Yeonmi Park: My escape from North Korea

ladies and gentlemen there is a nuclear power named North Korea it's run by a 32 year old his name is Kim jong-un but there's another Korean powerhouse she's just turned 22 and her name is Yong Ming Park North Korea is regarded as one of the most secretive societies in the world they called it the Hermit Kingdom we don't know enough about its stories but Yong Ming Park began her book quoting Joan Didion who said we tell our stories in order to live welcome young B Park we feel so privileged to have you with us today and in such good health anyone who reads your book will have first of all just one question to ask you first of all and that is how are you I'm great actually I think more than grade many people ask me how you're not messed up after all that and I dare to say that my life was a victorious life it was a glorious life and in Europe a I don't think of me as a dick him even this crazy dictator he's very strong but I think he's younger than the truth and does justice so I'm great for that I had opportunity to fight for my freedom and to be here on this stage and tell for myself and had this voice because you book is extraordinary it's a story it's the story the astonishing story of Yong Ming Park it's a story of your country but it's also the story of your mother your father your sister and me and I think in South Korea right now your there I think you call it uma and your sis your older sister and me maybe watching on the Internet ladies and gentlemen you gave a welcome to young me part please join in welcoming her mother and her sister if they were here today they would also share in your success and you you say in your book that you there's two things you are grateful for first that you were born in North Korea second that you escaped from North Korea so let us begin at the beginning when you were born in North Korea the the introductory video we talked about how you had a life of privilege but that changed all too soon when your father was arrested for for smuggling but tell us then what is your most abiding memory of growing up in North Korea what sticks with you to this day I think everything is so strong experience so even stay in my dream I'm in North Korea everything is different here I instance I was young I grew up without the fear there that my mom told me not even whisper because the birds and mice is going to hear you the birds and mice might hear you you were scared of everything that to speak out yeah and I learned how not to express since I was young and I never learned the words what's critical thinking and then never allowed to think for myself and most of our you're hungry and I didn't even care what critical thinking was but the other thing was just an amazing hear people saying I'm sports no fan I like this actress I like that I like that but you don't have a luxury to like something else other than surviving our life just surviving how to make for next year what would have been you went to school in North Korea you say it didn't teach you to think a typical class be like for example you talk in your book about the arithmetic lessons and how they describe them for you so first of all I didn't know where you habla Katie and my mom doesn't know herself and I think I learned the math and it was very quite different here I learned by the math like problem was there are four American pastors and you took care of them and how many American pastors left here and I said true American pastors because they never just said American it was either it was long or American bastards and yeah that's not a verse you know I'm staying here in the West a verse here yeah but you had to go to school when so often you were hungry and one of the many striking things in your book is how you have to deal with such hardship when you are so young for example when your mother first left you to go to visit your father who was in prison and she left you and your sister you were only eight and for a month you had to live on a bag of rice and you did end up starving can you remember what that felt like even though you were just eight I stopped for a long time on joyous ko8 anything you can get from the nature grasshoppers and dragonflies and I remember because I cannot imagine hear people say did you have a shower and I think has a pastor water drops you above you I could not imagine have running water absolutely not and I was eight years old and my sister was 11 years old we had our clothes in the big book and it got river and we wash our clothes and we like wash our serves and winter time you go there and they bring the water and let me cook there so it was not like I imagine the life here and this is one of the anecdotes when you go to the river and you can look across to see a Chinese village and you can see the little boy on the other side and he accuses you he says you're you're you're starving you don't have anything to eat and you say oh you big fat Chinese boy yeah so you could you could see what it was like on the other side yeah I grew up delights from because non-historic and we never had this right ii imagine you are having lights we need process which in turns the lights on and I wondered why China they have lights which we don't have and her so when I go to Riverside the Chinese the ethnic Korean case coming out say hey are you hungry there I'm saying you're fat Chinese this was could you say how to this day you're afraid of dark is let's let's show people what it was like what North Korea is like literally plunged in darkness at night you see that North Korea darkness South Korea a nation full of lights so that would have been you obviously saw it from from the ground level I think at this photo defines North Korea the darkest place on the earth there's no lights growing up with darkness growing up with fear starvation growing up not being being told how to think and yet at the age of 13 you took the very brave decision in urging your mother that you had to flee you had to go to China and you made that decision not your mother what possessed you on that day of course I didn't know even world of freedom I didn't know the concept of it we don't have water for liberty or love the wind love day we know here you are now express love to our lovers and mothers only love for division and of course I didn't know what was gonna happen I just only knew because I remember when I was young I saw the Chinese movie the TV literally and I saw such a different thing news advertisement about the marek and we don't have advertisement in North Korea and I thought TV talks about something else than regime and the reader and they talked about American I never knew miracles coming out of call so I was wondering you can have any milk at all you know I never even like so it never even have was in North Korea and I will new if I go to China I've NASTAR and my journey was my hero journey I stayed for bottle rice and that's why we risk our life for so you said you went in search of the light and a food to get away from darkness and starvation yes but it turned into something else something unimaginable and for a long time for you unspeakable what was what did it turn into your journey to China I remember the morning my sister left first and we were very hungry and my father was very sick but he had a frozen potatoes and we were very cold we don't have sitting in stem so he went to mountain get that brush is anything we can burn and he put the frozen water in his heart because it gave roses and he ate die with us know because we don't even have the power to carry the water and we thought if we call