This content was created by Dennis Prager. This content was uploaded by Dennis Prager. This is a YouTube interview titled "Yeonmi Park on Fleeing North Korea's Evil Regime" (created 2021-06-17). It features a conversation between host/interviewer Dennis Prager and guest Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector. The excerpt covers Park's experiences under the North Korean regime, her escape with her mother, themes of freedom versus being cared for, public displays of grief in North Korea, her separation from family, and being sold to human traffickers in China as a teenager. Metadata indicates YOUTUBE content and the provided creation and last-edited timestamps.
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now.com. I read to you yesterday from the Daily Mail. I didn't know that she was on Jordan Peterson. She was on Fox News, spoke to the New York Post. She is a student, she's 27, a student at Columbia University, which has become a wasteland. And she, uh, really has just said, you know what, I fled North Korea and I thought I was coming to liberty, and I see liberty suppressed and not valued in America, which is exactly right. So, yeah, me, what I, I concluded in the last couple of years, a very big thing, and that is that human nature does not yearn to be free. It yearns to be taken care of.
Yeah, it is. I mean, that's what I thought after going through all of that. And I went to South Korea. When people ask me, what do you think? And nobody asked me the question in North Korea. Like what I thought never mattered. My destiny was determined even before I was born. I never had to think for myself. And it was such a pain to do that. I literally remember if I had a guarantee of getting enough frozen potato and not getting killed by the regime, I actually would rather go back to North Korea where there was no responsibility and where I didn't have to think. 'Cause freedom was a responsibility.
That's right, that's exactly right. Freedom is a responsibility. That's exactly right. So when we watch people crying hysterically at the death of Kim Jong-il, for example, that's not acting. They're really crying.
Yeah, it's, uh, well, I do believe that when Kim Il-sung died, that was 100% It was a genuine cry. Literally, my mom thought when Kim Il-sung died, it was God died, that she thought the earth was going to stop spinning. She really thought that was the end of time, end of universe. When Kim Jong-il died, it was more mixed feelings, but still majority of people, like 98% of people believe it. However though, it's not like you have option not to cry. There are spies everywhere. There are guards everywhere right there looking at you if you don't cry. And you go to political prison camp if you don't cry. So in a way, people, you know, that's the thing, that's what I learned. The will to survive is the strongest force in the human being. We can like literally move the mountains if we face death, right? So people in North Korea, because it's like life and death situation, they have to do it to survive.
Right, so it— well, that's what my original thinking was. This crazy crying— I mean, everybody cries, but this is— it's, it's, it looked like an act. But the more I think about it, it might— that's why I asked you— it might also be genuine. So I, I don't know what to think, but maybe there's no way to know. That's the whole point in North Korea. You don't know what people are thinking.
No, it is like they're living The Truman Show, the movie, right? There's no public survey. We don't even know the concept of survey. There's no way you go ask the group of people, what do you think?
How do you explain— how do you explain your mother?
Well, I mean, she had to eventually come to her own realization. It took a long time for her, but there is no way she could see the truth.
No, no, I'm saying, how did she— how did she get the courage to think independently and to try to escape with you?
Uh, it was my decision that I told her to escape with me when I'm 13. And really, really, yeah, yeah.
Were you worried that she would report you to the police?
No, I wouldn't. I, I did not. So that was the one thing I had was I had a very Very loving parents who loved me unconditionally.
All right, so what happened with your father?
He was out of prison and he was very sick. And the thing is, when you escape, there's a higher chance of you not making it. So if my father knew that I was escaping, then, and then, so once I get caught, they're gonna ask me, torture me, If I told anybody, if I did tell my father, then he is actually responsible because he had to report on me.
Right. So then he would be tortured.
So yes, that's, I mean, he's going to get killed. So when I was escaping, I told, I had my mom like, you are going to come with me. And then I didn't tell my father. So he had no idea. I just one day disappeared from his life. And we all, all defectors do that too. Protect our family. We cannot even afford to take 5 hours.
But you went, you went with your mother.
Yeah, I did.
So your mother also left without speaking to your father about it?
No.
So your father woke up one day with no wife and no daughter?
Yeah.
Do you know what happened to him since you escaped?
Oh, and then, uh, 6 months later, after I was in in China. When I got to China, I was sold separately from my mom because I was sold by, bought by human traffickers. So I was 13 years old. I was virgin. So they sold me for less than $300. And they sold my mom for less than $100. So I got separated from my mom. I was bought by another human trafficker. And of course he was trying to rape me and I was going to kill myself. But he told me if I become his mistress that he could save my family for me. And I decided to leave it then because, you know, I could save my family if I became his mistress. So I became his mistress at 13. He brought my mom back from the farmer that he sold, and then he brought my sick father from North Korea in October of 2007. So I told my father—
what a story. By the way, you did the right thing. I just want you to know. I know you respect me, and I want you to know that you did the right thing.
