Shawn Ryan Show - #54 Yeonmi Park - Escaping the Horrors of North Korea & the Kim Dynasty

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Yeonmi Park is an activist and author who fled to the United States after being a victim of sex trafficking. Park recounts her oppressive childhood in North Korea, starved and without electricity. She remembers how the lights of neighboring countries gave her hope for a better life. She spares no detail when explaining what a society under a ruthless dictator, mass killings, and delusional propaganda looks like. Yeonmi takes us through her harrowing journey being smuggled out of North Korea only to meet a new terrifying reality - the Chinese sex trade. Park speaks frankly about the realities of survival in captivity and the pain she carries with her still today. We wrap up with her rescue by missionaries and her first brush with freedom in Times Square. Yeonmi illuminates some hard truths and warns of the signs of communism seeping into the United States. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://hvmn.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://mudwtr.com/shawn - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://mypatriotsupply.com https://blackbuffalo.com - USE CODE "SRS" Yeonmi Park Links: While Time Remains Book - https://amzn.to/3UxPUat Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/yeonmi_park/ Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Shampoo in store or online at your nearest retailer. Hey everybody, my next guest has one of the most horrific stories from one of the most horrific places on the planet. And that's North Korea. She escaped North Korea, she was sold into the Chinese sex trade, escaped that, then came to America. Now she's spreading the word on what it's like living in communism and showing us the signs that we need to be aware of in case it winds up on our doorstep. So pay attention. Please like, subscribe, comment below, hit over to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, leave us a review, and ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome Yon Mi Park to the Shon Ryan Show.

Yon Mi Park, welcome to the Shon Ryan Show. I'm happy to be here. It is an honor to have you here. I have spent a Lot of time listening to a lot of your different interviews and band you have so many Phenomenal interviews. I think the one that sticks out the most with for me is Megan Kelly's I listen to Megan Kelly's recently and Man you guys had a very good in-depth conversation. And I can't wait to have that conversation here.

So just a little bit about you. You've fled the most oppressive, isolated, controlled country in the entire world in 2007, that country being North Korea. You've offered two books in order to live, and the latest one, while time remains, which while time remains seems like it's maybe a warning to the Americans on what might be coming.

And now you bring awareness and educate people all over the world about the oppression that happens in North Korea in your journey to the United States. And you're also a YouTuber who just hit 1 million subscribers. Congratulations. Thank you. I know that's no easy task. And yeah.

So every guest starts out with a gift. So there you go. Thank, thank you so much. Oh, gummy bears. Little something for the ride home. Oh, thank you. I love those. You're welcome. You're welcome.

Thank you. But your story, there's just, there are so many different parts to it from your upgrain upbringing and how you grew up in North Korea. It sounds like you grew up in a wealthy family in North Korea, which I can't wait to dive into what a wealthy family looks like compared to here in the US. But I'd kind of like to start with your upbringing and obviously talk about the oppression and how the regime in North Korea controls the people.

And then I would really like to get in detail in the trafficking portion and what you dealt with in China. And then kind of wrap it up with the similarities that you see here in the United States. Maybe they're starting to happen or maybe they've been happening for a while compared to some of the stuff that you saw in North Korea. Does that sound good? Yeah. Alright, so let's just start with your upbringing. What is a wealthy family in North Korea?

What is daily life for a wealthy family? Yeah, it's a hard way to begin. So even though North Korea started the idea of complete equality of outcomes, whatever we pour, whatever we reach, but regime based on that idea, initially, and eventually divided people into 51 different classes. And a lot of times, we kind of assume, like, I'd be in the middle or in the bottom or in the top,

but I was maybe born in the summer upper middle class. Because my father was a party member. But the thing is, there are like 6 million party members in North Korea and in the population of 21, 22 million at the time. So it was the most like special thing, but still like better than other people. And this is where I think, sorry, I didn't know. So lifestyle, right? It's a... I never snow shower in my life.

Wow. Because we don't even have the world for shower. We don't have a technology to hit up the water. We don't have water in the water. So we still have to go in the river, bring the old in the well, or you know, stream water home, and we don't have indoor bathroom. We have to go outside. To do the business, we don't have, you know, a machine to wash our clothes. So it was my job to go to the river and my sister to wash our clothes. And but you know, the fact that we are not dying from starvation in the 90s,

that means wealthy. That means wealthy. Yeah, although actual poor ones died in the 90s. He was... Wow, so what is the... Let's go back to the 51 classes. How are those 51 classes broken up? Is it poor to rich or is it race?

How, what is it? So North Korea is a homogeneous country. We are like same genetics, same people, same culture, same language. There's not diversity in that. No tribes, no different areas. Everybody is just... Korea. Yeah, we were the same Korean, we had a 5,000 years of shared history, same country,

as the same country, so that's unique. What was based upon from that division was, I think something similar to right now, America is what you ancestors did. The bare royalty towards the party's ideology. OK. So it's not about individual choice. You cannot join another class. Basically, when Kim Il-sung came into power in the mid-40s and the 1950s, that's when he came and then realized, OK, who was a landowner,

who was a capitalist, who was an intellectual, you know, who was a farmer, and based on their status, their children's status, get termed forever. And that's how they say, when I was born the country, my great-great-grandfather handled some land in his yard, and and they said I had the oppressor genes and my blood was tainted because of his actions. Wow. So that's how you start us get determined. So in a way, the America we divide people based on race in North Korea to that based on the, I think, ideology. What people back then believed in. Okay. So your grandpa owned land?

Did they just take the land from them? Yeah, so that was my mother's side. Okay. My father's side was better. So that's why my father was becoming a part, became a party member. And my mother's side, I think they weren't. Wow.

Yeah. How do they, how do they confiscate, do you know how they confiscate the land? Do you remember or were you too young or? So it was just stories we hear, right? It's a, in the 50s, they had a land reform. And that was when the regime was promised into North Korean people that we are going

to abolish poverty and inequality in any forms. We are going to be all equally doing more. Everything is going to be taken care of by the government. Everything will be free. Healthcare is going to be free. Housing is going to be free. The food is going to be free. Everything is going to be free. Nobody can ever trade anything, but nobody can ever own anything. They abolished the private property. So nobody can own a home, they can own a cow, they can own a car, they can own a house, they can own anything. So, but the thing is, at the time North Koreans actually believed that that was paradise, not her paradise, right?

It's we are equally doing all well. So for that little, people gave everything to the regime. At the time, there was not much battle between the people giving that to the regime. And the people, some people who did not disagree, they get executed, obviously. There are three generations get executed along with the people who rebel against the crisis.

I read this. I saw this in a, so also in my research, I watched some documentaries on North Korea that way some of your story was still surprising to me. So one of the things that I saw was that if you go against the state, or if you commit a crime, or if you vote the wrong way, then you'll be imprisoned. What I, then what came was that there are

the three generation punishment. So if I voted against the state, I would go to prison, my son would go to prison, and if he had a son or a daughter, then they would be born in prison and spend the rest of their life in prison because their blood is guilty blood. Is that across the board over there,

no matter what the crime is, or is there a severity? Yeah, so, you know, there's no way you can vote wrongly because North Korea election only has one person on the ballot. And it's a open, like, cars standing there watching you. And there's only one choice on the ballot. So you cannot vote for a different person. It's a joke, right?

Or a show, it's a show. But if you use that, something, again, it's a part of like, okay, I don't believe in communism. Then you, of course, get cared. You get executed, okay, I don't believe in communism. Then you of course get cared. You get executed obviously for that, but then your parents, your sisters, brothers, your children, your grandchildren, and up to sometimes age generations.

Age generations. So even the in-laws gets arrested. So your wife's there family, the in-laws get go together with you. Just for disagreeing with the state? Yeah, so one person that I know in South Korea, he went to a public prison camp when he was 80 years old. And the very first thing when you are asking called Polychrom prison camp is that you cannot ask why you're there.

You cannot ask why you're there. That's you get executed. So nobody knows why they end up in the prison. And then for him, he learned many years later that his grandfather, a long time before one day, he was drinking drinks with his friend. And then under the alcohol influence, he somehow showed this agreement with the party's line.

But later that friend remembered that saying and then reported the police. That's why he started drinking what they were getting a drink. So he ended up in prison camp, but he could not ask the regime why did I get here. So most people don't know why they ended up in prison camp. Is there any way to get out of it? No.

You're in there for life. There's one sentence, and that's a life sentence. And most of them don't last for more than three months. Usually you die from the exhaustion and torture. One sentence, and that's a life sentence. And most of them don't last more than three months. Usually you die from the exhaustion and torture. So, because they, nurse cream, needs these people. They do a lot of chemical tests on them,

because they are developing bio weapons. And then they do so much nuclear tests. They need to help people, need people to clean those debris. Oh. So they need to have people need people to clean those debris. So they need this labor. So they use the, they use the present labor? So they're doing, so they're torturing, they're doing experiments and they're using them to clean up nuclear waste,

which is a huge exposure to radiation, which will obviously kill you. What kind of experiments are they? Many different experiments, like even during the Nazi Germany, they test on different gas. They test on different injections, because they develop a lot of poisons, because they commit a lot of assassin attempts, right?

They killed their brother in Malaysia with those poisons. So they test on different poisons, how it cares or not. And they even just cut off their organs and body tissues to check, you know, how to study some medicine so they can make the diuretally little forever. So there is more than 10,000 doctors in the curriculum find a way to make Kim's live forever. So in this study, they need a lot of inmates.

Oh my gosh. So they take them and play with their organs and see what helps to make the di of the liver. He wants to live forever. So that's the big experiment. Yeah. It's called Man sumu gang-yeon gu-so is like the eternal life research institute. There are like 10,000 doctors, just all their long- they are studying that how they can

make the decay of the liver. What do the doctors... What do the doctors think about the dictator? You cannot think about it. In North Korea, even your doctor, you don't get paid $1 a year each month. You're a slave. You don't choose to become a doctor. They tell you to become a doctor.

Yeah. So, there's no way you can have an opinion for anything there. So, so back to the prison camps, they have a three-month life expectancy. On average, yeah. If they're going to... Let's say you get a sentence where they're going to execute you, and you don't even know what you're being executed for.

Right. Yeah. How long are you... Is it like America where you're on death row or do they just get it done immediately? It depends when they want to make a case out of you, like a critical fear to the people. So when Kim Jong-un killed his own uncle, Jang Sung-taek. Remember when he came into power?

And then he won the arrest his uncle publicly. Basically, what he did was a... He made sure all the officials in Pyongyang come and put him in the center, and then you use the aircraft going to shoot him, not just guns. So when you shoot somebody like that, you become little pieces of meat. Your body just gets exploded.

And then he would let the dogs to eat his body. And the officials would like faint and pin their pants. And that's how he will touch them. This is what happens if you do not be loyal to you, to me. So some executions are just throwing stones. So they put their family members, put them in the first row, and then like throw the rocket, your family, your wife, your child. So, the last thing you see living this

world is seeing your child, your husband throwing rocket in to care you. Oh, man. They make sure the family is announced, the person first. Wow. Are these public? I never seen the drawing in the rock, but I heard that's what they did inside the concentration camp. So they inside the concentration camp, they make sure the sun and the mother like they stand in the front row and do that. And other people should throw the rock because Kim Jong-il at the same time, even the bullets are too precious to kill these people.

So you should just use rocks to kill them. Wow. And then, but shooting is usually the public execution that general public goes to watch. OK. Does the general public enjoy this? No, it's mandatory. It's mandatory.

