knew about that either like when i was in north korea i've never heard about like people visiting you know people all over the country like paying like 2500 every week just to stay like in north korea jordan i actually had a question for you about that yeah so he and i have been to north korea several times the first time we went we went purely out of curiosity and then we both ended up kind of getting hired to lead tourists there but i think we kept going because we wanted to understand north korea better because it's really hard to understand it if you just watched the news and we were just curious and you know wanted to travel and i jordan i have talked about this a bunch over the years those trips opened our eyes to a very different way of life and i think we both feel very lucky to have seen another part of the world and get to know people from a country we wouldn't get to meet but there are a lot of people who when we talk about it when they find out that we've been there don't think it's okay that we went to north korea and i kind of under i can appreciate that perspective because they think that if you go to north korea you have to pay to be there you're supporting the government the government that does a lot of terrible things and it always comes down to is the cost of tourism worth the the learning opportunity do you understand what i mean yeah yeah from your perspective do you think tourism to north korea is a positive or a negative in a way i see that this is like tourism to north korea is as i have pros and cons right because like you get to see like the beauty of north korea right beauty of like like at least like air and water right but everything the pro is pro is like you see a north korea right i developed north korea you know because like everything that you see within that range is what they want you to see sure right because like everything that even though you talk to like people on the street you know they were educated they were like brainwashed and they have things that they have to say to you right and even though they say like oh like we need help do you speak korean you don't you have a translator between you and the guy right you and the pedestrian so whatever you talk to them whatever you talk whatever they talk to you it's been translated by the government right so you don't get to know the true north korea by just going through north korea with government right because like you're only limited to limited to like the resources and limited like things that you are you're seeing sure right but if you want to make it you want to go into north korea to the border i mean like through the way that i came out like if you want to go there i'm going to pass on that i'm definitely not going to go of sneaking into north korea i mean you're right you don't you don't get to see the real north yeah because you don't get to see all of it all of it but i guess my question is is it still worth it for people to go it's not worth it you don't think it's worth it it's not worth it it's uh you know but i don't think it's really worth it because you're just supporting north korean government you know because that money is going to building a nuclear weapon you know that money is still going into like you know building nuclear weapons you know building the bullets you know making the bullets that are going to kill north korean people you know so it's not really so to you even though the the dollar amount is low very low i mean it's not it's almost nothing to you it's still contributing to something really terrible yeah something really terrible because yeah so uh i don't think it's worth it instead of you going into north korea right to see what's happening how about you spend the money to find north korean refugees that are here right listen to their stories find organizations that who supports people supports north korean refugees that are trying to escape from china to south korea how about you help them how about you read their stories right and then how about you just help them getting out of north korea right getting out of china i think that's something that way much more worse than going into north korea and i personally believe that working with north korean refugees to you know changing north korea i think it's way worth it because north korea like refugees plays really really big role on these huge issues right because people who comes out from north korea they have still have connection back in north korea they sending like tremendous money back into north korea like per year 15 million dollars are going into north korea right that money is not going into any government that money is not going into any part of like nuclear weapons that money is truly going into like north korea you know that money are used by people right and they're making like markets better right and helping that refugee getting to know them a little bit better right getting to know them and helping them i think that's the way that we can truly get to see north korea you know because unification when unification happens i'll take you there don't worry i'll take you there you know and i believe that i personally believe that north korea and south korea would be identified in my lifetime you're unified you think it's going to happen yeah well we might take you up on that we're going to go back i will go back yeah but i'll take you to my hometown and you know just but let's not go you know until kim's regime crumbles i'm not going until that happens no i think you i think we've decided for sure i think we have made that very dangerous for ourselves how do people date in north korea like how do you meet women and stuff like that you know yeah i mean i mean like dating is free you know like it's not like