North Korea Captured Journalist & Kept Her For 140 Days

so we were walking the frozen river and there was no sign of a border whatsoever no wire bars no sign one of our producers shouted soldiers there were two small soldiers with rifles chasing us really fast and then i was filming as i was running reward or capture you should go to my head i want to survive what is the state of your mind are you in shock i cannot believe we got ourselves in a situation like this what are you thinking in that moment when you're with laura laura told me you know where the enemies we were so frightened but we're so calm as well at the same time how did you guys get rid of the footage and the notes that you had we ate the papers the papers you ate it wow they were trying to get all the information including the sources that we met was there any torture was there any psychological torture was there fear tactics what did you experience during those 140 days a day felt like a ten year did your opinion about north korea change meaning did it get worse or did it get better or just different it was hard to separate the people of north korea with government you know you're a prisoner in north korea for 100 old days but there are people living in that whole country i feel very lucky [Music] so my guest today is yuna lee who is a um best way to describe her as a documentary journalist that many years ago more like 11 years ago she decided to go to do a documentary with her friend her partner in china and north korea and suddenly they were arrested and they were in prison for 140 days i let her tell you the whole story it got to the point where president clinton and president obama had to get involved to help them bring him back to the states a very touching story and this was inspired after having a conversation with janome park many of you wanted to know more about different point of views of north korea and south korea so we decided to reach out to you and she was kind enough to say yes so you know lee thank you so much for being a guest on valuetainment thanks for having me so i know it's been a minute since this event you know st patrick's day march i want to say 17th of 2009 when you're out there trying to shoot this documentary with your partner i believe laura is her name and many times when you go through these types of experiences most people don't want to revisit it and keep telling the story all over and over and over again but uh you know sometimes uh the man upstairs or whatever you believe intends to use us in many different ways to either inspire educate or encourage others in their own ways and uh he you know and this has been you that's been chosen to have this story so i appreciate you agreeing to share this story but for some of the viewers that don't know the full story of what happened there can you go back and kind of tell us a little bit what was the purpose of the documentary and why did you guys choose to go to north korea and china to shoot this and how did this whole thing happen um so before we you know we i take you you guys to the the later day of march 17th i want to uh share how i ended up working on that documentary about human trafficking in china so it was a 2005 i was working for current tv at the time and i got to know about documentary course software it was about following it was about north korean defectors family for others and young little toddler and they were about to uh enter the consulate a consulate in china so because they were told that if they crossed the gate they would be safe and they made it safely to china and when they tried to cross the consulate gate and then they stopped by the chinese soldiers and there was a young girl who was standing confused and then scared while watching her mom and grandma was wrestling with the chinese soldiers at the time i had uh i just had a baby and she was 10 months old whenever i came home uh whenever i held my baby it reminds me it reminds me of that little toddler with pigtail wow and i told my husband we gotta do something about these people i heard about north korean defectors uh a dangerous journey uh to escape their country and uh their situation in north korea but my life was busy as well so i kind of uh moved on and four years later 2009 i had finally had my own opportunity to tell their stories and there were some reports about how numbers of north korean defectors growing still and their conditions especially for female defectors are really gotten worse in china and they were prayed to be human trafficking like they were sold to uh farmer's wives inaudible workers and sometimes they were deceived when they crossed and they didn't they don't even know what uh they are facing when they cross the border right so my team and i were we traveled to south korea and china to shed light on their conditions and it was a very important story to us to tell the world because there are so many stories out there people don't know about we thought this is one of the stories that people need to pay attention to their condition human rights in china so that was march 17 was our last day actually was filming in china and we next day it was a day that we were about to head to the u.s so in the morning very early in the morning we wanted to have the last shooting uh showing the border between china and north korea so we were at the north eastern china where the tuma river crossed between the countries and that's we're told that that's the route that a lot of north koreans take to escape and march 17 in that region is still freezing and cold winter time so river was still frozen so we were walking the frozen river and there was no sign of a border whatsoever no wire bars or no sign you don't know that if it's the border if we did we were not without fixer our fixer was pretty uh connected with the area and unaware of the situation he worked for nhk bbc on the same matter before us so we completely trusted him and when we were on the frozen river maybe a few about 30 minutes or so um filming the condition that how freezing it was and then where the you know this is the route that a lot of north koreans taking and one of our producers shouted soldiers so i looked back and there were two small soldiers with their uniform with rifles chasing us really fast so we all ran towards chinese soil as fast as we could one of our producers man was an avid runner so he disappeared fast and um my fixer our picture was running next to me he was like you know are you filming this and i thought this is crazy but i flicked my camera and put my own underarms and then i was filming as i was running wow so while you're running you're filming this entire event you never know what kind of fridge you're using you wanted to show the condition right this is the moment that this uh the fear that a lot of north koreans gonna face and in my head just don't if you shoot don't chew my head i want to survive right and when i was almost close to sinusoidal i saw laura lynn my colleague fell in front of me and i stopped and she said i can't i can't move my i can't feel my legs and i i didn't know what