Yeonmi Park: North Korea
Guests: Yeonmi Park
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
Contents12 chapters
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The following is a conversation with Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector,
human rights activist and author of the book, In Order to Live.
Quick mention of our sponsors, Balcampo, Gala Games, BetterHelp and Eight Sleep.
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
Let me say a few words about North Korea.
From 1994 to 98, North Korea went through a famine, mass starvation,
caused primarily by King Jong-il, who at the time was the new leader of North Korea
after his father's death in 1994.
Somewhere between 600,000 and 3 million people died due to starvation.
From all the stories of famine in history, including my own family history,
I've come to understand that hunger tortures the human mind
in a way that can break everything we stand for.
In North Korea, during the 90s famine, many were driven to cannibalism.
Imagine more than 10 million people suffering starvation for months
and years, always on the brink of death.
We don't know the exact numbers of people who died
because the suffering was done in silence, in darkness.
Very little information in or out.
Most people had to survive without electricity, without clean water,
medical supplies, sanitation, and food.
The North Korean propaganda machine called this the "arduous march"
or the "march of suffering," and words such as "famine" and "hunger" were banned
because they implied government failure.
And once again, now in 2021,
King Jong-un, the current leader of North Korea,
is calling for his country to prepare for another "arduous march"
or "march of suffering," another period of mass starvation
as the country closes its borders.
Looking at atrocities of the past decades
and the encroaching atrocity there now,
I think about the quiet suffering of millions of North Koreans.
I think about the torture of the human spirit.
I think about a North Korean child who could be a scientist, an artist, a writer,
but who instead grows impossibly thin without food,
their body slowly rotting away as their parents watch helplessly.
I got emotional in this conversation with Yeonmi,
in part because I remembered my grandmother
who survived Kholodomor, the famine in Ukraine,
intentionally created by Stalin,
where 4 to 10 million people died and many, many more suffered.
Imagine knowing that if you don't engage in cannibalism,
you will die before your children did, and then they will be eaten.
Imagine, because of this, deciding to murder and eat your own children.
As many people did.
Imagine the kind of desperation, torture,
that leads up to a decision like that.
I'm not smart enough to know what evil is,
nor where to draw the line between good and evil.
But Stalin, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un,
are men who, in the name of power,
are willing to make millions of people, of children,
suffer and die from starvation.
I rarely have hate in my heart,
but I hate these men.
I hate that such men exist in this world.
I hate that the beauty I love about this life
exists amidst such unimaginable cruelty.
I have been haunted by this conversation,
by memories of my grandmother's pain.
But I've also been warmed by memories of her love.
Love gives me hope.
Hope for the perseverance of the human spirit,
even in the face of evil.
This is the Lex Friedman Podcast,
and here is my conversation with Yeonmi Park.
Can you tell your story from North Korea to today
as you describe in your 2015 book,
and with the extra perspective on life,
love, and freedom you've gained since then?
Wow, that's a long story.
So I was born in the northern part of North Korea initially.
And my father was a party member,
and my mom was housewife.
I had one older sister.
And I remember born in that country,
I never thought I was in an unusual country.
Now I'm thinking of what it is,
like literally called the Hermit Kingdom.
But I thought, I believed that I was living in the best country on earth.
It was a socialist paradise,
and everybody in the rest of the world worshipped my dear leader.
And there was nothing to envy for me.
So I had this enormous pride in my heart
and grateful to be in that country.
So it was love for the leader, not fear?
For me, at least, it was love.
Yeah, it was all the admiration and gratitude.
It changed lately, but for me, it was pure, pure like love.
Was there any,
like looking back with the perspective you have now,
would you describe some of those moments growing up
as full of happiness?
Or was that delusion at the time?
So not knowing the alternative,
will you still be able to be happy?
The fact that I did not know,
like in North Korea, this is the only country
in this 21st century has no internet.
And they don't even know the existence of internet.
Not only that, we don't even have this 24-hour electricity.
So not knowing definitely helped, I think, to be sane.
So as a human being,
you're still able to find moments of happiness?
I think my happiness was from family, nothing else.
Even though those, they would keep telling me
that they were our source of meaning and happiness.
I don't think I ever got happy by that.
Maybe they're here and there in schools.
And like when I was learning propaganda,
like, you know, the proud feeling, right?
I'm in the greatest nation.
Here and there, but like actually true happiness
came from laughing with my family and my friends.
Are there any childhood memories,
pleasant or painful ones that stand out to you now?
I mean, like, you know,
whenever I think about my North Korea,
the interesting is there's no color.
I mean, one is because North Korean country has no color, right?
Most of things are unpaved and trees are cut down.
We have no fear.
So people cut down trees to make food.
So but only that, like even what we are wearing was like no color.
So it's an interesting memory to look back.
What about fashion?
I've noticed from sort of
you now, you have quite an incredible sense of fashion.
So contrast that with your time in North Korea.
How do you remember fashion?
Just ways that people could express themselves visually.
Was it all bland?
There was no word for fashion in North Korea.
We didn't even know it was not in our dictionary.
So, of course, I did not know what Victoria's Secret models were.
I didn't even know what models were.
So when I came out, I learned the model was a job.
And like, what is that?
And I'm still confused.
So there's so many jobs that we have here doesn't exist in North Korea.
What was life like in North Korea as compared to the rest of the world?
So maybe you said there's no Internet,
24 hour electricity is a luxury you do not have.
What about food? What about water?
What about basic human rights?
I think that's the thing, like when people were asking me,
can you tell me about like life in North Korea?
And in the past, I was like, I cannot describe it to you.
And initially I thought, oh, because of my English that I cannot find the words.
It's not that it's a different planet.
The common sense that we have doesn't exist there.
Like people literally do not know the concept of romantic
love or human rights or liberty.
So when I'm thinking back to my country,
it's, you know, like as you cannot imagine your life on Mars right now.
It's like that kind of difference.
I grew up never seeing the map of the world.
I never knew that I was Asian.
Like the regime told me that I was Kim Il-sung, the first Kim race.
And then our calendar doesn't begin when Jesus Christ was born.
Our calendar begins where Kim was born.
So we and history was forgotten to us.
They didn't teach us about, of course, Christianity or like the Big Bang.
Like our history began when Kim was born.
So everything was forgotten to us.
And it was a different meaning.
I mean, feeling of existence.
You know, it's not even like the same life.
I literally think that was almost like my past life.
And this is like a new life that I began.
You're you're almost like a different human being now.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
So you've I have to say, I often say that my favorite book
is Animal Farm by George Orwell.
I've read it. I don't know how many times.
And so I was really happy to hear that that was of the many books,
excellent books that we'll hopefully talk about.
You've mentioned that Animal Farm had a big impact on you.
It was the book that kind of
led to a kind of awakening for you.
Maybe can you describe what impact it had?
So after going through what I went through, right,
and I arrived in South Korea after many years of journey,
they were saying so Kims were dictators
and South Korea is not colonized by American bastards.
And Americans, first of all, not bastards, they're good people.
And then they say everything that you believe in North Korea was a lie.
It was a propaganda.
Then at 15, I was thinking, so if everything that I believe was a lie,
how do I know what you're telling is not a lie?
That was so hard.
How do I trust ever again?
And I just it was chaos in belief.
I did not know what was true anymore.
And that's the moment.
A few years later, I read this book like Animal Farm, just by mistake.
It was a very short book in the library.
I was like, OK, I can finish that quickly.
And when they're ending that last chapter, right,
they could not see between the pigs and humans anymore.
Like that sentence.
§02Transcript · 10:54–21:57
I just understood everything that happened.
I just made every sense to me what happened to me, my people and to my country.
Yeah, that there is there's so many things I could say about that book.
Yeah, there's a haunting nature to the end.
And I guess spoiler alert, but you should have read this already.
You're listening to this.
At the end, the animals were looking to the humans
and to the pigs, and they couldn't see the difference.
And then there's this kind of gradual
transition from the initial
revolutionary steps of animals fighting for their freedom
to slowly the pigs
gaining control went from four legs good, two legs bad, to
four legs good, two legs better.
Two legs even better, I think.
Something like that.
So like gradually transitioning the ideology under which the farm operates.
And I think the gradual nature of that
where basically you have generations born not knowing
how things were in the past.
And that's that's what makes the most kind of for me haunting transition
from freedom to slavery, to suffering, to injustice.
All those things.
And the animals don't know they're part of that.
And also for me personally,
I always kind of found a kinship with Boxer the horse,
because I just I'm kind of an idiot.
I just work really hard.
I just work hard.
And I just love the idea of working hard for an ideal
and the tragic nature of
to the end, that horse, Boxer, working his ass off for
for the pride of for others.
But yeah, for the pride of the farm, you know.
And then the the pigs
giving him sort of using that, but then just sending him to the slaughterhouse
anyway, when he was no longer useful.
I mean, there's so many tragic elements that echo everything
I've seen in the Soviet Union and many of the elements
that you see in even harsher, more drastic way in North Korea.
There's something hopeful you pull from that book,
like within the suffering, within the gradual decline,
the taking away the freedom, there were still moments of beauty.
It seemed like it can be.
But I think for me, it was when I was ending the last page of the book.
Until that point, I was angry towards a dictator.
Why do you do this as a human being?
I was so angry, dreaming of killing him, my revenging my father,
the people that he killed.
But when I was ending the last chapter,
actually, everybody was responsible to create this dystopia in my country.
That animals, initial animals, when they're scared,
when they see the first execution and then they were not doing their jobs,
speaking out and keep questioning.
They had a question and then as soon as they see a fear, they silence.
Because of that, that's when I was like, my grandma knew life could be different.
I think the one thing about North Koreans are unique is that
they don't know they're oppressed.
They don't know that they are slaves to the dictator.
And the fact that other people know they're oppressed, like in America,
a lot of people think they are oppressed, like you are not oppressed.
You don't even know the definition of oppression.
And like that's like when the new animals came,
the new animals didn't even know what the life could be like.
There's no alternative for them to compare even.
And I was like, my grandmother knew.
Why didn't they not do anything about it?
And they were just scared.
They kept it silent.
And everybody was responsible.
So the people who knew were too afraid to say.
And then there's people that just didn't even know.
And I don't know what's more terrifying about human nature.
Looking at this group of people who are afraid to say that things could be otherwise.
And then the group of people that
don't even know it could be better.
No, it's I don't know that.
That's the reason I return to that book often because it's such maybe because
it's interesting using animals to represent ideas that were very human.
It almost allows you to explore the darkness of human nature
without sort of being broken by it.
So you mentioned anger.
When I watch your interviews,
you're really calm and collected.
Not just your interviews, you know, Instagram, the way you present yourself.
You, I don't know.
It seems like you're almost at peace with the world.
Is there in private times when you're just angry?
