In light of the questions around whether or not Virgil Griffith’s talk at a blockchain conference in Pyongyang could have helped everyday North Koreans, Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector, human rights activist, board member of the Human Rights Foundation and author of “In Order to Live, A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom,” talks to Unchained. She tells us about her life growing up in North Korea, how she thought the “dear leader” could read her thoughts, why freedom of thought is not allowed in North Korea, and how a South Korean had to teach her that Kim Jong Il was fat and not starving for the North Koreans, as she had been taught. She talks about what happened after her father was sent to a prison camp for selling copper, silver and nickel, how three generations of her family were then tainted and put in the “hostile” class of the caste system, and how watching the movie Titanic introduced her to the concept of romantic love. She tells the story of how, because of hunger, she fled to China — right into the hands of human traffickers, but decided to stay because of what trash cans in China signified to her, and describes the first time she heard the word “free.” She also covers the difficulty of her transition to freedom and how reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm was a turning point for her.
We discuss why the strategy for liberating North Korea is mostly about getting outside information in, who benefits from tours to North Korea and why lifting sanctions would only help the regime. She also explains why the only people who would have benefited from Griffith’s talk would have been North Korean elite, and how any actions in line with what the dictator wants help him maintain power. She says the best ways to improve the situation in North Korea are to boost awareness of what is happening, empower the people there by getting outside information in and helping during the rescue, as 300,000 defectors, most of them women and girls living as sexual slaves, are hiding in China.
Thank you to our sponsors!
Givewell: http://givewell.org/unchained
Kraken: https://www.kraken.com Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/
CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unchained
Episode links:
Yeonmi Park: https://yeonmi.com/
Yeonmi Park on Twitter: https://twitter.com/YeonmiParkNK
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialYeonmiPark/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yeonmi_park/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpQu57KgT7gOoLCAu3FFQsA
Human Rights Foundation: https://hrf.org/
In Order to Live: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/318940/in-order-to-live-by-yeonmi-park-with-maryanne-vollers/
One of the first speeches by Yeonmi that went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei-gGvLWOZI
Yeonmi’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/yeonmi_park_what_i_learned_about_freedom_after_escaping_north_korea
New York Times video op-ed with Yeonmi’s message for President Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/opinion/north-korea-trump-kim-human-rights.html
DOJ complaint against Virgil Griffith: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-arrest-united-states-citizen-assisting-north-korea
Economist video on the efforts to get outside information into North Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVRQpfXGQyc&app=desktop
Guardian article on North Korean defector activist groups attempting to get outside information into North Korea: https://amp.theguardian.com/global/2016/aug/27/north-korea-defectors-ian-birrell
Wired article on getting outside information in: https://www.wired.com/2015/03/north-korea/
The story of Otto Warmbier: https://www.gq.com/story/otto-warmbier-north-korea-american-hostage-true-story
South Korean woman shot for crossing line at a resort in North Korea: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/12/korea
Unchained interview with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-3-reasons-bitcoin-matters/
Unconfirmed interview with Alex Gladstein: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alex-gladstein-of-the-human-rights-foundation-on-the-first-crypto-war-ep-021/
Transcript:
Laura Shin:
Hi everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto. I’m your host, Laura Shin. If you enjoy Unchained or Unconfirmed, my other podcast, which now features a weekly news recap after every interview, please give us the top rating or review in Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to the show.
Givewell.orgThis holiday season, how can your donation do the most good in the world?GiveWell spends 20,000 hours each year researching charity, looking for the places where your donation will save or improve lives the most. They provide a free list of the most impactful charities they’ve found. You can find out more or make a donation at GiveWell.org/unchained. First-time donors using that link will have their donations matched up to $1,000. They accept traditional payment methods, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and several other cryptocurrencies. Keep this in mind while you make your end of year tax moves. Again, that’s GiveWell.org/unchained.
Crypto.comCrypto.com. Get their app and buy crypto at true Cost with no fees or markups. Get a metal MCO Visa Card with up to 5% back on ALL your spending. Want more? Download the Crypto.com App today.
KrakenKraken is the best exchange in the world for buying and selling digital assets. It has the tightest security, deep liquidity and a great fee structure with no minimum or hidden fees. Whether you’re looking for a simple fiat onramp, or futures trading, Kraken is the place for you.
CipherTraceCipherTrace cutting-edge cryptocurrency intelligence powers anti-money laundering, blockchain analytics, and threat intel. Leading exchanges, virtual currency businesses, banks, and regulators themselves use CipherTrace to comply with regulation and to monitor compliance.
Today’s guest is Yeon-mi Park, North Korean defector, human rights activist, board member of the Human Rights Foundation, and author of In Order to Live, a North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom. Welcome, Yeon-mi.
Yeon-mi Park:
Hi, Laura. Thank you for having me.
Laura Shin:
You’re not an obvious guest for my show because you’re not involved in the crypto space.
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah.
Laura Shin:
However, as I’m sure you’re aware from Alex Gladstein, the chief strategy officer of the Human Rights Foundation, who has been a previous guest on both my podcasts, cryptocurrency and North Korea are two topics that are intersecting much more often. First, Kim Jong-un’s regime has been trying to get its hands on cryptocurrency, and then recently, I don’t know if you’re aware of this news, but on Thanksgiving, someone involved in a cryptocurrency called Ethereum was arrested here in the US for giving a talk at a blockchain conference in Pyongyang, and then later allegedly trying to help the regime send cryptocurrency to evade sanctions.
So I thought just from the crypto community it became aware to me many people were not aware of what life in North Korea was really like, so I thought it would be helpful to have you here to talk about your experience, to talk about what it means when people do business with North Korea, and about the information flow there.
So why don’t we just start with a really basic question? Why don’t you tell us what it was like to grow up in North Korea?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. So, I think, thank you for having me, and I’m really grateful for this opportunity to talk about it, because a lot of people in the West do have very strong interest in North Korea, and they somehow want to, like, participate in some way, but not all the time their, like, involvement is necessarily helpful to improve North Korean human right’s situation, and it ends up just helping the dictatorship.
Yes. I did hear about the news around Thanksgiving, and I was not really surprised, because there are so many people that I met who are just so naïve believe somehow their involvement is going to open up the country at some point.