to do but i knew that i couldn't leave her there by herself she doesn't speak the language and then we were a team and um our fixer was and suddenly our fixture and me and laura was surrounded by these two soldiers and we heard about this north korean board border guards that how you can simply bribe them even defectors they can pay them to cross the border or sometimes if you're journalists you can give them some cigarettes to make a small talk so our fixer was telling me the money money so just give them bribes and money to escape that situation so i pulled that or whatever in my pocket and i gave to them and they did not want to take it wow so i knew something was going wrong and when my fixture was not able to fix the situation he ran as well maybe he wanted to take one of soldiers you know to to from the situation i don't know but i wanted him to run so that he can let someone our situation sure and now you know if you don't mind me asking how many total are you even the producer that's a very good runner how many total people were you yourself laura the fixer the producer that's four how many more were there good that was it okay got it and he i was wrestling with the um uh the one of soldiers scratched laura and the other surgeon grabbed me and i saw laura was uh fainted i didn't know that at the time she was hit but she was unconscious on the ice and um the other soldier was uh because i wasn't backing and you know i was trying to yell and screaming to get help from chinese soil china he raised his rifle to to hit me the more taking the motion and i looked at him and he was a such a smaller he was a small boy maybe 17 or so and he was a hesitant to him me at the time so i told him hey let me walk with you so i got up you're speaking in his language when you're saying this to him you're speaking in korean yes i spoke korean to him and we i got up and i crossed the river with him and that's how we ended up being detained in north korea now if laura couldn't walk would did the other soldier carry her or how did laura get there so i screamed laura's name so many times and she finally woke up from conscious so we walked to an army and and did you later on in life figure out why he didn't take the money from you i mean he he didn't try to take advantage of you guys the two two you know being two women there he didn't try they didn't try to do that they didn't try to take money did they tell you why they didn't take money or you never found out the answer to that question we we heard that the border security was very tightened at the time the the conditions and um honestly don't know why they didn't take money but yeah very interesting so now you go there so at this point they don't seem like to you they don't seem like they're bad people you see them as innocent young soldiers that are just trying to do their jobs these oh yeah yeah the these these were just uh like about my hair i'm only five two they were like my size and my eyes and then they were somehow they were nervous nervous as i we were i don't know why and i had some like recorded tape in my uh back then we used the tape small tape so taking my pocket i had a small flip phone that i used to contact people in china in my pocket so as they walked us to an army the army base uh in my head i have to get rid of them so i looked them and they they were i don't know they were just nervous they just told us on top so i dropped i was able to drop them one by one to get rid of them so that's that how much they were nervous too and when we arrived at the army base it was uh it was like a movie scene that i watched it from one of propaganda movie that i when i grew up in south korea it was a yard they had a study call that soldiers practice uh knife fighting and they had me stand there and laura told me you know where the enemies and the the flashy means that that i watched from a movie that you know the people are tight in the pool and then just being killed just flash it but instead uh an officer tall guy walked out of a small building um office building and he had a quote in his hand he handed the code to me and it's i did not realize i wasn't wearing code at the time because i had some phone numbers in my coat pocket so while i was wrestling with the soldiers on the frozen river i got out of the court to leave that coat on the river and my teeth were channeling but i was so nervous that i didn't even realize and then he had miscourt so i was able to keep myself warm so that's a nice gesture from him that's probably not expected to see something happen like that not at all because at this point are you and laura frightened are you are you how i mean what is the state of your mind are you in shock are you meaning we i cannot believe we got ourselves in a situation like this we're about to go back to america we got all the footage that we got how do we find ourselves in this situation what are you thinking in that moment when you're with laura we were so frightened but we're so calm as well at the same time and then you know i think i can speak for her but i wanted to believe that there is a chance that we can go back if we talk to them some we can get out of this situation somehow and we talk to each other like let's read all these slogans what he says and remember all these details you know because we were still in the mode of making documentaries so that we didn't know what was ahead of us but we were just at the moment that we're still gonna we're gonna finish these documentaries so so while you're there i'm trying to get so is it just you and laura and the two are not with you the fixer and the producers no longer with you at the time i didn't know but laura had a lot of michael and her when she was captured and then she told our producers keep running so so they were don't don't come back keep running and then our fixer ran and we both hoped that they would go somewhere to report our situation can you imagine like if we were or captured then no one would know where we would be so so so in a way the other two not getting captured helped you get uh free eventually because of them being able to go away and telling people that you guys were captured i believe so i believe so and we had to protect our sources as well the people who we interviewed who for them to run would protect them as well in china and also you know to help us uh situation now what did you do with the footage was the footage and the notes you took was it with you how did you guys get rid of the footage and the notes that you had or was it with the producer and the fixer so some of the phrases that we filmed in south korea i left with my family before we came to china and some of the uh footages we we found in china was i heard that it's confiscated by chinese police but luckily when we met any defectors in china we were very careful filming there to to hide their identity so we did not film their faces did you i've read somewhere where you guys the way you got rid of some of your notes is you ate the paper did you guys actually eat some of the notes or or or is that uh it's a pretty accurate