Julian Dorey Podcast - 😱 [VIDEO] - 5 Days Alone Inside NORTH KOREA | Wally Green • #147

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Support Our Show on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey  Subscribe To Our Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChs-BsSX71a_leuqUk7vtDg  (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Wally Green is a former gangster, world-renowned Table Tennis player, and former North Korea visitor. After a difficult childhood in Brooklyn, Green traveled the world as a pro ping pong player and eventually visited North Korea (against all advice) to promote peace through the sport. Wally is the Co-Owner of "Spin" –– the renowned chain of Ping Pong Bars around America. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Wally’s earliest exposure to gang life & his sociopathic stepfather 6:33 - The psychological abuse Wally endured as a child 10:53 - Wally’s stepbrother 12:39 - Wally gets sent to Africa by judge 17:19 - Boarding school & a rude-awakening in Nigeria 27:36 - Wally comes back to America & joins gangs again 28:55 - What Wally did for the gangs; A close call with a gun 39:32 - Wally is level-headed (against all odds) 42:35 - The day Wally became homeless (STORY) 48:34 - Wally’s odd dynamic with his mom 53:23 - Where was Wally’s real father? Why did his mom love stepfather? 59:27 - How an old man took Wally under his wing & showed him ping pong 1:03:42 - A gun falls out of Wally’s bag story 1:13:43 - Wally gets sent to Germany 1:22:40 - The Chinatown Tournament & Rockstar Games deal 1:27:46 - Wally decides to play for the Team USA prior to North Korea trip 1:33:56 - Wally’s early exposure to the rise of China in 2000s 1:44:30 - Why did Wally want to go to North Korea? 1:51:42 - Wally’s initial research on North Korea; Questions you get asked in North Korea 1:56:50 - How did Wally get into Kim Jong Un’s North Korea?; The Embassy in China story 2:03:47 - The plane ride on North Korean airline; Pins on the plane story 2:10:44 - Wally’s “Guide” in North Korea 2:16:26 - Practicing in North Korea prior to tournament; The English teacher 2:19:49 - Wally’s very risky move in North Korea 2:25:21 - Wally plays a table tennis match against a North Korean native 2:29:39 - The North Korean crowd & how Wally got them on his side 2:33:20 - The shocking thing Wally did post-match 2:39:45 - Kim Jong Un’s North Korea: The Truman Show 2:41:48 - Why Wally decided to leave; Wally’s close call with Labor Camp 2:49:18 - US reaction to Wally’s trip to North Korea 2:54:25 - North Korea’ people have no idea what freedom is ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “JULIANDOREY”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Music via Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So I started a conversation with my guy and the conversation started like this I said look at every major country in the world. They have influence from the world. She said that's not true Everything in our country was done by our great leader and this and this and that and I said, yeah But you know your great leader has western influence now. I'm going into the yellow. You said oh, it gets better It gets better. So how'd she look at you when you said that? She gave me this look. She says. I had two sides to me. I had the gang life. And then I had two sides to me. I had the gang life, and then I had the sports, right? How early were you exposed to the gang life?

Do you remember? Twelve. Twelve, yeah. Is that like when you just became aware that it existed, or like they actually were trying to pull you in? Oh, no, I always knew it existed. In the projects, you always knew it existed. And the projects, like, you always knew it existed. Because, you know what? A lot of the... And the way you get exposed in different ways, um, but the way that I first got exposed to gang life,

and I never talk about it, because people never ask me this question, um, is that, uh, someone wanted me to hold a gun for them. Hey, guys, the best way you can help this show if you're on YouTube is by hitting the subscribe button Is that someone wanting me to have a Patreon episode coming out the day after this episode releases on YouTube and Spotify. So keep your eye out for that. And the Patreon link is in the description below. They got some stuff. And they were, I guess, police were chasing.

I was really young, so I don't remember. But they said, hold this. I'll get it from you later. And it was a gun. Like, just coming up to you on the street? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's not really on the street, but in my projects. Got it.

And of course, even you're young, you know, we're outside, right? We're in front of the building all the time. We know who the people are. Young kids know what's going on. They know. And so, I just held it and came back and got it later but um that was like the first kind of being exposed to it and um yeah man it it it was just it was just crazy so that was one side of me and then the other side of me was sports so sports numbed me to the abuse that was going at

home like my father was a narcissistic abuser who physically abused uh me and my mom my mom more than me my mom got beat up all the time and um how young were you when you first saw oh my god this this i probably don't remember i mean my mom's been getting beaten up since i was like one because my mom and my dad divorced uh probably when i was one because i don't remember my mom's beating her after oh yeah divorced i no no no no no that's my stepfather it's my stepfather so my mom and dad divorced maybe when i was i don't know one because i don't remember i don't have no recollection of my mom and dad together. There's no memory whatsoever. So that means that it had to be early.

So what's the earliest age that you probably can't remember anything, right? I think at three, you can kind of remember something at three. I don't remember. I don't even have any memory of them together at all so so uh my mom remarried this crazy narcissistic abuser and he's been beating her up since i was a kid like i grew up watching this all the time and um so that was uh so so the second side was the sports well

actually let's stay on that for a minute yeah mean that's some heavy shit i mean at what obviously you have a decent feeling at a young age to like oh this is not good this is not right that this is happening it's not like you're like oh this is normal but like were you angry at him did you want to take it out on him were you yeah it's uh so i remember maybe at six years old at six or seven years old i was thinking of ways that i could kill my stepfather like and six year old you can't do nothing but i was i always a smart kid, always a smart kid. And I remember one day I climbed up on the chair, and my stepfather took capsules, like some medicine, and they were in capsules.

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and the way we used to kill roaches is with boric acid. So you take the boric acid powder, and you sprinkle it along the corner of the floor. The roaches walk on the boric acid, and their legs melt. It burns their legs, and then they die and so i was always trying to think how could i take this boric acid and put it into this capsule these are things that i thought about as a six-year-old six-year-old isn't that crazy yeah so i i would look at it i

wouldn't know how to do it like i never attempted to do it because i knew the boric acid was dangerous so technically i really didn't want to touch it but i would look at it and like and just think like how could i get this in here without myself getting hurt yeah and and those are things i thought about as a kid like i always even even you know from watching cartoons right you watch cartoons you see the crazy thing they take the the the sock and they put it into the muffler or movies they put in the muffler you know that trick so set the car no i'm trying to picture oh you don't know about that no yeah i might but like i'm trying to picture what you're saying so so so they take a cloth or sock or whatever and they push into the muffler so that the carbon dioxide is gonna come out and it goes in.

So I was thinking about stuff like that as a kid. Like maybe if I just put a whole bunch of stuff into his muffler, right, maybe the carbon dioxide, and at the time I didn't know it was carbon dioxide, but I knew that if you put something in there, something else wouldn't come out and you'd probably pass out and die. So like those are the things that I thought about

all the time as a kid, like, how could I stop my stepfather from beating up my mom? Did you ever talk to your mom about it? Like as a young kid? Actually, no, we never had a convo, we never had a real conversation, that never, it was either. So what would happen is um they would argue uh my mom was very you know kind of fight back person uh then that would cause him to get more angry then he would beat

her up like physically and then she would uh uh be crying or bloody and then as a kid you go you want to hug your mom so i would go and hug my mom, you know. And then what would happen is, is they would go upstairs, make up, have sex. And then guess what? I'd be punished. Yeah, exactly. How does that work? Yeah, how does that work?

Yeah, so I would be punished. And that was my stepfather controlling the situation. So my stepfather, he was illiterate. He couldn't read and he couldn't write, really. He couldn't read, couldn't write. But he was a master carpenter. He could build anything, anything, you name it, he could build it.