So, when I was born in North Korea, I was born in the almost mid-1990s, so that was, you know, after Soviet Union collapsed and North Korea was, you know, going downhill because they were not getting all this help from more other communist countries, and so when I was born, you know, there was no public distribution system was running, and just the country was in such a deep depression, and so just starvation was everywhere, and actually there was a big, you know, information blockage. Even to this day, there’s no internet in North Korea. Of course the elite in Pyongyang, few have access to it, but the most commoners like myself, they don’t even know the existence of internet, and with that blockage of information and the lack of food, you know, putting us all in a spot to just, like, survive.
So that’s what I was, you know, doing in North Korea. I don’t remember ever living there. It was just every day was a survival to try to find food, or trying to, you know, survive from the oppression from the regime.
Laura Shin:
And you did go to school for a period. What was school like there?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. So, I was born into initially a middle class, and I was able to go to school. Everything that I learned from school was nothing like we learn here. It’s not like you learning about science or history, but rather everything was propaganda by the government, saying how our enemy, like American bastards, were trying to kill us, and how our Dear Leader so bravely defeated our enemies, and also why we need our Dear Leader to protect us from our enemies, because the Americans are trying to attack us and kill us, and without our Dear Leader we will be dead, and they taught us that why we should all be grateful.
So, for instance, like, every room in North Korea needs to have a portrait of our Dear Leaders, and if the house caught fire, the first thing the fathers would, like, protect, is not their children. The first thing they have to protect is the portraits of Dear Leaders, and if the portraits get burned or get damaged, then not only the person who was responsible, but the three generations of that family member is going to go to concentration camp and get punished. So you know, even in school…
Laura Shin:
Wait, even if the fire was an accident?
Yeon-mi Park:
No. Even the earthquake happens. There was a case where a man who did not know. So in North Korea, every front page of newspaper has to have a portrait of Dear Leader, and tell us what he did, but on the backside is normal, the writing. So he did not see the other side and he ripped it, and then he smoked it as a cigarette, and then that was the reason he was send to political prison camp.
So the degree of the terror and the oppression and the zero tolerance is what keeps North Korea going like, for now, like 70 years.
Laura Shin:
You also said in your TED Talk that you were taught that the Dear Leader could read your thoughts.
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah.
Laura Shin:
How did they make you think that, and how did that affect your own thinking?
Yeon-mi Park:
So, you know, in school, so if you try to understand North Korea as a country, it’s a completely hard topic to understand, but if you think of it as a religion…so North Korea, apparently it is one of the ten religions in the world, and we often don’t know that. We think it is some crazy country, but it is a cult. So, North Korea regime, you know, copied the Bible. So I mean, there are people who believe in God, so you know, it’s not completely absurd that North Korean people believe in Kim.
So basically, they told us that our Dear Leader, the first Kim, loved us so much, and he was chosen by this universe who gave us his son, Kim Jong-il. So, even Kim Jong-il died, that his body died, but his spirit is with us forever. So therefore, his spirit knows what I’m thinking, even when I’m sleeping and I’m awake, and he can show up in the east and in the west at the same time. You know, he can do anything in this world, and then there’s no information coming in, and if that’s all you can believe and that’s all you’re taught to believe from your birth, of course that’s what you’re going to believe.
So even after I escaped to China, when people were saying, like, Kim is a dictator and that’s why you’re starving, and I was like, why are you bastards talking about my Dear Leader that way? I was so afraid that I was even going to commit a thought crime. So thinking even in North Korea is a rebellion. You know, it’s not a degree of we are asking for freedom of speech. Even my freedom of thinking is not allowed in North Korea. That’s how oppressed the country is.
Laura Shin:
You also wrote about how when you would leave for school, your mother always told you to watch your mouth, and she also told you things like even if you whisper, the birds and mice would hear you. What message was she trying to give you?
Yeon-mi Park:
So in North Korea everyone is just to become a revolutionary, to die and serve for the regime. We are not individual people and pursue our dreams or our aspirations, and, there’s no concept of human rights or minor, so you have to go see public executions, and people get disappeared all the time, and usually the biggest crime you can commit in North Korea is not raping somebody or not murdering somebody. The biggest crime you can commit is saying something not right about the regime. So, that is, like, the biggest crime you can commit.
So every morning that I leave home to go to school, it’s not like my mom saying, oh, be careful on the road, there’s strangers, or anything. She’d say, you know, always remember. Even if you think that no one is listening, the birds and mice always can hear you. So, that was a teaching from my mom, and that has made me to numb and never think what critical thinking is.
So when I came to South Korea, people said, like, how did you believe that Kim Jong-il was starving? Because in North Korea, they tell us that our Dear Leaders are hungry for us because they are working so hard and they don’t get enough sleep, and as a young girl I believed it, and then I escaped to South Korea and I looked at the picture of Kim Jong-un, and then that first time, and then they were saying, like, he’s a fat guy, he cannot be possibly starving, and like, someone literally had to teach me that he was fat, otherwise because I would never think critically, I couldn’t see it myself, and that’s how I learned that everything has to be taught, including that critical thinking. We think if we somehow understand the critical thinking naturally, but that’s something that doesn’t come naturally if you were born in North Korea, you never heard the concept of critical thinking.
Laura Shin:
Your father was sent to a labor camp when you were ten. What crime had he committed or crime in air quotes, I should say?
Yeon-mi Park:
Exactly. I mean, if he were born in the free country he would be a completely normal person, but in North Korea it’s a socialist country, so trading is a crime. So when we call black market in North Korea, that does not mean we are selling weapons or drugs or human trafficking people. Literally we are selling rice, clocks, clothes, and shoes, something daily life items, and he was involved in black market business. Initially he was selling sugar, dried fish, and clock, but later he sold metal, like copper, silver, nickel, and then that was a crime. So he was sent to labor camp and he was sentenced to more than ten years for that.
Laura Shin:
And how did your life change after he was imprisoned?