Children need to go watch it. Like, even your two years old. If you are, when you go see the public execution, the sitting is based upon how young you are. As if you are the young guest, you sit in the front lot because you are the shortest. So adults goes to back row. But those adults have seen this when they are kid.

So they put the children in the front and then bigger children behind and they are kid. So they put the children in the front and then they go to the children behind and they approach the back. And then they see people getting executed. How often does this happen? It's, there's some seasonal, it's like several times a year, I'm sure minimum,

but sometimes very often because those are times where they say showcase time, where they is like tightening their bear, like really trying to raise a feel level as much as they can. So those times are constantly shooting and then sometimes like off and then we just think okay we need to do it again and come and shoot more. How many executions per session? It's sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes eight,

depending on the case. So sometimes the cases were like these people were hung. So one of the execution my mom saw was a young man in a collective form who was dying from TB, tuberculosis. tuberculosis. And then he butcher the collective farm's cow. And then he ate the carcass he was dying from the man nutrition anyway.

So they were executing him in the marketplace, just him. And one of the executions I saw was a my friend actually mother. She distributed a Hollywood movie. So she watched the Hollywood movie and then gave it to her friends. And in order to create that they crime. You cannot watch Hollywood movies. You cannot watch a Hollywood that's an executable offense. If you ever read a Bible, that's execution. If you ever watch a porn, that's execution. If you ever watched a Hollywood movie and this really that's execution. And I mean, the executions are like this.

There's a every-form page of North Korean paper has a Kim's portraits. And the UDNC page is a back-or a back or a rip that that's how you go to Portrait Comprison Camp. Those are the crimes that we talk about in North Korea as a crime. Even if you I saw even if you fold a paper and you fold yeah you fold the photo of you cannot you cannot put other things on top of it either. You need to pretend this photo is the actual leader, right? And every home in North Korea, we have the portraits of dictators. So when the fire caught in the house,

the fathers first thing they have to protect is portraits, not their children, not their whole life. Because if the portrait gets damaged, then the true generation is going to be punished in that family. So, there are so many heroes that we learn like who somebody was dying with his own body protecting the portrait. And that is the most honorable death they can do in North Korea. Dying for the leader is the honorable death.

They teach you to do that. Speaking of religion, since we're on the topic of the concentration camps, what you can go to prison for your religion there as well, correct? So they round up Christians. This Christianity is that a common underground religion there? You don't know if it's the most persecuted religion in the world, I mean, in North Korea,

so I didn't even know the word Jesus, or I didn't know what that was until I got out. Are you religious now? I am now. You are. But I think I later met other fellow North Korean defectors who were Christians who were in the underground. So I was really surprising to me because none of these people can own a Bible. So if there are two people in a team, then they say, OK, you remember sons. You remember this part of Bible. And his grandma taught him all the entire one part of Bible to him verbally, so that knowledge wouldn't get lost. That is the only way you can maintain the Bible in North Korea.

So he was reciting entire thing word by word. And I was like, how is that possible? This is my grandma told me. So that's how Christians are believing their faith. But I just memorize it because there's no way you can have the Bible physically. And if you get caught... Death.

It's a death penalty. Yeah. Is every death... If you get caught doing anything, is it automatically three generations that are going to be punished? It's a political crime. So my father's crime was economic crime,

because he was selling metals, he was trading. He was not committing anything political. He was not saying the party's bad, but he was not doing anything like that. So that's why I didn't go to prison with my father. Okay. He was only sentenced by himself for like 10 years, but still my not-cast-wend lower.

I could not marry somebody who is in a better class. I could not imagine going to university. I couldn't do that. But a political crime, then your family do go with you for sure. Okay, man, that is horrible. What about, let's talk about some of the child labor that's happening over there. What age are kids forced to work?

Any age. Like, three, four, even pre-school, that they teach you that you are revolutionaries, you are not child. So when we go to school, that we pack our work clothes with us. So I was in five years old. We packed our work clothes and then we got to school. We learned about, we needed to 500 hours of each dictator about their, how great they are. The propaganda, right?

How amazing the leaders are, how great our party is. And those lessons are in the morning. And then lunchtime, they don't feed you, of course. If the family couldn't afford to make your bento box, then the child cannot just not eat lunch that day. And then that lunch period is over, then that's when you have to work. So they say, depending on the season,

they send you a collective farm to plant the seed in the spring. So more time, we don't have machines. Like if the farm, there is a lot of other plant scroll that takes the crop away, right? So we have to ourselves take those other plants away. And then the fall, we need to have the farmers to harvest. That's what we need to do.

And then in the winter, we need to have the farmers collect the fishes as a fertilizer. So, in our winter time, my job was looking for literally poop everywhere, because we have a cora to submit. Otherwise, we get punished. I read that the food shortage, the starvation that's happening over there, it's so bad that they are now using human feces to fertilize the soil for... But it was always that way. That's why... That's why North Koreans always have tons of worms inside them. So one of the defectors of Georgia was crossing BMG and then the South Korean doctors opened him up.

I mean, they could not believe like meters. You can see on the sea and meters of meters of worms in North Korean people's body. It's very, I mean, I had tons of worms there because the food grows from this. So that's our children's job and adult job. What are you eating over there? We eat depends, right? Like in the summer time, we do eat more plants. But the thing is after June 1st, like end of May,

a lot of plants become poisonous. So until then, poison is not as high, so we can pretty much eat any plants if we want. Even tree leaves are fine. But after June 1st, we have to be very careful, one more shrimp that we pick up, you know, what plants we eat. We eat a lot of, in the fall, we eat a lot of grasshoppers and a lot of bugs. And then in the winter is the time when we, a lot of it, frozen, you know, potatoes or a dried cabbage like that.

And spring is where we die. So we call spring as a season of death. It is. Because right before anything grows in nature, and was a loss of $1,100. 60% of US port comes from one company, wholly owned by the Chinese. And farmers are more likely to commit suicide than veterans. Folks, we got a problem. I'm Lucinda, a generation farmer and founder of Moink. Moooooooooooooooo America. Come stand shoulder to shoulder with us by putting the family farm at the center of your

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Find it at a Walmart near you, now available with a fresh new look. Does any, it sounds like all of the food comes from what you grow or what you catch, talking about eating insects. Does the state provide any food? Right, you cannot grow them because we cannot own a land.

The land is a country, right? The regimes is a collective form. So we are forced to work in a collective form all year, like 10 hours a day minimum. Then when the harvest comes, what they do? They come and take the harvest away. They don't give it to the farmers. They give you maybe a little bit of potatoes.

And then what they do is, this is a royalty grain. So you need to submit this grain to the government to show your royalty otherwise you get punished. So this is then called a royalty grain that we always have to give it to the regime. Despite we don't have anything. And the regime determines that they decided somehow it's easy to do socialism when there are less people.

And it's easy to control the population when they are starving. Because as a North Korean, all day you are thinking about this, how am I going to find the next meal? If you make one day, you're not knowing, if you're going to make it tomorrow. So you're constantly just thinking about only finding food and surviving. Then regime knows that they don't need to worry about us.

Because we are not going to think about starting evolution. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. Moving into, we'll get back to the ways of life. But moving into how they control the people, since you brought it up, starvation was number one on my list. I thought that was very obvious. I read that the population of North Korea is so malnourished that they have basically changed their genetic code,

and there are now five inches on average shorter than South Koreans. Is that true? Yeah. It's like North Koreans, even now, I come to America like I cannot gain weight, because our systems didn't fully develop. When you need to eat the proper nutrients to develop and develop your organs to process things.

We didn't get to do that. So, it's interesting in South Korea, like the grandchildren are much taller than their grandparents. North Korea is a complete opposite. Each generation we get shorter and shorter. Oh, wow. And it's a... That's why you carry the mark of starvation for the rest of your life.

It doesn't just say, oh, now you're not starving. You can become normal person. It doesn't happen that way. Most of North Koreans carry that scar. Let's talk about starvation. We've talked about the prison camps, the three generations. These are always to control the population and oppress them. Let's talk about the propaganda portion.

How many, what's your internet like? What is your TV stations like? Let's start with internet. We don't know what internet is, and we don't have electricity. So even I'm sure the internet we cannot use it, right? We die electricity. We have one channel on TV.

And even that channel is not free broadcasting. It's all government propaganda. But even if there's one channel we cannot watch you with electricity anyway. So there's no other information. People are not even free to move to next town. You cannot do a sleep over in North Korea. You need to go tell the authority and get authorization to sleep in your friend's house. In the middle of night, the regime in the guard

and just like open your door and come in, see if somebody outside your family sleeping in there. If there is, then that's a crime. You can punish for that. No freedom of movement, no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, or anything. So we are completely isolated. That's what I was saying. When I was in North Korea, I did not know that I was oppressed. I did not know I was living in a hermit kingdom. Because not knowing is actually to oppression.

And I wrote about this in my new book, it's like there are two types of dictatorships. One is physical dictatorship, as I said. Physically, you're not like a lot of your genes, a lot of have certain hair cut or listen to music, watch TV. But second one is what North Korea not germinated. It's like dictatorship of the mind. You can't be control what you think. And I think that's what North Korea, not Germany, it's like the dictatorship of the mind. You can't pay control what you think.

And I think that's what North Korea did, such a perfect job than any other country's ever have ever done in human history. That they brainwashed me to the point where I thought that my dear little could read my mind. I was afraid to think. I could not think that even in my mind that he was not a god. And how they did that was that they copied the Bible. So they said, God would give your son love us so much. He gave us his son, Kim Jong-il. His body dies, but he's spiritually does forever.

He gave us his son Kim Jong-il. His body dies, but he's spiritually does forever. That's how he can read my thoughts, knows how much hair I owe my head. And when we die, we join him in his paradise for the rest of our lives. So North Korea is one of the 10 religions in the world, it's a religious cult. It's not just a normal dictatorship.

Wow, and everybody believes that. That is another thing. In North, you cannot do public survey. You cannot go. Do you believe the propaganda? I mean, if you know nobody gonna say that. So it's like living in North Korea, it's like living in a tremendous show. Nobody is telling you what's happening.

The only truth you know is who you are. Because nobody even... I mean, the first thing my mom told me, young... As a young girl, I was like, don't even whisper. Because the birds and mice could hear me. They said, don't do not even trust your own back. Because we never knew who was a spy was. There was always spy listening somewhere.

So it was just better not to even say anything and even better not to think. That's how you survive North Korea. How do you control your thoughts? How do you keep the thoughts that you think you're gonna be punished for out of your head? That's the interesting thing is like, you think somehow humans are capable of thinking by themselves. But we don't learn how to think in North Korea, like thinking was exhausting.

I remember going to South Korea for the first time that I had to think for myself. Like even what I'm gonna wear that day. It gave me so much headache because in North Korea, that was decided for me. What clothes I can wear, what hair I can get, it was decided. So in North Korea, we don't know what critical thinking is. Nobody learned the concept that you can think other way. So in some sense, we are just all numb. I think I just remember being in North Korea was just being numb.

It wasn't hard. I think for just remember being in North Korea as being numb. It wasn't hard. I think for the first time thinking was very exhausting for me at least. Interesting. So in this, it's, I've been a lot of places throughout my career and I've never seen anything like what you're describing. And it's, I think, if it's hard for me to understand. I think it's extremely hard for anybody who's not well-traveled or you know what I'm getting at.