statement i read yeah it is uh it seems like a long ago so faded in a uh image but it was the first day that we were captured we were uh moved to another from army base we moved to another place we don't know where and and they put us in a room there were a sure moment that we were just ourselves so i what i knew was i know that at some point they're gonna find out what we did but we need to have uh keep it delayed as long as we can so we rip the uh tapes that we had we progressed it because these people took the camera that we filmed on the ice they were figuring out what they what how camera works and then you know what they were in there so we were with our physicians uh in the room so we ripped the tapes and then there were some memos that we ripped it that that can be uh that has uh uh one of sources uh name so we ripped it i i gave a half to laura and then half we i told laura to eat it and we ate you ate the tape no we ate the papers the papers you ate it wow did they ever during that 140 days find out that you were documentary journalists or they never found out they they did they did not find it out for for a couple of days we told them we were a student film student and then we followed a professor to just film the border we were reporting about the economy situation at the border and they didn't figure it out they had a very limited uh people speak english but they were able to figure things out they uh interrogated laura and they separate and then the sum of numbers did not match and then laura in english we were um they put us uh in cells next to each other laura was actually asking you know should we tell them and we we we just wait a little bit wait a little bit and then until the moment that we had to tell them that we are from current tv the day uh so so while you're there the 140 days what what what experience did you have was there any torture was there any psychological torture was there fear tactics what did you experience during those 140 days the the one thing that really surprised me was these people i grew up in south korea so north korea was always annoying to us we grew up with these very animated uh stories that how norse grand theft auto brutally killing people innocent people during the court of during the korean war and hearing the story about young south korean boy being brutally killed by north korean soldiers because he said he doesn't have communists so they were a very scary figure to me but whoever i met not everybody was scared here they some of them had very kind eyes and it don't get me wrong you know when we were moved to the capital city of pyongyang long interrogation they had very still tactics to just break our you know psychologically break us down so it was a long psychological better and difficult time but even during that time i was able to find some human kindness humanity in those people what was it more uh uh because the way you uh describe it it doesn't sound like it was that bad of 140 days it just sounds like you were in jail so did you have terrible experiences or was it just pleasant experiences you had there oh you cannot be pleasant experience that's why i was asking that because you know from and the reason why i'm asking this question is because you know for the viewer we don't know north korea uh because we've not been there right obviously we had the anami park she gave a whole different perspective and then we hear what we hear in the news and how uh close north korea is with china and china has north korea's back and not a lot of countries trust north korea and you hear human trafficking you hear all these other things torture all these things you hear about and if you look at all the countries in the world the darkest country in the world with lights is north korea and for someone like you that's there visually it's it helps the world audience especially since we have 190 different countries plus that follow the content here it helps for them to get a little bit more educated on what happens in some of these prisons of north korea for us to get educated so if you could give us the humane side of what it was where the people or the people is different than the government and and the torture side or the challenge what are the two polar opposite sides for us to get a better perspective what would that be i think because because we were foreign journalists and then there were us very slight slings of chance that they would send us back home i think they were careful with us what we can see what we cannot see so in at the border when we are in the cell it was just a regular cell that anybody just seen like maybe they just sell that north korean defectors like would go in there too so it was a poor condition did not have the bathroom condition was horrible and just food was just poor we received a small vegetable like cabbage dish with a porridge that i don't even know if it was rice or it was a corn that was a condition true condition but when we moved to when we moved to pyongyang it luckily i was putting in a place that it's like i guess the house had a place with a bedroom and right next to it was a guard room but even it doesn't matter where you are uh put it in you are what you're a prisoner watched 24 7 by guard and then they were recorded every conversation that had with me or any of my activities and as you know us does not have a diplomatic relations with north korea so i was not able to visit it i mean no one was able to visit me for 140 days except the swedish ambassador who visited us i think maybe twice and it was about 10 minutes each time so i dealt with the the four words every day and you know how your life was goes by so fast here we're so busy with all this kind of information there a day felt like a ten year yeah and yes they did not hit me physically and i'm very i feel very lucky but that's just me i know so many testimonies out there from those grand defectors how physically they were harmed and abused and whenever i received a single meal the it was rice and soup and some fried uh fish and vegetables very simple meal but even that i was so thankful because i know so many north koreans were not even getting those kind of meals now the 140 days while you're there are you and laura in the same room or no you and laura are not seeing each other at all no after we knew we were next to each other when we were at the border cell when they moved us to pyongyang in the middle of the journey they separated us and i we didn't know we were not going to see each other until we came home you knew that already that you're not going to see each other you come home and did they use manipulative tactics to pin you guys against each other or laura said this oh yuna said this oh laura said this oh she already told us the truth or you know were they using those stories to pin you guys against each other or no they did they did a pretty good job on it it's uh they were trying to get all the information including the sources that we met in china but luckily laura does not speak korean so she couldn't pronounce anybody's name correctly and at the time i knew just