government's like dating is like really free in north korea because you just go to a chestnut farm man chess it's all about it yeah it's all about the chestnut farm you know that's gonna i remember i asked one of our tour guides where where she meets guys and she goes she looked at me like i was dumb as hell and she goes at the library why where do you meet people library one of our other guides said that he meets people on the internet do you remember that yeah on the like when he's playing counter strike and he's playing like some very low res version of yeah some games he said he chats with girls online i don't know about that i mean you think he was just lying i mean like there is like an internet as a micronet right yeah existing in north korea right but i don't think that guys is bsing you know like you can't chat with other people on that like within the college you know they're allowed to use the internet and it's to like you know within like schools like certain like areas but yeah i don't think he was a little bit nutty but anyway but go back to dating yeah yeah how does that work yeah dating is like you just it's normal it's like just like here you know like oh if you like me buy me something you know but that's guys are playing that role you know girls doesn't get to play that role so what's a date what does a date look like in north korea um they look like you just walk you know because like there's a lot of like really fun things to do in north korea too you know there's actually a park in north korea sounds like a freaking blast yeah do you mean like like a park like with benches and trees yeah eventually you keep selling it yeah there's also like was there like a fun what do you call it fun fair like an amusement park amusement park yeah there is like amusement park that you can go to but it's really expensive and poor people can't afford it but reach people can afford it so they just go there and just hang out that's it's a lot similar to here you know because like north korean millennials they've been watching so much south korean dramas and so much foreign media so like their is changing oh what is that level can you explain what that means like they watch they watch a drama yes and then how does that affect the way they date because like because like past like 20 years or so right um so a lot of like there's like north korean like millennials right who grew up after the famine the famine right after that happened like there's a lot of like foreign medias going into north korea right because like south korean dramas and people like at first they didn't believe right all this is just a setup you know this is like they're trying to brainwash us but like as they keep watching it right i'm like wait it's just a normal life you know the love story you know and there is like they don't just see the peop in the people that are in the movie right their main they don't just see the main actors we see people that are in background too we watch a lot of backgrounds too right like that's not setting right so you're not just looking at the people who are talking you're looking and you're like wow there's a lot of cars yeah there are a lot of cars there's a lot of buildings there's a lot of like fancy things there's fancy tree fancy road and they kind of trying to copy that you know there's a lot of trendy things like north korea by like south korean dramas too no but who's cop they're copying the like a fashion uh okay like the way people dress dresses you know way people talk you know that's they have copy it and like within like among the friends like we try to like like copy imitate like the south korean accent you know like hey you know like ah you know like like yeah something like that and like what you're doing you're like how are you doing you know i think that's korean for what's uh yeah what's up man yeah what does that mean like south korean dramas it's all about love stories right like which uh like the rich guy meets like a poor like girl you know how to like hook up you know like yeah i think like that's so do you think it makes that does it make young people in north korea more ambitious or more aggressive like more willing to talk to people or they want to have their own love stories is that what you mean yeah so they're like social media is changing north korea's like perspectives right lower like people's mind like slowly you know changing in a way that like to like capitalism you know like to like have like their own stories you know they can write their own stories like besides like what government tells you to write right it sounds like that's the main difference in the new generation yeah yeah there's a lot of things going on like now you have like cell phones too in north korea so i'm like what like there's like north korean like average person's like income is 1500 per year fifteen hundred per year two dollars yeah yes dollars right sorry yes like us fifteen hundred dollars per year but the cell phone just the personal phone is like seven hundred bucks yes wow so half yeah basically like how can you afford that right it was a fine right so charles as we wrap here we've been we've gone like three episodes long or something like that but people want to know what you're doing now i i found it surprising to hear that you had a job in i.t i thought that was kind of unusual yeah yeah so i went to a coding bootcamp called uh coding dojo in silicon valley yeah and i learned to code you know i learned to build a website with like like website using like many different languages like suggest like python um like javascript you know min stack you know and yeah so uh now i'm looking to i'm looking for a job as a software developer but i mean at the side like i'm doing like a