Yeon-mi Park:
So, as I said, in North Korea if someone commits a crime, the crime doesn’t stop with the person who committed it. In North Korea, even though it’s a socialist country, there’s no real equality. The government, the regime made the songbun system which is, like, different class system, and because my father was a criminal, then my status was going down too, and they would call me, you know, my blood was tainted, and I wasn’t pure anymore in the eyes of the mightier party, and I could never be able to ever, like, marry someone who was in a higher-like status, and I could…my fate was determined to be always starving and possibly die soon from the disease and starvation.
Laura Shin:
And how do they enforce that?
Yeon-mi Park:
Do you mean, how do you enforce all the…
Laura Shin:
Yeah, the songbun caste thing, how do they…is it that you’re not allowed to go to school, or what happens?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. So songbun system is a social engineered way of oppressing and controlling people. So there are three big categories, we say core, it’s like top, we are very loyal to the regime, maybe top one percent, or the people who are in Pyongyang, and then we say wavering, is like the middle class who are merchants or like, teachers, some people like in the middle, and then when we say hostile class in the bottom, who have loyalties to South Korea or whose family members who left to South Korea, or whose family members, like my father, who went to prison camp. So most of them are in that bottom class, and some of them in the middle, and the very tiny percent in the top, but in that even three big categories they divide to amount of 50 sub-categories of different class.
The craziest thing is you can’t even know yourself where someone is exactly, but you know if you are in the wavering or hostile or in the core class. So when you are trying to marry or become a police officer or get a job, all the people do in the background, they check and tell you where you are and what you can do, what you cannot do. So we all somehow, like, know our fate when we are born. We know which our grandpa was in the South, or which my uncle was in the prison, or who married whom, and obviously, in fact, if your family member marries someone, but then it’s not only ending there, but if someone married their family members, but then the other side’s family members were in the prison, then your songbun status is going down too. So you can always go up but you can never go up unless there’s a miracle happens.
So, it’s so easy to go down in the songbun caste, but never going up, so the guys, men would never marry me because my songbun was extremely low, and if I marry even someone who was in the high caste system, they are going to only come down, they can never go up. So that’s how people make each other hate, you know, and each other to divide, and be with only same background, so the core people will not get tainted by the people like us, like who are in the hostile class.
Laura Shin:
You also someone saw the movie Titanic, which is an American movie, while you were in North Korea. How did you see that and what impact did it have on you?
Yeon-mi Park:
So, as I said, right, there’s no internet in North Korea, but luckily we have these long, wide border up with China, and a lot of outside information comes from China by the smugglers, and watching this outside information in something, you know, like it’s an extremely risky thing to do. It would be something unimaginable for us to think that people can get killed for watching a movie, but apparently it is for North Korea. There are people losing their lives for watching outside information.
In my case, I was young, but my uncles had the movie Titanic. Somehow they got, I don’t know how they got it, but they lent it to us. So I watched the movie along with my parents, and that was the first time I felt some humanity and also had a little bit, you know, taste of freedom. It didn’t quite challenge me to think the rest of the world was going to be feeling very prosperous, but I just thought maybe in the outside world, maybe not that terrible as my regime told me.
Laura Shin:
And you also talked about how it changed, or it introduced the idea of love to you that previously had only one definition of love. What was that definition and then what did that movie open your mind to?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. So, if you have read the movie, I mean, read the book 1984 by George Orwell, have you, right, he talks about the importance of the language. The Big Brother comes up with Newspeak, right, and basically that’s what North Korean regime did. They came up with a new dictionary, but dictionary does not have definition for freedom, human rights, or even gay, you know, there is no way you can look up in the dictionary what that is, and also, love. The dictionary only defines love as something, the love that you have for Dear Leader or the party. You can never use the word to describe your emotions to another human being like your father or mother, your lover.
So if you don’t have that word, then you don’t understand the concept. Therefore, your ability to think those complex things is getting very limited, and in that situation, in North Korea, we don’t have the concept of those loves. There was never a movie made to show that a lover can die for another lover. Every movie in North Korea is made to show us how, you know, the revolutionaries dying for the party and revolution and what an honorable thing that is.
So when I saw the movie Titanic, I was like, extremely confused, because you know, there’s not a single thing about revolution, and at the end, this guy is dying for a woman, and I was so shocked. Like, why would anyone make a movie, you know, out of such a shameful story, and like, that was something, dying for your lover was something never valued or never talked about. I didn’t even think that was a possibility, and then I kept thinking, and I thought, you know, it’s just so beautiful. I felt like it was so natural to just love somebody and die for lover, and that’s when I thought, you know, that’s when I started thinking slightly differently and questioning really, you know, very minor, my own way.
Laura Shin:
And you eventually escaped when you were 13. How did you escape and what made you try to risk your life to escape?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. So, when I was escape from North Korea, you know, it’s very different. It’s like, I’d never seen a map of the world. I never knew, you know, how many continents we had, how many countries we have, and what democracy was or what freedom was. I was luckily living in a town called Hyesan where we are facing border with China, so we just had one river that was flowing between China and North Korea, and at night I was able to see China, and they had electricity at night. If you see North Korea right now from the satellite pictures, you know, it is literally the darkest spot in the world. They don’t have 24 hours electricity and it’s extremely dark at night, and by being the advantage of living on the border town I was, you know, seeing the light, and I just ultimately became really, really hungry.
So North Korean regime, often we think it’s such a poor country, but it isn’t. It has all the money in the world to build all the luxurious resorts for the party members. They have all the money in the world to spend for billions of dollars every year making more nukes and testing them, and regime chose to starve us because they can control us that way. You know, if you’re full and you have food to eat, the next thing you’re going to think of is living a real life, and what can be better in my life, but when you are on the verge of starving to death, you don’t think of any of that. You just only try to survive.
So North Korean regime is purposely, like, starving us, the class that I was in, and I wasn’t able to find anything to eat in North Korea, and only way for me at that time was if I go where the lights were, maybe I find something to eat, and I also heard these rumors in my town that dogs in China eat rice, and I thought that was such a joke, you know? Like, people in North Korea are dying from not eating food. How possibly, on earth, like, dogs can eat rice? And I felt maybe, what can I do? If I don’t do anything with my life, I might not be alive tomorrow morning, and that was risking my life, and crossing that frozen river to China and see what happens, and that’s why I decided to escape and to do that journey.