one guy's name very clearly but i would not really said his name because i knew that she couldn't she doesn't she didn't know his name and the rest of them it was a i was in social mode that i couldn't even remember the details even though they repeatedly need to say this and that and i just couldn't remember the details so they did not get much out of us that that is uh that is fascinating that she did now laura ling was she born in the states i know you were born in south korea was she born in the states i believe so yeah okay got it and you were born in south korea and how old were you when you came to the states or you left south korea uh 24 i pretty much grew up in south korea so yeah and your reasoning for leaving was to go to the art school i believe right to come out here and go to art school and i think even eventually well recently after you got out in 2012 i think you got a degree from columbia university i believe yeah so um well i started film because even when i was young i knew that the film has good uh powerful impact on people's lives and i so some of the people who made the story about a mascara in south korea in 1980s in one city that was really the people were killed by uh armies but the street didn't uh was not going out so those films was going like we this group actually projected this film in colleges in late 80s and then they were chased by police officers because of the directions so i knew how much impact that film can make and slowly that when i came here after i came here i got a job at a tv uh station and i wanted to do something more rewarding i i didn't know what that was and then the documentary came to the opportunity came to to me it's still today documentary production isn't isn't there is many opportunities for documentary journalists and that was we're very lucky to have that opportunity and um yeah that's how i ended up working on documentaries after 2000 instant i kept thinking that what did i do wrong what did i just wrong well how could i have made it better and that brought me to decide to go to uh the you know the best journalism school in the us so i studied geology at columbia it's very impressive i mean it doesn't get better than that it's one the best of the best out there people who know the world it's a great school to go to now you know for somebody that lived in south korea for two i lived in iran for 10 years and i remember going to school and all i heard a million times was married battle and recalled married bad umbrica which is death upon america and america was the worst country in the world they hated people they hated iran they bullied everybody it was all these bad things i always read about iran right growing up in school in south korea a free nation you're not necessarily dealing with you know all the other things that north korea deals with i think there was an army base in korea called camp casey a lot of our soldiers used to go to camp casey but when you were growing up in south korea in school cartoons education history how did south korea's educational system and media paint america how do they paint russia how do they paint china and how do they paint north korea i'm curious oh i you know actually i don't really remember how they painted about other countries like iran and china back then but north korea was hardly mentioned on news at the time negro it was only the top propaganda like education taught in schools that how we have to be careful about the north korean spies still out there we need to report to police we made the posture about how we can protect our country from north korea because they went through korean wars and they did not want us to go through another war north korea and south are technically under army states right since korean war ended in 1953 so it doesn't mean that we're spending where peace we're still it's under army so that's the education that we received and about america i think they have the two different views about america some people really appreciate america's health for korean war and some people blames america that the korean division was because of american and russians involvement that's how much i remember that's how much you remember when you were there got it so so why do you think you said the media didn't say anything about north korea but education did is that what you were saying that media wasn't talking bad things about north korea but educational system was it was just not we did not really talk here about north korea media like two days but you hear about north korea all the details there are so many defectors about 30 000 defectors living in south korea now they clearly speak about human rights violations in north korea and some people who speaks english english calling out international attention on uh north korean defector situation in china so so for you when you went through the 140 days of being there did any of your opinion about north korea change oh i'm sorry patrick can you repeat it again yes when you went to north korea and you were there for 140 days i mean in the military jail all these other places and you know your you know all these things that they're doing to you did your opinion about north korea change meaning did it get worse or did it get better or just different it it's uh different i so i kind of uh understood where they're coming from and why they hate south korea so much why they hate the us so much and that's something that similar experience that i had that growing up south korea that they taught propaganda towards uh south korea as well so i understood where they're coming from at the same time i felt very sad for the people in north korea because they're getting limited edited information so the information they're receiving from their government is partially true and then partially incorrect and that's uh it was something that unbelievable for me to see that these people are watching the news about uh uh an older lady blind lady open her eyes because after drinking some drink from their leader and who would believe that story and these people are watching this kind of news stories and they believe it they watch about how horrible economic situation and affordable human condition in south korea and western countries that's what they believe in that's how much they know when when you were in south korea and there was 30 000 you said 30 000 defectors today i don't know the exact number when you left because you lived there 24 years that's a long time to live over there 24 years did you have any friends that were defectors did you have any uh classmates that were defectors did you have any peers you were spending time with that were defectors oh you did not nobody it wasn't i've been being numbered uh you know you have to have a broker nowadays to escape north korea at that time it wasn't a big big deal even 2004 there weren't many 2009 there weren't many numbers who said it in south korea there were some studies that from international organizations and news reports said that there were about 150 to 300 000 north korean defectors living in china but none of the number was