Do you feel fear?
Do you go to dark places, depression, all those kinds of things?
Are you are you able to put that world that you were in behind you?
It's a joke because I talk about North Korea every single day
and I still rescue people like from China and Russia and other countries.
Right. And sometimes I'll rescue mission failures and they get captured and sent back.
I still have people in North Korea report to me.
So like when I talk to my sister who chose to not be in this life, activist life,
she forgot most of things.
And like for the other hand, I like remember everything.
So sometimes it's a it's
it's a blessing to keep reminded of how because it's, you know,
they say happiness is a relative thing.
It is sometimes.
I mean, I think it's also people say because nobody was fooling you
when you were growing up, everybody was suffering.
You should have been OK, right?
But no, like if you are suffering in that degree,
no matter even if there is no comparison, if you're in Nazi Germany,
in the Holocaust, right, in the concentration camp,
I'm sure nobody was better than them.
I'm sure they were suffering.
It's the same thing. I suffered.
But now, because I'm in this place, I can compare easily, right?
Getting that perspective.
But it is true.
Like I still have days that I cannot get out of bed.
And I really hoping like that.
But it was Elon Musk talking about downloading your brain, blah, blah.
Yeah.
Maybe technology develops that I can download some part of my memory
and then I can erase it or delete it.
And that would be so much better.
What this is a sorry for the tough question,
but if I came to you, if Elon came to you and said,
we can erase that part of your memory, would you do it?
Some days I would do it for sure.
And my mom would do it 100 percent.
My sister would do it.
All other defectors know they do 100 percent.
For me, I hesitate because I'm a witness.
So if I delete that part, I don't know how real that can be.
But it is painful.
Like I'm sorry, talk, give a speech, right?
I mean, I'm fine, but somehow I'm depressed.
Sometimes if the talk was very intense, I'm like depressed for three weeks.
It takes a while for me to be recharged.
But I don't know why it is, you know?
Yeah.
I just don't know.
Yeah.
Well, there's also the end.
There's a guy named Victor Franco who wrote the book, Man's Search for Meaning.
And there's some aspect.
So he talks about the Holocaust and that you can, in those moments of suffering,
still discover meaning, still discover happiness in the simplest of joys.
Like while starving, you know, a little piece of bread could be a source of incredible joy.
Yeah.
And there's some aspect
in which that experience gives you a clarity about the world.
Like somehow experiencing suffering
allows you to deeply experience joy.
Yeah.
And love and also empathize with the suffering of others.
And like, it's almost like brings you closer to other humans.
So it's this double edged sword that
that the highest of joys
sometimes are catalyzed by suffering.
And it's hard to know what to do with that.
You see that with World War Two, the stories of soldiers that have suffered.
But some of the closest bonds of brotherhood,
of just pure love was experienced by them.
And it's it sucks that our brains are like this.
That, you know, love requires hardship.
I don't know why that is.
Yeah, that's like that's thing.
Of course, in my journey, I learned how to survive, right?
When to not trust and when to run.
But I think most of I was keep learning what it means to be a human being.
I think that was like ultimate thing I was keep learning.
And I still don't know fully what it means.
But I do think it seems like suffering is necessary
to stay for people to be grateful and even be joyful to sometimes.
Yeah.
So I talk about love quite a bit.
Yeah.
And you mentioned that romantic love.
I'm fascinated about love in many aspects.
But you mentioned romantic love was forbidden in North Korea.
Yeah.
What do you think about love now that you've kind of discovered it?
What's the role of love in life?
Why was it so?
Why do you think it was forbidden in North Korea?
So the tragic thing about North Korea is not only just banning Shakespeare.
Like we don't even know what Romeo and Juliet is, right?
Our movies is never about love stories.
But then also they ban the love between mother and daughter, wife and husband.
And, you know, and you between your friends, they deny you being a human.
So only love that I knew was when I described my feeling towards the leader
and in a written form, that was the only love that people know in North Korea.
And now I'm like, there are many loves you can experience.
I mean, I think you definitely love science, right?
But imagine that if you're being denied that.
Yeah.
So there are so many loves in life.
But in North Korea, all of those things are denied.
And I think for me, love makes you tick.
Like, you know, love for your child, love for your parents, love for your friends,
love for even yourself, that is denied.
So I mean, many people say like love is an option.
But like, then why do you live?
§03Transcript · 21:59–31:59
I think we live to love.
And it doesn't have to be romantic love.
It can be anything.
But finding love in any person or in any subject, I think that's a goal.
I think that's when people find the meaning in something.
Yeah, I think love, romantic love is just one sort of part of it.
Yeah, one echo of some core thing.
Yeah, science, I love science, I love robots, all of those things.
And it sounds like deliberately or not,
the North Korean regime wants to channel that very deep aspect
of the human spirit all towards the leader.
Yeah, that's it.
That's the only thing they allow us to fear and know about.
So I remember, I mean, you read 1984 by George Orwell.
It talks about double think and double speak.
Who controls the language, who controls thoughts?
And while he does talk about it, as they go, they like eliminate a lot of words.
Right now, like later, one word can represent 10 different things.
And what fascinates me is like how many vocabulary meaning people can have.
And like when I literally came out, I remember I went to San Francisco
and someone came to me and hugged me.
And then he was a guy.
It's like, oh, baby, don't worry, I'm gay.
And I was like, what the heck is gay?
I don't know. Right.
And then I literally had to go to a hotel room and Google the gay.
And I was like, oh, that's what you meant.
And like that, like they deny what that is.
I'm sure there are gays in North Korea.
I'm sure there is.
But you don't know what it is.
And like that, they eliminate words.
So the fact that, you know, the concept that is a state is much better than.
And that's the thing.
A lot of people like when you're born, you somehow know what justice is,
what liberty is, and it's or somebody taught you that.
And like that's the thing.
Why people say, oh, humans are inherently know what is right, what is wrong,
what is oppression and like, you know, that's like BS.
You got to learn.
That's fascinating that words.
Give rise to ideas.
So like as a child, one of the ways to learn about justice
and freedom is to first learn the word and then to ask, well, what is it?
Yeah, the concept. Yeah.
And if you don't have the word for it,
then you never have the kind of first spark
that leads to you trying to be curious about it.
That's interesting.
And controlling the words and then learning your thoughts
and you control the thoughts.
There's so many echoes.
I mean, I have it's it's a very different, but perhaps a very similar experience,
which is the journey of my family through the Soviet Union.
Because there is a love of country, there is a pride of the people.
Yeah. Like you are proud of your family in general.
Yeah. But I wonder how much of that is polluted
by the the propaganda.
I think a lot, for sure.
Yeah. It is to this day.
I'm like my father, who died in China
and he was tortured and then he died.
He wanted to go back before his death.
Right. And then it's like that if you go back, you're going to be executed.
And like I want to be executed.
He wanted to go back to North Korea.
To be executed so he can be buried in his own land.
And then his last wish was, if I die,
criminal me and then bring my ashes back to my country.
When I'm dead, I still want to be in my country.
And this is a nationalism.
This is a propaganda, right?
And but now it's the same thing.
Like it's the same thing.
If I die, I somehow buried in my land
and I still feel like I'm the outsider.
I'm always longing for my home.
It's a horrible home.
Like people say, what's your dream?
Like, do you want to be a president?
Do you want to run for office?
Like, I just want to go home.
That's my dream, right?
And people here don't get it ever.
Yeah. I don't know what to do with that.
I love my country.
And I think for me, my country is the United States.
And perhaps it will be for you, too, one day.
It is. I think it's becoming.
The U.S. has been a very special place in my heart.
I think this is the first place I felt like I feel like home.
And I mean, I was in South Korea longer and I didn't feel that way.
So so I think there were very different life stories,
but I think it's almost two different people.
The for me is the person that was in the Soviet Union.
And the person that's here, those are two different people.
That previous person's home in the Soviet Union.
And he's part of me. Yeah.
And I suppose in that same way, you're
you know, your first maybe two decades of life
are somehow longing for the home that is North Korea. Yeah.
And your next two decades of life might be finding a home
in the United States. Yeah.
Your dad, can you tell the story of
of his struggle, of his death?
I mean, first, do you miss him?
Do you think about all the time?
Like I had a son when I was 22 and I had IVF three times.
And as you see, I'm like 80 pounds.
But back then I was like 75 pounds because of my massive
your man nutrition somehow.
My body is very different.
And so after three times of IVF,
I've ever had the 23, I was still wanting family.
And the reason I wanted him is
because I felt so guilty for my father that he never seen this world.
I somehow like when you're so desperate, you become illogical.
Like I want to believe in the recourse, like Buddhist idea, right?
You come back to life.
And I prayed, please come to me like as my son.
So I will take care of you.
I come back.
And when I was pregnant with my son, even though I planned to pregnant with a girl,
doctor made a mistake.
He became a boy.
So I made his middle name like my father's name, Jin-sik.
I think he's the only North American got North Korean name.
It is.
So he's so part of your father's and your son.
Yeah, that's how I.
That's how I make the sense of it.
And that's how I move forward.
If I like as a logical human being, you know, when you're dead, you're done.
Maybe that's what I at least used to think.
But then life just become too unbearable.
And somehow that's the thing.
Like we tell our service stories in order to live.
And that's how I came with my title of the book, In Order to Live.
I had to tell myself a lot of stories to overcome a lot of things.
I think I was a part of it.
Can you tell the story of you escaping North Korea?
To China?
Yeah, I think.
It's a thing.
It's amazing.
Even though I was like 13, my like life outside of North Korea
is almost like went by like one second.
And my life to that point was like eternity.
Wow. I remember being in China.
I arrived there at the end of March at 13.
And by October, it was six months past.
And I literally felt like I lived eternity.
And one day living in China felt like living one year.
One day was a war, like surviving through one day was so hard.
Every night I was like, I cannot believe I got done one day today.
That was a thing I was grateful for before I went to bed.
OK, I survived.
I didn't get captured.
And I made it another day on Earth.
So the experience of the minutes is what? Fear?
Fear of being captured?
Fear, loss, everything.
It's because I mean, I saw my own mom in China to survive.
So it was more than that.
And it's not feeling.
I think that's a thing. In China,
I learned not to fear.
And after my escape was a challenge, I didn't feel anything.
And it was hard.
Not feeling anything is a torture.
It's the biggest torture you can ever feel.
Like even if you feel sadness, that's better than not feeling anything.
And I felt something when I had my son.
That's when I started healing.
So he was a miracle to save me.
But yeah, in China, it wasn't even fear.
Like I was numb.
You were numb.
Yeah.
It was like paralysis.
Yeah.
Just overwhelming.
The uncertainty of your future.
Did you have a sense of what your future held at the time?
What do you mean future?
I don't even know that word.