China and we have a life and we just follow the oka it was that you can go to China tonight and I just removed my appendix and we crossed the mountain across a frozen river but the first thing I saw was my mother raped and the man was trying to rape me and I didn't know what was a sex or kissing was and my mother protect me there but that was not it they said if you only in China you have to be sword you have to be get married and something is very saddens me was I actually didn't care I was just so hungry I just said I won't have something to eat I didn't even say what I wanna do and my mom asked me what do you wanna do now I said I'm hungry mom and we decide to live in China and that's how my mom being sold for $65 and I was sorted for $260 at the age of 13 you were 13 a very big 13 brave 13 and your mother was 41 and but the two of you despite those difficult difficult circumstances the two of you managed to survive for those two years in China being sold and sold and sold again in fact you sold your own mother to another farmer because the life would be better for her those you write about how sometimes you have to make such difficult decisions to survive yeah so did my mom for good because the man who bought me could I even feed those so it was better for me to say her to somebody who could feed her her better and she was in a better place then yeah it's here what's better place work wasn't as bad she could eat you could eat yeah I could and that would matter the photos then at the big age of 15 mm-hmm another difficult decision he crossed the Gobi Desert and somehow in comparison to everything else you live through crossing every desert doesn't even seem that astonishing across the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and then you reached another Korea yeah South Korea mm-hmm what was your first impressions there Oh heard so much about it but it very negative from the north yeah I remember when I was in China somebody told me that if you go to South Korea then you will be free and I for the first time I heard that free so what do you mean I will be free and that person to me you came here Chin's you can watch your movies you are not getting executed or arrested for that and I thought wow that's amazing and I'm gonna risk my life for it and that's how I follow though Jordan starts to freedom and crossing the Gobi Desert and when I was arrived in South Korea the first thing was acting was shining because at the airport on the ground something was moving the escalator I was like ground is moving there at that part of the ground is only moving and not here and I remember I went to bathroom there at the airport and I saw the toilet paper toilet paper had a flower prints on it and the smell was so good so I thought I'm not gonna use this for Diaries i wrapper and I store the paper and and then I got out and there I saw the people for the first time who lived in freedom and people had a small things on their hands everybody cared something which is my phone and people were wearing miniskirts wearing high heels and dying there here there were earrings which you are not allowed to do in North Korea and I remember I and then I learned the amazing things such as human rights or freedom and human dignity and this is so new to me to learn about this and yet you were the girl who grew up in the north being told not to think and your equivalent was about two years of education proper education and then you became what you described as a learning machine you just saw books as your basically your ticket to a different life and freedom mm-hmm but what happened he was a because when I was arrived in South Korea I knew less than seven years old I didn't know how to pick strawberries taste like I don't know I remember they say you have to put your money in the bank and I thought how the 80s works I thought somebody gives money inside the machine and I remember they taught me how to charge my money to transportation card so I put the money in the card was there I thought money was getting into cars and so the money disappeared and not only this I never knew what Africa was but Canada was so you girl just just opened up yeah I just for the first time we went to to the moon what's universe what's human evolution is and the book just answer for everything and that's how I pee for the book and as my teacher and as everything but you talk about how immediately you felt freedom when you went to South Korea but freedom is something which is also inside your mind when we were talking inside the room she said she was just came from Canada and you'd watched a program on television where someone asks a Canadian are you going to vote and the person said I'm not going to vote and you were shocked oh yeah it's not going first is not going to go so you're thinking it's hard to get yourself out of that way of thinking because we the mentis or executions in camera freedom meant it for me to ring this earring not the meant for me the freedom of expression or freedom of speech freedom is there's different lovers and that's I'm learning everyday I will never understand the free the concept of freedom but I'm just enjoying this every day I'm learning that death has it the freedom what it means really for us as a human being you say the George Orwell's book 1984 opened your mind that you understood it was possible to think on two tracks which is what you hear and what you see that was the thing because when I was in North Korea I watched the movie Titanic and I'm sure you or not that and I remember that though really these people are doing how come such a future can be made up by a movie and I thought DiCaprio and the producer got executed and I found a very happy DiCaprio's alive and I think a I try didn't care about Kate you just wanted to be alive is your Kaena because nothing is above history North Korea nothing I never seen these kind of talk shows or nothing is about us human being about the leader we had to die for the regime I could imagine somebody dying for love and that movie showed me a taste of freedom humanity but next morning I was waking up I say our countries of Basque Country let's clear American pastures and that's what I did and I believed it I believed in my dear leader couldn't read my mind I thought if I say think bad things he can punish me because he has almighty power and he can read my mind and that really didn't make sense to me and I think that but really is praying to me what had happened to me and what's really going on in North we had the brainwashing his words but you are free we can all confirm you are free I'm free this year today thank you but this this is the man this is the man you grew up to Revere and his wife he's 12 years older than you or about 11 years older than you kim jeong-hoon is it hard to look at that now just what goes I to me he's not a joke Jimmy it's not fun easier cut I don't know why she took care who is so funny tree here I don't know why that matters is that all that this is a paradise this is heaven but you may not know how many people file for this we have here is not a joke you're fighting you're fighting not just for yourself in your own freedom but you're speaking out is also helping many other people in in North Korea your father called you young me Park what all of us today call you is brave young me Park thank you so much

Channel: Women in the World

Views: 4,226,153

Keywords: defector, escape, escape from North Korea, freedom, gobi desert, human rights, londonsummit, Lyse Doucet, North Korea, Yeonmi Park

Id: h-hS8A85_RE

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2015