just you can really say which number is correct but until 2019 there are about a little bit over 30 000 north korean defectors settled in south korea did you have any friends and co-workers and classmates that escaped north korea to come live in south korea that you befriended no it would be very rare situation if even if they escaped north korea in certain ways that they would be quiet so i had no friends who came from north korea but uh after after i came home i made some friends uh defective north korean defectors did they change your mind at all about north korea or did it make you uh see even the uglier side that they're you know maybe hiding from the populace because one of the things that you said which was very interesting is when you went to the prison the 140 days that you were there they didn't really combine you with other prisoners because if they were by any chance gonna free you they didn't want you to have that story to go back and tell the world so when you did get a chance to spend some time with some of the defectors did you sit there and say i cannot believe the atrocities that uh the government it's you know passing down to the people did you experience that hearing the stories no actually we never really talked about north korea when we sat together but you know how more like you know how we can help these people like to uh the situation better not people in north korea but people in uh in china uh that's something that we we talk about but it's not about like north korean government because we already were known even though i did not have that experience i read so many stories uh from north korean defectors what they faced when they are when they when chinese government forced them back with patriotism on them they would face they would go to labor camps educational camp or political camps some are executed so we we already know the story that how horrible situation they would put it in if they are captured in china and sent back to north korea oh so a lot of the folks from north korea that escaped to china didn't want to tell anybody because if they were captured the chinese government would send them back to north korea that is the problem because chinese government even though international law and experts and then international organizations seized the north korean defector situation as the refuge category of the un's convention in relation to their refugee status china denies to give them refugee status asylum status so and they see them as a labor immigrant so they would send back to north korea where they face persecutions it's what i experienced myself as well a lot of people that were escaping iran that came to the states i even remember ayatollah khomeini telling the carter that hey send back the shot to iran we'll take care of them and they wouldn't want to do it because they were going to experience persecution a lot of the people that were baha'i religion they were being found and a lot of bad things happened to them there was a even a comedian in germany that was found in this hotel room far i believe that that's his last name but the story is a pretty ugly story what they did to them so i wouldn't be surprised but if if you don't mind continuing the whole 140 days you know some other experiencing leading to the end of it is there any other thing that's visual that sticks to you till today that you're comfortable sharing with the rest of us something that actually um i remember is because of the north korean that is portrayed on media maybe not nowadays anymore but back then they were like a robotic people like we we've seen people like crying group people crying for uh at the uh for their leader staff and then we just uh don't understand that how someone somebody can the person can be so royal to this leader or this country and they were we thought they were very robotic people but in some way that the people were like people human and i saw whenever i saw people like making smaller chats or a smiling and have a smile on their faces that was something that like drying moments to me i i don't think i understood what what do you mean by that the smiling faces it's uh yeah i would not think that there was a smile naturally you know if they would smile when their tortoise smile they would cry when their tortoise smile i didn't think they have a uh free free to express themselves but they were a moment that i saw that they had a free expressions and that was that told me that they were human like us that's when i stopped the humanities humanities then is that the moment where you spend some time with the two guards the guard a and guard b the two ladies that so of moments that i i spent time and some moments that i spent with my interrogators and some of the scenes that i watched on tv and i had a very small limited access to interact with people but even that that's that's the sense that i received in guards they often ask me like how do you pronounce this she studied in english and that's another thing that i was surprised because uh um back when i was young then i i was told that north korea didn't does not teach people english because the u.s is their enemy right so they were running russian as a second language but what i saw was people were very interested in learning english because it's international language they wanted to be part of international so they were learning english and discard was they were singing i don't know if they were trained or planned to sing they were singing a song some indians my heart would go on and those are the moments that like wow you know did i think that the north koreans were a did i have to stereotype nursery did i equated north korean people with this government north korean government too much did i equate the north korean people with the north korean government are you trying to say that maybe the north korean government was vicious and uh you know no lack of accountability or concern for human rights while the human the the people of north korea were regular people like you and i is that kind of what you're saying you found a way to differentiate between the two yes uh you're correct you are correct even though we see no screen as a regime and then the the future country and has no human right you know has human rights violation all the time in the country but people are people the policy is towards north korea we we can't forget about that there are people living in that country do you think sometimes the way the media pins north korea makes us look at all north koreans that way is that what you think happens sometimes i am amazing i grew up like that you know watching and reading about north korea that it was it was hard to separate the people of north korea with government so so at what point did you when when you were going through this 140 days at what point did you hear that you're going to get sentenced for 12 years when when was that moment when you got word you're going to get 12 years of labor how did that happen so after about three months of interrogations uh we were asked that there will be a trier and the north korean government