Laura Shin:
And what happened when you got to China?
Yeon-mi Park:
I was tricked by human traffickers. So, once I arrived in China…so right before I escaped, I had really…I just was going to escape with my own sister. So I was 13 years old and she was 15 years old, and the two of us were going to escape together, but one day I got such a horrible stomachache, and when I went to hospital, and you know, in North Korea, the hospital that I was in, we don’t have x-rays or any machine to know what’s going on, so just simply, my doctor rubbed my belly and he said, oh, I think you have some appendicitis, we have to operate on you right now, soon, and they cut my belly without any painkiller, and they, you know, open it and they realized it was just a lot of malnutrition and infection, and they closed me down.
So most people in North Korea in hospitals did not die from cancer or any other disease. We get killed way before that, which is a lot of times just starvation and infection. So my sister couldn’t go with me. I wasn’t sure my surgery was going to be successful, would not get infected. So she escaped a few days before and left me a note saying, go, follow this lady, she’s going to help you go to China. So, luckily I got out of hospital without infection and as soon as I removed my stitches I did find the lady with my mother, and she said she could send me to China, and she liked me, that if I go to China, I was going to find food and find my sister.
So my mother and I crossed the frozen river into China with the help of a guide, but later we realized that it was a human trafficker, that they sold us to Chinese men. They sold my mother for, like, around 75 or something dollars, and they sold me for less than 300 dollars because I was a virgin and young, and as soon as we got into China, Chinese human trafficker raped my mother in front of me, and then they told us, if you want to survive in China, then you have to be sold as a sexual slave, and I was…yeah. That’s the moment when I completely lost my faith in humanity and I just stopped feeling things, I think.
Laura Shin:
And during this time, I heard about how somebody said the word free to you and you didn’t know what that was. Can you tell us about the first time you heard the word free?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. So while I was living in China as a slave for three years, at the end of three years’ time, it was extremely dangerous in China. China regime constantly cracking down on us, and they catch us and they sent us back to North Korea to get tortured and killed. So in China, I was living there, it was so, so unbearable, even as much as being in North Korea, and one day we met a North Korean defector woman, and she told me, actually, if we go to South Korea, then we will be free, and I was so confused. I asked her, like, what do you mean I will be free? And she said, oh, you can wear your jeans, you can watch your movies, and no one will arrest you for that.
And for someone from North Korea, people kill, killed by watching a movie or wearing jeans, or getting you into prison or getting punished, it was something so revolutionary that I couldn’t believe. Like, how can on earth that is okay? And she said, you know, it is really true that if we go to South Korea that, you know, we will be free. We can, you know, wear jeans and watch movies, and no one is going to arrest you. So I thought, that’s amazing. I’m going to risk my life for that.
That’s when I decided to walking across the Gobi Desert in minus 40 degrees and with a compass in my hand, I crossed the desert to Mongolia in 2009 when I was 15 years old, and that’s how I became free.
Laura Shin:
In a moment, we’ll discuss more about Yeon-mi’s story and why so many human rights groups focus on getting outside information into North Korea, but first a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible.
Cipher TraceWill the world follow France and advocate banning privacy-coins? Will government-backed stable-coins become the new fiat? Are distributed and peer-to-peer exchanges just a flash in the pan? The answer is maybe. Virtual currencies can flourish and create a new, private and more versatile economy. But that grand vision can’t happen without keeping crypto clean —AND that requires support of governments and accountability for bad actors. Privacy Enhanced Compliance using cryptographic controls has the potential to preserve anonymity without compromising legitimate investigations. CipherTrace is working on this vision of the future. Sign up stay up to date on the Privacy Enhanced Compliance initiative and receive authoritative Crypto AML reports quarterly. https://www.CipherTrace.com/KeepCryptoClean Kraken
Today’s episode is brought to you by Kraken. Kraken is the best exchange in the world for buying and selling digital assets. With all the recent exchange hacks and other troubles, you want to trade on an exchange you can trust. Kraken’s focus on security is utterly amazing, their liquidity is deep and their fee structure is great – with no minimum or hidden fees. They even reward you for trading so you can make more trades for less. If you’re a beginner you will find an easy onramp from 5 fiat currencies, and if you’re an advanced trader you’ll love their 5x margin and futures trading. To learn more, please go to kraken.com.
Crypto.comCrypto.com sees a future of cryptocurrency in every wallet. Have you seen the MCO Visa Card? A metal card, powered by crypto. Loaded with perks including up to 5% back on ALL your spending and unlimited airport lounge access. They pay for your Spotify & Netflix too! What’s not to love? With Crypto.com, not only can you spend your crypto, but you can grow it too! Earn up to 6% per year on the most popular coins like BTC, XRP, LTC and up to 12% per year on Stablecoins like PAX or TUSD. Just a few taps before you start receiving interest every week. Join the over 1 million others and download the Crypto.com App today.
Laura Shin:
Back to my conversation with Yeon-mi Park. So, you made it to South Korea, and why don’t you just fill us in on everything that has happened to you to this point where, you know, now you live in the States and you have a degree from Colombia, and you speak at the UN, and you just have written a book? Why don’t you fill us in on what happened once you reached freedom?
Yeon-mi Park:
Once I reached freedom, arrived in South Korea, I thought, like, oh, I’m at the end of the journey, my life is going to be great, but it was completely opposite. Learning to be free was so painful. It was so difficult that I actually said, if there’s a guarantee that I’m going to get enough frozen potatoes and enough some food, I might go back to North Korea, and if the regime don’t kill me, and that’s how hard it was adjusting to freedom in South Korea.
Because South Korea also had such a heavy discrimination against North Korean defectors, and I was made fun of to speak in the way that I was, like, having the North Korean accent, and also, catching up with a society, like South Korea was so advanced, and the competition is so vigorous that there was no way for me to compete. When I arrived I was almost an adult, and the kids in South Korea were, like, going to study English when they were in mother’s stomach, and studying English in their kindergarten, and there’s so much for education, and it was, you know, just in every possible way, was so difficult.
But you know, after all that difficulty, when I was in university in South Korea, one day I read a book, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and that was my turning point.