A lot of times I was looking at myself.
I left my body and just looking at me.
And just not feeling anything.
It's not like I'm scared for her.
I'm sad for her.
Just looking at me like, "Oh, that's interesting."
Wow.
So not feeling anything.
And me being raped, going through every emotion of life to survive.
But like somehow, I don't know if you say so or something,
like looking at it, it's like you feel nothing.
You don't feel anything for that person.
So even with your mom, like what was...
Was there some...
§04Transcript · 32:02–42:43
I don't know, some warmth that you were able to extract
from the connection with your mom?
Yeah, of course.
I think that made me survive.
I had a very strong connection with my family.
And I think that's what kept me going to do all of that.
I think, as you said, I escaped at 13.
My sister, at the age of 16, escaped with her friend first.
And I was going to escape with her, but one day I got like really bad stomachache.
And my parents took me to hospital.
And in North Korean hospital, they don't have like x-ray machines.
They don't even have electricity.
They're literally using one needle to inject everybody.
And people don't die from cancer in North Korea.
You die from infection and fever and hunger, right?
So most likely you're going to die more by being treated by a doctor
than not being treated.
I think I was lucky, even though they thought I had appendix,
they operated on me without any painkiller and I didn't get infection.
I survived.
So that's how I got delayed to escape with my sister.
And she left me a note in my bedside saying, "Follow this lady."
And this is like another trick about human trafficking, right?
She sold me to China as a sexual slave
and she executed for it later.
And she had...
She was executed for that later.
She had five daughters and she sold all her children to China.
And we can now sitting here judging on like how heartless
you are selling your own children to China.
And as a sexual slave, they were like her children were like 7, 10 years old.
But that was the only way for her to save her children.
And if she didn't sell me that day, I would be dead right now.
So I'm grateful that she sold me.
And I think that's the thing is life is so crazy.
You cannot judge.
It is so complex.
And yeah, that's how she changed my life by selling me.
She sold my mom and myself in 2007 to China.
So you're grateful for that?
You're grateful for that suffering?
Of course I am grateful.
Because the alternative is worse.
I would not be here with you.
You never knew what I just did.
What do you make of the other suffering in the world today?
The people there in North Korea?
So that is part of the
year of your life's work is helping those people.
What do you think about them?
What should people know about them?
I think that's when I get angry.
Whenever I think about them.
Like, I know.
Who's your anger directed at?
At the heartlessness of people.
The ignorance of people.
Like, so when I got out of North Korea, going through all of that.
And I went to South Korea one day.
I was watching television and there's like a famous Korean K-pop
star crying and doing some fundraising concert.
And I literally thought, oh my God, something is horribly
going wrong in this country.
Why are these people crying?
It was a cheery campaign.
And then later it was showing that it was an animal rights campaign
to helping out cats and puppies in the shelters.
Do you know anybody who has their tears like that to another human being right now?
Like, no.
Right. People rather give millions of dollars to save some dolphins
than saving these children right now being raped in China.
And I think I love Elon Musk.
I read this, right?
I love these people want to like go to the moon, Mars.
And then people told him, like, yeah, you went, we went to the moon.
Like, I did not know in North Korea.
But I think that's what upsets me.
Like, why there's not even one single human with that kind of brilliance
in their brain?
They can save so much suffering, but nobody does anything.
I think that's when I,
I feel like hard to find hope in humanity.
And that's when I get so upset.
Because think about like even Biden or Trump or Obama,
they know what's happening in North Korea exactly, right?
I mean, we see satellite photos.
There's public executions.
I mean, the UN says this is a Holocaust happening again.
And it's happening.
If the Holocaust is happening again, how, why, how are you OK doing nothing about it?
But somehow humans are able to OK, not doing anything.
And this is like.
This is hard.
Like when people say, I'm going to change the world, I want to make a difference like.
It's hard to believe it, you know.
Yeah, that we can turn our back to human suffering at scale
when it's right in front of us.
I mean, that makes you think about the Holocaust.
This is just everybody was looking the other way.
Yeah. Because it was almost too hard to look at it.
No, it's not. It's the easier thing.
Like, that's the thing.
I was like here just to get the South by Southwest a few years ago.
And I did. Everybody's talking about like Elon Musk project going to the moon.
Right. We're going to be multi-species.
I was like back then I did not even know who he was.
So if you're trying to go after this earth,
you haven't even explored our earth yet.
You cannot go to North Korea right now.
You haven't explored that part of our, our like planet.
Can we do that first and then move on?
Explore the landscape of human suffering, like alleviate suffering in the world.
There's there's a lot of suffering happening in Africa that has to do with disease.
And for some reason, it's.
Even though we turn our back to that kind of suffering, too,
we still can try to do something about it.
And there's still efforts
in terms of health care, in terms of medicine, in terms of bioengineering,
in terms of like all these efforts to help people from disease.
But like that's almost like converting it into an engineering problem
and trying to solve it.
That somehow is easier for us humans.
But when there's obvious sort of non
disease related torture of humans,
we look the other way.
Yeah. Whether it's China or it's North Korea. Yeah.
I mean, that has to be changed somehow.
We have to change that somehow.
It is the thing right now, like the China,
like they bring the Xinjiang Uyghurs, right?
They like say, oh, this is a vitamin, take it.
And then it kills their sperm and make them not reproduce.
Their birth rate gone down something 47 to something 50 percent in the one year time.
It's a genocide in 21st century.
And they get those people and get their organs out.
Imagine if there's some people who do that with cutie puppies and cats.
There's going to be insane amount of protect.
They're going to destroy everything.
And this is like a human nature that I don't get.
Why there's so much anti-human sentiment in this modern world?
We don't have to.
The fact that I was saying, like the fact that you care about animals, right?
It's beautiful because you care about something who cannot speak for themselves.
The fact that we care about animals is because they cannot speak for themselves.
Right. They don't have that ability.
And there are many people who cannot speak for themselves right now.
And why do you refuse to be the voice for them?
Because they are simply being a human.
And maybe it connects to us not being proud of who we are.
Like, I don't know what it is.
Why do they deny humans this way?
Maybe they don't like themselves.
Yeah, it's almost
we would have to acknowledge some dark things about ourselves in order to start helping.
What's the solution?
So, you know, I see two solutions.
One is on the military side.
Yeah. It's assassination
or the full on invasion.
And then on the activism side,
which is figuring out ways to,
like you said, sort of let people in North Korea
understand their situation, sort of from within, try to reform.
Or maybe there's others.
Obviously, there could be activism from the outside
to build up momentum for the entirety of the world, especially
the world that it's not just the United States or Europe,
but also is Russia and China and so on.
What are your ideas here?
How we can do as individuals and as countries?
I think the first thing that we can do is speak about Chinese role
in this sponsoring dictatorship in North Korea.
Like, I have been had so much struggle talking about North Korea, right?
They say how North Korea is possible.
Why is it like the way like this is?
99% accountability going to CCP.
Kim Jong Un cannot last without Chinese help even one week.
This is completely funded.
This Holocaust is funded by CCP.
But if you talk about in the mainstream, of course, they don't buy it.
And I think it's in a way North Korea is a lot easier to solve
than even in the Middle East.
There's nothing conflict like between people.
There's no ideology, no religion, nothing.
People are peaceful, right?
There's not a one civil, like any discontent among the people.
Our problem is there's a dictator funded by the second economic power in the world.
And even any military, they know if they kill Kim Jong Un,
they're going to get killed by Chinese.
Nobody can dare to stand up against Kim Jong Un because of China's backing it.
So somehow here in the West, we collectively acknowledging that
China is the responsible person for these crimes against humanity in North Korea.
Then we can somehow, I don't know, talk to...
Stand up to China.
Exactly.
We're failing to do that in a way,
in all kinds of avenues of life, of public life,
because for many reasons, they're probably primarily financial.
But it also...
I'm against...
§05Transcript · 42:46–53:41
I don't know, maybe you can correct me.
I'm against sort of making China
this evil enemy, because I've seen this
with Russia as well, and I don't think that leads to progress.
I think you want to highlight, like you basically want to help China,
the Chinese people become the best version of themselves.
So speak to the Chinese people and not fear,
not making the leaders of China
like into these caricatures of devils.
I feel like the Cold War, the way it was done in Russia, I just...
For both sides, they were caricaturing each other through propaganda,
and the result was not productive at all.
It did not help Russia become the best country it could be,
did not help America become the best country it could be.
And the same thing with China.
I feel like making them into this enemy, like being afraid of China,
being... making them into the thing that's going to spy on us,
that's going to destroy the rest of the world.
That's not going to help China
like reform themselves. They're going to plant their feet.
The dictators, the evil people will become more evil.
The power hungry will become more like they will centralize the power more.
It feels like...
Maybe naive, but it feels like it should be like...
Again, love, not violence that solves this thing.
Now, of course, in North Korea, it's like long gone.
80 years, almost 80 years.
You can't... love is not going to solve that problem.
Or I mean, I don't... it's very difficult.
They have tried that.
Because of the sunshine policy, which is
there's two people walking down the street and the sun and the wind made a battle.
So who can take off that man's jacket?
So wind tried to blow as much air as he could.
And then that man was like putting more like his jacket on, right?
Not taking off. But sunshine came up.
OK, I'm going to give a lot of warmth.
And then he took his jacket out and came out.
So that was a theory.
Let's give North Korea as much love as they want.
Let's give them a lot of money, whatever they want.
Let's give to them.
Do they know that we are not here to attack them? Yeah.
And North Korea, what they did was the guy who did the sunshine policy
in South Korea named Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize for that.
And Kim Jong-il used the money to build nuclear weapons.
So that's how they came with the nukes.
So I think that's the thing.
I hope that love solves problems.
But there's got to be a way.
And that's the hope is with the 21st century is you can directly speak
to the people somehow when there's no Internet, when there's nothing like that.
It's hopeless.
I think China, there's a hope that China is still connected to the Internet.
I love your optimism.
I have seen the actual dark side of China on the underground.
I hope.
I think that's the thing.
People in the West, right, they say, oh, how can it be that bad?
They ask me like I walking passing this young teenager man
in the middle of the war with my sister.
He's like intestine coming out through his back, right?
And even in that moment, what he wanted was, please give me food.
He was hungry.
His intestine is hanging out of his body.
Yeah. And he's asking for food.
Do you know what humans demand when they die in North Korea?
All they want is eating, right?
Yeah. And people say, oh, nothing can be that bad.
But people just here haven't seen an actual true evil.
Would you say that the evil comes from a tiny minority of people?
Or is it permeate much larger parts of the population?
Like if we look at sex trafficking,
how many people, like is it 99.9% of the people are
longing to do good in the world?
Or is there is it
or do we all have the capacity for evil in certain kind of environment,
certain kind of governmental structures inspire a large
percent of the population to do bad things?
