Nina’s Remarkable Story of Escape from North Korea

so you have not heard from your father yes since 1997 yes when i 12 yeah i never oh my gosh and did she eventually escaped again to china no no what yeah she passed away after that oh my gosh oh my god wow so from that torture that at like 18 or 19 she passed away [Music] hi guys welcome to my channel my name is jamie park i'm a nordskin defector human rights activist so i know a lot of you have just seen me coming here alone saying hi today i have a very special guest from north korea like myself she lives in chicago i cannot wait to share her story with you guys today we are going to talk about everything like how she became free what parts of north korea they used to live and how she even came to america so nina would you want to give us this quick introduction hi everyone my name is nina i'm a north korea defector i'm today no it's okay she's very nervous so i think please show your support to her on your comment so nina when did you born when were you born in north korea i was born 1986 in the parts of what part of korea um oh so it's a really northern part yes yeah i mean i mean korea is a very small country right but because there's no freedom of movement i've never been to your region right so is that you were born and you were living there until the point of your escape yes so i mean tell me about your family did you have any sister or brothers oh i had a brother and sister were you the oldest yeah i'm youngest you're the youngest yes i say from north korea they escaped first yes and then later you followed yes last one you're the last one so before we go into your escape story i wonder you know how what life was like in the unsung part when you're born did you go to school yes i just graduated elementary school oh so that's all you had the element i mean this is a guy like north korea is a communist free education but most of kids cannot afford to go to school me too i only had like a few semesters in my elementary school right do you remember the things that you learned in school what did you remember the subject or like what was your favorite thing to learn in school yeah the subject to give you song oh they're like the ideology of the kim's right yeah so that's like all you remember from school time yes at the time why why were you not able to go into school like middle school was your family poor or what was your family situation since the 1994 grade starvation in starting 1994 right so it affects in my family too at the time so i cannot go to school oh okay yes oh that's why would your father or mother were farmers so what what were they doing in the system my brother was official oh he was official she was the official and my mother is what teachers she was a teacher yes chemistry teachers but she quit teaching yeah she quit teaching because uh yeah at the time the asia didn't stop and there's your teachers even doctors and officials so you don't have a food that much so i mean the ration stopped right even your teacher or like doctor even you are working for the government yes the region would not give you food yeah so there was really no point of going to work right because your children at home starving why would you go working for the government why you don't even receive anything yes that's why oh my mom and quit the teachers and she have to find two ways yeah like what kind of things so in north korea like i was eating a lot of those frozen potatoes like on ganja they become very like dark yeah right right oh yeah and people say like what is a current like it's some substitute for sugar right really bad for your health but still like that's a very substitute right and people keep asking me why north koreans eat frozen potato why don't you just eat the normal potato because we don't have a proper like home heating system yeah the food go like frozen and rotten so that is why we eat the frozen potato not because we like that that was the only thing we could afford right and i and like what were the things that yours people loved eating in your region we are not as a potato that much and then as your i don't know yeah my region is known for potatoes that's yeah my hometown is not so i just remember though at the time though my mom is cooked it's just it's kind of soup oh yeah a lot of like as clear as the water yeah it just had water and i just still remember that right i know like do you i was really shocked when i came to america people talking about these cookbooks cooking in north korea we don't ever know what cookbook is right we don't have the like the ingredients to make something we just eat whatever we have at the moment and that was like so were you always like hungry until the point you escaped yes that much enough for the all the time yeah other day so i instead of just go to school and i have to find the production with the mom right so that's why i quit the school right yeah and then that's like our job as children's like chopping the wood washing laundry and like going pick up like plants for our rabbits like do a lot of domestic work right i did a lot all right i think a lot of those rabbit food yeah people here call them salads i was so shocked because it's in america and it's just poor diet but yeah north korea it's not yeah i know yeah so that was your life and so how what gave your idea that you had to escape like what how did you find out that you could even escape so like uh did you so your sister and