advocacy intern in a liberty north korea ngo uh and um yeah but uh after that you know i'm really really looking forward to like having my business you know like coding school you know where i teach like north korean people how to code you know and uh like teaching them like american cultures american language and plus like american you know job you know well-paying job sure yeah that's my ultimate dream but for now i really wish to find a job as a software developer can you imagine coming from a place where you're working in a coal mine that doesn't even have automated diesel steam car whatever carts and then you're like oh yeah we need you to code something up for ios real quick right test out some pythons yeah i want you to build a website i want you to build that ai that can communicate with people i'm like oh okay yeah sure thing i got you you know your tech at home was a tv with one channel and now you're coding yeah now i'm like coding for it recording for food you know coding for food we'll code for food yeah i'll come for food especially in an operator yeah you've shared a lot of amazing things today and i just want to say again thank you so much for talking to us because i mean you just said it beautifully a moment ago like the stories have to come out it's really special to sit down with somebody who's been through something so extraordinary with so much like grace and patience and faith and like i don't know just you have you have like a really incredible story and i feel really lucky to hear it my question is uh what is it like to talk about it is it hard is it helpful what does it feel like when you explain to people what you've been through yeah um i mean i i guess i kind of the mentality of um i mean i used to have ideas student didn't like to talk about my story you know if people if people ask like where i'm from just tell me i'm from south korea you know because i was like and when i got here like i didn't really like to talk about my story because in a way that kind of like brought the fear of my you know like past you know and uh i did really didn't like talk about it but like like i talked to like my counselor you know i um i had a pts you know so i used to talk to her you know and then post traumatic stress yeah tsd you're saying yeah so they take a d because it's not a disorder that you just have to even yeah so like yeah so um so i talking to her i realized like you know i have this fear i'm gonna live with this fear for a while you know i can't get rid of it because this is something that i've been through and it's feeling you know and like the way like the harder i try to imprison my feeling the harder it bounce back you know so why don't i use my story to you know inspire someone and why don't i tell my story to raise awareness you know why don't i tell my story to other people so that people can know like what north korean people went through and who's going through right now because my story is not unique you know there's a lot of people have the same story right and and because of like that kind of mentality i feel accomplished you know like every time i talk talk about my story i don't talk about i don't talk about my story to like to like like i don't want you to feel sorry for me you know i want you to know i want you to learn something about it and how and i don't want you to be i i don't tell my story to you know like oh charles you know i feel really sad for you you know i feel really bad for you i don't want that you know like as soon as you learn something today you know i'll be appreciated you know and like because like you know if you can use my story you know to you because like i've i was just 15 you know i didn't know but i've did it you know and it's too inspiring inspiring someone like look i did it you know even that situation you know you have you're now in a better much much more better situation you know can you can do you can do it too you know i want to motivate someone you know i want to inspire someone and i want to educate someone you know so i feel very very accomplished yeah giving telling my story telling your story it gives it meaning right yeah it gives a meaning a lot meaning yeah a lot of meaning just in case you thought we were joking about him loving will smith are you comfortable sharing your instagram handle you might get some new followers oh yeah yeah i would love to it's uh it's called fresh prince of pyongyang yeah yeah please do uh so i'm trying to raise awareness right so i just want to show people that north korean people are normal you know just weird as all of you you know and just normal as all of you you know so um yeah that's why i am you know trying to have some followers you know and i'm kind i'm trying to like put on a show like daily life of north korean you know and like we keep trying to do that right now but um yeah so that's my goal you know to educate people that our north korean people are normal fresh prince of pyongyang yeah best instagram handle ever absolutely the best yeah thank you thank you so much for sharing all this with us man you've got stories for days even in the car you're just talking about how you got stabbed in the butt oh yeah how did we not get to that yeah so the story charles gets stabbed in the butt maybe next time maybe now you want to do it just drop it now yeah let me just drop it now so i was so yeah that's after i get released from the from the labor camp right so and then there's street crime in north carolina yeah there's a lot of straight crimes right and like there's a lot of bully kids you know there's a lot of like ducks you know there's a lot of gangsters you know yeah blues and gangsters like trying to try to take your things away and then one time like we were fighting in our