I think humans are capable of anything.
There is no exception.
I don't think there's any saying to form with the morality.
I think in North Korea, you can say initially that there's few guys
in the top wanted power and then doing this.
But eventually it made a society where people don't even know
what compassion is.
We don't know the concept of we don't know that you need to feel bad
for another human being and they're suffering.
The fact that, you know, compassion is in your knowledge.
That's why you do that.
Humans need to learn.
It's not anything bad about human nature.
It's just saying humans are capable of everything.
We are the most adaptable species on the planet.
That's why we created the Internet.
Like talking this way, right?
No other animals have done it because we are so adaptable.
That is a good thing and that's a bad thing.
So in that adaptable situation, they all can be.
I mean, during the Holocaust, right?
Those people, they could have been capable of good too
if they were exposed to a different system.
Yeah.
And that's why when people underestimate evil, that's what scares me.
Evil is evil.
It's a different thing.
It's a completely different thing.
And of course, I get your idea.
We don't want to isolate 1.3 billion human beings on Earth via Chinese.
But the thing is, we are talking about this regime, not the people.
I love Chinese people. I speak Chinese.
I love all about that country.
But this system does promote evil.
Well, that's an optimistic view, actually, because we can fix systems.
Yeah.
It's harder to fix people.
So if we fix systems and the people are adaptable, as you said.
I mean that and then the question is, first of all, you have to talk about it
just as you're doing.
You're right now like this little flame that burns bright.
And it's really important for North Korea.
But just keep talking about it
until there's until hopefully it leads to at the highest levels of power
revolutionizing the systems in the world and then
in China and in North Korea.
Do you see North Korea being a potential instigator of a nuclear war?
They will not start a nuclear war
as long as they can do whatever they want right now.
Right. North Korea's army not designed to fight the enemy.
They designed to prevent their own people, the coup d'etat
and the revolution with their own citizens.
Yeah. That is 1.6 million North Korea with a tiny country.
The fourth largest armies in the world.
So this this country designed to fight with their own citizens.
And the army, the fourth largest in the world,
is designed to basically fight its own people, oppress their own people.
That's what North Korean military is about.
OK, let me ask you
some aspects about North Korean life.
Can you describe the songbun system of ascribed status
you see in North Korea?
Yeah. So that's a very interesting thing, right?
Right now, there are a lot of people playing with this ideology of like
democratic socialism, socialism, communism, whatever you call it,
Marxism, Leninism, right?
They have all like this similar features where we give collective
power to a certain entity and they will make the decision for the bigger good.
Right. And North Korea came up with the idea, the Kim Il-sung.
He was the Leninist. He was Marxist.
Saying, I'm going to create the most equal society on human face.
So it was a communist North Korea.
And then they came up with this songbun system.
It's like family caste system.
Three big categories, warrior, wavering and hostile.
And that in between three classes, they divide into 50 different classes.
So a lot of people don't even know which exact class you belong to.
That's a secret government document.
And that's how they decide your future.
So in a way, North Korea, before you're born, your life is determined for you.
And this is almost a joke, right?
They dreamed of creating the most equal society.
They ended up with the most unequal society in the face of humanity.
So there are 50 different classes and where the one guy on the top became a god.
So when this animal farmers, we keep saying like there's so many
all the animals are equal and some of them are more equal than others.
Exactly. But it's not only it's just more equal.
One guy in North Korea became a god.
So North Korea was born out of Marxist ideals.
Yeah. From Stalin.
Can you comment on Juche ideology,
which seems to be its own kind of socialism?
Yeah. But with unique aspects here,
it really does ideologically says the importance of having a great leader.
Is there some interesting similarities or differences that you can comment on
between other implementations of communism throughout history?
The Soviet Union, China, elsewhere.
So Juche is very unique.
It came around the 90s after the Soviet Union collapsed.
So before that, North Korea was very still loyal to the Marxism and Leninism,
which is state takes care of you.
We are going to give you the right education, health care, your livelihood.
Everybody is going to be equal.
You're going to have a working collective farm, collective workplace.
Everybody collectively do things together and let's work for the paradise.
But 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.
And until then, North Korea was heavily subsidized by Soviet Union's aid.
And then Soviet Union didn't give them anything.
So now three million people dying on the streets.
The regime then came up with the idea, OK, our goal is what is successful
ruling for us is keeping the 10 percent of population alive,
which is in the capital Pyongyang.
So they designed the Hunger Games.
There is a capital, 13 other districts,
everybody on the countryside on purpose being starved.
So those people were starving, cannot thinking about meaning of life,
cannot thinking about shooting to the moon.
Right. They're not going to think about anything.
All they're going to think is finding next meal.
All on purpose.
All on purpose. It's manmade famine.
§06Transcript · 53:43–1:04:15
International community was begging to give North Korea food.
Why not? Still at the UN, they beg to give North Korea
formula, medicine and food.
They are begging, can you please feed your people?
And Kim Jong-un said, no, thank you.
Last year, like when North Korea had a horrible, horrible flooding,
South Korean president begging, can you get, can I give you please some medicine?
He's like, no, because he wants to be the one provider.
He doesn't want people to think other people giving him the thing.
So on purpose, other people starving.
And that Juche idea is that's where it's coming from.
So until that communism was about like status being a father figure,
takes care of all your needs, right?
Give the power to us and you're all good.
But North Korea regime says, OK, now we cannot give people's ration.
So which means, Juche means self-reliance.
You need to take care of yourself while you're giving every right to us.
So now in the 90s, the regime told us, OK, we are not going to give you ration.
You cannot trade.
That's illegal.
But you find your own way to survive.
So be self-reliant.
That's what Juche is.
And, you know, but when you're a guy, you can do whatever you want.
You don't need to make a sense.
That's the difference being a guy and being a leader.
And when it is religion, it's not forcifiable.
You cannot challenge it.
God's way is suspicious.
God works in a mysterious way.
So when you're a God, people are not going to say, oh, this doesn't make sense.
Right. You're going to OK, whatever God says,
we as a human being, we can never change his thoughts.
It's unbelievable what regimes can do.
There's something about famine.
You know, that
is another level of evil to me.
You know what Stalin did in Ukraine in the 30s?
Yeah.
Fuck them. Yeah.
Mm hmm. This is what torture is.
Cannibalism. Yeah.
And North Korea, too.
They are humans right now in 21st century.
Seven billion people on this earth right now.
You make enough food for 10 billion people.
Nobody should be starving right now.
It's worrisome to me.
The humanity is moving forward with technological advance.
Blah, blah.
We are going so fast in advancement.
And we are leaving this like 25 million human beings in the cage,
completely leaving them behind.
And North Koreans are living like 16 centuries.
I never like this morning I was taking a shower.
Beautiful shower.
Like one never knew what shower was.
I was bathing a few times a year going to the river.
How do I even know what shampoo is?
And this is how human beings in 21st century are living.
And it doesn't bother us.
And rather, most people are obsessed being a vegan.
And like, how do you reconcile this?
I think we get used to stuff very quickly.
We get used to comforts.
That's just the way of human life.
You take the beautiful things for granted.
So I try to appreciate everything I have.
So whether it's like the food I have now or like the luxury to have a diet
and be struggling with that, or just the basic, simple moments
of being alive with the people I love.
Or actually I get like, I think I'm on drugs all the time because I feel like
just even like this mug, everything on this table just brings me joy.
But it's like filling your life with joy in the full capitalistic American way.
You can still at the same time, not feel too bad about yourself and still
focus on the suffering in the world.
And I think there's some way that in trying to build a better world in America,
it has ripple effects elsewhere.
Sort of like, so I'm a fan of rockets in space.
It sounds perhaps counterintuitive, but sending rockets to space will help
solve the North Korea problem because it lets people dream and build cool stuff.
So it's not the rocket, it's the other people that like are inspired by the
rocket and then look to other problems in the world.
I mean, that's what Elon did is like he saw problems in the world and
saw like, what can I do to help it?
And I think the North Korea one is a tough one though, because that's
ultimately has to do with revolutionizing government.
- We gotta change China.
That's what it takes.
Changing China's communist party is impossible.
That's why we couldn't solve North Korea for that many decades.
- But it's China, for now it's China, but it's China, it's Russia.
It's certain aspects of the United States and struggling with that.
One of the, you know, there's a bunch of technologies that are striving at this.
For example, I don't know what your thoughts about cryptocurrencies.
- I love it.
- So like there's a idea that money could be a way to destroy or to
challenge the power centers of the world.
- Yeah.
- So if you give, if you take away the power from fiat currency and give it to
this thing that can't be controlled by government, this cryptocurrency,
whether it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, all those kinds of things, that's a way to get
money into the hands of people to where the government can't take that money away.
- But North Koreans don't have electricity, no internet.
So we can do that with China.
We can do it a lot of African dictatorship countries, right?
I do think big cryptocurrency is such a fascinating technology, right?
I think this is an amazing experiment when that power is in our hands.
I'm the huge African believer, but I think North Korea is too behind.
- Yeah.
- You know, I think that's what is unique about North Korea is that most of the
things that we talk about is now, it's a different planet, literally.
The common law that we have is now applicable.
- What about Kim Jong-un?
- Kim Jong-un, yeah.
- Is he intentionally evil or is he mindlessly propagating an evil system
created by his ancestors?
What's your sense of the man?
- So with Kim Il-sung, I can give him more than a few thoughts.
He was a initial true believer of communism, but then as later he gained
the power, he realizing, I think, I guess back then he thought most of people are
dumb, right?
Individuals are dumb.
So therefore, I need to make a decision for all of you.
That pure arrogance came from out of him.
Even that I can tolerate.
Okay, fine.
And Kim Jong-il, who never like, yeah, fine.
He grew up in that system too.
But Kim Jong-un is very unique.
This guy was educated in Switzerland, in the heart of democracy.
He knew how human beings should be treated.
As a child, he went.
When you're a child, your brain is very susceptible.
Right?
You would change anybody.
Like why the Mao was so obsessed with changing young people's minds.
Like that's every revolutionary they do, right?
They go change young people's minds first.
This guy was so obsessed with power.
Him being a God.
Even studying in Switzerland didn't change him.
And that's why I think that's a pure evil.
You know, I can give him more benefit of thought to his grandfather and father.
But when it comes to Kim Jong-un, this is like what pure evil looks like.
Pure selfish being.
Yeah.
That's what it looks like.
Is there some sense where he's justifying everything he's doing to himself?
Or do you think there's a psychopathic aspect to where he enjoys the suffering?
I think in his life, right, I read a lot of like North Korea, a lot of CIA documents,
a lot of intelligence people who worked there.
And even like worked in North Korea and type elites and escaped.
I hear about them.
So Kim Jong-un, when they are born, they treat like gods.