brother escaped first in search of food yes oh first my brother escaped first your father yeah my brother was after all my brother escaped um every my family membership and then these fears by one one by one so your father escaped to china yes did he tell you guys that he was escaping or no because it's so dangerous in north we don't do that right yeah so you can't even afford to say goodbye means gay yeah so he never told me i didn't know that what year did he stay for the first time my brothers at the time and great family and starvation started in 1996 and so he quit he fired the job so he just lost the job too so and then we don't have a food that much and then my mom teacher quit too so we don't have a he's supposed to take care of the kid but yeah no job no money so they don't know how to business too either so he posted escaped northern china to china so in 1996 he went to china he escaped 1997 seven years after year he tried to find a way but he couldn't did he come back later no he never came back so you have not heard from your father yes since 1997 yes when i 12 yeah i never oh my god so you how so one day you woke up he was gone um but like how do you know that he escaped he could have just like died from starvation right like a lot of family members during that time right now and never came back because they died on the road yeah but i heard that from my mom and after he escaped one month and my brother is escaped to not north korea to china to china so your mom heard about it but you never heard back from him ever again no never again wow so okay that's i mean we like when we talk to these north koreans right like you just saw like how this is like even normal right okay so that's your father's story and your brother and sister how they escaped then uh this is like a movie right now yeah so after my father escaped and you know it's a north korea system and after at the time it's 1997 and it's which means betrayed the country after my brother escaped and then our family is kind of like the surveillance so very under surveillance because your father escaped yes because of my brother of course you guys being targeted by the regime keep looking at it right right yeah that's why and we don't have pictures in north korea whatever we graduate high school and university even we cannot go to university too right because my brother escaped so and my sister my brother is know about little b so we don't have a picture in north korea forever you graduate the high school and you can not go to the higher so these are the things that's like the north korea got these things called this home system so this is something called the geared by association with one person in your family there's something wrong everybody in that family geared together like they say your blood is tainted right so that's why because of your father who escaped the euro brothers knew once they graduate from high school there was really nothing they could do in the in north korean society only thing they could become is like collective farmers but north korea farmers are so poor they cannot keep any grains it's a collective farm you have to give everything to the regime so you most likely if you're a farmer you're gonna die from starvation today your siblings realize that and that's why they escaped yes what year did they leave north korea oh second is my brother escaped it's 1999. in 1999 he escaped to china almost end of the famine time right it was oh wow and you're were you guys living on the border like the underwater dog in front of the river then like me so you were able to see china you're able to every day you guys get to see the lights from china people are reaching china so you knew china was better place of course they have a lot of productivity in you yeah you can smell it yeah north korea is all dark i know so but china there's a lot of like lights yeah so definitely we know uh so your brother is gay in 1999 and you haven't heard back from him have you heard him he won tywin yeah he came back yeah once once who was he arrested or he just came back voluntarily volunteering and he sneaked in back and then and he slipped it's one day one night and then and then okay okay and then she never come back and so you after that you never heard back from me okay yeah so guys so back then the north korea just escaped almost like the migration north koreans began in the 90s during this famine when your father was starting escaping right until then really nobody was escaping from north korea so back then though the security wasn't as tight like right now very impossible to escape but back then like regime even was not used to defectors themselves so even those like guards was not as like alert like right right now these days so okay so you haven't heard back from your brother since then and what about your sister it's a long story but yeah my sister tried escaped too after my brother too and my sister escaped to china but she sent it back she goes okay so she was arrested and caught and got back at the north korea oh how old was she when she she was 20 korean age yeah korean was like 18 like nine okay a teenager yes oh and i'm sure like back then they were not sentencing or that long time right back then was like they were still better than now of course yeah so he she got uh she went to the chair um just around two months right but then she tortures the police very hard because my brother my brother because my brother