So what you're describing is a country that's encompassed with everybody. Nobody has any idea what is outside of that border. So they, I mean, there's no clues, there's no nothing like about how Americans live or how Europeans live or Canadians or Australians are anywhere in the free world. There's no sign, like people have no idea

that that even exists. Right, so it's like a North Korean front, so I never knew the map. I did not see the map of the world. They did not even teach me that I'm Asian. They said I'm a Kimerson race, my dear literate race. The North Korean calendar begins when Kimmer's song was born. We have our own time zone.

And it's like, I keep saying that I come from different planet is we actually know more about Mars and the other planets. But we cannot even imagine what, in the far away galaxy land, there's some planet. We cannot even fathom a life would be like there. It's like, because we don't know the name, we've never seen it, we never heard about it. Like, for North Koreans, I mean, what is Tennessee?

I mean, right, what's white? You know, what is a internet? It's a, they don't have the vocabulary, they've never seen it. The only pictures that I saw about Americans were the school posters that propaganda departments drew about Americans who are called the bloody rap stars who have horns, while monsters eating all children, torturing our women.

That is the only image of America because I cannot go into an loop of what America looks like. So, in North Korea, I could do that because they completely isolated the country. I mean, I think we might be able to go to moon before we be able to go to North Korea. Nobody is allowed to go there and explore, right? Nobody in North can come out.

It is the most isolated country in the world right now. So I think that's why they were able to do that. What kind of stuff do they display on the TV? The good thing is the regime is very poor. They cannot make the new propaganda for two years. So the same revolutionary TV's are under Japanese, under like American imperialism, how our great soldiers under the leadership of Kim Il-sung that we are fighting our enemies and bringing the liberation to our people. That kind of things, everyday we watch.

And keep reminding it, what an amazing thing that social reserve revolution was. When there were times of really, really capitalist, they would torture our children, now look at us, anybody who can go to school. Even though we when you go to school, with your brainwashing, we get like forced labor, you know? Forses to work, they say that's better than living under the capitalists and landlords.

Oh my gosh. What, um... When it comes to controlling the people, there's also, you kind kind of you touched on it where they control emotions. How do they control your emotions? You're not allowed to smile you're not allowed to laugh. What else are you not allowed to do? It's that was a thing I tried to understand. Whenever I even my escape, even the beginning of my time and I came to America, even though in my head

so fully logically understood that Kim Il-sung was a bad dictator, he was a more useless man, he was killing people. But whenever there's a beautiful propaganda culture of a gigantic smile where he's most beloved leader. The only thing he does is loving his people. And our father, our God, right? Then just automatically your heart just warms up. But then the illogical has kick-in afterwards.

Like, oh my God, what am I even thinking? This is like all fake drawing, obviously. He doesn't smile like that. It's a try to make you feel that way. And then whenever we see this portrait, there was always music. Somebody was most dramatic way of, you know, saying how the leader is so selfless being that,

all he does is try to fight for the good of the people. So it really happens first thing we do is like, we need to say how to thank the dictator before we eat. We need to go buy in front of our ported. Dear leader, thank you so much for the food. And the school teachers say, the most important thing to you is not your parents, not your biological parents,

is your father, who is giving your son and give his son here. So as a child, you learn, the first thing teacher teaches you that that's the most important thing in the world. And dying for the regime is the best thing you can ever do. And they keep showing this hero movies, how they give all their own body and take the bullets for the revolution of our country, and then making us to recite those poems and see songs

like songs like Nothing to Envy. Because we live in the social paradise, we have nothing to envy. Right? Then eventually you somehow believe it. Even though your real life is seeing people dead on the streets, every day that's what you see in our square, but you still somehow have this pride and gratitude for the dictator.

It is mind control to the fullest capacity. What kind of, just dead bodies, just not a dead body. It is mind control to the fullest capacity. Yeah. So, just dead bodies. Not just dead bodies. I mean, when people die from starvation, they go through many phases. They don't, you just don't die. I'm not starving, I die.

There's a phase of hallucination. There's a phase of hallucination. There's a phase of crazy. This is the loss of their mind. They start laughing, you know. It's just like laugh. They don't recognize their sons. They're not taking their mothers. They just, it's just loss everything.

And then the last phase is, you see. Everything opens up your body, like here, just everything opens up. And your organs comes up, because nothing can hold it together. And then, you make this sounds that like some ghost doesn't make. But till that moment, he stood back for food. And these are the signs you hear every day. But when you live in the country, don't feel anything for that, because it's every day.

Every corner there is children who does that, or father who does that. And you found me who does that. So this is like daily life, but as school, we still have to sing songs like, we have nothing to envy, because we live in the best country. Oh, man, you've seen a lot of that, haven't you? Yeah, it's a... it's just face, and you just all casually say, oh, no, he's in the face too. Okay, you are just so far away Oh, now he's in the face too.

Okay, you are so far away, you're just sitting in the face one. You know, like we've seen the face of a lot of death from starvation, but I can just, can't tell. And it's not like we say out of any sympathy, just, you become just numb, you know. Do you ever reach any of those phases? I think for me, among all these things, there are few things that I remember also about the young boy,

your man's, all the organs just come out of his back and the dog was really going to die die, and it is organ-like. And all the flies all over him. But he was seriously making his noise. And I was wondering, how can he make any sounds? And the last person I remember saying was, right before my escape was a, in the hospital, there was like, tires of human bodies,

and the hospital just put them there. And there's a bathroom right next to it. I had to go through that to go to bathroom every day. And there's on top of all this human body, there's a woman who was laying there in some flower pattern pants. But when you're dead, you're not a human. You're empty, beyond anything. you're not a human. You're just empty, beyond anything. You're just empty. But she looked way more empty because her eyes just out.

Her mouth was open because the rats ate her eyes first. And I was looking at it as I was like, what do you mean to be human, even human. It just means nothing. I think somehow Dyson keeps on going back to my dream. Maybe that's the last thing I saw in North Korea. Maybe that's why I cannot forget. But it's a, yeah, there's a lot of those.

Say, the human life means nothing there. What's the family? I'll get to that in a minute. So as far as controlling the people, we have starvation, propaganda, punishment, which is the prison's controlling emotions, executions. This episode is brought to you by RedboxRx. Get extension like lashes without the work, with RedboxRx. They'll help provide a prescription for Bometaprost, a medically proven eyelash serum with the same FDA-approved active ingredient as Lateez.

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They offer virtual in-network psychiatry to treat the most common mental health conditions, like depression, anxiety, OCD, and trauma. Within a week, they can match you with a doctor who takes insurance and takes the time to listen. Get started at taukaya tree.com slash start. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com slash start. I said about making people criticize each other. So it's like making people distrust each other, breaking the bond of trust between your family, between your children. So first thing that they read the regime that they got rid of the word love or romance that we cannot leave for love. We have to leave for the revolutionary party. So the parents cannot tell their children that

they love their children. We don't tell our parents that we love them. Spouses don't tell each other love each other. It's not a concept. We don't have the word for a friend. I call my classmate Comrade. Comrade ship and French is a very different thing. When you're a Comrade, you fight for the revolution. You're not being between the visual friends. And then, even at nine years old, every Saturday, if you're an artist or somebody adored, you have to do it every two days.

We have to come, entire class come together, and then we have to repent our sin for that week. Say, you know, I was not better revolutionary. I was being selfish. I was being individualistic. I did not fight better. And I will do better. Thank you, you know, dear leader leader for forgiving me for my sin.

And at the end, we have to do something called criticizing another person. This is the most. You cannot skip that part. So every class mates have to stand up and denounce somebody for their fault. Imagine you do that every week to human psychology. Then you have to watch out for everybody.

Because you don't know who's criticized you. At the end of Saturday, if that criticism is bad, then you finally get punished together with you. It's a life, life, and destination. So that makes sure that you're never going to trust anybody. And of course, you can start evolution're never going to trust anybody. And of course, you can start evolution if you don't trust anybody. And then also, you completely isolate it.

And that's how you watch out, even, you know, my sand, birds, and afraid. Nobody knows who's on watch you. And it happens with your parents. There are many cases that children will report on their parents. Because they are religion promises, that's how you become more good revolutionary. But now only that sometimes they tell children I'm going to give you food.

If you report on anybody who's betraying our party, I'm going to give you food. So some children are so starving. They go tell the authority like I heard my mom was saying this and then the mom get executed. How many people do you think it executed a year there? It's nobody knows because now that the North Korean regime knows that we can watch it from satellites, and there's a lot of execution videos from satellite footage, so they do on inside the stadiums. So that's the height, but at least there are several hundred thousand of them in the concentration camps, that the UN calculated based on those camp numbers, and they can see even human body images now and bury sites

So these are all visible now with those highlights What is a what is something that You're talking about it at school. They would force you to announce Of a comrade. Mm-hmm What is what is an example of something you would denounce somebody for or criticize somebody for? It can be anything. You can be that person, you know, said that maybe the, what, you know, the school materior was not good or maybe like silly you know because there are so many propellant maternity or she I spent his house one day I saw his parents were watching

foreign TV or I heard him one day that he was seeing some foreign song or I saw him someday in a wrong outfit like it can be anything. So is everybody punished? When if you denounce somebody, are they... They're finally punished along with that person. So everybody gets punished all the time. Yeah. So you have to paranoid. You have to be, you have to be so paranoid.

So what if somebody didn't see anything? Do you have to make something up? You have to see something, that's a thing. So that's why I enter a week. You watch your behavior, but you have to find the fault of others because you are forced to denounce. And I mean, imagine if you just lied, and that person will say it's lied, right?

So you have to find something all the time, who does wrong? Have you been announced? I have to be, I have to be, everybody has to be announced, and everybody has to be a... So things that I was announced, I was so little, so they give you chorus. Like if we work in the farm, we have to sit in, right? And they say, in one hour, you have to finish this much.

So if one person fails to finish their kura on time, the teachers will be a bit tired children in the class because it's something called the collective gift. They teach you that you're not an individual. The first thing North Korea does to you is that you're not an individual. The first thing North Korea does to you is that you're not an individual. We don't have the word I. What matters is we, the collective. So if one person does wrong, it's not that person fault. It's a year fault. All of you. So that's how it's all about the collective guilt, because you are not one single unit ever. And so I was there at times that I couldn't finish all my current time.

Then of course that was the subject of criticism. What was the punishment? Beating. Beating? And then make us to run and crawl on our school ground, as much as we can, and into midnight, and give us extra work until like 2 a.m. in the morning. So, a lot of buildings, a lot of punishing.

How would they beat you? Anything, because there is no human rights. So, teachers, some of them are even sometimes drunk. They get... they are so starving, right? So they have this anger, then they are some psychopath, like literally bring these leather bats or like metals, and there's very common, they break your bones and take your eyesight away.

Like they throw anything, they have this metal, like where you put those cigarettes in. They can throw that at you, rock, set you. They can carry you and there's no accountability on anybody. So, they do that children. They constantly be living every day being. And that's the thing. They think somehow you need to train your children

and your wife through beating. That's the same. So if you train children and women, you have to beat them. When what age does this start, the denouncing? Around eight. Eight years old. Yeah. It starts around eight. and beating starts as soon as 1 or 2 weeks. Because they never learn how to respect life. So it's literally an infinite way. When North Korea women get, we are going to go back later, but they raped and North Korea sent back, they killed a baby. So killing a baby is not a big deal there.

It's not. No, killing a life doesn't mean anything to society. Damn. Let's um, let's some heavy stuff. Let's take a quick break. Yeah. And when we come back, let's talk about your journey on how you got out of there.