And that's how he got by. And that was a kind of a tactic to control. He had the idea, he used to always always say I'm the king of this castle Right and that was a tactic to let me know as a young kid that he was the king that even if I beat up your mom You can't do anything. I'll beat the shit out of you. Yes, and if you try to help her you'll just be punished What would happen when when he would beat the shit out of you, though? Would your mom step in?

No. No, she would just hug me or maybe they argue a little bit and then she'd get beat up. Like, you know, I talk about this a lot. You know, he systematically tried to break us down. And what I mean by that is that usually a parent may say some things that they don't mean when they're angry. Like, you know, you're a stupid kid or you're going to be a failure or you'll never amount to anything. Right. And that's usually out of anger. Right.

I don't think most parents in a calm way when you're happy will try to put you down or tell you you're a failure. He would do something, his typical thing of what he would do would be something like this. Let's say I had a great day at school, right? I come home, I'm happy, right? And I'm happy. And then he might say, well, how was your day at school? Oh, my day at school was great. He goes, well, it doesn't matter because you're going to be a failure of your life anyway right and as a kid this is systematically trying to break me down and

trying to make me believe that this is true right because he didn't want any of us to be hired in him because he was supposed to be the king of the castle and that's what he did so the abuse was not only physical abuse it was also the mental abuse that's i mean to have to take all that in at a young age it sounds like you had a decent psychological read way before i was even thinking about what a psychological read was and this guy you know is as you say like a textbook narcissist. But I mean, the trauma of having to see that over and over again and be subjected to it. You know, I often when I meet people who are as, you know, outgoing and happy go lucky as you, it amazes me even more when I hear that that's like the environment you knew, because in a lot of ways, like you're overcoming all odds to become

the happy person you are today. And that's an amazing thing. But, I mean, did this guy ever leave your, did your mom leave him at some point? No, man. Is she still with him? Well, actually, they both passed. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, it's fine.

They, it was crazy. She never left him, ever. And not only did she not leave him, she never acknowledged. She never acknowledged to me. I don't care if you don't acknowledge to everybody else, but to your son who went through it. Because not only that, remember, my mom had another child by him. So not only was- How much younger was that child? Maybe like four years, five years.

And not only were we both getting abused, but I still had the pressure of that's his child and whatever he did was great whatever i did was bad oh so he would treat oh hell yeah listen listen listen he would listen he would treat my stepbrother so good to the point where i would force my stepbrother to say he did shit that I did. So let's say I broke something in the house. I would force my stepbrother to say that he did it. And I would make him take the blame for it. Because I knew that if he said he did it,

he wouldn't get in trouble. But if I said I did it, I'd be in a lot of trouble. So I had that as well. So I hated for a long time, like the younger years, like I hated my stepbrother. I actually bullied my stepbrother a lot when we were growing up because he was always the one that, oh, he's great, he's great.

And my stepfather would make sure that I understood that I'm not his child, that's his child, and his child's better than me. And he made sure that i understood that i'm not his child that's his child and his child's better than me and he made sure that i understood this and yeah i i completely hated my stepbrother but um yeah uh do you have a relationship today uh he passed too oh jesus it's it's crazy it's it's you you know um so and it's all around the same it's so weird man it's all around the same actually my stepfather passed a while ago and the only way i found that so i stopped talking to all my family like all of them every every person in my family when was that um so what happened was is um i got into some trouble in school um i got sent to africa for two years instead of yeah you

got sent to africa yeah what the that's a first i never heard i got in trouble in school i got sent to africa yeah yeah so so the africa thing was crazy um i got caught uh with a loaded weapon in school and i had been in trouble already um By this time I was 14 years old and I was already in trouble. I've been arrested a couple of times for serious shit. And the judge was like, you know, trying to give me 10 years as a juvenile. And the worst thing you can do to a kid is put him in jail for that long. Now I always had good grades. And the reason why I had good grades was I sort of was like an entrepreneur at a young age.

You know, I delegate my work to people. Seriously. Because let me tell you why. The reason why, because I needed two things in my life, as we talked about earlier. I needed that gang life and I needed sports. I needed sports even more than the gang life. So how do you stay on the teams if you can't pass classes? If you can't pass, you fail, you can't be on the team. And if I didn't have sports, I don't know, I'd be in jail for sure or dead somewhere. So I needed the sports and I delegate work.

I would tell kids, hey, you gotta take these notes. And what do you get out of it you don't get your ass beat you know i'm gonna protect you my boys are gonna protect you i got your back you're gonna do this you're gonna do this and i would delegate my and i would always know what's going on teachers was like how the is this kid passing how is he passing because i cut out of school a lot you know but i always got the work done and and and what when i needed to study something i did and i think also some of the teachers were a little bit you know kind of like more lenient with me because they knew like like

teachers no bro like like like like like if you're a ganganging teachers no it's it's not the and no one wants to be the one to to to like yeah you know what i'm just gonna fail this kid right yeah it's it can be a little bit of a problem so you know i got by and i was able to you know to do sports and and and that stuff and i forgot where we were going with the africa yeah so i sent to africa for two years so so yeah so i was able to do do the sports and um so when i got arrested um my mom was able to convince the judge that look he has good grades don't worry about how right right he you know he's he's a good student he does well in school he's on on these teams. I even joined the debate team one time. My school record looked good, but me as a person, I wasn't good. And so my mom says, listen, we're going to send him to boarding school in Africa.

Freaking Africa. Of all places. In Africa. So I wind up, the judge somehow agreed. It's like far away. Far, far away. The judge agreed. I wind up the judge it's like far away far far away um the judge agreed i wind up going to africa um uh we're in africa to nigeria so you like what was it like like what kind of boarding school sucked bro bro it sucked was it like a military type thing or was it like a regular

sort of like a sort of like well the the school culture all the school culture is sort of like military it's it's you know you don't have the option to learn you are forced to learn it's it's a different it's a different culture like for example if you're in class and the uh teacher gives you a a a question and tells you to put on the board if you answer if you write the wrong thing down you get hit yeah you get hit so it's it's it's very military like and then when i went there how'd your parents land on a boarding school in nigeria i no idea, bro. It's just crazy. You Googled it or something?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sure it's through family, friends. You know, a lot of, you'll hear this a lot from a lot of people from Africa. And they're like, if your kid acts up, just send him to Africa. Really? That's a thing? Listen, because they'll beat the hell out of you. Let me tell you, one thing I did learn from going there was respect for older people right everything is by age but um for like for me there it was really

difficult because i had to prove myself again right because you would think that being black going to africa you wouldn't experience what racism i experienced more racism there than i did here yeah because they were like who's this kid you're not they're like you're not the real black what do you mean i'm not the real but i'm same color as you the american yeah they listen they used to call me the kid who eats butter the kid who eats butter i don't even know what that racism is like that's that's like some high level racism right right over my head and what it meant was that i was soft so they would call me in their language the kid who eats butter that i was soft

so i spent a lot of time there fighting wait they would call you in their language yeah so they they weren't but at school they're speaking english right yeah yeah yeah you didn't have to learn like the british and that's another problem that was another problem too because i was like yo we don't say it like that and like we speak to british i'm the yo but we don't speak this whole british english bro it was crazy and so i spent a lot of my time just trying to prove myself so i fought a lot i remember my first fight my first fight i joined the boys i joined the boy scouts there and boy scouts yeah yeah yeah we're gonna get to something even more crazy boy scouts i joined the boy scouts and um they were just messing with me bro they were just like oh you're soft and i remember my