they they thought she connected with the brother so she told her this so difficult too hard because uh your state thought your sister found your father in china they were torturing her a lot more yes than they would have been and of course your sister didn't find your father in china yes she did not she doesn't just escaped but they thought and with the connected father right so that's why she gotten tortured way more okay more than others and did she eventually escaped again to china uh no no yes she passed away after that oh my gosh oh my god [Music] wow so from that torture that at like 18 or 19 she passed away yeah after two years from the yeah from disease they they get from the chair oh my gosh yeah yeah that's happening okay i i absolutely didn't expect that so now it was 2 000 around 2000 right uh how old were you when you were trying to escape oh i was 25 you're 25 and it was 2 000 what year were you escaping 2011 2011 so you were escaping after me yeah i was this game 2007. yeah so in 2011 when kim jong-un was new to the country that's when you're scared right when i heard it in thailand oh and then kim jong-il so right before his death you escaped yes so those people died oh people died before that yeah so what's your like story how did you find the people like how did you get out because if by the time 2011 that was pretty hard to get out right it was getting a lot harder by then now it's impossible but yeah now better than now but yeah the 2011 would steer the guards and the shooter gear order on the border they were really trying to prevent defection yeah but i don't have a choice because after my mother escaped so i have stays by herself so what so your father escapes your brother escapes your sister escapes then your mom when was she escaping oh yeah that's i was lost by one so i was living with the mom you're living in mom yeah until 25 and after two my mom escaped so i escaped i i don't have a living the anymore longer than in north korea there's no reason for you to stay there right right and did your mom tell you that she was escaping or she also didn't say anything oh she not really told me and i'm going i just she said oh i'm into school i'm just going somewhere but i don't but i guess i just guess by myself because if you see say sikko there you go and it's just only china only china is the only option so the other way why so when i was escaping i didn't tell my father either because yeah everyone do that but because it's like one if they know that you're escaping it didn't stop us if they get caught and tortured it's not good for them knowing that right yeah so one is we protect them and second is also they if they say don't go we have no option not to go yeah so we have to go that's why we do that for two reasons so your mom was living how what was a month apart like she was living in 2011 she escaped 2010 10 okay and then september and after three months my mom escaped i escaped 2011 on january yeah yeah so now let's go so you found a broker in north korea uh no no no at all i just yeah by myself you literally just crossed the river yes by yourself yes how though there are guards and everywhere how do you right find a spot that there is nothing possible yeah i was i was a little escaped uh scared too because i don't have a broke anything right and i don't have a relatively in china anything right you don't know anybody i was scared too so you found the spot that guards was not watching yes between the door the ships of the cars when they were shifting that's when you cross the frozen river in january right generally everyone must be frozen frozen yes so but the thing is that once you i have thought about it too but problem is if you go to china's side you don't know anybody right and you can get caught right so how did you figure out in china oh yeah so that's um as a my hometown is close by the china right and it's menu walk and it's just 50 minutes yeah that's it but then i scared to in the china police too my police would catch you yeah catch me because i cannot speak in chinese either so i'm scared so i just run around around the mountain under the mountain yeah turn around i just around six six hours six hours around the two city thought so you went over so you went to the mountain that the side where nobody really going by yeah you walk there for six hours so you run inside and going towards inside china not the border town because watertown is too dangerous yeah border town but it's close in it's close the city is very close but i mean it's clear that the garden isn't chinese for garden right right right so i just turned around so you went further from that like chinese guards yes and then what happens oh my god this is like who does that i heard these stories like people literally do that then you go there and then did you meet somebody or oh when i went to china city and then it was winter time so cold right it was so very cold so but i don't have nobody knows in china so i have to buy this one one better than outside because of course yeah i went to the awesome apartment apartments but lobby yeah and there was nobody there so i just stayed there in the lobby there's some chinese chinese they came asking that speaking china but i don't understand at all he tried to ask skin or gay in korea and then he spoke korean so he's trying to say in chinese and you don't understand don't understand yes you're north korean yes he guess guessed and then i reacted and