Perfect. I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one of a kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com, slash Vigil, elite, and support the Sean Ryan show today. All right, Yomi. We're back from the break. And I'm really, I am very curious about how you got out in North Korea. I know you got trafficked into China? How did that happen? Yeah, it's like escaping from North Korea

is very different than how other immigrants escape. We don't have a phone, we don't have a map, we don't have any idea. And the only clue I had about the outside world was seeing these lights, like coming out of China at nighttime, because I was living in the border town of North Korea. And that's my family, and I had some clue that maybe they are better off over there. And if we go where the lights are, then we might find some bottle of rice.

So you actually had no idea that it might be better there. You were just, you saw electricity. You just guessed it. And you thought, well, if they have electricity over there, then it must be better. Yeah. I saw on a documentary that one of the satellites, if you look at North Korea over satellite, it's a big black spot at nighttime. Where you see South Korea has energy,

China has energy, and then North Korea is just a black, it's just darkness. It's, it's, it's, it's no electricity at night. Yeah, it's a darkest place in the world right now. So you, you saw electricity on the other side of the river, and that's all you had to go off of. Yeah, just go, let's go where the lights are, let's go, maybe if they go there, we can find something to eat. And I was 13 years old, I was something around 50 pounds, like very tiny, literally, you know, about a guy from starvation.

And my sister escaped first and she left me a note saying that, go find this lady, she will help you to escape. And I went to her and she said, she could help me to go to China. And she said, once you go to China, you will find your sister and everything will be okay. But we didn't really ask follow questions and there's a time we really didn't matter because if we didn't escape you're going to die anyway. So there was no point of even asking why are you helping me for free. So was there any fear at all knowing knowing now that the complete

mind control you had mentioned earlier that you thought that the state could actually read your mind. Yeah. That's how brainwashed you. So was there any fear knowing that or was it I'm gonna die. So I'm either gonna die. So I'm either going to die here in a chance at there. So this is a thing about you, people having hard time to understand North Koreans, right? In some way, we are the most bizarrely innocent people. Because in North Korea, we are never seen the bad news. Our news is all about victories, better that our army is doing and how our

modern nation is thriving under the Communism and everything is wonderful. There is no news about rape. I didn't even know the word rape. There is no word like news about escaping or anything bad. Right? So I was completely not understanding the bad things happening in the world. That if I were born here, I will understand. So just not knowing that how bad things can go wrong, that was not a concept for us. Because we just did not, even though we were seeing executions,

those things were not on the news. So, we just did not understand that selling another human being was a thing. It was not a concept for me, and we didn't even have the vocabulary for human trafficking, even freedom was there. So, I think that was a thing we did not understand. Anything at the time. How fast did this situation develop?

That morning I found the lady and she said I could go that night. It was that quick. Yeah, it was same then. So I went out 12 hours. And then my mother wanted to go home to tell my father that we are escaping. And that time we did not even the word escaping. my father that we were escaping. And that time we did not even the world escaping. It was not, we were just going somewhere to find sister. And we knew that it was dangerous to get caught, but I did not even know the world escape was there. We were like, okay, we cannot get caught

because the guards were gonna shoot us if they see us. And I told my mom, we're gonna come back. I thought, I saw someone going back there. I thought it was like temporarily we go to China, we find the sister, we find food, and come back on. So I told my mom, like, if you tell him he's not gonna let us go, like you cannot tell him that.

And my mom was like, I cannot go, I cannot leave him alone. I was like, I just had a feeling if I left my mom there, that she doesn't die. From starvation, I was like, no, you have to come with me. So she so much trust me, who's 13 years old, the younger. And she came with me. So we found that she introduces another guy who was going to actually take us through that journey of crossing the river because that journey is very dangerous and she couldn't do it herself.

And we had to climb a lot of different paths of Rocky Mountains and then found a spot that was seen by the people. And I think they drive the guard on that post of the guard and they cross the river through there. Is the woman that helped you escape? Is she North Korean? Yeah, she was North Korean. Do you have any idea how she made the connections to traffic people out?

I heard that she initially sold her own daughters and you think it's crazy thing to do as a mother that she initially sold her own daughters. And you think it's crazy thing to do as a mother. And if I were in North Korea, I would have done the same thing. Because that was the only way that I wouldn't ensure my child not dying from starvation. Like, I heard that she sold two to her of 12 of her daughters to China.

And then at the time she was pregnant. And I think at this point, she was, she rescued me. If she didn't serve me, that'd be dead. And I heard she got executed. After we left and she got called and authority executed her for that. So, of course I regime,

I execute anybody let them escape, but she got into the job because she couldn't feed her children anymore. She had to find a way to make sure that her daughter lives. And that was the way she found that they, she had to send her daughter to China. How did she make, how did she make the connections in China to sell her children?

That I'm not sure, quite sure, but a lot of them now is in pass or back then. The regime did not crack down, escaping as much. In the 90s, there's so many people dying from starvation. Even authorities could not track down who is dead, where? Like in North Korea, when we say goodbye to my mom and I was younger, like there's no guarantee I'm gonna see her again.

Because there's no call, there's no letter you can write, there's no email. If she goes out and she didn't find food that then died, that was it. Nobody I will never ever see again. So so many people were lost like that, that regime just didn't care at the time. And Kim Jong-il thought, he did not think

the defector's gonna escape and go to South Korea and then speaking out and exposing the regime that way. So he was like, yeah, if they want to go let them go, that's fine. And then they realized by the only 2000, all the defectors go and then become spoke person, then they expose what's happening inside us. That's when they realized we need to crack down on the escaping. So that's why it became harder by 2003 and I escaped 2007. What measures did they take to make it harder to escape? Each year was different.

In the beginning, they would build these fences. And then they add a high electrified wire fence. Like polypricing camp, there's electrified wire fence, where like polypriced prison camp there's electrified wire fences. Okay. And then they would give the shoot to kill older for the guards with machine guns. Like if you see anybody just shoot them, don't like like you know bother to catch them.

And then they were asking China to help. China would install the facial recognition cameras with electrified wire fences again, everywhere the cameras and Chinese guys on the other side. And then that was not enough, they were wearing the land mines entirely to the border. And then they evacuated citizens out of the older border towns inside now. So they are bringing new measures. Now there's completely facial recognition cameras, land mines, electrified

fences, both China, both North Korea and South, that it just became impossible to escape now. So it's damn near impossible to get out of there? Yeah, now nobody can escape. Nobody can get out of North Korea right now. What does the border to South Korea look like? That's the DMZ. It is mostly heavily militarized zone in the world. They buried tons of landlines.

I mean, there is any single thing going to cause a war between... I mean, the war never ended, right? Is there taking a break? So anything is an invasion. So that unless you are the guard, then knows the path of invading the electrified wire fences and what time the electricity goes down, what time the post-changing and where the land mines are. Unless you were there for years, you'd not know that path.

So the one soldier who was the border guard at the ends and he's giving me a shot like something six times. So almost nobody can escape through that border. So back to you, back to your story. So your 13 years old, correct? of pain, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you get tired, you men are sold for as a forced labor, so they are like livestock. They let them sleep with their pigs and cows and horses in the bar and give them bare minimum food. And then they make them to do the most dangerous labor, like, you know, cutting the big wood, the mining and those kind of wood,

and then they use the men's labor like that, but women is more lucrative because they can sell us more higher price and a lot of organ harvesting. They buy us for our organs. China buys you for organ harvesting. And they buy us as a prostitute, so they put us in a brothels, in a room. There's no rights, and they just put you in the room and get your rape sometimes, and I heard like 500 times. And even you die after six months, you cannot take it anymore.

And you die, then you die by a nougat, and they are raped and die. And some of them like me are being sold to another trafficker, and my mom was sold for a man in the farming town who was mentally not stable. And they buy them as fake wives as the sex slaves. And if you're lucky, you get only raped by your supposedly husband. But a lot of times, your cousins, fathers, father-in-laws,

and the whole town men will be around. The whole town? A whole town, they raise money and buy one girl and they will be around. And if she dies, they bring another girl, or like an entire family, brothers, buy the girl and then share. And just sextoy, they buy. Wow, that is really. How did you get traffic?

In some sense, they sold my mother first. And she gave charge her for $65. They sold your mother for $65. Yeah, in the 21st century. And I mean, they were negotiating our price right in front of us. They make us turn around and check our bodies and they realize I was a virgin. So that was valuable. I was some perverted men love child virginity. So they sold me over $20, separate from my mom. And then there's a human trafficker wing. Each trafficker makes more

money on top of you, make the margins on you. So North Korean traffickers ordered me and this Chinese first trafficker serving me to the second trafficker. And that trafficker was a Han Chinese who bought me, his name is Hong Wei. He decided to keep me.

He wanted me for himself, for his mistress. And these traffickers are like, in some sense, like kings, right? They have a lot of mistresses, because they cannot afford it. I mean, if you can afford money to buy these girls, you can have, like, literally, theoretically, even 10,000 of them if you want to. So he had a lot of mistress before me,

and he have sex with them, and mistress before me, and he had sex with him and he gave birth, and he started to go. That was the thing. He buys a girl, he gets sick, then he starts her to another farmer, or another bother, whoever gives them the most money, and then he wants to do that with me. So initially he wanted to play with me and kill me as his mistress. And he somehow thought was very, very new that by the time of this is by the time the North Korean trafficker that guy and Chinese trafficker, then by the time

is the third line of trafficking. So a lot of them do not keep virginity. By then, they are all getting raped, and they do not keep their virginity. So, he was a muse. This is actually for the first time I got somebody who kept their virginity to this line. How did you do that? And luckily, I was with my mom with a Chinese broker, and when he was trying to rape me, my mother offered her.

And then after that, the guy trying to rape me, I felt like hell. I don't know what strength came out of me, I felt like hell. Because I was ready to die. I was going to kill myself, if he raped me. And he thought, okay, if she kills herself, and literally she's crazy right now, then I cannot make any money out of her. So for him, okay,. I cannot make any money out of her. So for him, okay, then I need to make money out of her. And this is the third iteration? This is the first iteration. This is a Chinese broker.

Okay. Yeah. So you want to, so you were sold to one trafficker. So from North Korea to the next, he decided to keep you as a mistress. So there's a North Korean trafficker, there's a woman, and then the guy who crossed the river for us, there's a North Korean too. And then from there, the first trafficker Chinese, Korean ethnic Chinese, and then he sold

it. So it's another broker. We did my mother at the time. And he sold my mom separately and and he kept me through Ramy. Okay. And there I lost my mind. I was so fighting hard. And then he sold me to another 12,

because that was the third guy. That was the Han Chinese. That's when he decided to kill me. And then I was trying to kill myself. And he said, if you become my mistress, I'm going to help you to find your family. Because he was the one who sold my mother to a Chinese farmer. So he knew where my mom was. This is one day, it's a miracle. He bought me, and then he showed me a distinct

call to phone. I've never seen a cell phone in my life. And he was like, do you have a vaccine of phone? Of course, I've never seen a phone. But he was saying things in Chinese. And then he's like, this thing can take pictures. So he was taking pictures and then show me on the album, like, this thing can do a lot of things more than I was speaking. And in the pictures, I, you see, this thing can do a lot of things more than I'm speaking.

And in the pictures, I see my mom's photo. And then I was like, this is mama, mama, it's like my mother, my mama. And then that's when he knew the woman that he just saw those my mother. And, yeah, so it's, I love it, so he wrote to my mom too. And then he went to Mina. So he said, if I become his mistress, he was going to buy my mom back from the farmer that he just saw it. And then he was going to help me find my sister and help me give my sick father out of North

Korea. So I made a deal with this devil. And we did some miracle. He kept his promise. He did bring my mom back to me. And then he brought my sick father to me to China. Do you think you fell in love with him? Yeah, I think he did. I think he did.