first fight man and and i was the kind of kid that when i fought a lot of times you know growing up always had weapons and a knife had you know the brass knuckles i had guns oh you had brass knuckles oh yeah when i was a kid yeah i had guns i had all kinds of stuff and do you have to get fitted for those no that's why that's a good one but um yeah and i remember my first fight man um this this kid was just like would not stop and and i was the kind of person that i would hold stuff in until i started tearing and then once the tears come out then i'd become like just crazy so so i i would just it was weird i was always like that i was always like that like i could hold stuff until i started tearing and then i would tear and then all of a sudden now it was crazy i remember i hit this kid

one time so hard man and he had a knot that was like a golf ball in the corner of his top of his eye bro got some respect then got some respect then and then i joined um this thing called the man of war man of war and um man of war was uh i don't even know how you explain it man it's like it's it's like trying to be it's like being in the most militant army without even being in the real militant army so you're doing all the training it's like boy scouts times 20 000. the uniform is different like you don't wear that little thing with the thing that goes behind your back you're not a wee boy no you you wear a real military suit with a beret and so with the parade beret like official some combat boots and they make you do crazy things like standing up

and just putting your arms like this and falling straight down. You have to do it. You stand up, just fall like a tree, straight. And just land on your arms. Yeah. Arms all bruised up, swollen, crazy. So I joined that. Was that through the school? No, no, no, no, no. That was a totally separate thing. Just random, outside of school.

And you're living at the school because it's a boarding school. You're not living with a host family or something. And then I learned about this from someone at the school and and I I joined it and it was it was crazy but this gave me like you know the mental mind to say that my stepfather when I go back my stepfather's never gonna hit my mom again like like at this point I was like a man man. And how old exactly were you when you first got sent over there again? 14.

14. So 14 to 16. Yeah. So now I felt like, yeah, I'm so strong. I felt no one could take me. So the judge agreed to you going there for two years. Technically. Technically.

When I came back, I was like, I'm not going back. I was like, I told my my mom if you send me back the first flight the first stop that plane makes you'll never see me again mmm I didn't want to go back there I couldn't go back there it was just it was just too crazy um I love to go back there now that I'm older yeah I can appreciate because because of that place I learned about respect I had no respect for anyone didn't matter if you were 70 they about respect. I had no respect for anyone. It didn't matter if you were 70. I didn't care. I had no respect for anyone.

But going there, I learned about respect because everything was about age. If someone was one day older than you, that's your older brother. You have to respect them. How fast was that able to kick in, though? Because you said they just beat the shit out of you for anything. Real fast, bro. Because you don't have a choice. You know, listen, the first day...

And I had it bad. Because the first day that I went to school, right? The first day I went to school, I did have a host family, by the way. They made sure that... like, all the paperwork and stuff like that. So they... Oh, so you did live with a family?

No, no, no no i lived in school but there's a family that is someone that has to look over after me not only the school and they have to do the paperwork and so they had me at the school and they were doing the paperwork at the time and i was there just you know kind of hanging out so i wasn't in school yet i wasn't a student yet they were doing paperwork i was just outside but the school is in a compound so i'm in the compound and some guy comes up to me and hits me in the head with a stick for no reason hits me in the head with a stick seriously bang right in the head and says something in his language and i just flip out and i start swinging at him that was the principal of the school and you start swinging at him that was the principal of the

school and you started swinging at the principal yeah and swinging at the principal of the school is equivalent to seeing the president of united states and swinging on him and uh yeah that that made my school year even worse because people were like who because you don't that's something yeah they were like who's this kid so every teacher, that's something. They were like, who is this kid? So every teacher wanted to be the one to, I was like a wild horse. They wanted to be the one to break the horse. So I was always getting hit.

So you learn real, even your, listen, even your friends, the guys that you think are cool with you and they're, oh, you're from America. The ones who are not like trying to be asses you had some of those right away yeah yeah yeah of course you know there's always going to be people that like oh you're from america i want to go america but even those guys whenever the teacher wanted to hit you and you were not trying to get hit she would just point to them hold him down and they would hold you down because they didn't want to get hit so even the

ones that were your friends would hold you down to get hit so i mean it was it was rough but you learned quick you learned fast because if you get hit you know you you're getting hit and you can't do nothing you don't have no gang you have no one to protect you. So eventually, you don't want to get hit anymore. Then you gotta conform and you have to try to... get the work done, put the right answers on the board. Did you actually start, with the respect factor though, and respecting elders like you were saying, did you actually start to feel that?

Or was it more an impetus, like, I don't want to get hit, so that's how I'm going to do it, and then when you go home, it's back to where you were? No, because it was all around you. Like, for example, if, let's say, I was a junior and you was a senior in school, you could say, hey clean my room come clean my classroom and they would tell me that I remember I'm a gang man. We told me to come clear your classroom And I would get beat because what would happen like I'm not clean your classroom. That's crazy, but then The senior will call his other senior friends They were holding they beat the shit out of you. And it's not like, who are you going to complain to? They're going to say, your senior asked you to do something, so you have to do it.

So eventually, you just get used to it, planning your plot for when you're going to be the senior. And that's how, even in colleges, like with the hazing stuff, right? You go in getting hazed, knowing that, you know. You're gonna do it. You're gonna do it, right? So, and then eventually it just wears on you.

Like you start to respect, okay. I think it's more of a brain conditioning, right? It's brain conditioning. You know, you just do it so much. You're just used to it so much that now, oh, someone's older than you. Your brain just clicks. Oh, respect that person. Respect that person.

Yeah. This is a really – your particular story is a really fascinating one for the whole environment shift. Because I just love this topic when I'm talking with people and how different parts of their upbringing could have shaped like who they became but yours like you were kind of forced to go over somewhere like a far away land basically i mean that's what it was and you came from such a hard environment you went to another hard environment but it was a totally totally different type yeah so it changed how you looked at society while still maybe having some of the annoying is not the right word to put on it but but some of the some of the things that people maybe shouldn't have in their in their environment like getting the shit kicked out of right stuff

like that and then some people could argue like hey taking that once in a while as a kid in you know whether it be with your friends straighten you out or things like that it could be good for you but not what you're talking about You're talking about witnessing your mom getting beat up, getting beat up by your stepbrother, getting hit by a stick with, by the principal of a school like that. You know, that's way,

this is a whole different level. Like that's, that's not, that's not cool, but you did have to on the, in the second environment, you at least had to get some sort of like social order out of it. And that is fascinating right right right

you know and then and then i come back you know i come back to america now and i'm like this super kid now were you no there's a question though yeah were you right back into the gangs or were you over that at that point uh right back into the gas. So now the social order's in the gang. Now the social order's in the gang and everyone's making fun of me. I remember when I first came back, everyone had a ball on me, bro. Because I was speaking like this.

I remember we were playing basketball. The funniest thing was basketball. We were playing basketball and I was like, throw me the ball! Throw me the ball oh my god and people they never let me live it down bro they just kept saying we would just be chilling they were like throw me the ball like bro we're not even playing but yeah i had this crazy accent

i had a crazy accent that wasn't just like an accidental like phrase that was like you actually picked it up my accent was crazy bro i was i was sounding i was sounding crazy holy i was sounding real crazy because you remember i'm there for two years yeah i was supposed to visit the year before and i said i'm not coming back and they say yeah there goes your ticket so i never got to come they got to visit so i spent you know two two years there. And yeah, I came back crazy. Wow. But before you went, because you said you were in court for some crazy shit.