answered oh i'm from the north korea but i need to find my mom in china so i but i don't know but i have some chinese people and then handle numbers so i asking i asked her to do the chinese user phone phone using the porn so he gave me to call the phone number but yeah i couldn't find my mother too so he asking me oh what can i how can i do no so you don't have weight now so uh i can't do anything i said like you can do anything good yeah i can do anything so i can walk in anything so yeah yeah he said he recommended one of the his brand and who worked as a business and child restaurant he recommended all the friends so he so he called his friend and said you're his friend yeah so he you're working as a waitress in the restaurant yeah in that border town yeah porter town it's close by my house and yeah how long were you working at the restaurant um four months four months yes after promos i worked for months even i don't understand in chinese right so i just carry up things yeah you're just doing a lot of just working because you're gonna serve because yeah yeah and after four months i just scared because the restaurant is a customer always the police coming right and just uniform change even not real the uniform but sometimes we are the uniform in the policy uniform i was so scared of course so i feel like not safe every day and so i escaped yes and then you and then i went to the part of this my hometown you went back to north carolina no no no no it's i'm not back there's no school yeah i just went to the escape from the restaurant there's all different parts of china here oh yeah yeah yeah okay yeah yeah yeah yeah and i went over there and and then i met someone some woman chinese man woman and then you knew what the chinese restaurant and she's she told me if you needed help and then just call me and then i had had a whole phone number so i called i want to really escape the ears again so he heard me and to escape the restaurant so i went the door in bienji and with the whole house and just around two months and i uh she held me in the to find my brother in china i in south korea so your brother was in south korea yes and then she had to find him in south korea yeah oh my god that's wonderful so your brother made it to south korea yes that's great yeah that's all yeah oh so that's how he was sending monies in the broker to get you through thailand to escape yes right from the china from china so you that's why you went thailand and why did did you then choose america because your brother was in south korea to go to south korea yeah yeah that's right yeah how did you know america i did a holiday from the mom your mom told you about this yes uh because one about my mom brother an elective's brother and he was living in usa oh yeah he visited north korea three times as a tourist yeah yeah and that's why she told me my mom told me between south korea but one thing south korea is i don't really i'm escaped a part of my hometown and my country that's why i just choose in america so you mean you didn't want to go back to korea because you left north korea or why you chose america again oh yeah i don't i want to skip this pattern then both father oh so you want to go furthest yeah are north korea you don't want to go anything closer to that country ever again right i i yeah yeah you know yeah yeah south korea just we divide it into the same country because right and i don't build even between the yeah you don't even feel safe there yeah me too if i go to asia i don't feel safe because i'm closer to north korea right when i'm in the west i feel like home i feel so safe right oh that's why you chose america but i mean in north korea we learn about america but like they tell us america is horrible americans are monsters yeah all right did you have that or what of course i heard you know um i kid i believe that of course right but after around 12 10 i'm not no so i'm just i'm not really here yeah you're not like you didn't believe the propaganda anymore but i say yeah that's of course nikita i believe that yeah yeah so now did you get to see your brother again after you came to america yes he came the usa too he can visit you in chicago oh you and i live in the theater oh you're living in seattle so when you came to america first time you were in the west coast oh utah utah yeah i went to salt lake city first time and that was two thousand you said twenty thousand twelve yes i ordered two in 2012 and you were in utah and then your brother came to visit you yeah how many years ago was a gap that you didn't see each other uh pretty dope he's 15 years old did you recognize him i recognize the little boys and they don't have yeah little but not too much yeah nothing i did i lost my sister for seven years too and i think if we just walked on the street without knowing that we were sisters i would not have recognized but because i was like 13 and i was 20 years old by the night i was seniors we were like kids and adults right so huge difference so you saw him and then now i know that you're still searching your mom right like uh you haven't heard back from her since then yes so i'm looking forward to my mom and your father yeah and my father too i think they're summer in china i think you're gonna see them i know like when you talk north koreans all of us have lost our family members like karai it's a universal thing that we all go through that to the family's tone apart and our spirit out everybody just