Yeah. Let's backtrack for just a second. So when you get traffic, or when you get sold to the Chinese farmer, or the next trafficer, how many, what does that setting look like? It's a, from the, when we get to the Chinese side of Riverbank,

this guy brought the blankets and then... asking me to take off his clothes, because I'm gonna, like, have sex with you. And, like, I've never knew what the world is sex, and this is a dark, in the riverbank, and there might be cars going around, and then this guy's's like animals, right? And my mom was like, what are you talking about?

She just had surgery, like, and I was like, no, I have to have her, like, then she didn't take me. So that's when she got raped. And then there was a car was waiting on the, this is the river bank, and the up is a road somewhere. So he, I think, called somebody and then some car came. So we went up that river bank up

and we got into this car truck. So, and then in truck, I was not, I never been in a car, had a seat car like that. I've been in a car three times, that was a, where like there's no roof, where like all the, the car like coming out, you know, not like modern car. So I was having this massive car seat.

But my mother would ask me to look at North Korea, because North Korea is a completely dark. And I could see the apartment that my father was in, that night. And she told me, look at it. It might be the last time you see your home town again. And it was the last time in my home. And then back out to the apartment that he was in.

And then we go inside his apartment. I remember a floor. But in North Korea, it's a cement floor that broken. But his home actually had a wooden floor. I've never seen that in my life, like that. Like he's a wooden floor and had electricity. The nighttime is a home of electricity. And then there was a lady in the bed,

and she was telling us that in China, we had to be sold as slaves. And if you don't want, you can go back to North Korea. But how do we go back to North Korea? I mean, even the guard don't catch us. That means we still dying from starvation. There's no way going back. We still have to stay in China.

Then they called somebody and the second trafficker came. We did his mistress. And she was another North Korean woman like me. So she came like me, but that man kept her to become his mistress. And then that was a guy, was checking our bodies and to negotiating the price with this guy, how much he would be willing to give for my mom and myself. And then from that house, we cannot stay in the border for a long time because the authorities

keep going by. A lot of snow was March 26th. No March 30th. That's the day my sister escaped. March 26th and March 30th were escaping. That day it was a lot of snow and then 5.5am he wanted to take us to the second row, to take us his car. So he was asking us to come down from the building and meet him in the car.

And then when we go down from the stairs, this traffic car would stop my mom in the hallway. He took her pants off and he was just raping her there. And I think I was like mixed up. I think somehow I blocked that off. And later my mom, when I was writing my first book, she was saying that was like two separate events. And that's actually when I really saw it. Because in the river bank, I couldn't see much.

And I just heard it. And that's when my mom was asking me to turn around and cover my ears. And then after that rape, they would present the car again, another car. And there, another lady joined, three of us in the back. And then, the car was going all the way to Sanction, like inside China. So, it's a lot of hiding in car and just moving as fast as you can,

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This product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent diseases. How are you dealing with all this now? Oh, well, I feel like I've have many different lives. At this point, I lived through a lot of lives, but I think I'm just grateful, you know, none of that cared me. And I was able to see the world that was a lot more than this.

So I think because I saw it, I can be a lot be more grateful now that I can be a lot happier with the little things this days. So in so many I guess it's a blessing. I mean, how I look at it is a blessing. And it's for me, that's how I decided to look at it. Let's go back to when you became this trafficker's mistress, the guy who, how were you treated at that point? A lot of beating because I was fighting to be even after initial rape. It was very painful. It was really painful. And I thought my body was getting split out of it. And then I felt ashamed.

I felt so dirty. I was like, you know, rub myself through. I was like, the bleak. Like, constantly in the shower afterwards, it was so shameful. So he would have been me to get out of that and I was constantly like, how can I just die? I cannot end this. But the only thing was he was saying, I'm going to bring your mom. But like, bring my mom was not going to happen in one day. Even after the first wave, he had to go back and negotiate the price with my mom,

because he sold my mom. And this farmer's not going to send my mom for the same price. They were going to try to make more money out of it. So they had to negotiate the price and it took several months. And I think during that time it was very hard, because and then during that time it was very hard, because... And then during that time he had to go by other girls to serve them. So during that time he would lock me in the apartment.

And I cannot go outside. The door is locked from the outside, there are many doors. And even the windows has gates in. And I was in the apartment for, I don't know, 15 days by myself. I don't even know how many days, because there's no clock. And only thing I see is sun rises and goes down.

But I can even turn the lights on because other people can see and the police can come in. So I don't know how many days I was in the apartment, so a lot of times he would lock the door and go and come back. But he would buy me some food and he'd go and sometimes he'd travel just late then he would not buy enough food for me to eat. So I always have some days.

I think he only thought it was gonna be gone for like a week. But that time he would go on for many, many days because he had a serious good too. Sandong is a different state. And Sandong is a very poor town. So a lot of farmers cannot find why they buy North Korean girls. So he had to take this girls, take almost several days to get there, and then negotiating

the price, looking for the man, and it takes many days. So I ate the food quickly because I was in the middle of the day, because I had to be hungry many, many days afterwards. So afterwards I was always like still be very conservative of how I split the food until I come. Yeah, it's so interesting. I completely forgot a lot about this. But eventually my mom came.

And I think that was like hope for me. Like I listened to God one person out of it and I had my father to say and my sisters saved. So after my mom came that was much better I think. How was that when you were described that exact moment when you were reunited with your mother? I saw in a cornfield by then it was I was breathing the rhythm by April 1st This is now in almost the harvest time or

Made it hard hard somewhere day or made it hard somewhere, they, I met her in the middle of the cornfield because we couldn't stop the authority and she was told to this farmer, so I had to go there. And she saw away from, she saw me far away, but she did nothing that was me

because I became a different person. She thought, like, I just became adult. So until came close, she didn't say my name. She just thought, like, someone was strange, woman standing there. And she saw me, like, few meters. And then she just bogged tears. And the first thing she did was give me a pee bag.

Because, until that moment, I was her baby. So, she was like, how much my baby has grown? And she was giving me a pee bag. I was like, I'm not a baby anymore. I've been raped. You know, I'm not a kid. And I felt so awkward that she was treating me like a kid. I don't know when. For her, like, only few months ago,

I was a little kid in North Korea, seeing her on that. And in North Korea, we don't have separate rooms. I was always sleeping next to her at night time. And she was just, she couldn't believe it. How she changed in a few months of time for both of us. And I think from that point, I became her husband, because I was speaking Chinese and she didn't. So she had to rely on literally everything on me, because she could not even say, I won't water, I want to go to bathroom.

So I had to translate everything for her. And to this day, I'm like almost like her husband that she lost. It's our dynamic, whatever change from that point on. What was the, what was the man's name who purchased you? The traffic? The homey. How did he treat your mother

when he purchased her again? I think he was awkward because he raped her a lot. And, He raped her a lot. And... Um... It's... I mean, how do you deal with that? Yeah. But...

Did he... Did he allow you and your mother to communicate on a regular basis? Were you guys together a lot or did he have to keep you separated? I mean, the days he have to keep you separated? I mean, the days he wanted to rape me would take me away. And he was sleeping with all these girls that he was buying. So he was like, you know, way I was lucky,

he didn't need me every day, you know? And he was going on these trips for a month that he had to go sell these girls, but that's when he also raped all these girls, like every one of them, like literally, that's a ceremony, you know, whenever you get a new girl, that's the day you rape the scores. And you, on the other side, vocalize you, that's when you get raped. Like every single person buys you, that's when you get raped many, many times. And they just rape in the car. They rape you on the street. Even the farmland, they take you to the cornfield

and they rape you there. I never knew, it was that many ways you could rape somebody. Like, there's no thing in it. There's no privacy. Like, if they, at least I was this lawman, like he's called lawman, the boss is wife. But this girl who gone and there's no dignity, if this guy is on a rape,

you just rape you in front of everybody. Like, there's nothing they do to protect you in any way. And so, at least he becoming more respectful towards me. Initially he was hitting me. And he was treating me like all other girls that he's been treating. And somehow by some miracle, he was falling more in love with me every day. And he was looking for ways to divorce his Chinese wife, who he had two children with. His daughter was one year younger than me,

and he wanted to actually marry me and want to have a child with me. So, he became more protective of me in that way. So he became more becoming nice to my mother. But then after one year passes, he becoming addicted to gambling. And then when he brought my father, that's when my father was very sick. And by then he had enough of me, right? So the beating starts again, and threatening starts again. And my father passed away and won't less burden for him. And then he would not even give enough money to buy any food from my mom anymore.

Like in China, I couldn't buy her water. Because in the apartment, if you don't pay the money, the water stops. So before the water cut off, I learned the way to turn the tap just a little bit. So one tap, tap, tap, drops, and turn around. And we get the one bucket of water for that week. And the meter stops before we stop because he stopped paying for the money. And eventually I had to say, oh my mom, it looks like I could find her anymore. I'm in food in China. So I saw her to another farm and then with that money, he spent just one evening for gambling,

he smelled that money. And I had to run away from him because he also couldn't feed me and then I got kidnapped by another gangster. And this gangster was a lot darker than homey. He, this Gengse actually kills people. He, that's his job, like killing people. And I eventually got, like, run away from him too. Let's go back for just a minute. Your dad passed away. Just a dozen eight, he passed away in February.

Let's talk about that. How did he pass? He passed away. Just a dozen eight, he passed away in February. Let's talk about that. How did he pass? He got to China on my birthday, October 10th of 2007. And then he was already very, very sick. Because he was tortured so much in the prison camp. He had a colon cancer, because he was eating rocks. I mean, he was eating so bad. I mean, he was eating the things that human beings should

never eat. And that was the only way he could survive. So he passed away a few months later in China. So... Did you get to have a funeral? No, I think the way I keep trying to push this thing is that because even though he's my hero to this day, but he was so hard to take you away in China

that we were in some sense waiting for him to die, because he was becoming more delirious as time goes by, and the pain is so much. And he sometimes forgets that he would even in China, and he wants to keep going to his back North Korea. He wants to keep, I mean, he buried in North Korea next to my father and my homeland. And I couldn't do that for him.

I could not take him to North Korea. There's no way I could do that. And then, home made was very frustrated because my father, he thought if he'd bring him, he could make my father as a forced labor and make one out of him. But he was too sick to do any work. So he was tired of feeding him and taking care of him. So a lot of just feeding on me, just getting it out of me. He was frustrated with him so we would take it out on him.

So I couldn't mourn his death. I couldn't even feel anything for him. I was just, I was barely surviving. So when he passed away, Dr. Saddi was going to leave six months. I'm like, oh my god, take your name for six months. I cannot even do one day or day. And he passed away just four months afterwards. And in some sense, I heard, when I was not there,

my mom had to give me a lot of peers to accelerate the process. And my mom said, my dad so much didn't want to die. Unlike me, he didn't want to die. He thought life was a gift. Then you have to keep fighting for it. And I couldn't understand, how do you fight for life when your life is, means this little. Time was so much easier that time. So I couldn't get it, but somehow he still thought life was gift. And he passed away and buried ashes in the middle of night when everybody was sleeping.

And that was end of his life. I'm sorry to hear that. You had to hide the funeral, the ceremony. Yeah, there's no such a thing. It's a real fugitive, so we cannot... We cannot even cry because we cannot... other people see us hearing us. So we had to be as discreet as possible.