So they never have a sense of them being a human.
They're like equal with the others.
For them, like we are just any kind of tool.
Like that, what Napoleon, like thing does, right?
Anybody's a tool.
Like once Boxer dies, get him slaughtered for my cause.
And they do not even feel guilty about it because they don't view us that you deserve,
you're worthy of it.
Yeah, that's right.
So it's not like he even fears, he doesn't even recognize that's a suffering.
Like, of course, this is what you do, serving me.
Because I am, I am this.
So I think that's like beyond that.
It's not like suffering enters his mind.
He doesn't even think what we go through.
So he thinks of himself as a god.
And then everybody else is just tools that are disposable.
Right.
There was rumors several times of him dying.
Yeah.
Do you think he is, obviously his health is not good.
Do you think he will die soon?
What happens if Kim Jong-un dies?
Well, when it comes to North Korea, anybody knows what they're going, what Kim Jong-un does is a lie, right?
Nobody knows.
I'm sure CIA knows, but they may never reveal that.
CIA has enough intelligence to can tell where Kim Jong-un is, what he's doing.
They just don't assassinate him because they don't see the means of it right now.
Because you think they can assassinate him?
They can.
They do have ability to assassinate him.
Why the hell did they not assassinate him?
Because they don't care.
They don't care about the suffering of 25 million people.
They gotta pay the price if they assassinate Kim Jong-un.
They gotta pay the price.
There'll be financial, there'll be political price to pay.
It'll anger China.
Absolutely.
That is a huge piece for them.
And then they'll have to deal, obviously there'll be financial, military consequences of having to deal with the turmoil, the uncertainty, the revolutions that will spring up.
Yeah.
That's the thing.
Like that's why they don't want to take that risk.
They don't want to do anything.
§07Transcript · 1:04:16–1:17:28
The U.S. now became very passive when they pursued these moral values to the rest of the world.
They did the same thing with the Holocaust in the early days, actually.
Yeah.
They were like just, they didn't care.
And that's what their always policy has been.
They don't care.
I mean, so if Kim Jong-un dies, it's gonna be very hard for North Korea to replace anybody in his position because Kim's is a brand.
It's not just like a leader for us, right?
Whenever we think of Kim, who came with my mind, like who's like almost God figure.
Like North Korea is number 10 religions in the world.
They copy the Bible.
So if you believe that, if there are people believe in the God and Jesus Christ, how do you not believe that North Korea believe in the same thing?
So Kim Il-sung's grandfather and his parents were devout Christians.
So Kim Il-sung grew up this like Christian like verses.
So when he find his country, he said, I love my people so much that I'm giving you my son, Kim Jong-il.
His body dies, but he's with us forever.
Who can know how many here I have, what I think.
And when we suffer, we go to paradise with him.
And when you block every single information going to country, of course, people are gonna believe it.
So who would be the successor if he dies?
He has a son, first son born 2009 and not old enough if he dies now.
So either his sister might rule for a short amount of time as not like a leader, but like temporary replacement.
And then when the son is older enough, he might take it off because it's a kingdom.
That's most likely.
And China will do everything they can to maintain that status quo for the North Korean regime.
So North Korean people have no option here.
We just need some leader to courageously come up and do the right thing.
So we can't just wait this out.
No, we can't.
It's not something that I take its course and I'm going to change.
Like we not even know that economic freedom does not bring political freedom.
We know in China it doesn't.
That's the unique thing about freedom.
You got to fight for it.
Otherwise, you don't ever get it.
Freedom is something has to be fought.
And if nobody fighting for freedom, it's not going to be there.
Can we talk a little bit about freedom?
What does it mean to you?
Having had, we talked about love in that same way about freedom, having sort of discovered it later in life.
What does it mean to you?
I think every day I get a new definition of freedom.
It is a never ending journey, having this relationship with being free and what it means to be free, right?
I think you definitely can live life without being free and also happy life too.
I saw a lot of North Korean elites who were fed and have power but didn't have freedom, were very happy.
In a way happier than the people that I found in New York were like investment bankers and consultants in Manhattan and 70% of them go like talk to therapist.
I was very confused.
I remember writing my book in New York, like my editor was saying, "Yumi, you know, you're traumatized.
You need to go talk to a therapist."
And I was like, "What is therapy?
What is trauma?"
Because in North Korea, they don't have word for stress or trauma because how can you be stressed in a socialist paradise?
So they don't let you be knowing what that is.
Yes.
So and then they were like, "Yeah, hearing people having problems go talk to therapist."
And I was like, "How much is it?"
"It's $200 per hour and it's a discounted rate too."
It's like, "No, thank you."
You know, I was like, "No."
And we know that freedom comes with responsibility.
And in a way, it's not that easy to be free.
Thinking for yourself constantly.
Like when you, in a way I understand, like let's give government every power we have.
Let them decide what education that I get.
Let them decide where I live.
Like, you know, let someone figure that out for me.
And that's how North Korea began.
Hoping the government's going to represent my own interest, believing that they were good.
And with that benefit of doubt and good faith, it began the nightmare, right?
Yeah.
So freedom is not like a gateway to be happy at all.
In a way, it can make life a lot more complex.
But then it's fun, isn't it?
You start thinking for yourself.
You start making mistakes and it's so fun to be free, even though you can be suffering way more than the people who are not free.
The thing about freedom is when you have freedom, you also have the responsibility for your actions.
And that could be a huge burden.
Yeah.
Because if you succeed, it's you.
But if you fail, it's you.
And if you do horrible things, it's you.
Or if you don't do something, for example, if you don't help people in North Korea, it's you.
Yeah.
And that's a huge burden.
Yeah.
And living with that burden is a kind of suffering.
I mean, there's some aspect in which freedom is suffering.
It is suffering.
Because life is suffering.
And then freedom is you as an individual fully living through that.
So you talked, you're friends with Michael Malice.
He believes, and so I want to kind of ask you about government.
He believes he's an anarchist.
Yeah.
And he believes kind of a freedom fully implemented in human societies, meaning that humans should all be free to choose how they, you know, transact with each other, how they live together.
There shouldn't be a centralized force that tells you what to do.
Do you think there's some role for government in a healthy society?
Yeah.
So if we look at North Korea, there's the most horrible implementation of government.
But then if we look at what the United States strives to be, at least in principle, there's an ideal of a government that represents the people and helps the people.
Like, is there a place for that kind of ideal?
Or is government always going to get us into trouble?
I am not.
I mean, I've spoke to Michael Malice.
I kept asking, right?
Why he's anarchist, right?
And he doesn't even believe in military, none of it.
And I was like, I don't think I want to be in that world you're describing.
That's pretty scary.
I want the law enforcement.
I want like, I don't...
In a way that...
So why equality makes no sense is that the fact that when you and I were born, we were born in a very different capability of thinking, different intelligence, different capability in our physics, right?
So equality is nonsense.
You can never achieve that.
Right?
So to me, that's been, it's very scary.
When the government tries to enforce equality on everybody, that is impossible.
That's...
Specifically equality of outcome.
So like, so given that we all started different places, enforce, like measure in some kind of way where people stand.
And if they're unequal, enforce equality.
Yeah.
And that's what leads to the kind of things that you mentioned with the class system in North Korea.
Yeah.
So I think that's why government can be bad.
They can be very dumb.
And another thing is that they cannot know what you want.
A lot of times people don't even know what they want in the future.
Like how the heck do you assume government gonna know what is best for you?
Nobody knows.
We just all do our best.
I do think though some governments like in Switzerland.
You know, have more power, give power to the different states.
Can be good.
I think I'm more, you know, like giving power to the state and let individual decide where they want to go in within states.
Like, I mean, why did you choose Texas?
Right?
There's no income tax, right?
Like there's a lot of things people find Texas like, you know, charming and they come here.
So in a way that I don't want to be in a one strong government that makes every single thing the same way.
In a way I want to kind of experiment everything.
We can have anarchy state.
There's no police, nothing going on.
You can be whatever you want.
And you can go on a state where it's like abortion is bad, blah, blah.
This is bad.
All this like conservative values.
And let the ideas compete and let them how they're being practiced in real life.
But I think it's very scary when the US government is getting bigger and bigger.
And then they try to make every state under one big government.
And that's like when I get really alarmed.
Are there things that you see in the United States in the current culture that's kind of has echoes of the same things you saw in North Korea that that worry you?
So much.
Absolutely.
It's in America now the meritocracy doesn't matter, right?
It's evil.
The white man's idea of like talking about if you're competent enough, they say, oh, if you're coming from rich white family, you are going to be competent.
So other people don't have a chance.
But look at Asians who came from nothing as competent and go to like Harvard Law School and medical school.
So it doesn't almost say it's like there's no incentive for you to work hard anymore in the system right now.
That is North Korea.
There's no incentive because you are born with your class already.
So no matter what you do, you can never.
So the horrible thing about North Korean system is that there is nothing holding marry up.
So if you're coming from other cultures that like Meghan Markle joined the royal family and she became a lawyer, you go up.
But in North Korea, if someone from high class is going to marry somebody down, you only go down with them.
That's how they prevent class mix.
Right. That kind of enforces the separation because there's a huge disincentives to go to marry, to integrate between classes.
Yeah.
What do you do about this kind of, you know, especially in universities, but in companies?
I'm thinking about starting a company.
So I'm looking at this very carefully.
There's these ideas of diversity and meritocracy that's a tension.
So I think there's a big way in which diversity broadly defined is not at all in tension with meritocracy.
So having a variety of people, backgrounds, way of thinking, all those kinds of things is a huge benefit to any group.
But the way diversity is often defined is by sort of very crude classes of people, whether it's by skin color or gender or some very kind of large group way.
And that actually does two things in my mind.
One, it drowns out real diversity or not real, but the full spectrum of diversity, which is like within class diversity of like,
are you somebody who is, are you somebody who's exceptionally good at mathematics?
Are you somebody who's exceptionally good at psychology?
Are you good with people?
Are you good with numbers?
All that kind of stuff that I think spans or intersects in fascinating ways with these kinds of groups.
So that's diversity.
And then meritocracy is this thing that probably the reason I wanted to move to Silicon Valley and the reason I didn't is like,
having a fire to change the world within you.
Like meritocracy is like, I want to be the best in the world at this.
And I will strive and work hard, not stepping on others, but like in purely within yourself, be the best version of yourself.
That idea is in some ways being not celebrated or...
Demonized.
Demonized.
Literally meritocracy is being demonized right now in America.
Working hard is a symbol of you coming from some established family.
The fact that you celebrate accomplishment, hard work is a sign of your patriotic or whatever thing they call it.
And they want to abolish that.
They want to like stop giving kids grades.
That's what they're already doing, right?
They want to stop.