So, until that point, you know…so biggest thing after North Korea is of course, yeah, understanding freedom or free will or modernity, it was all challenging, it was completely going from one different planet to different planet, but what was the hardest thing was trusting again, right? So when I arrived in South Korea they said, oh, Kims were dictators and Korean War started by Kim Il-sung, not by Americans and South Koreans, and they say, oh, you’re brainwashed. Everything you believed was a lie and everything I’m telling you is true, and I was so shocked, and I was like, so, everything that I believed was lied, and how do I know what you’re saying is not lie?
At that point, you’re just so confused. It’s like, how is this possible? Everything that, all I believed with all my heart was lie, and I stopped trusting again, and when I read the book by George Orwell, Animal Farm, I could see North Korea in there. I could see my grandma in the old pigs, I could see the young pigs in myself. Everything made sense to me, why everything became that way, and then I started really trusting the information that I was finding online and the books in South Korea.
And then one day, I was sitting in the room and watched the TV in South Korea, and it was, you know, big, big, emotional concert, like, fundraising concert, the celebrities were crying and then suddenly it was showing, like, donation, and it was a campaign for animals’ rights, and like, my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe you have animals’ rights. What is animals’ rights? I didn’t even know I had a right as a human being. How on earth that we are living on the same planet that 25 million people don’t even know they’re oppressed, don’t know even they are enslaved and they have rights, but the other part of the world they have room to care about animals’ rights?
And that’s when I decided something was so wrong, and then I realized that just the world had no idea what was happening to North Korean people, because the media in the West…you know, when I was studying my activism is when the movie, I don’t know if you heard the movie called the Interview came out by Sony?
Laura Shin:
Yeah. I saw it. I have a friend who was in it, but anyway.
Yeon-mi Park:
Really? It was a really sad moment, because every newspaper was so busy making fun of North Korean dictator and North Korea, how bizarre, these people were marching on the square, the old people were so brainwashed and acting like robots, and how bizarre this dictator looking like cartoon character with a funny haircut, and everything was so funny that people didn’t get the gravity of this tragedy we are having. It’s a holocaust happening, but the world is so busy making fun of it, and that’s when I realized, I have to let the world know what’s happening. It is not so funny.
I mean, I think if people were confused about North Korea is that of course we have freedom to make fun of North Korea, that’s our freedom and that’s our privilege, but when something is so funny then you lose the gravity of the seriousness of this issue, how much people are being affected by this tragedy. So I think that’s when, you know, I started educated myself and really understood, like, why the world is not caring about this issue was not just because the people in freedom were just evil and having no compassion, but just because they did not know what was happening, and that’s what I do now, is really I dedicate all my life to let the world know what’s happening, and just tell the world that this must be stopped.
Laura Shin:
So, we’re going to get to how you do that, but I actually also just want to ask a little bit more about foreign media in North Korea nowadays if you know. How common is it for people now? Like, is there still literally no internet access? Because you know, you defected, obviously, a while ago, so I’m not sure how much you know how things have changed, because as far as I understand, I think a lot of groups working to free North Korea, their main focus is still on getting outside information in. Why is that their strategy and how do they do that?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. So, yeah. I’m still working with a lot of underground networks, and I have contacts in North Korea, so I get the up-to-date news from North Korea, and you know, I work with a lot of NGOs who does rescue, and who gets information, and based on what I hear from the people in North Korea right now is that yes, the outside information is really everyday life, at least minimum, more than 80 percent of people, 87, even, percent of people have access to outside information, especially among the elite and in the metropolitan cities and the border towns.
They have a lot of access to the outside information and the fact that that is changing the people’s minds. The younger generation like myself grew up with outside information, that they do really have less loyalty towards the regime. Of course, they are staying silent because of the fear, because of this punishment, inhumane punishment by the regime, but inside they know that the regime is not a good one.
So, you know, for me it’s that to change North Korea, it’s not like…the answer should be, the movement should start within North Korean people. They should demand their freedom and their rights, and that’s how true, positive change is going to happen in North Korea, and that only can start with liberation of their minds, and outside information is liberating their minds. They are slaves even in their minds to the regime, but this information is going in, they see, and they are not slaves anymore, at least with their minds, and I think if we get enough information and to tell them what they deserve and what humans deserve, I do think this is the real chance that when we can free North Korea, with information.
Laura Shin:
And when you say that there’s a lot of outside information in North Korea, does that mean that the punishment for watching it is less, or like, how can it be a lot and how do you define a lot? Do they still have to do it in secret or how is this happening?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yes. So, I mean, I felt like…so, because of the country right now becoming very corrupt, so North Korea regime, you know, has one of the worst corruptions in the world, and because if you think about it, if you’re an officer in the government, you don’t get the rations and the salary is really low. The salary of a doctor’s salary a month is something of a dollar. You cannot possibly survive with that money a month. Doctors, officers, and the party members have to find a way to survive, and that means accepting the bribes, and the bribe is coming from people who come in for crime. So of course there are still people going to prison camps and still getting executed for distributing outside information, but for doing that, they get money. You know, you need to make money somehow, and that means you have to sell outside information, but then you get caught, then you have to bribe, and if you’re unlucky you’re going to get executed.
So of course this is a really dangerous thing, but also it opens the opportunity for the people to survive, and that’s a way. Of course you cannot now go to movie theater and publicly watch outside information, but you do it at your home, your TV, and the electricity is a real problem, but then there’s people getting wealthy by corruption, and they get enough to somehow there’s, like, a natural way, or burning oil, something, they get the electricity that way, and they get the devices like we call it, notepad, not quite notebook, I mean laptop, but the notepad that doesn’t have internet but can play USB sticks or SD cards.
So, all this modern technology is helping North Koreans to access to information and also, there’s so much demand that these NGOs, you know, are increasing the supply, they get all this information, like USB sticks and all this, they cut the cost… North Korea, and that just makes it so much available for people to access, and also easier to get out because of the corruption than before, and people’s loyalty has changed. You know, everyone is trying to survive, so maybe, like, in my mother’s generation there were, like, so many true believers, and they would, like, you know, go to authority, and you know, complain, but now these people just want to survive. So less loyalty makes it available for people to trust each other, and selling these things underground, and bribe each other to survive.