spread yeah it's um well so now i know you actually recently started to speaking out and started this youtube channel called unicorn nation a very interesting concept so you guys are doing it we do one american one south korean one north korean yeah and you guys talking about a subject in a very different perspective and in a hilarious and informative way i will put a link down here guys you can check it out i'm so glad that you know usually there are not many north koreans in america right and i think more people like you decide to speak out and share your story i think we can really let the world know what's happening then we can collectively gather that voice and pressure our politicians to work with this chinese regime and north korean regime to treat north koreans in a better way yeah i respect human rights there but so now what's what uh are you happy being free yeah of course yeah are you are you satisfied yeah i'm satisfied hopefully you know of course even we don't know it's pretty means you know means but yeah i bound here you'll put it up what are you like favorite things you like to do in america or in chicago chicago [Music] i don't know i know you like eating so yeah i eat a lot so when i met you for the first time you're like oh you remember but you and i were the only one was eating for a night and they were like what's wrong with these two girls like eating throughout the night and then i was like there's someone like me sitting there just eating so much right so i keep telling people i still i'm like still catching up on food that i didn't get to eat as a child do you like american food or like any european food here uh i love everything i love everything i see a big foodie okay yeah and so you now how did you decide to do this youtube um yeah i decided youtube is it was the first time in the paul find my mother mm-hmm oh so yeah since 10 years i couldn't abandon my mother yet so but in co i tried to people corona i went to china but in no way pronoun so so you went trying to look for your mom i tried but i couldn't went to china so because why at the time i was studying you're studying so you and i didn't get the citizen too uh so yeah i didn't go yeah okay but then after get the city zone and then you got citizenship yeah right yeah after god tried to go but corona happening too such a bad timing yes sir i don't have to wait to find mouth so that's why i started to youtube to find the mother yeah so many people to the iman god kind of so some south korean tv show yeah tv show and they found his daughter so that's why i tried to have you gone on in manga yet not yet no yeah i've tried it okay yeah if you uh i will connect you to the thank you no problem yeah i mean i mean there's a guys i got on that show and i also got on that show to look for my sister and i said i know a lot of people north koreans watch that show in china and they find their family members so in a way that i i completely understand like i did all of this too to look for my sister that was the beginning yeah that's the beginning yeah that's like when i was like okay i'm trying to find finder and then you realize more and more how much the international community do not know what's happening to north korean people so i'm very grateful that you are joining this movement thank you and i thank you for inviting me no i cannot wait for the people to hear your story and i i don't think anything i can say to make you fear about what you went through it's just it's just unheard of you know this is only can exist in north korea right now and do you still talk to your brother right now yeah sometimes we kakoto oh you know yeah yeah korean app yeah yeah it's really pretty talking message too yeah you can connect to yeah does he want to come to america someday my guess is you want to someday yeah someday yeah but now he's okay being in south korea yes um anyway i mean i was such an honor and thank you so much for sharing your story i mean with me with us it's uh it's a privilege to you know hear that and thank you so much for being open to you i i guess yeah thank you for yeah it's very hard to talk about my study too no yeah thank you guys i know all you can do to support is that you know me for i mean first share this video so hopefully more people share and hopefully your mom somewhere in the world are gonna watch this video and also go follow you know nina's channel and get to know her get to know more like about variety of north korean stories because ultimately even we are coming from north korea everybody goes through a different journey and i think that's why you know i'm always very thrilled whenever someone like wanna come out and talk about their stories so guys i love you and i cannot wait to see you guys next time and we love you see you bye guys bye thank you

Channel: Voice of North Korea by Yeonmi Park

Views: 142,279

Keywords: North Korea, HumanRights, Culture, Freedom, NorthKoreanCulture, SouthKorea, Yeonmi Park, CCP, China, Defectors, NorthKoreanDefector, Trump, USA, Fox News, Conservative, Church, Libertarian, Patrick Bet-David, Valuentertainment, Park Yeonmi, NorthKoreanRefugee, Refugee, Women's Rights, Girls, Aisan Women, East Asia, Japan, Kimyojong, Kim Jong Il, American First, Communism, Capitalism, Asia Politics, North Korean Human rights, Justice for North Korea, In Order To live, North Korean Girl's Escape Story

Id: zRAae1V56qE

Length: 37min 32sec (2252 seconds)

Published: Wed May 12 2021