They want to like, we should abolish like SAT in America they take to go to college, right?
§08Transcript · 1:17:33–1:29:51
They won't even abolish that.
Yeah, some kids have no ability to do math.
So why do we have to force them to learn math?
And that's what comes with humans overcome challenges.
Yeah.
That's what makes us special.
But then like, because it's kids coming from this family, let's find a reason why they cannot.
And then they don't have to do that thing.
But they still deserve the same job.
They need to be a lawyer and doctors.
Yeah.
And that's like what in North Korea was like not...
There was not even meritocracy beginning, right?
Did you born in the same family, the family, the blood, right?
Like if one person does something wrong, it's like collective guilt.
Because I spoke out, three generations of my family got punished, who I left behind.
And then in America, I see the same thing.
Like if you're somehow great, great grandfather on the slave, now you are privileged and you're guilty.
Because you are white and guilty.
Then but how do you change your ancestor?
How did you have a saying on it?
And that is where there's no way out.
There's no forgiving.
There's no moving forward.
And this current culture in America now, like I remember at Columbia, like before class, everybody had to go around of saying, "Tell us what your pronoun is."
And my English, my third language I learned as an adult, even saying he and she, I'm confused.
But it's a pure mistake.
And they say, "Call me 'they' because I'm gender fluid."
Basically, I can be a girl, but next hour you talk to me, I'm a boy, right?
Yeah.
And if you don't do it right, they like look at you, "Why are you bigot?"
Right?
It makes me so nervous.
And this is where I come to, this is a regression of civilization.
We are regressing as a humanity here.
Like the enlightenment, all of those things made us so much brighter and looking forward.
And now we are going backwards.
Well, I think there's a pendulum aspect to it because it's my hope in terms of backwards.
So a pendulum goes backwards too, but it just goes back and forth, I think.
And then in the long arc of history, we're making progress.
I think all of the discussions of diversity and inclusion and all those kinds of things, I always thought that they're healthy in moderation.
Right?
There should be a small part of the conversation amongst other things.
The natural aspect, it seems that they kind of have this way of just consuming all conversations.
It's like the meetings, like diversity and inclusion meetings multiply somehow, where it's like the only thing that you're talking about.
And it's very kind of absurd.
And when I look at, even at MIT, it's a strangely disproportionate amount of discussions about that.
And also to me as an engineer, those discussions are very frustrating because they don't seem to actually do anything.
No.
So like they want to bully people instead of creating systems that fix, define, like definitive problems.
And that in itself, that kind of bullying, that's the same kind of thing you saw in terms of McCarthyism in America.
I guess the communists, you certainly saw that in Soviet Union.
Against everybody who's not communist, it creates hate, not progress.
When you talked to Jordan Peterson recently, and people should listen to that conversation, it was a fascinating one.
I think he almost got emotional on the discussion about universities and your experience with Columbia.
Because he, like myself, for perhaps different reasons, have a hope for our academic institutions.
Some of the most incredible people, some of the most incredible engineering and idea development, innovation happens in universities.
And so we both deeply care about them.
Is there something...
So the reason he got emotional, the reason he was kind of hurt is the fact that you were not deeply inspired by your experience.
I didn't deeply.
It made me dumber.
It made me scared.
It made me terrified that I had to censor myself in America.
Like, are you seriously telling me that you don't ever censor yourself?
And when you talk, can you truly say whatever you want about race, about anything, gender?
We all censor ourselves.
Let's be honest, right?
We are all doing that.
And that's what I learned.
Like, I thought I was coming to a country where never need to say...
Like, first thing my mom told me growing up in North Korea was, don't even whisper because the birds and mice could hear you.
And I thought, okay, now America is truly the land of the free home of the brave.
You can say anything you want.
And then you have freedom to change your mind and evolve.
Right?
But the people now demand you to be the perfect version they demand you to be.
You cannot change your mind.
And then what is the meaning of life you cannot grow?
Right?
You should feel safe to talk about anything and then later, okay, I was wrong.
But now if you do that, you got to get penalized for it.
I mean, censorship is a funny thing because you probably should not say dumb things.
You should try to say things you want to say in the most eloquent, the most effective way you can.
So, I mean, that's what editing is, right?
Yeah.
So there's some level of like, being careful with what you say, not because you're afraid of some overarching kind of group of bullies.
But you want to be the best version of yourself when you express stuff.
But there's some sense where in the university setting,
you can put that self-censorship like level down more and say stupid stuff.
Right.
And play because you should be forgiven for that kind of play,
especially when you're discussing difficult aspects of human history,
whether that include racism, that include atrocities.
I'm still nevertheless sort of hopeful.
But at the same time, I'm surrounded by engineers.
Yeah.
So I don't get to interact with people in humanities much.
And it seems like there's getting worse.
It's a good thing.
It's a good thing.
Yeah, I don't know.
Well, I do sort of interact with psychologists,
but they haven't touched on those kinds of topics yet.
I still sort of in defense of psychology, I still, I wish I had more numbers.
Yeah.
But I still feel like most psychology people don't partake in this kind of stuff either.
They're just doing excellent research.
We're just highlighting, this is what America does well.
You're kind of highlighting anecdotal experiences and making a big deal out of them.
But that's good because like it's a slippery slope.
But if those things start to overtake all of academia,
it starts becoming a big problem, even in the engineering field.
So we should be concerned.
But it is truly tragic that somebody who's exceptionally well read like you,
whose fire was stoked first with Orwell, that fire should burn bright.
Like this should not be, you should be writing many books.
You know what I mean?
Like, and you'll be, you talk to Jordan, you know,
it's very possible depending on what you want to do with your life,
that you'll be a future Jordan Peterson.
So like that, and Columbia should be a place that enriches that your mind.
And the fact that it didn't is tragic.
I mean, I was there four years.
It wasn't like I had one class that was bad in one semester.
That was the thing when Dr. Peer was asking,
is there any one class that had no sentiment of this virtue signaling politically right?
There was none.
Entire course, I think I took 126 credits total.
Not even one class.
Doesn't matter we were talking about classic art and that's the thing.
I literally thought, okay, I pushed it last, like the semester,
the core, like the art and music, right?
So I thought it's going to be the least politically correct class I can take.
And then it begins with who has problem with calling this course
the Western civilization of art and music.
And everybody was raising their hands.
Because like, why do you have to learn about this Beethoven, Mozart, the bigots?
And all the people like, you know, everything ruined by white men.
And it's even music, even these paintings.
And as I didn't raise my hand, everyone's looking at me.
How do you not have the problem with the West?
Like you used to hate the West, you're Asian.
So I think that's the thing.
I think the problem's way deeper than what people think.
And that's what I learned.
It's like, it's not that safe in America.
We can't go completely to the South.
And looking at even Europe, that is like, I used to be way more optimistic.
But now I actually see, wow, this country can't go to South.
And we might, if the US forced that, right, this is the only country left
to battle with the Communist Party in China.
We might lose the opportunity to be free ever again as a humanity.
Wow.
So I mean, that puts a lot of value on having these kinds of conversations.
It is, I mean, I'm troubled by a lot of things, but like censorship on YouTube, for example.
Yeah, it was very annoying to have to listen to Donald Trump all the time.
Like, just like create drama.
Like the news cycle was completely drowned out by Donald Trump.
But like banning him from Twitter, it was like,
(deep breath)
that was scary for me because it's like, that's a step towards a direction where
you're going to, like, where does that take us?
You're going to silence people.
Then it's like Jordan Peterson is next.
That's why we need to promote freedom of thinking and speech, right?
And the one thing that I love about Dr. Peterson is he's a psychologist, right?
He talks about, we think by talking.
That's why when you go to therapist, you talk and then you hear yourself,
and then you think, and you come up to the answer.
It's so important for humans to talk so we can think.
So when they say you cannot talk, means you cannot think.
And they don't know the consequences of that.
And this is why I promote, I want the freedom of speech,
even though it hurts, ridiculous, you know, sometimes it can be dangerous.
But the price, the alternative is so bad that we should take the, you know,
make this trade-off.
Everything has a trade-off in this world.
And it comes with a sacrifice, right?
So I think that's what I want to see in America.
But it's unfortunately, like the people like you say,
who decides what is hate speech, what is dangerous?
That's what I've been getting scared.
Because everybody's imperfect.
- Yeah.
- Right, how do we want to give that power to them?
And they're going to decide, today they might argue with me, say,
"Okay, your speech is good, promotes good."
And then they might come back next year and say, "Your speech is bad."
What are you going to do when that happens to you?
- We have to almost like get ideas out and then play with them.
I think what's a really important component of that is forgiving each other for,
like, realizing that we're a different person day by day.
And certainly years later.
And I think some of that is both cultural mechanisms of saying,
like, we forgive each other for wrong ideas or not wrong ideas,
but for who we are, the full evolution of the human being,
for the steps we've taken on that evolution.
And also creating mechanisms that allow you to,
allow us to forgive each other.
§09Transcript · 1:29:54–1:37:58
Like, for example, on Twitter is like horrible with this.
Because one of the main viral ways that people create drama on Twitter
is like pulling up an old tweet that somebody said, right?
And then saying, "Oh, this is the guy that thinks that."
But that's like the opposite of the mechanisms we need to forgive ourselves,
forgive each other for the things we've said in the past.
And so part of that is the cultural,
part of this is the technological mechanisms.
You mentioned Jordan, Jordan Peterson.
You had a great conversation with him.
What was chatting with him like?
I'm just curious because he's deeply passionate,
especially on the Soviet Union side,
about the atrocities of these kinds of systems.
What was it like?
What did you agree with him on?
What did you disagree?
What were some things you both kind of learned from each other
through that conversation, do you think?
So here, so my story with Jordan Peterson, very long one.
So one day I was walking down in Chicago
and they were like, huge theater were sold out.
It says a big letter, Jordan Peterson sold out.
And then it was a huge theater in the middle of Chicago, right?
Just my comedian, like,
"Who can be selling this entire thing out at like 7 p.m?"
And then with my ex-husband, we were walking the street
and then we saw people were selling this tickets
for a very higher price, right?
And then do you want a ticket?
And then he was like, "Yeah, sure."
We ran in, it's packed.
And then I was just happy,
but I wasn't able to understand his English that much.
My English was still really bad.
You didn't know who he was really?
No, no.
You were just curious?
Yeah, it was like 2008.
Who's the guy that sells out a theater?
Yeah.
Yes, I saw Dave Rubin came out before him and make jokes.
I still don't know who Dave Rubin is.
Afterwards I met them all,
but back then I had no clue what that is.
And then he was giving lessons,
but what I got from that night was not what Jordan said,
but what people did on the audience.
These people, like, I don't know,
thousands of people in this big theater crying like babies.
And that was like,
whatever that guy is doing is very special, right?