Laura Shin:
Yeah. I was just realizing…like, I bet you probably watched Titanic on a DVD, but now on a USB…
Yeon-mi Park:
No. I was actually…it was a really old time. It was even before the DVD. It was in the late nineties and North Korea already catching up with the technology two decades later, so you know, my time was like, right before I escaped it was a DVD, but when I saw Titanic it was something really old cassette almost.
Laura Shin:
Like a VHS cassette?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. Yeah.
Laura Shin:
Okay.
Yeon-mi Park:
Those things I used, and now though, when I talk to my North Korean contacts in North Korea, they use, like, SD cards and USB, very tiny devices they can even swallow, when you are in trouble you can swallow them, and you know, the officials can’t really find on you. My time was so hard to hide it because they were so big, but now it’s so easy.
Laura Shin:
Yeah, and not only that, but you can only watch one movie on one tape, but with an SD card or a USB you can watch hundreds or thousands even. I don’t know how much you can fit on there, but…
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. Even, I remember… to watch Titanic was such a long movie, you know? It was like, hard to finish Titanic because the lack of electricity… and you sometimes took, like, my time, like, you know, sometimes it took a long time to finish a movie because we only get electricity on, like, Dear Leader’s birthday or New Year’s Eve, something like only national holidays they give electricity, but now, you know, USB does not… the entire device…. You can charge and it can last for many hours, so North Koreans are also benefiting by these technological advances right now.
Laura Shin:
Yeah. So, one thing I wanted to ask you is, there’s this increasingly popular trend for tourists, even from the United States, to go to North Korea. When people go to North Korea as tourists, what impact does that have on the country?
Yeon-mi Park:
So, it is a thing. In North Korea when I was there, they told us, everyone wants to come to North Korea, we are the most envied country in the world. Literally there was a song called Nothing to Envy, so we had nothing to envy in this world because we were the envious country now, and they say everyone admires our Dear Leaders and they all worship our Dear Leaders. So they would show us the pictures of the foreigners coming to North Korea and bow in front of the statue of Kim, and of course, I believed it. Yeah. Everyone really admires our Dear Leader, and so when you go to North Korea as a tourist, yes, you reinforce this propaganda that the regime people are doing.
The second of all, the dictatorship wants to hide the currency by these tourists, and the tourists’ idea and the argument of them going to North Korea is such a naïve way of arguing. They say, oh, if I go to North Korea, I’m going to change some people’s minds because I’m such a generous, benevolent foreigner, and the Westerner, if I show them that I’m such a kind person, they will change their mind about themselves, and then they are going to, you know, maybe start a revolution, or open up.
But the craziest thing is that, you know, Kim Jong-un was educated in Switzerland. He went to school in a country that is the most democratic. They respect human dignity and freedom. So, by teaching them how generous Westerners is is not going to change. North Korean elite of course knows everything. They know too well that they don’t want change. They know that if the system collapses they lose their privileges, they lose their royal status. They’re not the core songbun anymore, and they know that the defectors go to South Korea. They all become commoners, even if they were the highest ranking in the party, when they defect to South Korea or America, they just become one of everybody. They are not special anymore. Their children don’t get those benefits for their lifetime. These elite people go to school in Beijing or Europe, in Germany, in Moscow. They see the rest of the world. They know what’s happening exactly, and they have every intention to keep the system going for their benefit.
So when you go, your guides were the ones who were studying in Beijing and who went to abroad to study foreign language, and who are the children of the most elite people, and when you only interact with those people, and when you go to stay in these hotels or these casinos or anywhere you go, the people that you meet, the ones who are benefitted by the regime, who don’t want the change. So you don’t make happy anyone’s mindset and you also give money to the regime to maintain in power.
And also, it’s ethically so wrong. It’s like you are visiting concentration camp, but not as a liberator, but as a fan, as a celebrator of this tragedy. You know, imagine you, right now, when you during World War II, we have a ticket to concentration camp, and not liberating them but show the how you are so fat and you’re free, and that’s what you are doing going to North Korea and looking at miserable, starving North Koreans and look at me, I’m free because I was fortunate enough to be born in democracy, but you’re not.
So in so many possible ways, this is so messed up, and I just can’t even describe. I think a lot of people do not have the bad intention to go, they are just so genuinely naively believe that they can change people’s minds, and this is going to benefit in some ways, but that is so, so not, and actually is such a destructive behavior in the movement of delivering North Koreans, and just yeah, it’s so sad how sometimes people are so naïve that way.
Laura Shin:
Yeah, and I wanted to ask, because this is similar, but a little bit different, that cryptocurrency researcher I mentioned before, his name is Virgil Griffith, he had permission from the North Korean government to give a talk at this conference in Pyongyang on blockchain technology. So knowing what you know about how the Kim regime works, how they, you know, interact or how they allow interactions with foreigners, who do you think the audience would have been? Who would have benefitted from such a talk?
Yeon-mi Park:
So, right now North Korea, Venezuela, all these countries are interested, the regimes are interested in other people because they will avoid a sanction. They want to make the more nukes. North Korea makes money by selling drugs, by trafficking its own people, by selling weapons to Middle East. So they do all this dark crime, and they need more money, and they need to avoid the international sanction, and they need cryptocurrency. So, it is…
I mean, of course cryptocurrency can empower a lot of individuals oppressed by the regimes, but also, we have to be cautious because it can be also used by the dictator. I don’t know how North Korea went far to create their own currency and cryptocurrency are going to do it, but anyone who was benefitted by this free society going there and helping this murderer, it’s a crime, and I think that he is about to prosecute by the US government, right?
Laura Shin:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s not clear what will happen, obviously, but he was charged. Yeah.
Yeon-mi Park:
Right. He was really benefitting this dictator. That is a crime. So, I think it’s…I mean, I don’t know enough to go into the entire crypto benefit. I think when you come to North Korea, all I can say is North Korean government is extremely interested in cryptocurrency because they want to avoid the sanctions, and their illegal activities, and they need a technology and support, and I just hope that people stay on the side of, you know, people, not the dictators, and what can I really say? He had a freedom to go to North Korea and give that speech, but that wasn’t legal, apparently, and I think we have rule of law in this world, and that’s what keeps our world better than North Korea.