So moving forward, you're with the new trafficker of whom murderers people. Yeah. What happened there? A lot of beating and a lot of threatening he had like nine herons today. And nine what? Nine girl harems. They were Chinese actually. And this guy was so... It was in the 50s or 60s guy. I'm like 14 years old. He somehow has so much money

and that's why he was having his nine Chinese mistresses. That means he's really worth it. Most Chinese guy can't even find one girl for them. He got nine of them or these teenage girls. And these girls were so happy to be with him even. He somehow, none of them could give him a son. And he took me to this fortune teller who was blind old man, like some elderly home,

he took me there. And then like, do you see a son in her future? And he says, yes. He's open, and I have my son in America. But maybe that's the son he's all right. You say? Life is so crazy. So he sees that's also his alright. Life is so crazy. So, my son in his future is like, I totally see a very healthy young boy in her life.

And he says, you should definitely keep her. She is not giving you a son. And then, describing comes comes up so obsessed. He demands that I give him a sum. And it's scary. Every day he says, you are less valuable than a pig. I can kill you in this body.

Nobody gonna do anything to me. So you better do whatever I say, tell you. And I was isolated from my mom again. She was now with a farmer that I sold her to. I want to see my mom and you not let me. So at the time, Hong Wei was fighting to get me back. And then Hong Wei said, I'm gonna give my life for this.

Are you willing to die for your enemy? And he's like, no, why are you talking about why which die for a girl? They are so, you can just buy them. They are so replaceable. And this gang so eventually realized, it's not worth of me to fight this much, to keep her. So he's so much, and then I told him,

if you just let me go see my mom, I'm gonna come back to you. Like just let me go see my mom once. And he got convinced. So he had enough trust with me at the time that I was faking it. Like just trust me. I'm gonna come back to see my mom and come back to you.

Why would I not wanna be with you? It's this powerful man, like every woman want to be with you, you know? And he said, okay, the logic makes sense because all these girls want to give a child to him because he was going to bite in the most expensive apartment and life secured for them.

So when he let me go, I took a bus and go to see my mom, I threw that phone away because I knew that he planted. He was working with the police to track all these girls. The police is corrupt. So I threw the phone and I ran away with my mom. And I found the home way back. And then there we found the lady told us that there's a way we can get a shatter,

which means we had a journal, sex chat room. There is, it's not actual prostitution, no man comes there, a rape you, but you are involved with a camp and a computer and you show your body. But if you do that, then they are going to give you a place to sleep and eat. And I was begging to go washing dishes in the restaurant during the time. I was like, just let me work. I can wash dishes. I can do anything, just give me a job.

I don't even need to get pages. Give us some place to sleep and eat. And they wouldn't give us any of the job in China. I can do anything, just give me a job. I don't even need to get pages. Give us some places to sleep and eat, and they won't give us any of that job in China. So, only place we can go for is another. This kind of dark world. Wow. And that's how we joined the Charoon.

Damn. How did you get out of that? In the char room, the clients were South Koreans. Because South Koreans were wealthier than Chinese. So they would prevent, spend, like, five-dollar membership to see a live person performing any sex-acstay one. It's much more thrilling than watching a just boring form. So a lot of South Korea men will just pay money to come and chat with the skirts and ask them to show their body.

And because the economic power is very different. So for them, this was not a lot of money for them. And then in this childhood, we met another North Korean woman. And she somehow got in touch with some missionaries from South Korea, who were rescuing North Koreans. And she said she was too afraid to go herself because the chance of making was 1%. Because the path was walking across the Gobi Desert into Mongolia.

And most of the people died there. You don't make it. So she was just too afraid to make that decision by herself. She was asking, would you come with us? Because it was my mom and myself and her three of us now. It was better than going along. And we spoke without missionaries over the phone and that was for the first time somebody

felt bad for us. We told them about how we lost our sister. And they said, I'm so sorry to hear that, I'm going to pray for her. And we thought maybe we can trust these people. Like, you know, there was nobody ever prayed for us, nobody ever said, like, I'm so sorry you're going through this. And this missionary who never met us, who doesn't even know our name said, I'm so sorry that you are going through it.

And if you believe in God, you take care of it. And you can come out of this. So we decided to join the missionaries from there. Did you know what God was? No. I did not. I actually... I just laughed because as a North Korean who believed that having no problem that Kim Yersong was my God, it was bizarre to me that they were believing exact same thing that I believe, just the names were different.

You know, just they switched the Kim Yersong to God and Kim Jong-un, to Jesus, literally same content commandments there. Like I just thought it's another weird word that I was in. The only difference was that these people were not rapists. We're not trying to make money out of us. They were just doing it to glorifying their gut. They thought that God wanted to know screen people to know who he was. And that's what they were giving their life to. So I thought, what is weird people?

You believe something you don't see and come to this dangerous land. I'm asking people like us for, in the name of God. And then at the time, it's honestly, it didn't matter if they asked me to believe in a rug, I would have believed it. Because I was that desperate. It wasn't even me trying to pretend. When you're desperate, you can believe in an air. You can believe in an air.

If somebody tells you, if you believe in this thing, you're going to be safe, you're going to believe that. That's as hard as you can. So, I became a believer. My mom became a believer, and we studied the Bible for several months there. Immediately. Yeah, the first day they asked us to repeat the prayer that to be saved by Jesus. He's sacrificed and they said, now you're Christians, that now you are God's people,

and you are saved. And now your life is on him and he's gonna take care of you. That's interesting that you found faith that quickly, especially considering everything that you had been through in North Korea and in China. I lost it in South Korea. I think in China was just out of desperation. Yeah. At the time that was the only option for me to be saved. How many, if you had an estimation, how many times do you think you were raped?

How many times do you think you were raped? Not count. Hundreds? I have not learned count. Definitely not. Definitely it's not something that I can count. But a lot. But... I don't know, it's just...

as a way, big team keeps saying, I'm not dirty, you know. It's like, I'm not dirty, but you always feel like, you feel like dirty. And... I think it's a lot of times, North Korea and me cannot come up with their stories because of this.

Because... This project somehow, that you are the fourth, A lot of times, North Korea, we cannot come out with their stories because of this. Because. This project somehow, that you are the fourth, that you can never be like somebody else that was pure and clean. And I just say, even saying, thinking about it,

if my son sees this someday, he's going to think of me dirty, that makes me afraid. I think he would be very proud of you. Yeah, I hope so. I think he would be extremely proud of his mom. Yeah. For everything that you've been through and what you're doing now and it's you are a walking

miracle. Yeah, I am. Do you realize that? I do. Very lucky. The only reason I asked that question is I wanted to show the severity of what you'd been through and the miracle on how fast you were able to find some sort of faith in a higher power of God. Yeah, it's a... It's a lot.

You...it's not... They just treat you like a toy. So, they need to go through a lot. And one thing I'm grateful is that I was bought by the boss. So, I didn't get thrown around. Like most people do. That if you get just bought by even a normal farmer, it's not just one person out of that to you.

Everybody can do that to you. How did... I mean, it sounds like so when you went to South Korea, you felt compassion and love and a lot of good emotions that probably you've never felt in your entire life. What did that, how did that feel to you? Being able to express your emotions and I don't know if you felt happy in S.I.D. or I don't know if you felt love yet.

But what did it feel like to have compassion towards you? You'd never experienced any compassion towards you whatsoever up until this point. I think I only heard that in America. You didn't feel in South Korea? No, because South Korea was very not for even country. I could not talk about my human trafficking experience there, because no sane man would marry me, and who would have a child with me. And no more mother in law is an ex-sub-me.

As there, you know, South Korea is very traditional conservative society. And my dream was always being a mother. I always, as a child, I know. I always want to be a mother. And I couldn't, in South Korea, there's no chance of me ever being married to some normal respect of men if I had a past. So I couldn't talk about that.

And also life in South Korea wasn't that easy because when we get there, they say, like, we are very competitive country. And North Koreans don't have a skillset. We don't speak English. We don't know what computer is. We don't know. We don't have any education. And we cannot even work as the waitress

because our accent is from North. So they don't even give you a job at the bakery. You cannot even serve dishes at the restaurant. It's hard to find a job. Like in my North Korean girlfriends, they come to America to find a job easily. They work in the other care. They work in the near salon. They don't care. You speak the spoken English as long as you know what they give you a job. Not in South Korea. They don't rape you because police are going to come after you, but because we have accents. And we are, as you can see, last smaller than them.

And so they don't give us jobs easily. And it's very hard to find any job there. Who's teaching religion then? The Bible. In South Korea, they... A the Christians, but the countries are not like Americans, multicultural. They are not used to outsiders. And the only people they respect are the wealthy white people. You know, it's like French Americans who are calm, then they are fine.

But if you come from Vietnam, Laos or North Korea, the countries are polar, then they are fine, but if you come from Vietnam, Laos or North Korea, countries are polar, then they definitely discriminate. Okay. So it's definitely based on economic power they do. Well, when you got there, so the missionaries saved you from South Korea. So what, where did they put you when you got to South Korea? No, so they don't put us and it's missionaries who put us in the shelter in Qingdao, Beijing, China, and then after we study Bible several months, then they

send us to walk across the desert. Okay. So we cross the desert ourselves, they don't come with us, it's too dangerous. The chance of making so low, so they would say, give us a compass like you go and cross like eight wire thin fences. You might reach China, I mean, North Mongolia. Then if you get discovered by Mongolia and Gaos, tell them that you are North Korea and I want to go to South Korea. It's okay. But the chance of you get discovered by Mongol Chinese soldiers is very high. Their wire fences,

we electrified fences and wired animals and it's minus 40 degrees cold. It's most of them don't make it. That's why they don't cross the Mongolia path. Usually they all go through Thailand. How did you make it across? Walking. We walked.

How long? It was one day. Because some of the month they walked even a month or days. But usually we picked the most coldest time. So guards wouldn't think that somebody would be discresing up to cross the border right now. Oh my god. So it was minus 3 degrees and I even, it really becomes ice going so cold. So you wait for the worst weather conditions?

Because that's the least Thai security. Otherwise if it's a summer time, just board hanging out everywhere to then shoot you. They're not going to let you cross the border. So we chose a time and we crossed that distance, with the shortest distance between the Gobi Desert. Wow. Well, let's take another short break and then when we come back, we'll talk about your journey to the United States.

Great. Perfect. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, we're back from the break. You have seen probably more trauma than anybody that's sat in that chair. And I don't know how much you know about this show, but it's a lot of combat veterans and a lot of Special operations guys and we talk about we talk a lot about healing after the traumas of war. I've not heard anything

That comes close to what you've experienced So before we get into So before we get into coming to the United States, how I'm curious, because I don't wanna run out of time on this portion, how are you processing all this? How are you going to therapy? Have you looked at psychedelics? Have you looked at, I mean, how do you get through it all?

I think mental strength, it can be exercise, so even I'm not talking about it, it was very hard, because I know I'm traumatized, because irrational that I'm going to worry about my son is not going to think of me as a good person. But I think my strength is always coming from.

I mean, a position can talk about this, but there are people actually living through what I went through. And sometimes, you're on the hours. And I think that knowledge gives me strength to keep speaking up. So you're finding your strength for speaking for the oppressed? Yeah, for those speakers, I know what I feel is to go through that terror, Nick. I'm in a place that people are so good, they talk about trauma. You know, the key knowledge we don't even have that as a concept.