group right because like i want to defend my spot you know i want to defend like my spot for like begging food but like sleeping you know like i want to defend my spot but there is like other groups who came in and trying to kick us out right so we had like huge fight and then like i don't know because we are fighting in like groups right and i don't know who i'm hitting but i'm just hitting somebody like i know and then i feel something really really stank in my butt so i looked at it and small knife like a pencil cutting knife right it stuck my butt like what the heck snap wow it just does not end with this guy it's this guy has so many there and it's just one thing oh my god one yeah and like it was so dip you know it was really the wind is really like short i guess you're lucky it was only a one inch blade no no no no so the cut is like this white right yeah buddy when it really did oh wow yeah like sometimes like i have like uh like sometimes like i think it kind of like touched my bone or something i don't know what happened but like sometimes i like i feel like like the stink you can still sting yeah yeah so whenever i walk try to walk it kind of shoots right through my legs oh man i don't know what happened yeah i hope it's fine charles yeah i'm so happy you're in america no worries man yeah you can now tell some people that you know i met a guy from north korea who's stepping in the butt yeah all right what i thought was really interesting was when we were in the car there were all kinds of little details that you don't get from other people either of course when we're in north korea let alone even from other defectors because he was on the street for so long you were on the street for so long seeing street crime drug dealing uh prostitution yeah and and i think somebody who's like a government official that flies to china and then says i'm not going back home they don't necessarily know any of this stuff because they don't see it they're an officer right right right but yeah i'm not i'm not about the drug dealings but well we were talking about meth in the car oh yeah i'm math in the car oh if you count meth then yeah there's there's a lot of methamphetamine yeah in north korea like especially like you know people like with money you know north korea makes like the meth you know in harmony it's like the factory is there right so a lot of people does that like math you know and just recreationally for fun they do it for fun i guess yeah yeah and then like some people like they just offer like three days you know and i've also met a lot of people who's done math right in a thailand when i was in the refugee camp because i met a lot of nothing refugees and like they're just talking about it it's just like mind-blowing you know it's like what what like some people laugh all the time you know some people just clean but i'm not promoting the drug you know i'm not doing anything but it's just like like telling you know yeah so there's a lot of meth a lot of prostitution and a lot of butt stabbing the side of north korea we just yeah they're very lower you know like very like because you know you can't if you have money you can drive out of your way you know there's a lot of like because like police officers they don't even care you know because they don't even get paid enough you know so like whenever they see the crime yes you know a chance to get some yeah it's an opportunity right yeah so even like even the prostitution it's like it's like where i'm come from like where i'm from i'm not talking about whole north korea but like some like major cities the prostitution is like really big you know like with girls with like a flowers you know when i was like younger you know when i was and back in the days when i was living on a street you know i've seen a lot of ladies with like a flowers you know that means like they're prostitutes you know and it's really sad to see that you know but you know you have to find a way to survive that's right like i promised leaving us on a high note charles seriously thank you so much man it's a pleasure getting coffee in and out and some serious north korea stories you have been through the ringer you're 24 but at least you've got a bright future here in the states yeah yeah if you if i work hard and smart you know that's right i can achieve my dreams you know it thanks for uh thanks for inviting me here and uh i was my pleasure talking about my life story and you know i feel lucky you know to be here to share my story too you know because there's a lot of other people that didn't made it here didn't make it out yeah no thank you no problem hope you all enjoyed that you can find a lot more in the jordan harbinger show podcast feed that's an apple podcast spotify wherever you get your podcast now click here for an episode with steve elkins this guy discovered a lost city in the jungle while filming a movie and click here for an interview with tim ballard this is a guy who does a lot of door kicking trying to stop child trafficking it's really incredible of course click here to 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Channel: The Jordan Harbinger Show

Views: 112,698

Keywords: podcast, interview, best podcast, top rated podcast, lifelong learning, the jordan harbinger show, jordan harbinger, soft skills, social science, social influence, social psychology, personal development, self development, podcast full episode, north korea, charles ryu, charles ryu north korea, korean defector stories, korean defector interview, north korean defector, north korean escapee, defector, defector north korea, escape from north korea video, north korean defectors

Id: tcOjGMUnGZY

Length: 161min 2sec (9662 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020