And then this was either go to prison or that. We had talked about your first experience with being handed a gun when you were a kid. But when did you actually, what was the initiation into, oh, you're a part of this life? And not to be totally uneducated about it but what what kind of gang like was it just a local project gang like what was what was the backdrop when you were maybe 11 12 or something like that yeah so in my projects we have more than one gang right so eventually you have to join one because if you didn't join like you know you get a lot of people they say oh you

know you had a choice you have a choice you know you have to do that but that's so far from the fact bro if you don't join something that you're going to get beaten by every everyone everyone's going to and people are going to people are going to tell you yo you need to be with us you know if you don't run with us you know so you gotta you gotta join someone to get protected from the others right and that's how they get you and that's and that's how they get you because you know so you gotta you gotta join someone to get protected from the others mmm right and that's how they get and that's and that's how they get you because you know like like I said your parents are not with you all the time right you got to walk to school you gotta go to school you gotta come back to school you got to be in school and if you're not part of nothing then that can

be a problem you know usually the kids who get punked on not usually it's almost all the time are not part of anything right usually the kids who get punked on not usually it was almost all the time are not part of anything Right. Usually the kids that are getting you know, taking advantage of or getting robbed they're usually not part of anything because Even it's a gang, you know who you rather do something to the other kid That's part of another gang or the kid. That's part of nothing The kids that's part of this part nothing. Exactly.'s part of nothing the kid that's part of this part of nothing exactly see it's easy so um yeah man it's just it's just crazy you know but then i come back right and i'm this powerful strong kid you know this is the man of war were you selling like

like what was the no no i never said i know you mean in the game drugs i never got into drugs never no never so what are you doing never never yo whenever they need me i'm there fighting just fighting i was always fighting i was just stay stay fighting all the time interesting if if you know if we had beef something like that it's always there always there and i was also the one who had somewhat a brain on his head like like you know i remember remember I almost got like killed one time. What happened? But we had some beef with another. Actually, it wasn't even my beef.

It was my boy's beef. But I was always smart. And I would always try to, if we didn't have to go there, let's not go there. So I was the one. And that's bad. A the one and that's bad that's a lot of times that's bad you you never want to be the guy to be like yo yo let's let's just chill you never want to be the middle guy the middle guy always gets the most problem really the middle guy yes right and and i remember one time we were in coney on the boardwalk and my boy had beef with someone and they had it was him and me and

like seven other people from a different gang and i was trying to be like the chill person and someone just ran up behind me and just clocked me like in the back of my head if you ever get hit in the back of your head it's instant you you go down yeah and luckily but i don't know i have a very good i don't know what they call it like even i'm down i know what the fuck is going on like and that's from growing up in that life i always know what's going i always know what's around me i could be out and i still feel i'll know what the hell's going on so when i got hit i immediately lost um i couldn't see like i fell down and i really couldn't see well. But I knew the kid had a knife.

How'd you know that? I saw it. He had it out. And I immediately was able to get up and run. I could have got killed. I could have gotten ran because she got hit by a car. But I just ran. I didn't even know where I was running.

And I was able to get away, luckily. What about your friend? He got away. He got beat up pretty badly um but but but yeah he he they didn't kill him but um yeah um but it was you know so those kind of crazy things you know i've been through a lot of stuff like that you know people put guns to me and stuff like that when when like is that just from some some of the regular beefs where people just yeah it's dumb shit like for example another another dumb you know circumstance people might be like damn that's so stupid i mean now i'm older i look at it i'm like are you fucking kidding me

that was dumbest thing ever right me and the same kid this particular kid was my ride or die like that was my boy we did we did every single thing together everything even girls even like he would have a girl he would call me yo wally you know i got this chick over a word oh bro i'll be right there in a sec bro seriously like everything this was like yo we did everything together every single thing and uh another time we were hanging out and we were going through different projects. And there was like five kids walking past us. And they just walked past and they looked at us. And we just looked back at them.

And then they kept walking. And like about 200 feet, they stopped. They just stopped. And I told my boy, yo, I think something's going to go down. So they stopped. Then they started coming back towards us and I told my boy you'll get you'll get ready mmm we're gonna have to fight five kids because you know we're not gonna run yeah you know we're gonna fight five kids the kids start coming to us and then the smallest of the kids goes oh no what do you guys grilling us

for I'm like how would you know, oh, what are you guys grilling us for? I'm like, how would you know we're grilling you if you're not grilling us? See how dumb this is? See how stupid this is? Why are you looking at me? Well, because you're looking at us. It already started stupid, right? But back then, that was like a thing.

You can't be staring at people's face, right? So I'm like, yo, you're looking at us, so we're looking at you back. right so you know i'm like yo you know you looking at us so we're looking at you back you know what you want to do and the kid pulls out a gun puts it to my face and he goes what you want to do and so then you know there's many ways you can go around this like i said i was always smart i was always really really smart and um what's going through your head when that happens because you're young well young. Well, you can't back down. So the people who back down get shot. Here's like a little misconception.

People think that if you say, oh, I'm so sorry. Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. They're not going to shoot you. If they're going to shoot you, you're getting shot. It doesn't matter if you say, please don't kill me. Beg. It doesn't matter.

So how do you defuse this situation you still gotta stay hard you still gotta without uh uh what's the word i want to use um without forcing him to want to shoot you but you still have to stand your ground right you cannot be like you don't want to escalate it. Right, right. But you still need to stand your ground. You don't want to be like, oh, my bad, my bad. Now, that's it. You just lost every respect you've ever had in your life.

Every respect they might, because they can still have respect for you. They can still have respect for you. They just don't like you. But now you've lost every little tiny, even if the tiny is gone. Now, you're a puss. That's it.

You're begging. So what I did, I was like, yo, what you going to do with that? So why are you pulling that out? Right? Now, of course, I'm scared. I'm worried. Not scared. Worried.

Because if he shoots me, I'm fucking dead. Right? But at the same time, I'm not going to back down because he has a gun because I have to show that, you know, yeah, you know, I'm about it. So I'm like, what are you going to do with that? What are you going to do with that? Why are you pulling out a gun for? Why are you going to shoot the fair one?

You know, let's fight. You want to fight me and you one-on-one? Put the gun down, right? So now I'm showing you that because you got a gun, I'm not really scared of you. Right. And it don't look like you're going to shoot because if you're going to shoot, you probably would have did it already. Right. So this is just being able to it's like chess. It's like chess. Right. I'm seeing the situation. Is this kid really going to shoot or is he just pulling it out? Right.

So for me, I already determined immediately he wasn't going to shoot. So then I'm like, like all right so why don't we just shoot the film why you pull out that gun and then another kid goes oh i know him so one of his friends knew me because actually this kid's brother who is in jail is my friend yeah so so what happened is even crazier so the kid was like oh's, I'm not going to say what my name was back then, but I had a certain name, a gang name. And the kid said, oh, that's, what's his name? Oh, yeah, yo, he knows your brother.

And then all of a sudden the kid was like, all right, yo, it's cool. But it wasn't cool. It wasn't cool with me. It was not cool at all right because you put a gun in my face yeah so i let it go at that situation but then the next week we were at school me and the same kid man this kid is always around me man me and the same kid we're at school and we saw the kid the same kid pulled a gun we saw him him walking. And we was like, yo, that's the kid from last week. And I was like, no way.

He's like, yeah, that's him. So we followed him. We followed him into a store. He goes into a store. And then I go into the store and say, yo, bro, come on. I want to talk to you. And all of a sudden now, he wasn't that hard kid anymore. Now he was worried, right?

Because he didn't have nothing on him at the time. And I was like, yo, come on. Come on. I told you. He's like, no, no, no, no. I said, yo, listen, I come out and start. I told him, he's like, no, no, no, no. I said, yo, listen, I ain't got nothing. I told him, I said, I'm not packing. I ain't got nothing.