And I mean, I placed there therapy, but... Actually, people who go through this darkness, they don't even know what that is. This is every day's torture and terror. So, yeah, if I can't even talk about it, I mean, what can I do in the world? And I also believe, like you said, I'm lucky that there's a reason why I got saved. There's only 209 defectors made to America over the last 80 years. There's only 209 in the past. Did you say 80?

Yeah. Years. So, of course I'm lucky. Despite everything I've gone through, I'm the luckiest person that I know of. So I think keeping that perspective is very important. And I don't go to therapy, I don't do any drugs, I don't want any anxiety peers. I never took one. I have done one like psychedelic therapy,

but I didn't. Once. But what was it? I think it's a very good thing I was on like psychedelic therapy, but I was... You did? Once. But... What was it? I think it was... It was pretty bad. It was helpful, but I don't think I thought I needed one again. It wasn't something that I had to do it again.

To me, it was more important for me to make a decision on why I survived. Like, I survived to tell this story. I survived that to shine the light in the darkness. And it's bigger than me. All right, my story's a lot bigger than me. There are 300,000 of North Korean girls. They're organs are a harvest out of them. I didn't get that. I'm so lucky.

So I do sometimes worry though. American culture is sometimes overly compassionate. They almost expect you to become a victim. They almost expect you to not to function very well. A lot of people keep asking me, like, how are you so high functional? How are you so positive? Like, why are you so normal?

And there's kind of some expectation that if you've gone through certain trauma, you're almost obligated to fear, not as good. And I don't know, it's weird, even being a mother, the most honorable, beautiful thing that I've ever done, doctors keep asking, the post-partum depression is a normal thing. Do you feel depressed? Every doctor's visit there keep asking you, are you depressed? I'm like, you are making me depressed now, but I'm asking that, right?

So, I try not to get into this cultural mindset where we become less vigilant, that I know that we are a lot stronger than we are. And I try not to become less strong. You know, I'm not in a survivor mode in any way, but strength is a good thing. Resilience is a great thing if you can keep that. So, I just decided that I can manage.

I mean, if I survive that in real life, of course I can survive is a memory of it. Well, I was not expecting you to say that, and I think that it is amazing that you're saying that you refused to victimize yourself after everything you've been through. And I think that that is a enormous problem that we're facing in the United States with people victimizing themselves. And to listen to somebody like you with your story who's not victimizing themselves and to watch the people in the United States who have all these opportunities, you know, to improve whatever portion of their life they

think needs to be improved. And they just, they victimize themselves. It's the common theme now and it's becoming more and more common. Yeah, it's really sad. It's to see that people are... I mean, even today I'm driving here. Like even trees are shining right here. And the roads, I mean, every house, the peace, and this is the most beautiful thing ever ever seen in my life. And if you cannot have a pride to be a member of this country,

I mean, what can you ever be proud of in the world? Like, if we build this country, if we have this country, and it's a miracle. Of course, it has a problem to fix, but everything is. But losing that perspective and losing that gratitude. I think that's very hard. And if you lose gratitude, you're never going to be ever happy. You know, when you're only grateful, you can be happy.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about your journey to the United States. And how that happened. Where did that start? So, 2014, I was a junior year in University of South Korea studying criminal justice. And I had a opportunity to speak at a conference in Dublin, Ireland. And that was my really first public speech.

And I don't have ever seen me in the Hanbok, Korean traditional pink dress, and living on speech. That was an amazing speech. That was my very, very first speech. And... That was the first speech you ever gave? Yeah. Wow. Very impressive.

I was just turning 21 on that, like few days before that podium. And I had no idea I was going to America because I don't have money. I don't have connections. I cannot buy the plane. I mean, I don't have visa money to come here. But I did visit America in 2013 as a mission group in Tyler, Texas, to study Bible and do outreach program for a Disappointed Night program.

I came here 12 weeks and went back to Korea and studied the university again. But this time after my speech, I had a book offer from Penguin Random House to buy my first book. And then my agent was in New York City. So I went to meet my agent in New York, and then they said, let's write a book. But while I was writing the book, I wanted to continue my university education because I didn't finish it. And they said, oh, there is a great going near, which called Columbia University. So just like that, so great. I mean, I love

learning. It's what I live for, like understanding how the world works and how the human history forms is this most fascinating thing, right? So I applied Columbia and I got in. So that's how I moved to America in 2015 to publish my first book and starting at Columbia University in 2016 January. So it came here eight years ago. Yeah. What is the first thing, I mean, what is the first thing that you noticed when you settled in here? To New York City. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's a lot that is a lot of freedom to take in at once. Yeah, I think it was a lot. I mean, I first press I got to was Times Square. Because they, from DC, they would chip a stick and they could get in Chinese bus.

They booked me and they sent me a bus from DC to New York and it gets off somewhere for the authority near Times Square thing. And then I got in taxi and got out was a was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, Ir weapon. I was like, yeah, they don't need our help. It's all because you have my tears. It's like it literally provided in daytime. And then, you know, it's what made me all of New York City was, if you give freedom to individuals, like what they are capable of building with it, like what they are capable of building with it. What is the potential of humanity was just for scary New York City that looking at this empire-state building,

you know, Rockefeller Center like all these buildings through the computer each other and try to live a mark in the world. And I think that one thing my father told me as a younger was when Tiger's die, they live their skin. And I think that one thing my father told me as a younger was, when Tiger's die, they live their skin. But when people die, they live their names. That's why he told me to make my name long and lasting.

And in America, you can do that. Not only dictator can do that in North Korea, everything is about dictator. Every statue, we don't have ads, because you cannot compare the dictator. We don't have advertisement. But in America, I mean, these people are trying to make their name last thing

and building the buildings out of their name, libraries, the symphony horse, everything. And I was amazed that this is the land of individuals, that the individual matters in this land, and they celebrate being an individual. And you are no longer a bad collective thing. You get judged for who you are, what you are, what you are trying to do.

And I just felt that was so empowering. Because you cannot choose your ancestor. I mean, can you choose your ancestor? No. You cannot choose your birthplace. I think that was the greatest, I mean, in just that I've ever seen that people get punished for something they didn't choose.

That is why racism is wrong. That's why punishing people for their birthplace is wrong, right? But in America, they only judge you for who you are right now. And that was America that I thought was getting into, for sure. And initially, that's what my impression was. Yeah. That's a, man, that's gotta be a lot to,

I'm just trying to wrap my head around all the oppression, you know, how old were you when you got to the U.S.? 21. 21 years of oppression. And then you get here and literally any door you want to walk through is open. Yeah, it was. I mean there are so many funny things. I heard New York City people are busy and I got to Central Park. everybody's keep running.

I thought they were running for work, but they were trying to burn off their calories. In North Korea, we had to conserve our energy to survive. We don't know what gym is, we don't know what exercises, every day is a hard labor. And in Compton, America, their problem is burning off calories. They pay money to burn off their calories, right? My girlfriends would go to like an economics gym and they have membership. They go to group classes to burn like all showing off I burn like 500 calories today. I'm like you pay money for that Like you just You know what? Like, it's crazy. Like, why would you pay money off to kill your own calorie, right?

Yeah. Oh my gosh. And like, my girlfriend's gonna show me they're dating apps, you know? They're kind of like left-to-right thing. And there's any guy you wanna date, any woman you wanna date, there's nothing about your class, your song, your cast, anybody who is a total freedom, like who you marry, who you wanna be with is free, and literally you get any food and nighttime and Uber eats,

right? Just every food is available anywhere, any nurse Korea I've never seen a cookbook because of how can we afford, you know, five kilogram of pork and garlic, like butter, we don't have those ingredients. There's no cookbook, there's no recipe, we just find whatever we can gather that day. And I never heard like, cook was a job.

And I mean, there were so many jobs that I never knew. There were people like wedding planners. Like in North Korea there's nobody plans you're ready, you know. Yeah. It's a party approval that's it. And so many jobs, different jobs and of course understanding hedge fund for the first time. It was just completely new planet. It was just completely new planet. Man, it's... So what's your favorite food? What was your favorite food coming to the US?

Stake. Stake? Because I mean, it's a North Korea, I think I had a thing. The cows had more rice than us. So coming to America eating beef and not getting executed, it was like giving a meat finger to Kim Jong-un every day, you know? Ah. I was like, I'm like to Kim Jong-un every day, you know? Oh. I was like, I'm like, you turn me to it

as much as I can. Good for you. Yeah. What about, so the dating scene? That's something that I didn't even, I never even thought about it until you just brought it up. So, I mean, in North Korea, you're not allowed to date, you're not allowed to think.

Yeah. How did you, what. How did you start dating? That was how I didn't date anybody in South Korea. Because maybe this is the trauma comes with it. I never wanted to date Asian men. I was never attracted to it. I never kissed to it. And I never kissed the Asian man. I think because of all my rapists, the Asian man, I was like, maybe associating that with it. Yeah. So, in some sense, coming to be completely honest, I have nothing to gain the Asian.

My son is Asian. People believe me. I can't not. But, maybe it was easier to come into America. People did not speak any Korean or Chinese. They were speaking English. They looked different. And I was able to start dating at 21 again. And I dated the Russian Jew who escaped from Soviet Union as a child, as a Jew, they were also persecuted. So there was a lot of connection to understand oppression. Okay. And then it was weird because in New York City,

I was at 21 in a very conservative community relationship and all my friends were like, what are you doing, you're 21, you need to supposed to pass the water. Like you need to have fun. You need to, you know, self-actualize by doing a lot of people see what you like. So they were like, keep saying, I'm doing wrong

by being in a committed relationship. That is my first relationship. So there was a lot of social pressure being in college and telling me that it's not okay to be that serious at 21. Yeah, that's a lot of social pressure being in college and telling me that it's not okay to be that serious at 21. Yeah, that's a lot of influence. Yeah, and everybody, literally the people that really admire, they were telling me that, you know, you are a woman, you need to enjoy your sexuality and it was shocking.

Did you find it? Did you get enjoyment out of dating and getting to know different men or? I did not date casual labor. So first person I was dating for a year, very seriously. The very first date, one of them being a year long relationship. And second man that I met was my husband. Okay. So I don't think I ever got into American dating scene like that. And also it was interesting because

they are all lovely people but from North Korea I thought big fat, bored man were attractive because we were very starving in North Korea. And in America like I was just attracted a lot of people. Then my friends did not find attractive. I was attracted a lot of people, my friends did not fire me. So my girlfriend was just so amazed. You have very odd taste. When you are articulated, it definitely makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because I did not know the conventional American beauty standard. And so I did not know what it was for very confused

long time. And so yeah dating was very, by Americans who were not just mental at all. They knew my story. None of them ever judged me for what I had to do to survive. I'm very grateful for that. And yeah, I did, made me feel like a woman who's worthy of desire. And I'm very grateful for that. Interesting, very interesting. Let's move into some of the similarities that you see today, which your book is what, you know, the message that you're sending out. What are, what are some of the first similarities? What comes your mind first? What are you seeing that resembles maybe the beginning of what happened in North Korea here in the United States? There are too many, but let's begin with a few. One is attacking individuality. It's now America becoming more of attacking that.

You know, it's all about collective guilt in America. As I said, my son is half white. They say he is privileged and he is guilty. He did not just be white. Nobody in America today alive owns a slave. Nobody ever should fear guilty and nobody is privileged Nobody in America today alive owns a slave. Nobody ever should fear guilty and nobody is privileged because of their ancestors. America using race to divide people and making each other hate each other.