He was not making any jokes.
He had no slides,
just one simple person standing in the huge,
giant theater talk.
And no time to, and people cry.
And I was like, "Wow, okay, whatever that is,
I got to check it out."
And then I got home.
And then later, many years later, I got a book.
And I started reading his book.
And it talks about, it explains so much, right?
Like now at Columbia, I learned like everything,
gender is like made up concept, construct.
Like the hierarchy is white man's idea,
making the hierarchy.
And then he begins with the number one,
the lobsters had a hierarchy,
it's evolution of history that is within us.
That we want a hierarchy, right?
And then chapter five about socialization of child,
you know, how do you raise them?
And all of it, and then what's,
why telling the truth is matters, right?
And there's a white, like,
it's entire 12 lessons I read it.
And then it's like, I was so grateful that I'm alive.
There was people always say,
"If Socrates is alive,
how much would you pay to have lunch with him?"
That kind of thing, right?
So for me, it was like, okay,
I'm like alive in the same contemporary world
of one of the greatest thinkers of my entire generation.
And then like, how much money--
- You get to hang out with him.
- Exactly, right?
How much money would I pay?
No limit amount.
And I like reached out to Michaela
on her podcast on Twitter and connected.
And then one day she was like,
"Do you wanna go on my father's podcast?"
I was like, "What?"
I was like, "Of course."
And I was very nervous,
but I didn't expect him to be like that connected.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I thought he was psychologist,
like he saw so much suffering in the world.
He studied Soviet Union.
His hobby is collecting those things
to remind him of the suffering of a human being.
So sometimes some people hear so much atrocity,
they become like very not engaged.
- Yeah, desensitized.
- Desensitized.
- He felt, he was feeling,
it's almost like he was living through the experiences
with you as you were talking about it.
It was an amazing conversation.
So Jordan is one of the great thinkers of our time,
but I would say the greatest thinkers of our time
is Michael Malice.
(laughing)
So you've also got a chance to talk to.
So he wrote a book on North Korea.
- Yeah.
- It's an interesting style book.
I learned a lot from it.
I learned a lot from Michael about it.
And it's interesting that he chose North Korea
as a thing to study.
That he, of all people,
this fascinating human being that is Michael,
chose this darkest of aspects of humanity to study.
What do you think of Michael?
What do you think of his book on North Korea
called "Dear Reader"
that people should definitely check out?
- Absolutely.
So back then when I reached out,
Michael threw me to a friend in South Korea.
My English wasn't good.
So I got a copy in my hand.
I tried to read and a lot of them I didn't understand.
So, but I thought it was very fascinating
how he explained North Korea
through the "Dear Reader's" perspective, right?
As nobody has ever done that.
And you can review so much about the state
and absurdity of entire situation.
And also through humor.
I think that's what's amazing about Michael
is he knows full gravity of tragedy.
He knows of full suffering.
It's not just like people here in America
on the bus feet making fun of Kim Jong-un's haircut.
- Yeah.
- They don't care what people go through.
Michael cares.
- He deeply cares.
And then he still does ridiculous jokes.
(laughing)
So that kind of reveals in a dark way,
the absurdity of evil.
- Yeah.
- And he does that masterfully.
Do you?
- He's a genius.
- He is.
- He is definitely a genius.
- All right.
(laughing)
If he watches this,
you know, let's not make his head too big here.
But is there some aspect to...
I mean, there is an absurdity to the whole thing.
Kim Jong-un is this,
I mean, he's almost like a caricature of evil.
- It's a joke.
- It's a joke.
- A lot of people think it's a joke.
They just think like,
this is too absurd.
They just, they laugh.
Like, can you imagine you laugh at Holocaust?
This is that ridiculous.
- Can you maybe psychoanalyze that a little bit?
Because that's where my mind goes too.
Like he's so ridiculous
that you can't,
it's almost like hard to believe this is real.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Is that just my kind of,
and people's desire to escape the cruelty of reality
by just kind of making a joke out of it?
- I think it is a few things, right?
Like, so North Korea as a nation,
number one or number two smartest IQ people in the world,
despite their malnutrition.
So.
- So there is, I mean, that's an interesting point.
So in your sense, the people--
- Are not dumb.
- Still carry the sort of the brilliance.
There's a culture there that's like hungry to become realized.
Like the people that are silenced by the electricity,
§10Transcript · 1:38:02–1:46:21
by the actually having no food,
all those kinds of things.
Like if you add the electricity, if you add the food,
you're going to have a cultural center of the world.
- Like South Korea.
That's what they exactly did, right?
The exact same Korea.
One became world, like 11th largest economy.
One became the world's most like poorest nation, right?
And this is a perfect example.
Like if, I don't know if you read that book,
"Why Nation Fails."
- Right.
- The system.
It's not about a culture.
It is not about people.
It is not about IQ.
What makes us two different is a system.
South Korea, North Korea is a perfect example of that.
One is exact same capability.
We were homogeneous, like country, same language,
tradition, all of that.
We gave them different system.
One is free democracy, one is dictatorship.
And came up with the biggest different result.
And I think North Korea reveals that to us.
It's not because we are great that we are living
in this prosperity.
Free market.
The ideas gave us to this.
The system we built, our ancestors built,
gave us this privilege.
It's not us.
Nothing is about us being special here, right?
The system that we have is quite special.
And North Korea proves that to us.
It doesn't matter even if you're smart.
It does, it's all irrelevant.
And I think that's why people just keep denying it.
They want to feel special.
Because I'm awesome, I got all of this.
Like, no, it's not you, you got this.
And when people say, like, I hate capitalism.
I was like, without capitalism, how do you come up
with this thing?
Literally, how did you come up with this?
- The systems matter.
- Matter.
And they matter, like, way more
than this individualistic society would like to imagine.
- It is the most important thing you can have in life.
Choosing the right system.
- Do you have advice for young people today?
You've lived an incredible life and you have,
I hope, an incredible life ahead of you.
What advice would you give to young people today?
High schoolers, college students,
how to be successful in their career,
maybe successful in life?
- The last thing I want them to feel is guilty.
It doesn't do anything, right?
So I hate when people talk about, oh, why guilt?
It's like, that doesn't make even any sense, right?
I think the fact that they're born with freedom
is a blessing for all of us.
It's not like I want them to want to do something
because they are guilty.
I want them to do something because they are grateful.
It is true, like, we are sitting here,
the fact why I have children is suffering.
Having kids, you don't sleep, costly, like so much work.
Like any logical, rational mind,
you should never want children, right?
Why would you do that to yourself?
Especially as a woman, right?
You don't want to do that to yourself.
But think about, like, we are sitting here today,
two of us, in this amazing technology, this country,
because somebody in Savannah, hundreds, thousands of years ago,
they're hunting berries and surviving cold,
every suffering they can imagine.
They fall for us.
That's why we ended up here.
So life is ultimately bigger than us.
And I think that's what I want them,
it's not like I want them to do the right thing
and be the best version of themselves.
It's like, I want them to feel grateful.
And we should be grateful.
- For the freedom.
- Everything.
- And then take full advantage of that.
I mean, it starts with the freedom
to experience everything in life.
- And for your life, literally.
- Like life.
- Like you have, my father, like, you know,
working, dying is a lot easier than living.
Dying takes like few minutes, right?
Maximum.
And living takes forever.
So when I was facing this unbelievable challenge,
I thought, okay, this most rational thing I can do
is killing myself right now.
But the hardest thing I can choose is to live.
And my father did that.
Even in the concentration camp,
even no matter why he said, "Life is a gift.
You need to fight for it."
And I think that's what's missing here,
that we don't think life as a gift.
It's a gift.
Like, how many people had to fight for me to be here today?
Think about the sacrifice they made
for many, many, many generations.
I don't even know what they went through.
I can't even fathom what they went through.
- They fought for life.
- Yeah.
And that is my responsibility now.
So it doesn't make them,
their fight was not meaningless, right?
It meant something.
Because now I'm carrying on that fight.
- You mentioned considering suicide.
- Mm-hmm.
- Do you think about your mortality now?
Now that you're perhaps in a slightly more comfortable place,
do you still think about death?
- I do because I was informed, actually when I was 21,
that I was on the killing list of Kim Jong-un
in South Korean intelligence.
And then I had to live with that, right?
But now I actually feel more because, I don't know,
you follow Jamal Khashoggi's story, the Saudi journalist
who got chopped off in Turkey embassy, right?
His reason why he got killed was
he became very prominent on Twitter.
He had a huge voice and Saudis followed him.
Now I became very first North Korean
to have this many social media followings.
And recently North Korea started an investigation team
to analyze whatever I do.
Even though it's first time for them.
So they don't even know what to do at this point.
Like they're like, "This is so new.
"What do we do?"
With Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong-un
got killed in Malaysia.
That is another tragedy that I feel so sorry
for the U.S. government is that Kim Jong-nam
was giving information to the CIA for the past 10 years.
That trip, when he got killed in Malaysian airport,
he was meeting up with the CIA agent
for two days on the Northern Island.
CIA could have protected him.
They didn't.
They let him die.
- Who killed him?
- North Korean Kim Jong-un killed him.
Do you know the Malaysian, the ladies,
the VX, the nerve agent?
North Koreans killed him.
In Malaysian airport, in the international land.
So even Jamal Khashoggi, who was a U.S. resident
and the Washington Post journalist,
when he got killed in Saudi like a lamb,
they chopped him into pieces.
In that most inhuman death,
what was the consequences for the Saudis?
Nothing.
The world is, we think we're living in justice.
So can't you know there's no justice?
There is no accountability for killing any dissent,
no matter how big their names are.
- So you don't think your vast
and quickly growing social media presence protects you?
- No, it does the opposite.
Because Kim Jong-un, initially when I spoke out,
I don't know if you went through it,
they did everything they could to character assassinate me,
saying I'm a liar, I'm a CIA spy, I get paid.
And then they reached out to Penguin,
saying we're gonna blow up.
You cannot write this book.
And they did it with Sony.
They hacked the Sony studio
for making that stupid movie interview, right?
And then Penguin did their investigation.
They met every survivor that I went through in the desert.
They got the voice recordings of them
because they don't want them to change their mind later, right?
People remember differently.
So they got the voice recordings,
the Penguin recording got the old audience.
And now we are ready for the lawsuit.
We are gonna publish this book
'cause we checked, verified every single thing
that was going in the book.
- Yeah.
§11Transcript · 1:46:21–1:54:17
- And North Korea couldn't do anything anymore.
- But that's character assassination.
- But then-- - Which by the way,
that's a whole nother conversation
that you were able to survive that.
I appreciate the kind of strength
it requires to survive that 'cause you don't know.
And your character being assassinated
is in some ways can be as painful as actual assassination.
- It's worse.