Laura Shin:
Yeah. I also, you know, earlier when you said cryptocurrency could help people in oppressed regimes, I mean, I think obviously that’s true if they have access to the internet, but in North Korea where they don’t, I think it would be quite difficult for anybody who is not part of the regime to benefit.
Yeon-mi Park:
That cryptocurrency conference that he was in, he was absolutely benefitting the regime, not the people, obviously. He didn’t go there to empower the people. He went there to empower the dictatorship. The people who came only attend that cryptocurrency conference is the extreme top elite who trained to become hackers, who trained to do all these illegal activities, and who want every intention to want the regime to stay. He didn’t go to some, you know, in a commoner’s conference where everyone could attend. So you know, he just went there to hangout with the dictator and try to empower the regime. So, yeah, that’s the thing. That cryptocurrency conference wasn’t any conference.
Laura Shin:
Yeah. Yeah. I’m so glad you said this, because people on Twitter seem to think that he could have interacted with everyday North Koreans, and I…
Yeon-mi Park:
Oh my God.
Laura Shin:
You know, I’m not an expert on North Korea, but I have read so many books on it, and I was like, what? I was like, I don’t think you guys know how this place works, because he would be in a prison camp right now if he did that.
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. No. He might get shot. So, you know, Otto Warmbier got tortured to death, the American poor, he was a student, right, from Virginia Tech, and there’s a South Korean woman who went to [N. Korean mountain] like as a tourist, and the officials said, oh, you cannot pass that line, and she did, and they shot her right on the spot. If these people truly believed that they can go to North Korea and meet everyday life, why don’t they dare to try it? It’s a hermit kingdom, not because the information is only controlled for North Koreans. North Korea regime controls the information both ways. They control what North Korean can hear about the rest of the world, and they control the information of what we can know about North Korean people, even outsiders, we can’t know.
So when you even go there as a tourist, you cannot just go grab a, take a bike, you know, hiking around and go anywhere you want. You know? There’s backpack traveling that you do in the Southeast Asia, you have to be with your guide all the time. Otherwise you become a trader and sent to prison camps like what Otto Warmbier did.
Laura Shin:
Yeah. Yeah, and all he did was taking a poster or something.
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. That was a crime. Can you believe that?
Laura Shin:
I know.
Yeon-mi Park:
That’s the crime that they took his life for. I mean, if North Korea has got to treat a white person, white American that way, can you imagine what they are doing to North Koreans who doesn’t have voice, who doesn’t have visible in the rest of the world? If that’s the brutality they do with a white person from America, it’s like, the terror that North Koreans are going through is something beyond our, I don’t know, comprehension.
Laura Shin:
Yeah, and just to ask a finer point on this, because I also saw people on Twitter saying things like, you know, sanctions hurt the citizens of these countries more than they hurt the leaders.
Yeon-mi Park:
Right.
Laura Shin:
Yeah, and he was…one of the things that the Department of Justice charged him with was helping the North Korean regime evade sanctions. So if he had actually done that, what effect do you think that would have? Would that help the North Korean people or hurt them?
Yeon-mi Park:
So, I have an anecdote. So, when I was young, I said it was nineties, right, North Korea had the greatest famine, it was a manmade famine. The regime chose to starve us. So more than, over three million people died, not in Pyongyang, but the people who were in the hostile class in the northern part. That was a lot of people. Seeing the bodies on the streets every day, like, for me I never thought that was something unusual that I had to be shocked, and in that situation, I’m still very petite, North Koreans average three to four inches shorter than South Koreans even though they’re the same people, because of the malnutrition.
And so this malnutrition, when we were there, they were gathering children and they get some foreigners to come and see, and they get, you know, food from some UNICEF, I don’t know, UN or other countries gave so much cash and medical aid, all of this, and they use us as, like, a toy, and show them, and then the proceeds come in, they all take them to Pyongyang. So those aids, those moneys, those rice, those food that you send doesn’t come to us. That goes to North Korean elite people. So, if those aids help, why did I escape and become a sexual slave and being raped in China?
The first thing when I arrived in China after getting my mom raped, and they said, you have to be sold and get raped, and they say, if you don’t like it, you can go back to North Korea. My mother asked me, what did I want to do? She asked me, Yeon-mi, do you want to go back? What do you want to do? One thing made me change my mind was when I, for the first time, saw a trash bin in China. I did not know what it was, but the lady told me, that’s where you throw away things that you don’t want. I was so shocked. Like, how on earth do you have things to throw away in this country? I never needed a trashcan in my life in North Korea. There’s nothing to throw away in North Korea.
And people, like, in North Korea, if they really get benefitted by all this international aid, then nobody should be dying. In those nineties when I was living in North Korea, South Korea, all these big groups, Kim Dae-jung, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He gave millions of dollars, billions of dollars of money and food, cash, and every possible resource that we could get in South Korea, and the international community helped. None came to the most vulnerable people like us, and it all went to the regime.
So the people now keep arguing, the sanction is hurting everyday life. There’s no way we can be hurt than what we are already now. There is no way people can suffer more than what we are suffering right now, and those things that we give to North Korean regime only benefitting regime, and why is that so hard to people understand consumer science and economics, all of these things? If you do the thing that the dictator doesn’t want, that means that you are winning. If you want to give the thing the dictator wants, then you are benefitting him. Most dictator wants the sanction to be lifted. That means it is definitely benefitting him, and we don’t want to benefit dictator, right?
Like, when I get attacked by the North Korean regime I thought, oh, I’m winning. I need to be hated by him, I need to be criticized by him. If I was praised by him I would definitely do something wrong. The North Korean regime wants the sanction lifted and they want the tourists to come in, and if you do the exact opposite, I know that we are on the right side of the history. It’s really not that hard. It is so easy.