actually offered me a lawyer that if i want to use their lawyer and i refuse to use a lawyer and um it was about three days prior and at the end of the trial it was june 3rd i believe that they sent ben fit me for 12 years in labor camp 12 years in labor camp and when when that news was given to you what was your reaction and were you and laura together when you were told 12 years we were in the courts together it doesn't mean that we're talking to each other but yes and that was the first time that i really crashed it and i held a pretty strong poncho that moment and whenever 12 years i i didn't think that i would just i could survive for 12 years i was already physically still weakened and then just thinking about not seeing my daughter at the time she was born for 12 years and i just couldn't i just couldn't handle it so i crashed it on the ground and then cried i didn't care who's watching me but i cried really loud you know it seems like you didn't want to show any weakness to these folks for 140 days why is that i i thought if uh i think that's the part of that's a probably same as i didn't know uh if i become weak i thought that i'm giving up hope assumes of hope so i had to be strong and then hopeful then there is a every day i felt like it's a one day closer to go home that was uh that that's how i stayed strong until they told me 12 years so when they told you 12 years did you at that point have the ability to make any phone calls or no that was it you're going back to work and you know do what you do or how quickly did you get some good news uh it was regarding the 12 years either it was june 3rd and 24th that i heard it was 12 years and then they were i heard that they were discussing um that where labor camp that they're going to send i think they were in discussion because the interrogator he the interrogator who told me that uh that you might be together with laura or one day king you know story is different and but we came on on august uh fours so two months for two months they were still discussing the weather what what whether they're gonna actually send us to the labor camp or i don't know but we were i was just praying that when i get out of this place i'll go home not a labor camp because the labor camp the stories is just under human conditions and i already learned about from the vector stories so i couldn't see myself surviving in a labor camp what what did you hear that happen at the labor camps exactly there are hardly any food and then you do the hard labors for all day and some people because of the lack of food that they usually see some people even just to catch mouths and like they try to survive themselves in mouths and things like that so um and they they say that they see people dying in their cells and some people don't even care because they're so hungry and starving and when they receive food your person next to you just died and then you to get that food to eat because you're hungry that's uh that's the kind of story then that i heard over and over uh how did the news get delivered to you that you're gonna be free and being able to come back home so i was lucky to receive some letters from home of course there's no news about me coming home but i i learned that how a lot of people were working on our cases that you know raising voices you can see in the back here back a banner that i um kept it from 2009 it was from one of details that people wrote messages to us that stay strong so that was a message that i received from home and north korean uh government did not even tell us until we come home that we're going to go home they the day before we came home they told us that you have a visitor from the u.s and very high officer teacher and then i asked the guy who delivered the message i asked him is there a way to is this moving forward or is this the way it tends to go backwards and he said oh i think it's moving forward so i knew that was there something that good things going on and they took that was the first day that um except the except at the corridor he said that was the first that i met with laura and that we were able to talk and then they sent us a hotel it was a korean hotel and then they had us wait in the room for over an hour and i talked to laura and who thank you who visited us and i told her if i just she goes maybe jimmy carter or this is you know it would be anderson we told we talked about all the names that we we knew who's to associate with north korea we bill clinton wasn't president bill clinton wasn't even on the list and and i told her i don't think i would recognize jimmy carter if i had president jimmy carson there you know it's his or the image that i remember is an old picture and and they finally told us that you're gonna go to that room and when we went to a room there were some people with uh not korean people with the earpiece and then standing around so we knew that okay somebody was very important here and there were two double doors and they opened the double door there was a president clinton standing with uh his gray hair had a big like the window that had the light backdrop on him and uh and he looked like an enter to me so he opened his arms and we ran towards him and um he gave us a hug and he asked us if well we're doing okay physically doing okay he told us that you know [Music] i can't promise anything at this moment but i will if we go we'll be able to be on the plane physically and we we told him like of course i'm not gonna say no yeah yes yes and we saw him meeting uh north korean liver at the time kim jong il and on the news and so kim jong-il kind of had a smile on his face on those pictures so we thought oh something's going on something's getting better it's getting better and laura was excited and i was excited at the same time too we're still in the same room and i i told her let's not open the champagne batter yet i so i kept praying and kept praying until about four in the morning they told us pack our stuff and then we went we were pardoned and we went to the airport get on the plane what point did you fully feel free like did you feel free at that moment when you were pardoned or when the plane took off and when you were on the plane were you on the plane with president clinton or you were on a separate plane no we were on the plane with the president clinton and his team and he had uh he he asked us if we want to make funko to home uh to family so we're sitting on the uh north korean soil and we i made a phone call to my husband and i told him again i'm the plane with president clinton he goes don't no don't call me back when you're in the air so he did not want to open the champion yet until the plane takes off so i called him back after playing takes off and then i finally felt everything felt so surreal you know you're a prisoner in north korea for 140 days and next day you are in a private chat with the president clinton and everything that is so surreal when you land and you're getting off the plane and you see uh the picture of your daughter hugging you in that moment what do you what are you thinking are you do