- Yeah.
- It's worse.
So everybody think you're a liar.
- Yeah.
- Like everybody think you're a liar.
- Yeah.
- And now everybody, like you said,
this nature of internet is that
as long as something is written internet,
they think that's a fact.
- Yeah.
- Any stupid person can start a blog and write about you.
- Yeah.
- But they think, oh, because it's written on internet,
it's a legit.
- Especially negative stuff.
That's the thing I was kind of trying to elaborate on.
There's a viral aspect to calling somebody a fraud or a liar
that nobody questions whether it's true or not.
It just spreads.
- Yeah.
- And it's a dark side of our human nature
that we want to destroy the people who are rising.
- Yeah.
We cannot stand it.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, any change maker in this world
who wasn't controversial, right?
Martin Luther King Jr., like Nelson Mandela.
He was called as a terrorist, right?
So I just did not know.
- I...
- The character assassination is the thing,
it'll probably continue with you.
- It will continue with you forever.
- So you have to get stronger and stronger,
I think in the face of that.
- I do need to.
- But actual assassination, perhaps it's me being hopeful
because I have a situation with Russia
that I hope I'm not under, well, I don't care actually.
But there's some aspect in which social media presence,
I thought, protects you a little bit
because just imagine the outrage
from an attempted assassination of you.
- But what was outrage when Dramer Koshy got killed like that?
- Was the social media presence large?
- Over 1 million people, I don't have that following.
He was 1.6 million Twitter followers.
- And the outrage wasn't there?
- No, because Saudis spoke to Amazon,
to Prime Studio, Netflix.
There were people made a documentary about him
but told everybody cannot get that deal.
So there was a huge censorship on that.
And people, of course, I mean, they can talk about it one day,
some dissents from Saudi got killed, horrible.
- But it just dissipates.
- It's like they move on to the next cute puppy, right?
The next cute cat, that's what the nature
of this new generation does, they desensitize.
It doesn't affect them, they keep following
the instant pleasure, instant high.
That's what Instagram does to you.
It changes your brain, like that's,
I was reading, we spoke of shallows.
We became shallow and shallow
and our brain changed permanently.
So this new generation, we can get them angry
for like 10 minutes, create hashtags for one day.
But then as quick as that was, it goes down like instantly.
And I think that's the-
- Well, that means that, okay.
So that means that there is, it's an effective way
to get rid of opposition is by murdering them.
And that means a United States, if it stands for freedom,
if it stands for the freedom of exchange of ideas,
should be protecting people like you.
- But they don't, 'cause they don't wanna be involved.
They didn't even protect Kim Jong-nam
who was giving information 10 years, risking his life.
That's what is so, I mean, working for CIA is not bad.
I don't, I hope, I mean, the thing is,
he was giving information to bring down the regime.
That is valuable.
That is something novel about him.
But then you don't go extra miles to that.
That's when I lost my faith in the US system as well.
Like this country just cares about saving face.
What is most minimum cost they pay for anything?
And like I went up to South Korea,
constantly, every single day, intelligence is calling me.
You're like the North Korean agent going this place.
Where are you going?
The US, as soon as I came to US, nobody.
There's so many people said, "Are you a CIA agent?"
I wish they called me.
I wish they called me.
I wish they did.
I really, truly do.
But nobody, nobody does here.
I'm sure they know what's going on.
But the South Korean agent is more like,
"Oh my gosh, we don't want you to get killed.
You're a South Korean citizen, right?"
- Yeah.
- And now I'm trying to become a citizen.
So it's, in a way, it's, I don't know what's worse.
(laughs)
- Are you afraid for your life?
- I was afraid.
For the several, three, four years, I was afraid.
And it was, but I had to came terms with it.
Like my enemy is not some crazy psychopath.
It's a state with a nuclear power
to attack the most powerful country.
If Kim Jong-un decides, if I die, I'm gonna die.
It's not up to me, right?
So in a way, also it's liberating that you,
it's like if you are like afraid of some mobs
or some like gangsters on the street,
it's almost like you have power over a little bit.
You gotta be like thinking, "That's my fault.
I went that way," right?
- Yeah.
- But when it comes to Kim Jong-un,
I know like my enemy is so much bigger than me.
It's in a way, it's a liberation.
And also, it was, I just, I lived a lot.
So I have seen a lot.
I seen everything.
I don't have that much regret left here.
Like, "Okay, I'm going too soon," you know?
It's like, "Okay, maybe it's time."
Like death is a part of life, so.
- In some sense, you're willing to accept death
to keep fighting for freedom in your,
in at least in part, a place you call home.
- Yeah, it is.
- Do you hope that one day you can return to North Korea?
- I hope so.
I hope I bring my son and tell him
this is like where your ancestors from too.
- It would look very different
than the place you came from,
in your, as you hope.
Do you hope that there's a democracy one day?
That North Korea looks like South Korea?
- Well, that would be in paradise, right?
(both laughing)
That's, but I'm a rational optimist.
I'm not like just optimistic because I have to be.
I think as long as there are people
who have changed the world, right?
Like who believed in something
and worked for it.
And like, I don't know, like there's a,
like Alice Shiro, a few people holding entire this world,
right?
I really believe in that.
I think as long as that continues,
that can happen in my country.
As long as people like you someday
want to decide to do something
with North Korea and working for it,
using your brainpower to solve this puzzle,
how fascinating would that be?
That's why I continue to speak, continue to recruit.
(laughing)
- To inspire millions to do something.
The books you like are all the books I love.
So I have to mention this.
You mentioned briefly on the, with Jordan,
"Siddhartha" by Harman Hassan is an incredible book.
- Yeah.
- There, I mean, I don't know exactly
what I want to ask here, but there's some,
I think the book kind of through telling a story
reveals that life is suffering
and yet there's beauty in it.
The beauty in every moment that uses kind of a river,
paint a metaphor.
Is there something that you could say,
speak to like how that book impacted your life
and the way you live life,
maybe the way you see life,
whether it's on the life is suffering side
or that life is beautiful side.
- I mean, he goes through entire journey, right?
He goes into state, like I'm so enlightened
§12Transcript · 1:54:20–2:00:43
that I cannot deal with the people
where they're in love and cry about it, right?
They're like, that's so like primitive.
Once he has his own son, he actually being attached.
He actually cares.
He actually really does whole thing, right?
That's the thing that he used to think not.
Once his son comes find him, he looks at life differently.
I think that's the thing I did have that kind of journey
where nothing matters, right?
So bitter, so cynical.
And after I met so many incredible people,
I was talking about that person who told me he was gay.
He told me, I love you.
And I was like, why do you love me?
In the past, people when they wanted me
was because they wanna rape me.
Everybody wanted something from me.
That's why they wanted me.
And I never understood you can love somebody unconditionally.
And this gay guy, the last one was wanna sleep with me, right?
And he loves me.
And I think I had a blessing after my journey
meeting people who loved me unconditionally
because I was just being a human.
And I think that's what it is now for me that like him,
I live for love now.
I live for love, any kinds of love.
Love for knowledge.
I like, I read so many books
because I love books, right?
I love what I do.
I love my people.
I love humanity.
Even it's sometimes annoys me.
I love myself.
- And that's beautiful too.
The annoying parts are beautiful too.
What do you, let me ask the ridiculous question.
What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing?
Of what's the meaning of life?
- Wow.
I think at this point I stop questioning why I'm here, right?
Like it doesn't matter someone put the ad on there
or a big thing.
I'm here, that's truth, right?
I'm going to accept that fully.
So what, instead of me keep asking the impossible question,
why I'm here, I'm going to let you do that.
(laughing)
Let the science do that, right?
You guys go out in the space and look for the evidence.
I'm content.
(laughing)
- You accept that you're here
and you're just going to enjoy,
like you're here for love, as you said.
- That's the thing.
I think I'm here for the process
of pursuing something bigger than me.
Process of doing something.
It's not like a motto.
It's not a virtue sign or anything.
It just makes me happy that I fight for something bigger
like than me, right?
So how boring is it every day you get up,
oh my God, I'm going to buy myself this.
I'm going to get this for myself.
It's so boring, isn't it?
So in a way, I think that's what it is.
I'm grateful that I'm in a state.
I don't have to fight for myself anymore.
But more people have to do that.
And that's sometimes more than enough they have to do.
And I salute them.
They are doing fighting, saving themselves every day.
But now I'm not there.
I'm very blessed.
That's why I'm very grateful.
- So fighting for something much bigger than you,
but do you still believe that you can change the world?
That you can be a thing that,
at least in part, helps North Korea
or even broader helps alleviate some suffering in the world?
- So that's the thing.
I was reading this book "Fooled by Randomness".
(laughing)
I was like, they're up here like,
oh my God, you're so courageous.
You're amazing.
I was like, no, I'm not, I'm horrible.
I know myself.
You don't want to tell me that.
It's random why I ended up here.
Why did I pick up English so quickly?
Why do I love books?
I don't know why.
It's random.
- Don't ask why, just enjoy it.
- Yeah, it's just random.
I think, I don't know how the history will remember me.
I think only thing I have to at this point
to make sure is that the people,
after I consulted a lot of security teams,
like now North Korea became a lot smarter.
Like you said, they make more disguise as a suicide
and a car accident.
So when I die, they don't even know I got killed.
I think that's a higher chance.
So I think that's the thing.
Like people are suffering, take it or not, it's your choice.
And at least it's my responsibility
for them to know what's going on.
I think if you did not know and didn't do anything,
you are not even guilty of a thing.
But once you know, then you are not doing it.
Then something is like not right.
So that's what I'm doing.
Like I want people to know.
And then what they are gonna do
is not my problem afterwards, right?
So my role is very small in that regards.
And I just hope that we're humanized North Koreans
for the first time
because we have been so dehumanized, right?
Like we are like looking like robots.
If you look at us marching and cry,
like when the leader dies,
almost seems like we don't even have the same emotions.
People cannot connect us in the same level.
And I think that's something media have done it to us.
- And you're shining a small light
on this dark part of the world that I think,
and you make it, you're so modest,
but I think you will have that little light
just might be a big thing that changes
that incredible amount of suffering that's happening
on that part of the world.
You know, I mean, you're an amazing person.
I'm so fortunate to get a chance to talk with you.
I can't wait what you do in the future.
I hope you write many more books.
I do hope you continue making videos,
continue having conversations.
You're an inspiration to me and millions of others.
I really appreciate you talking with me today.
- I'm so honored.
(laughing)
Thank you.
- Thank you.
Thank you for listening to this conversation
with Yeonmi Park.
And thank you to Belcampo, Gala Games,
BetterHelp and 8sleep.
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
And now let me leave you with some words from Bob Marley.
"Better to die fighting for freedom
"than be a prisoner all the days of your life."
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.