I just want to talk to you. Come out the store. Because, you know, we don't want nothing. Come out and talk to him. We want to talk to you. Just come out. So eventually he came out the store. And I told him, I said, listen, I wasn't going to do nothing to him.

Because I knew his brother. I knew his brother was in jail. But I wanted to make a point. And that's been my life, always trying to make a point and so when and that's been my life always trying to make a point and so he came out and says listen i said right now if i wanted to end your life i could do it right now right here right now because you put a gun to my face i said never put a gun in someone's face if you're not going to use it if you're not going to use it because right now i could kill you right here and it would and and that would be it bro i was like listen never pull out a gun if you're not going to use it that's it

and i told him i said listen i respect for your brother i know your brother but yo we could keep this beef on or we could squash it what you want to do and he kills like let's squash it and so so we just left it alone you know so it's amazing we're a little bit of like just a little bit of level-headedness will do to situations that as you pointed out already right are stupid beyond belief right and and and and for some reason i've always been somewhat level oh i would say more level-headed than the rest of my friends. Why do you think that is? Because frankly, you come from a kind of environment where you shouldn't be level-headed.

I'll tell you why. It's the sports. Because in sports, you had discipline. Right. Right? And that's the only answer I could have for it, playing all those sports. You know, I had to listen to what the coach said. I had to discipline.

I had to wake up early. I had to go to the gym. I had to listen to what the coach said i had to discipline i had to wake up early you know to to go to the gym i had to do the right things and even through all this stuff going to africa being in the gangs you were still playing sports this whole time oh yeah i i sports was my sports everything basketball football volleyball tennis wrestling any any sport that i could play because sports was a way to keep me out of being home right right if i played sports after practice in the morning practice in the was a way to keep me out of being home. If I played sports after practice in the morning, practice in the evening,

and that would keep me from being home. And that would numb the house. You're tired, bro. When you're tired, you're less affected by the garbage people say. When you're exhausted

and someone's talking shit, you're like, bro, I'm not even trying to hear you right now. I'm tired. So I needed those sports, right? And you were a great athlete, too. Oh, I was an amazing athlete, bro.

Everything I played, I was good at everything. And I think I was good at it because I had to be good at it because I needed to be on this team. So I needed to put in all the work I could to be the best that I could so that I could play more sports. Do you think some of that was also like that makes total sense but some of that might also have been trying to get some validation over your stepfather told you you were going to suck at everything no i i don't think i i

i just didn't i was just yeah i never i never even thought about i never i did it i did it for my own peace to keep me balanced because i don't know like i said as a young kid i was always smart i needed that balance um because the gang stuff was just crazy and then i needed something that would just numb me and i guess in some way give me some discipline without even knowing that i needed discipline that That's interesting. Like, I wonder if there was like a, you know, minus the experience of when you went to Africa and you were forced to do it, I wonder if there was like a little bit of a small subconscious urge for that. Right, maybe.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like you didn't actively think it, but like you kind of wanted it a little bit. Right, right. No, no, no. Yeah. I think that was it. And to bring us back to what you asked before,

you know, now I come back from Africa and I'm this like strong kid, you know. With an accent. With an accent, yeah. Throw me the butt. I tell you, that's gonna haunt me for the rest of my life, bro. And, you know, all my life, I always wanted to protect my mom as a kid.

It's the only thing I ever wanted to do. Like, I want to protect my mom. I want to protect my mom. I can't do it. I'm too small. I want to protect my mom. And now I'm strong and I can protect my mom and now i'm strong and and i can't protect my mom and tell you on the flight back everything that i thought about was like i'm gonna beat the out this dude bro like because i didn't even know i didn't know if stuff was still going on right but i'm sure it was still

going on right and and i just kept thinking about this all the way. Now, remember this, what I'm saying. I was thinking about this the whole time. I can protect my mom. I'm gonna beat the shit out of this dude. He's never gonna hit my mom again. This is all in my mind as I'm flying back. That's all I'm thinking about. Two years later, too.

You've been over there nonstop, you said, right? Yes. You never came back. Never came back. And this is all I'm thinking, all I'm thinking about and i get back home you know nothing really pops off that hard cause the argument and then one day bro i'm at home and um my mom and him gets into it and i'm sitting down and uh they start arguing starts getting louder and he grabs her by the throat. And all I did was turn around. I just turned around, and as I turned around...

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Like all those years of the abuse just went off. And I just flipped out. I don't even remember leaving the house. I know I left the house because I came back with a gun. But I don't remember actually leaving the house. I ran out the house, got a gun, came back. Oh, you didn't go beat him up first. No, I ran out the house immediately.

I just freaking ran out because I was like, I'm going to kill this guy today. Ran out the house, came back with the gun, put it to his face, and he was trying to go through the wall like this. And I was like, I'm going to kill you today. He said, you've been beating up my mom and i was crying and and you know because i never killed anyone right but it was gonna happen and uh as this is going on my mom is like freaking out and my mom calls the police and my mom says you guys have to hurry my son's trying to kill my husband not that my husband is beating the hell out of me or choking me no my son's trying to kill my husband not that my husband is beating the hell out

of me or choking me no my son's trying to kill my husband and then I just kind of like I just lost it like my soul was like taking out like I was and I I just started crying and I felt like I'm gonna not even gonna explain it, man. I felt like as if all the inside of me was just fell out. Like I just shitted it out. Like all of the inside out and just empty. And I just freaking took the gun. I put it in my mom's face. Yeah.

I was gonna turn it on your mom. Yeah, listen, I was, you know, that day, I was gonna kill my mom and my stepfather. And I put it to her face and I say, you know what? I i said the two of you deserve to die together you deserve each other and it's the ultimate betrayal and and i started shaking now mind you this is happening very fast right my mom called the police police are coming i don't need i don't want to be there when police are coming but i wasn't even thinking about that now my mind is just where'd you get the gun by the way oh next door neighbor it's part of my gang so so so we used to keep guns at each other's houses right so i wasn't there so i didn't have guns in my house but

my personal lived sure next door to me he's part of my gang and i just ran i was like i need to get him he knew he he knows he knows what's going on in my house. He knows. And so at this point, all this stuff is happening so fast. And, you know, I talk about maybe it was divine intervention or an angel or God or whatever it is that you believe in came. Kind of sat on my, I talk about sitting on my shoulder, right? And says, hey, hey, hey, if you do this right now, if you do this right now, everything that your stepfather said about you is going to happen today. My stepfather said I'd be a failure. I'd be dead in jail all my life.

Everything's going to happen today. And I heard this in the midst of all this craziness. And then I just came to my senses and I say, you know what, you guys deserve each other. And never went back home, never talked to her again, and just left. You left? Left.

You never talked to your mom again? Nope, left. And I tried to talk to her years later. And this brings us back to what we were talking about before with the family. So I tried to talk to her years later, but this brings us back to what we were talking about before with the family. So I tried to talk to her years later, but as I mentioned before, she never gave the closure. She never apologized.

You know what would have happened? Let me tell you, you know what would have happened if, just think about what would have happened. The judge allowed me to go to africa to change my life now i come back and i got a gun to my mom's head and my imagine what would have happened if police would have came and saw me there and arrested me so they came but they just said i was gone i was gone i was gone i was gone they're not tracking i was gone no no but i actually got i actually got arrested for it oh you, you did? Yeah, but it's no weapon. I'm like, you're crazy.