you still remember it till today can you go to that emotion till today to know what it felt like to hold your daughter again yeah of course that was uh the moment that makes me really emotional but the happiest moment at the same time um i when i well to her i thought that she would recognize me right away i didn't know how much the four months would do to this four-year-old girl and she looked very confused so i opened my arms and hannah can you give me a hug it's mommy and she gave me a hug and then that's uh that's the moment that i felt like i wanted this moment so badly i wanted to hold my baby so badly and yeah i mean when you watch it you know your daughter you you know that was she's 15 now your daughter had four she was hanging on to like glue you couldn't separate her from you the way she was hugging you it's very emotional as a parent watching that moment uh what it felt like for you uh and your husband being there and it's just a it's a fascinating story to see you guys decide to your story of you wanting to get into film because you want to make impact and you choose documentary which at a point where it's not really a lot of jobs to do it's tough to make money and documentary to hire people and you have the privilege of doing that and you take a project like this and right before coming to the states you guys get captured uh uh it's a powerful story you know uh as you as you look back now that was 2009 to tune out to now a lot's changed you know it's a different world we're living in today than 2009 and when things like this happen to you you know sometimes it makes us want to research a topic a little bit more because we're so close to it when a kid grows in a foster home in the ages he kind of wants to find a way to give back to foster kids when somebody is raised in a domestic violence environment and the son sees daddy abusing mom that son wants to do something for domestic violence you know when somebody experience human rights they want to give back for human rights where you're at right now and what you experience what is your opinion now about kim young own and north korea you mean the the current leader of kim jong-un current leader yes forgive my pronunciation so i may have pronounced it wrong but yes the current leader what what am i what's my opinion about kim jong-un um there are news about him that how he's uh he to be honest with you um it's not because of uh i had the experience with uh um because of my experience in north korea it doesn't mean that i follow the north korean news every day it's more like i do feel responsible for people in north korea and people who we met for the interview for the documentaries because because we never had a documentary released as we uh promised although our case that told the bigger story about nurse grandfather situation but that there are some parts for me to feel guilty that i did not need to admit their promise and but for the countries it doesn't mean that i was following the news on the north korean leaders and north and the contr the the current situation i don't think their situation is better better than 10 years ago even though north korea has a different tactics right now they have youtube channels to connect with the viewers they know that how their country has been seen in a dark the way that it's human rights violations and dark you know economic conditions and people are starting so they don't want to show those kind of words so what they're doing is now they are they want to refresh their image so they have a youtube channel showing that how a wonderful pyongyang is all those things but that's a pyongyang we all know that pyongyang is a if you're a citizen living in pyongyang you're a special citizen but what about what about the rest of the countries that people living and um i heard about the sanctions making their economy conditions more difficult and people are starting to having difficult times so i on and off i think about them and then you know my job is continue to produce stories that that the true information the liberty information for the people who are in the place and countries like north korea otherwise they can get the truth and part of the reason that i work for voice of america is because uh the korean service was starting to tv team in 2017. the day they produced news for people in north korea and that's a part of the reason that i decided to work for voice of america and now i don't i no longer will be able to create the korean service but it's a broader aspect that i will continue to you strategize the videos efforts for voice of america so we continue to provide this information for not only people in north korea but people in countries like iran china and russia other otherwise they wouldn't get the truth you know you know forgive me if if i'm wrong here uh and i'm if i'm wrong just say pat you're absolutely wrong i i get a feeling you you hold back a little bit going against north korea where you're either being extra careful or you're you're almost not wanting to kind of uh say anything bad uh against the uh regime of north korea am i wrong or is there a little bit of hesitation on your end no you it's not no i don't i don't have a hesitation but what i'm careful is i don't i don't want because of what we created news out there i don't want people to forget about people living in north korea you know of course we have to throw a destination of course we have to stop the regime to to test missile all these things but you know like iran then when there was sanction on iran what i heard from iranian people friends what they're saying is that the people suffer the food suffered is not government it's a people so that's what i'm careful about when i say something towards north korea i don't want people to forget about you know when you focus on the government how horrible this government is but there are people living in that horrible country uh so so you're referencing the fact that sanctions are what made the conditions bad in north korea and iran not necessarily the government is is that kind of what you're insinuating or no no that's uh one of course um i'm just exampling sanctions because sanctions you you're from iran and sanctions on iran and north korea are similar situations but what we need to be that's the politics that's politics the government the government but the for the human level that we have to think about people yeah no i i fully agree but you know what do you do with a government that's not that doesn't prioritize human rights that doesn't value human rights that doesn't uh look at people as any kind of value do you just let them do everything you can in your power or do you impose sanctions for them to know that you can't go abusing people like this your entire life we have to find a way to have some kind of a revolutionary regime change because if it continues people's lives are going to be continuously taken so what do you do about it do you just sit on the sidelines and watch it happen or do you find ways i don't have an answer for answer patrick and then you know that i'm not saying that we