And I just don’t know why some people are so, like, somehow invested emotionally on this word of sanction. Sanction in the context of North Korea is exactly meaning of starving the elite, starving the regime. Sanctioned items is like North Korean regime cannot buy the items like ski resort items, they cannot buy sports cars, they cannot buy Chanel bags, Prada bags. Those are the items on the sanction items, and even those food that we send is not going to the most vulnerable people, so why are there so many people are so passionately using their time and resources and arguing that how we, why we should benefit the dictator who is so fat enough and who is always so well fed? Why do we need to feed him more? All our resources, they can go to benefitting so many, so many starving people right now.
Laura Shin:
So, given the fact that the Kim regime has nuclear weapons and you know, is apparently now finding other ways to fund itself, what do you think is the best way to deal with Kim Jung-un? You know, obviously getting information in is one, but what else do you think could be done to help free the North Korean people?
Yeon-mi Park:
So, several ways. I think there are really…number one is awareness, that people really don’t know exactly what’s happening, right? There are so many misinformation, and they need to understand, the regime has no intention ever going to give up voluntarily. They are just playing with the rest of the world, and they just try to use this as a, you know, card as like, we are going to get rid of the nukes so you give me more money, so they can actually secretly build more nukes. They really need to understand that. That’s why one, we need a sanction. We need to starve the regime as much as we can, and as much as we can, and I think that’s why that Trump sanction worked. That’s why we got North Korea out of their hermit kingdom and to in the conversation table. So we need the sanction.
And the second is empowering people. We need this information to go in North Korea so people get empowered, they know they deserve these rights, they know the rest of the world is prosperous and free.
And the third that I personally care is the rescue. It’s like during the Nazi Holocaust, right? These defectors escaped to China with everything they have, and they become human, more than slaves, they become sexual slaves, and there are so many NGOs that rescue them to South Korea, to America, to free countries, and there are currently up to, like, almost 300,000 defectors are hiding in China, and most of them are women and girls who are being raped right now, every day, and we need to rescue them.
And I think that’s what I’d just say, that there are three ways. One is awareness so we can pressure regime more, and second is getting information, and third is rescuing these most vulnerable people right now in the world to safety, and there are so many NGOs that are already involved in this movement right now.
Laura Shin:
And for people, for the listeners who are hearing your stories and are moved to help North Korea, are there any particular organizations or like, what do you suggest they do?
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. I think exactly the reasoning, exactly the reason why I’m on the board of the Human Rights Foundation is that Human Rights Foundation, of course they are interested in getting involved in getting information inside North Korea, but they are helping with all of these other groups, you know, doing the rescuing work, you know, doing empowering women, or these most vulnerable people, and they have, you know, connections to all these NGOs and helping them. So if you reach out to HRF, you know, they know every NGO that is working in this field, and they’re going to connect you to people that you want to help with, and they have every connection to everybody.
So you know, it’s very easy. All you have to do is reach out to people who are at the HRF, and what do you care about, and how do you get involved, and what you can contribute, and they always find you a way to, you know, help. They connect you and do the right thing.
Laura Shin:
Yeah, and listeners who haven’t heard my episodes with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation, I will link to those in the show notes. He is just a font of information about human rights issues as well as cryptocurrency and how Bitcoin can help oppressed people. So, Yeon-mi, where can people learn more about you and your work?
Yeon-mi Park:
Well, I’m very active on social media, Twitter, Instagram, on Facebook. I also wrote a book, so you have a lot of more in-depth of North Korean history, why it became that way, and where are they heading to, so if you just really want to know the perspective of North Korea, not from the perpetrators, not from the regime or these elite people, if you just really want to know the perspective that we as survivors are having then you should read not only my memoir, but a lot of other memoirs are written by defectors.
And I assure that none of the defectors who survived the regime is going to tell you tourism is the answer and lifting the sanction is the answer. None of us are saying that. Everyone, we experienced the regime firsthand, we all say the opposite, and if you believe not to believe survivors, and if you choose to believe in perpetuators, then that’s out of my control, but please listen to all these other survivors who have written their memoirs. You know, they’re risking their lives to raise their voice.
Even though I escaped, right now I’m a green card holder living in America, because I’m speaking out, like right now, and tell the world about the truth, all my relatives, three generations of my relatives back in North Korea, they disappeared. I don’t know if they’ve been executed or in a concentration camp, but that’s the thing, if the…this is the regime that we are dealing with. That’s how evil this regime is. They are still, they are punishing people even though I escaped.
So I don’t know how on earth I can describe how evil this regime is, and how you should be so careful with your actions if that’s what are going to benefit the regime or the people, because sometimes without…our ignorance can help the evil. We are responsible for our ignorance.
Laura Shin:
I do hope someday that, you know, you can reunite with your family, and…
Yeon-mi Park:
Yeah. I hope they’re alive.
Laura Shin:
Before we end, I also absolutely need to give a ringing endorsement of your book, In Order to Live.
Yeon-mi Park:
Thank you.
Laura Shin:
A couple of years ago I read it, before meeting you at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and listeners should know, you know, there are many moments where, you know, it’s quite heartbreaking about what Yeon-mi went through, but honestly, but the end, Yeon-mi, you’re indomitable spirit just really shines through, and I just was so moved. You know, it made me feel the depths of sadness, but it also made me feel the utmost hope for humanity, and for listeners, even if you don’t listen to my recommendation, I will tell you that Yeon-mi’s book has the highest rating I’ve ever seen on Goodreads, which shows that thousands and thousands and thousands of people think it’s exceptional, not just me.
So Yeon-mi, just congratulations.
Yeon-mi Park:
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Laura Shin:
Congratulations for, you know, all your just, like, just for your life and what you’ve been through and achieved and overcome, and the work that you continue to do, and thank you for coming on my show.
Yeon-mi Park:
Thanks, Laura. It’s been a real honor. Thank you.
Laura Shin:
Thanks so much for joining us today. To learn more about Yeon-mi and her work, check out the show notes inside your podcast player.
If you’re not yet subscribed to my other podcast, Unconfirmed, which is shorter, a bit newsier, and now features a short news recap, be sure to check that out.
Also, find out what I think are the top crypto stories each week by signing up for my email newsletter at unchainedpodcast.com.
Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Fractal Recording, Anthony Yoon, Daniel Nuss, Josh Durham, and the team at CLK Transcription. Thanks for listening.