I'm like, there was no weapon. That's my mom. I was like, my mom gets beat up all the time. He's just making her say that. And they couldn't prove it. With no weapon, they could do nothing. So they let me go. But imagine if I didn't leave in time.

Imagine if they would have came and I would have been arrested. I would have been at least 15 for sure. And so all my life, I just wanted my mom to be like, I'm sorry for what happened. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. But never got it. So many years later, I tried to talk to her. I couldn't because whenever I spoke to her, I just felt, even now talking about it,

there's like this pressure of blood that comes and it makes me feel very violent so I just stopped I couldn't talk to her no more I was like I can't talk to you so I just so you never said another word to her no I I cut her off and then um wait how you were what 16 17 when this happened yeah yeah 16 where'd you go I lived in the street for a year hanging out you know with friends living from friends house couch street for a year, hanging out with friends, living from friends' house to friends' house gangs, hanging out with my gang members. Back then at 16, you can go for days without sleep, hanging out. And I just couldn't talk to her.

Years later, I tried to talk to her, but I couldn't because she didn't. She would not acknowledge. And they were still together. That's the crazy thing. They were still together. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is madness. They were still together. And then did you think your mom, did you feel like your mom didn't love you? I don't know i think i think um no i knew my mom loved me for sure but i think she

just loved him more and and that was not cool and um yeah and then years later, I guess I tried to talk. It couldn't work. And then about a few, maybe four or five years ago, one of my, so I don't talk to my, so the reason I don't talk to my other side of family, like my mother's side of family, my mother has five brothers, five brothers. I don't talk to them either. I don't talk to any of them. What was the relationship growing up? How much did they know about what was going on?

They all knew all new man listen His his his his here's my problem with it. This is why I don't talk to them Maybe if they're watching this now, no, they're gonna know but I don't care cuz I'll talk to them anyway, but There's no way that you have five brothers and this guy is not beaten to a pulp it's imp like i don't understand it my mom has five brothers five i don't understand how this guy was never beaten down even if your sister says uh if you beat him i'm gonna call the police it i don't i don't understand bro like i don't understand if i have a sister if i have a sister and some dude is beating up my sister it's not

that hard to get him he's gotta come out the house sometime i i rather go to jail i rather go to i mean all right if i beat the shit out of him i'm probably 99 99.9%. I'm not going to get any time for that. I might go to the bullpens. I'll maybe stay in jail a couple of times. You know, probably I've never done, you know, my brothers, they were in the army, bro. Like, you know, they fought in the wars, right? What's the worst that can happen to you? Okay, you go sleep a night in jail.

So what? You know, judge is not going to give you bail, right? You're an outstanding citizen, right? So you beat the shit out of this guy. You take the night in jail. So what? You explain to them what's happening. They're going to understand and they're going to let you go, right?

So even now I talk about I get angry because there's no way five brothers, five brothers couldn't do nothing for all the years. And they know, listen, I remember one time they came to the house. I remember one time and do nothing for all the years. And they know. Listen, I remember one time they came to the house. I remember one time. And my mom didn't open the door. So then you know what you do? You come the next day.

You stay there all day. You wait for him to come out. As soon as you come out, you grab him. You beat the shit out of him. Yeah. And that's the problem. He never got his ass beat. And that's why he kept doing it.

He never, ever, ever. He got away with it. It's so bizarre, man. It's crazy's crazy bro and that's the reason why i don't talk to them i just cut you know i was like you know they all live close bro listen at the time they all lived in new york bro yeah listen and even if and even if you don't live close it doesn't matter man if i have a sister my sister's getting beat up by some dude man i am coming down your house. I will stay out there till you come out. You got to come out sometime. Even if you have to sleep in the car, wait for you to come out to properly beat the fire out of you. Then maybe something's going to click in your brain that the next time you want to hit my mom, you'll get flashbacks.

Or hit my sister, you'll get flashbacks. And maybe you're're not going to do that you had said this at the very beginning of our conversation i just want to make sure i followed your your real dad and your mom divorced when you were one yeah probably was he never in your life again uh so my that's funny so so my dad i think my life's up yeah so my my dad was only in my life when my stepfather wanted to throw me out of the house so what they would do is my stepfather was like i don't want him here get him out so they would send me to my dad and my dad would take care of me what was your relationship like with i love my dad bro like my dad my dad used to beat the shot at me but but but but i deserved it i that you know you know that was more of a dis a disciplinary

because i'll tell you i was a bad kid my dad was not my dad me up bro my dad speech on me but my dad always gave me everything not but your dad didn't do anything about your mom getting that he's divorced i wouldn't do nothing neither i mean yeah but if my kid were in the middle of it like you said it's oh yeah yeah the kicked out of you for discipline versus like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no my my my dad didn't he didn't really know actually because i never told him that he was beating you no i never told my dad that the stepfather was doing anything no no i never did he didn't suspect no like my dad would fucking go it in it would be bad

So I I know my dad like my dad's my dad's fucking gangster and dad Yeah, she never told I never told my dad. No, no, no, I I never mentioned it I would just go just I would be happy just to to be with him But never that's so fascinating to me that even is like a six seven eight nine year old kid i never told i never told my dad why do you think that is i don't know i i think i was more scared that my dad would like my dad would like my dad was very hardcore bro he's very very hardcore and uh yeah yeah i i don't know i just never i never I never told my, and plus I think it was also me also being, I'm a strong guy. You know, I'm, you know,

not wanting to tell what's going on in the house, right? Not just being stronger than I really am. I think that's probably why I never really told my dad like what's going on. And plus the times when I never really told my dad what's going on. Plus, the times when I got sent to my dad, I was already a little bit older. It wasn't like when I was six or five. I was older. It's just me.

Sporadic more than anything. Yeah. Like I said, my dad always took me in, but there was another problem, though. Another fucking problem. Always problems. I had siblings who are older than me. he always took me in but there was another problem though another problem always problems my so i had siblings who are older than me right now this is going to sound crazy on your dad's yeah okay right now absolutely who are older than me wait are they your mom's kids too nope they're another woman okay check this out another woman kids. Another woman that he's married to. Okay.

That he's married to. Now? Like at that point? At that point. When you were a kid? Yeah. Okay. And I'm the only kid from my mom and my dad.

How do I have older siblings? That's impossible. You have another... That means that my dad was probably married to this person when he married my mom or together with this person oh shit it's her kids yeah it's it's it's not my mom's kids but it's not another woman it's the one he's living with now and married to oh fuck isn't that crazy so so oh my god so guess what hates things that complicates things a lot Yeah, so guess what will happen when I was going to my dad's side you get the shit kicked out by the well

I didn't get kicked. No. No no no date the mom The the mom of the siblings that his wife Would always be rude to me. Mmm, and we'll always look down on me Because I was a kid that he had from another woman. It was fucking crazy. It was always just crazy, bro. Life was just always like, and did I say, it was always me trying to prove myself. And that's why now I get very, and it's something that even bothers me till today.

If people say I can't do shit or i fucking gotta prove you if people say people try to try to uh blame me for something i didn't do i get really highly agitated immediately like it's just immediately it's a trigger yeah because all my life it's been always like that so now i'm at my father's house with my dad who loves me and now i got this freaking lady like you know trying to like put me down and and and not be nice and and you know and i'm already having drama in the house i'm coming from anyway yeah so it is crazy and like i said so you know going to all that stuff and i i just and i just i just stopped talking to my mom and uh what made it crazy is what why do you why do you think she loved him that much or do

you think it was like a hostage type thing i have no idea well i mean during the pandemic i started to learn about narcissism like i didn't know about i didn't even know what the narcissist was until the pandemic all these years later i yeah i started to learn and understand what narcissists do. Now I understand why my grandmother or my uncles have never been in my house. Never. They've never been in my house. Ever. And I started to just understand going into Clubhouse, going into these narcissism rooms. And, oh, wow, that's what he was doing.