just let them abuse people right the government abuse people and um while governments are you know doing their part i think there are people as journalists we have our job to do it as well we will continue to report you know about human rights violation in the countries we don't stop reporting about the conditions but what i am you you mentioned that i'm being careful about about talking about north korean government it's not because uh i agree with what they're doing it's because i'm careful because what the word i don't want people to have same experience without what i had i i i dehumanitize them when i grew up in south korea i heard about so many news about north korean government that there was no people in my mind maybe i don't understand what you mean by that so are you are you saying that even the powerful people in the government that are seeing evil even deep down inside they're good people where they there are people like you and i is is that what you're saying just average people that's what i'm saying because we the powerful people that we are so focusing on we forget about the people average people you know the question then becomes what do you do for these guys you know how do you how do you help them you know i mean the media has to do their best to do what they do but then what do governments do i lived in iran and you know i i wish the iranian revolution would have never happened because i would still be living in iran i wish there was uh uh because the moment the revolution in iran happened conditions in iran got worse a half a million people died in war that shouldn't have happened we didn't need to have a war like that but unfortunately things changed in iran when carter came and visited and he left right after he left the revolution started in iran and it cost a lot of people's lives and you know these kinds of memories they stay you know because you experience it firsthand so you so you so you think about it and you remember it from that perspective so do you think just last question on this topic here do you think the approach being taken from other countries around the world towards countries like north korea china and iran is the right way to go about this with sanctions or do you think there's better ways to go about it [Music] um it's a you can never find the right like the perfect answer for it governments make that decision because they believe saying that it is uh the right decision right and um i think history will tell and at the end that later later that if it was working or not so i do something at the end called speed round i'll give you a name so what are your thoughts when you think about bill clinton my rescuer your rescuer i bet of course uh what do you think about when you think about uh barack obama one word it has a heart for uh average person like me okay very cool what do you think about trump trump trump he communicates on social media okay good that's a safe answer how about kim jong-un kim jong-un is a a young mind leader that once made change of north korea but did not make change much okay and then biden was running against trump who's running against trump you know you should consider politics because you're very political with your answers i think you could you could have a career in politics but look more than anything else uh uh i um i'll give you the final thoughts you know with with everybody watching everything and seeing what's going on with the current conditions in the world today what are your final thoughts thinking what the future is going to be for folks who are living in north korea and how we can uh or what we can do you know positive thoughts positive for you know outlook on what could potentially happen in the future with the folks in north korea um you know like i recently worked on a history uh history uh pilot that was about ballin wong that how it collapsed because of the collectible will of young people i know it's so hard for north korean to have collective voices because they are watching each other but one day i hope that they will be able to have a corrected voice they will be able to have a will to have to find better freedom i love that and i hope they get a chance to see this to have your point of view i know it's been 11 years since the event but uh every once in a while it's good to be reminded of history and things that have been taking place and i appreciate you being willing to relive that moment for the last hour and give us a different perspective of what it was like to be a political person i'm not even a political person but be a prisoner for 140 days and eventually be free so uh yuna lee again thank you for your time we're going to put the link below to your book for anybody that wants your book you can go to the link below and be able to order her book the stories are even deeper in her book i know it's been 11 years but she gives a completely different optic on what she experienced and with that being said you know again thank you for making the time for being a guest on valuetainment thank you so much patrick so different than jonami parks interview that i did a few weeks ago where she was a defector escaping north korea at 13 years old she goes to china and she becomes a slave she gets sold for two three hundred dollars and finally goes to south korea eventually finds her way here but here's a story of somebody that was in south korea for 24 years comes to the states decides to do a documentary with her friend laura and they go up there they're about to finish it up they get arrested 140 days and they're supposed to do 12 years of labor hard labor and they eventually are set free and she meets president clinton and she comes back to the states when you heard this perspective of her story i'm curious to know what your biggest takeaway was i actually am to know from you what your biggest takeaway was from her point of view as somebody shooting a documentary did it change anything on your thoughts about human rights about north korea about south korea about china anything of what she said if yes comment below and if you have not yet seen the interview with jonami park where she gave a speech nine years ago or eight years ago in two days she got 50 million views when she gave that speech at a young age and then we had a chance to do a follow-up interview with her if you've not seen that yet it's very powerful click over here to watch that interview and if you've not subscribed to the channel please do so thanks for watching everybody take care bye

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 195,726

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur Motivation, Entrepreneur Advice, Startup Entrepreneurs, valuetainment, patrick bet david, Euna Lee, North Korea, North Korean prisoner, North Korean Military, North Korean Hostage, Bill Clinton, Obama, Kim Jung Un, Little Rocketman, Valuetainment, Short clips Valuetainment, PBD, Patrick Bet-David, Valuetainment Patrick Bet-David, North Korean Prisoner, Life in North Korea

Id: p30xnQyrhOc

Length: 66min 25sec (3985 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020