And I think that's very heartbreaking. They are using exact same tactic to divide North Korean people. They are using the same tactic here. Second is meritocracy. In North Korea, it doesn't matter how good you are. It doesn't matter how hard you want to work. It's all about, in America, nice-here equity, right? Are you a person of color?

Are you a sexual minority? And the companies have quotas. Universities have quotas. Literally, universities, the place where you try to train you to be competent, giving you the best skills you can. It's not about that, it's your skin color. They have different skin koras on Harvard, Columbia, based on just, based on test scores,

more than 70% people at Harvard should be agents, but no, they only accepted over 11% of them agents each year because of skin color. So that's heartbreaking, because how we get better at the society, promoting competition and competence. Yeah. We do not, we need to appreciate that people's hard work.

When somebody told me about justice in South Korea, I never heard about justice. I asked them, like, what is justice? And this person said to me, in South Korea, if you work hard, you are going to get rewarded for that in South Korea. Because that is justice. That's why I work so hard. 이 시각의 It's any good thing, it's a very dangerous path that we are digging into. And people do that. And not only that, like Colombia, they attack science.

They say that math is racist. And this is the very first lesson that I learned in North Kent classroom. My teacher asked me one day, what is one plus one? I said two, and she said, wrong. Because my dear little discover that's a young age, adding one drop of water to another drop of water, it becomes bigger one. It doesn't become two. That's how he proved that math was made up by white men.

Can you rest in? Now in America, they say the same thing. The math is made up. Gender is made up. This is a gender is a social construct that might be able to find a way to control the minority. And I'm a woman, like, I can never be a man. Like, woman is a woman.

You have a, you have, like, you make eggs, you have different genetics. And now, me saying this, that I argued with my professor on one day, I can never be a man. And she said, you are brainwashed. And if you're a science, you need to get a debate. If you cannot question the science in current America right now, then that's the end of progress.

If you cannot challenge the science, then there is no progress. If no progress means you are getting destroyed, that's a very scary path that we're getting into. So all these attacks and also about the same thing that my teachers were telling me how the most important thing is my dear leader, not my parents. Now, our children and school learning that our parents are not safe,

because they are bigots. They are never going to understand you. They tell you that your parents are not safe space. If they don't accept who you are, they will legitimize everything that you feel you are going away from them. We try to destroy families, get that highway, and destroy the state, destroy the institutions. That does not have your best interest.

And seeing those family bond is getting destroyed in America every day. And your child is not yours anymore, right? They go to school, they learn that the older problems in the world right now we have is because of white men, because of greedy capitalism. And I have some like, without capitalism, this kid at Columbia wearing like $300 yoga pants, on the green juice detox because they are eating too much good food. In their hand MacBook, and internet, and MacBook telling me how horrible capitalism is.

I mean, with capitalism, they will not have any of that. They will not be able to sit in the room where there is air conditioning in. There is electricity, there is internet to learn the material. And they learn to hate capitalism. And the professor said that the only solution to all these problems that we have is a communist revolution. What is it like for you to sit there and listen to that shit? I was, I wouldn't have thought like, did I go back to North Korean classroom because it was identical. How on earth? As all that my journey to be free, I come to sit in the classroom and learn the same thing that I learned in North Korean classroom.

How is this possible? And how are we okay with that? Because we know what happens. If we follow those ideologies, we're going to become like North Korea. That ideology drove North Korea, China, I mean, Soviet Union. Every country tried to work with that ideology. It brought death to millions of human beings. Nothing has been more than just an undisidial ideology of collectiveism and communism and equity.

And our politicians, our vice-president, our president, talk about how important fight for equity every day. And equity is evil ideology. This is a complete evil. And if you say that now you're a white wing, like a bigot, I'm a CIA agent. They tell me I am trained by CIA to tell this. I'm like, we use CIA while they're not calling me, right?

And they say, oh, you are brainwashed by Fox News. I'm like, I came here in America to not knowing what Fox News is. I did not know what conservative or like deliverable was when I was escaping. I had no agenda. I had no idea what the word was. Just I come here, I recognize the patterns that I see now and pointing that out, now that I'm the spy. That's how they show you down and kill your character.

It's very interesting how many different nationalities or different immigrants are coming here and they're starting to see the writing on the role? You hear it from Venice, Waylands, you hear it from Cubans, you hear it from Chinese, you hear it from Iranians, you hear it from North Koreans, and it's I mean it's Do you feel like you're making headway in your mission? Statement? To me.

By bringing this stuff to light, do you think people are paying attention? To me is, when I do this work, I was really shocked during the pandemic. I thought I brought my son, the best thing I I have done to was giving the American passport, giving him this free country. Unfortunately, pandemic just began as soon as he becomes a toddler, learning how to walk. Pandemic sets in Chicago. I cannot afford.

I have to send him to daycare to work. At daycare, he was forced to wear a mask eight hours day up here. And they let the street clubs open next door. Others can get go get drugs and hide in, do whatever thing they want in the street clubs. Totally who just barely had to walk at two, have to wear a mask up here eight hours a day.

There's nothing I could do about that. And then, people saw me, some mothers in the play group, in his play group saw me that I was, I guess, class-closed, told to their nanny that don't play with my son because of me. And to me, it's not about people are making a war now. I have no option because this country is not that truly free anymore. During the pandemic, it was not a science, it was madness. I was I was robbed on the street in Chicago, in front of my son by black women.

The day life brought life. People this girl was punching me and, by black women. And they like, brought life. People, this girl was punching me and took my wallet out. And I was trying to call the cops on these steps. And people surrounding me, looking at me, screaming at me. Why are you doing this? You're racist. Why are you doing this? Why are you like? Because I was trying to call the cops on these steps.

The under problem. Because they can never be oppressed because of their skin color. I don't deserve justice. I don't deserve compassion because of my skin color in America. I mean, this is another side of madness. It's another side of injustice. Because I'm not a black. I don't deserve to be protected by the public,

I don't deserve to call the cops and get help from them. And I think this is a thing like people don't understand what the world would be like without America. When I was escaping from North Korea, even that darkness I had a place to run to. I had hope, I can escape to freedom. I mean, if America falls down, where do we escape?

No place to go. We don't. This is a last hope for humanity. This is a last hope for me. And this is the only hope for my son. No matter people don't make a go, it doesn't matter I have to fight. Because I know if we keep going this path of this equity bullshit, we are going to end up like North Korea.

And already, like, it was so shocking to me Americans were asking me, are North Koreans stupid or something? Why don't they just start revolution? Right? And I'm like, so let me ask you, like, currently now in America, you stand up, it's costing you a job, you livelihood, and your reputation, but in North Korea, it costs three generations of your children's, your family's life. Your life, your kid's life, your parent's life. And then in America, even the price is not that much.

People are cowards. They go to cooperation. They follow the diversity training. They follow all these nonsense. They don't even know what that means. They do as they are told. They do as they are. They follow and she like it.

All these people. If I was alive the time of the Holocaust, I would have saved the Anne Frank. I would be the hero of saving all these people. Telling them, there are 300,000 of North Korean women are going through modern-day Holocaust. What are you doing about it? Nothing. Watching their Netflix. So, the hypocrisy of these people. But you should, I mean, that's a thing. There is no alternative, other than

keep fighting to me. So I think that's what I'm trying to convey to American people. It's not an option to fight or not. We have to do this. If we don't do this, if we don't protect our freedom, who's not doing for us? You know, I was always saying, it's important to fight for animals rights. There are so many of my friends in New York City fight for climate change, fight for little ducks, you know, fight against Canada goose, you know, fighting for dolphins.

And to me, they always ask me, like, why are you fighting for human rights? And people ask like, why do I have to care about human rights? We don't ever ask why do you have to care about puppies, right? Somehow, when you fight for human rights, you always have to tell them why you fight for it. Because we are the only ones who can fight for human rights. Dogs will not fight for us.

Mosings will not fight for us. We are the only ones who can fight for our rights as human beings. And somehow, that is not so automatically understood or think to them. That is somehow a luxury that we should do, you know, we can only afford it when we can. I think what you're saying is a mass population of people who have had it very easy for a very long time. Yeah. They don't understand. It's like similar but completely different.

It's similar to the mindset in North Korea. They can't imagine what freedom is like. They have no idea what they're missing out on in life. And then turn the tables and come to America and they, Americans, most of them cannot fathom what a life in North Korea would be like. Or what a life in Venezuela or Cuba or Russia or Iran, you know, they cannot it doesn't it doesn't even compute, you know, because if it did then we wouldn't be seeing the shit that we're seeing right now, you know, and I don't know

You know, and I don't know. The divide has become so strong that I don't know, I don't know how to, I don't know how to bring this stuff to light. You know, it's people like you, they have to bring it to light. And I think the hardest part of what you have to do is you have to bring this story to two different sides of this country. You have to bring it to the right, to the conservative side, you have to bring it to the liberal side in hope to God that people are listening.

Do you feel like people are listening? It's interesting. When I was with my first book, I had a media training by the publisher and they gave me training not to talk about anything. I came to America for the first time and somebody asked me, like, what do you think about gun, owning a gun? I said, that is the most empowering thing I've ever heard. Imagine if North Korean people had guns. They're not gonna let them come ex-Kirman or your children. They're gonna shoot them back, even if,

I mean, doesn't matter, you're gonna get killed anyway. If we had guns, governments would, I didn't kill all of us, then who are they gonna rule over? Right? It makes no sense for them to kill all of their people. So there's no country ever can do that to their citizens. If the citizens have a right to defend themselves, it was about that.

Of course, we should defend that right. It's the most important right I can ever see as a free individual. Keep that liberty. They were like, okay, what do you like to read? I like to read John's dear, like, mere sect only liberty and Bastia's law. And they were like, OK, but just don't talk about that in public. Because before even you start your five-four-norsen people,

they're going to brand you as a conservative, right-wing, a conspire stearist. So I had to avoid that for a long time. I did not talk about that. I only talked about it when they, when I was seeing the pandemic, how I was powerless, raising my son in Chicago.

There's nothing I do to make no sense this mask man there, oh my kid. There's nothing I could, you know sense, this mask man, that's my kid. There's nothing I could do. You know, they were forcing him to do it. I mean, what can I do? There's nothing I could do. Even though children are safe, and they would open the dog parks. And then my son, the children's playground is closed.

He has somewhere in the in Chicago, where the sun hits the playground is, I am tied to it all. And I was like, doggies have more rights than my child right now. Doggies can go dog parks and play and run around. My child, because he even tried to get a gold playground and play together. And I was very so powerless at the time. And I was like, I'm not going to repeat the history. I'm not going to be like my grandmother, going to be confluent, you know, conflying with this control. And when

it comes to me, I do not know even that I was oppressed. And I'm going to find everything I have. To for you, good for you. I love hearing that. to for you, good for you. I love hearing that. Well, you know me, I think that is a perfect way to end this. And um, I just want to say, I know how, I know how hard it can be to share your story. I've not experienced anything even close to that, but I do know a little something about internal trauma and I just I just want to thank you for for being that vulnerable and and sharing your experiences with my audience and I know it's gonna have a tremendous impact and I just thank you and for

everybody listening go by while time remains, links in the description. And I seriously, it's been a real honor, you know, here in your story, getting to know you and thank you. I wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Cheers. Cheers. The Bullwork Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties. Real sense of day juggles sprinkled on our PTSD. So, things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from Inside Washington and around the world. You document in a very compelling way all of the positive things have come out of this,

but it also feels like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast. Wherever you listen. you