Oh, he was keeping the family apart. He was divide and conquer kind of thing. And I didn't know about that. and oh wow that's what he was doing oh he was keeping the family apart he was he was he was you know you know yes divide and conquer kind of thing and i didn't know about that i started learning about it and and and i was like oh shit all right yeah so it's a form of brainwashing you know you know just keep making her think that she's the problem and stuff like that but but the thing was like my mom was hard like you know it was just weird man but yeah anyway you know i just i just stopped i stopped talking to her and and um i started couch surfing with friends when you're 16 17 yeah yeah and but all the while you're still going to

school yeah you're still making people do your notes and shit and you're playing sports and you're good at sports and yeah just yeah so how do you how do you end up in ping pong like like you had said that that the that you would see the kids playing i think you said this very early on in the podcast and or maybe right before the podcast so you'd see the kids playing in school and then one day it was like oh this club there's this club you go to yeah and you just went like after making fun of these kids for a long time no no no so so so the the kids who who said there's a club where the kids that i try to smash in the face with the ball at the pool and they told me about this club and i was like there's no way there's a place where people gather

to play this it's impossible and uh but the athlete in me was like maybe there is a place when people play this and so i went down to go check it out and it was a pool hall actually it was half pool hall have ping pong and when i got in i saw people playing like standing back from the table making noise and stuff and i was like yo this is crazy right uh but the thing that attracted me to it was that the people that were playing were black and i was like wait black people play this there's no way black people play this oh black people play this like i thought only asians played that's what i always kind of yeah me too i know black people

play this and they were playing they were making noise i was like oh damn this is good and and that's what attracted me to the sport that that's what then i say oh wow well you know if they do this i can do this too right because i still don't plan and and that's and that's what made me actually want to play and so uh i i got interested i would go to the club and try to play some games try to play people and um nobody would play with me really they'd be like i'm tired or my mom's coming or whatever and nobody paid me any mind and i would play with me really. They'd be like, I'm tired, or my mom's coming, or whatever. And nobody would play with me in mine. And I would get so angry.

And I was the kind of person that wherever they don't want me, that's where I want to be. I'm like, do these guys even know who I am? I'll shoot up this whole place. And that was bothering me a lot because here you are kind of, for me, that was kind of being disrespectful. If you don't want to play, just say you don't want to play. but don't tell me you got to do something and then two minutes later you play with someone else so that made me even more pissed off and i'm like no i'm gonna play this sport

right and so um because now you want to exert some control you're not getting it home exactly and and now the the um i used to play with this older guy who was like 70 years old and the guy would just crush me he would beat me so badly and I would get so angry. I would break every racket that I had because how can this 70 year old beat me? I'm an athlete, bro. Like I play sports, like real sports.

Like what the hell's going on? And I got more interested because, you know, I was getting beat by a 70 year old guy and I was like, no, I got to beat this guy. So I kept wanting to play more and then eventually I met a guy

who came in one time, and he says, do you have a partner? And by this time, I could hit. I learned sports really fast. So I could hit back and forth. I was okay. And the guy says, do you have a partner? I was like, no.

And he goes, well, I'll pay you $20 if you can play with me once or twice a week. I go, what? $20. Say less. For sure. So I played with this guy and um we became friends you know we became friends and i spoke you know he was like someone i could talk to you know about that was going through and i would talk to him like yeah this was going on

you know and the way i would talk would be really funny you know because i would talk so nonchalant about serious so i'dhmm so I'd like yeah man did they were fucking out of club boy and my boy put this fucking gun on try to shoot at this kid so I'm like yo so fucking stupid and I would talk like it was nothing he would look at me like he look at me and um I don't think he understood I don't I don't think he understood I think he was hearing but he wasn't understanding right III think for him it was more like a TV thing. And I say this over and over.

If you don't know anyone who's lived that life or been in that life, it's really hard to understand how kids walk around with guns, but they do all the time. Like you see it, you hear it, it's in the news. It's not like it's hidden. So for him, it was like, I don't know. He didn't understand that one day i went to the club and a 22 fell out of my bag and he saw it he looked at me i looked at him

and the look on his face was funny because it was like all the pieces of a puzzle had just came together and it was like oh that's a look on his face and i wasn't trying to stare around to see where that look was going so i was like yeah i gotta go i picked it up and left i was gonna call police and so i left and then i thought damn there goes my 20 the 20 hustle is god this guy's not gonna give me any more money bro i was like fuck and i needed money at that time and um he called me back and says, hey, are we still playing? And I thought, okay, that's weird. Yes. All right, yeah, sure, $20. And I went to go meet him.

We played and he says, I want to invite you to my house. I thought that was weird. Like who invites the kid that just, you know, had a gun fall out of his bag to their house? I want you to meet my family. Okay, that's even weirder, right? And I'm like, all right, I don't know where this is going,

but $20, let's go. So I go to this dude's house. It's like two and a half hours away from New York. Oh, so he would come two and a half hours to the city to play? Well, he had an apartment in the city as well but his family lived near hunter you know hunter mountain is like two and a half hours away his he had like a house like in the woods that's where his family his family didn't live like they had a really kind of weird kind of living like i don't know if you call i don't know what to call it like they didn't watch tv they didn't eat sweets. It was just really weird.

It was really weird. Yeah. But his family lived there and he would, so he brought me there. So his family, you know, they, they have like real family stuff,

like, you know, sitting at a dinner table with everyone eating, talking, passing the food around, you know, and I guess he wanted to show me what family was supposed to be like and you know I play ping-pong with his family had a ping-pong table there a pool table that turned to a ping-pong table and I

was you know I was taking it and I was like all right um it's kind of pissing me off a little bit because I was like what the fuck this guy got me on this family for like you know cuz it's something i didn't have like that right so yeah it's actually pissing me off more than anything else he obviously clearly picked up on that yeah he wanted he wanted this for you to see it's pretty cool and so um then and then he says to me he he goes um i really want to help you by this time i really like playing ping pong like i like that and he says i'm gonna pay for you to go to germany to learn ping pong and i was like what he's like yeah i'm gonna pay for you to go to germany were you any good at this point like were you did you have like

some some of the core skills um basic basic forehand backhand very very very very basic um and he's like i know this school sports, where kids go to learn or where the best athletes of particular sports, they go live at this school and they learn the sport. And I was like, oh, okay. And the only thing about Germany that I knew was Hitler. And I'm like, why is this guy sending me to Germany? It's crazy. I didn't know anything about Germany. I just knew Hitler.

I was like, he was from Germany. Why is this guy sending me to germany yeah um but i didn't know what i did know was that um that would be a way out and and um you know a lot of people always go how old are you at this point uh this time i was 17. okay you're still like 17. yeah no a lot a lot of people a lot of people go oh You know you were lucky is I hate this word lucky oh, you're so lucky someone said no no not lucky I'm not lucky. I made a conscious decision to say yes 99.9% of the people in my case from where I grew up would say what are you fucking crazy? Right, i'm not going to germany out of your mind every i don't know any person who would agree to that but like

i said as a kid i always had some part i don't know i always had a head on my shoulders like a little a little right and and i knew that this could be an opportunity to maybe change my life and to and to not be doing what i was doing because i was doing nothing i was going nowhere and i probably would have wound up dead dead dead or in jail do you think if you hadn't gone to africa you would have said you still would have said yes to germany oh that's interesting oh man if i hadn't gone i probably would have said no yeah i think that did a lot for you yeah that was a key yeah i think i would have said i think i would have said no but um you know one thing that's very interesting too, was that, which also allowed me to say yes, was that he never brought up the gun that fell.

He never mentioned it. Like the conversation never came up. And I don't know if he was aware of what he was doing or that's just the way it just happened. Because if he would have said anything about it, I would have never talked to him again. That would have said anything about it i would have never talked to him again that would have been yeah 20 or not if he would have said you know you shouldn't be walking around with guns and this stuff i would have completely even if he just said an opinion

i'd have been gone i never talked to him again why i've always i i i never liked people telling me what to do and what not to do so if he would have said you know you shouldn't be doing this i would cut him off completely even now like i do a lot of talks with kids and i don't tell them don't't do this, don't do that. I tell them, look at the decisions you make and think about how they will affect you in your future. That's how I talk to kids. I don't say, you shouldn't be in a gang. You shouldn't be carrying a gun.

No one wants to be told what to do. So I don't know if he knew that. I mean, he had to know that, right? Because how are you not going to talk about the gun that fell on my bag so but that was the biggest key for me to say yes because he just never mentioned it it's almost like it never happened how long had you known him before that happened um about a year very sure no that's but that's that's probably why because he had spent enough time with you you had said like you'd talk real nonchalantly about stuff but he would always see

you showed up you were there like like you had something about you that made like you could see commitment to something he could see a desire to to have fun and live life you weren't just you weren't some dude coming in there going yo you know what i just did you know what i mean so then he sees something like that and he probably thought to himself, well, yeah, he probably thinks he has to have one. Like, I guess we're seeing it right now. Okay, whatever. But, you know, there's something that clicks and goes, all right, he's not meant to go that way, what that could get him down to. So let me bring this kid in the sanctum a little more, the inner sanctum, and we can help him out.

That's probably, I'm just totally guessing here, but that's probably where he's at. Yeah, I think you're right. Because even till today, I'm like trying to figure out, like, how do you not say, -"Bro, what are you doing?" -"What the fuck?" Like, it just never, it's almost like it never, ever happened. And because he never mentioned it,

I felt like it never happened. And, you never mentioned it i felt like it never happened and you know i i say yeah you know and uh it's definitely uh you know uh um very very interesting how you know someone could actually change your life you know yeah did he ask you about your home life too yeah like i spoke to i spoke about my home life all the time all of know yeah did he ask you about your home life too yeah like i spoke to i spoke about my home life all the time all of it yeah he knew you weren't there anymore at this point yeah yeah yeah he he he he knew a lot of what was going on you know i was always like i said i spoke but i think it's because the way i spoke like i i never i think most people who are not in that life who would talk about a situation would talk about it with emotion.

But I never talked about it with emotion. I just talked about it nonchalantly. I was like, yeah, my mom was getting beat up all the time. Like, it was nothing. So I guess when you talk like that, people don't think it's that serious. Because I wasn't like, yeah, you know know my mom used to always get beat up man you know it's very different when the emotion right because like when you give emotion with the way you talk then people uh tend to listen more but i've mastered as a kid i've mastered being able

to just say shit and it could be the serious thing in the world, but not be emotional about it. And it was always a lot of me hiding my emotions. Now I'm very different. Now I can be emotional. But when I was younger, I never wanted to show emotion. I never wanted to show if I was sad, you would never know I was sad. You would never know. You would know if I was angry, but you would never know. If I was hurting or sad, I would smile in your face, hang out with you, party with you.

You would never, never in a million years know that, holy shit, this kid's going through some shit. Because you didn't want to show weakness? Exactly. I didn't want to be weak. So I had to put up this fake persona that I was always strong. No one who I grew up with would tell you oh that was ever weak you'd never see it even even when i was scared out of my mind i would always always always show up strong right i could be scared to death and you wouldn't even know because i was always i was so

good at just putting up that front you know and being strong and just you know doing that. So yeah, it's crazy It's just crazy, but this guy was able to see yeah through some of the facade. Yeah, he says alright I'm gonna send you to Germany to this school and you called it a school. So it also it's an actual It's not just like a sports academy. Well, it's a sports academy So you go to class and stuff too you go to class class but it's not like it's not like a normal school it's it's it's most of the curriculum is your sport and then there are some classes right so you're what like coming up on being like a senior in high school or something at this point i'm 17 so i'm so he's like i'm gonna send you for for your last whatever well it doesn't count

as a schooling for here so i already finished high school already oh you fit i didn't yeah i thought you may have just said that but i don't know no no no yeah yeah yeah yeah so you graduated early yeah yeah i finished high school already right and i got nothing to do right and uh so you know he sent you over there yeah yeah yeah you say yes and how soon like when he when you have that conversation how soon are you in germany oh man that's that's pretty quick after i think i think it's maybe six months maybe maybe even less right it might even be less i remember exactly but it's it's quick it's it's shortly after and did you have to learn german or was this was this an international type place it's international place so like there were some I remember there was I remember I used to argue

with this girl there was a girl from Wales oh the first place never met from Wales and she's speaking it oh god bro and I and I'd be like what what? Because I could say. I'm like, what kind of English is that? That's what I acted. What kind of English is that? And she was like, that is the proper English. I'm like, no, no, that is not proper. We don't speak like that. That's not the proper English.

And we used to argue back and forth because I didn't know that there was different kinds of English. I thought my English was normal. And she was like, no, this is the Queens and all kinds of craziness. Like, listen, nobody understands you. That is not Brooklyn. No. That's not what we're doing. Nobody understands you.

What are you talking about? Yeah. So there was some international. Everyone spoke English, right? But it was definitely a really crazy experience. Because, you know, just because I was in Germany didn't mean I wasn't that violent kid still. You took that over there. Of course.

I mean, it doesn't just leave you. Just because you go to Germany, I was still that violent kid and I still hated everyone. And it was just weird because people were like, oh, my God, you're from America. You're from New York. Whoa, we love New York. We love America. Whoa, whoa, back up. What are you doing?

So people were just constantly in my face. And I didn't know how to react. I didn't know what to do. I didn't even, because this never happened before. Usually people like me because of what I can do for them. The love of the gang, that's not real love, right? It's not unconditional love, right? If you're going to fight and I say, oh, man, I want to sit this one out.

You think they got love for you? Of course not, bro. They got love for you because of what you can do for them, right? But here, I'm in a different country and people are just loving me for no reason. And that was weird. Like know what do you want like why you know so so i i wasn't nice and i i was you know they did there's a saying it's called killing you with kindness yes i say this a lot killing you with kindness is a real thing and that's what happened right because they're being kind to me you know if you want to let's

say you want to punch someone in the face and the person's saying yo i love you so much you're amazing how do you punch that person in the face you really can't do it yeah right it's hard to punch someone in the face for no reason that's telling you they they love you and so i was confused because i didn't know how to react to all this love that i was getting and people telling me oh you're amazing we love new york i love america i didn't know how to react and so I was confused because I didn't know how to react to all this love that I was getting and people telling me, oh, you're amazing. We love New York. I love America. I didn't know how to react.

And so I was getting confused. I was mentally fucked up in the head. It was just getting real confused. And it took me a while. And then once again, remember the thing I told you that came on my shoulder before? It came again. It says, hey, bro, you're in a different country. You're not being abused

you're not in a gang people love you they like you they want to get to know you not because of what you can do for them but just because you're you why are you angry and then i thought about it for a while and i couldn't find an answer why I was angry. And then I just started to change. That was the first mindset change, right? Of like, okay, not everyone in this world is out to get you because you know, back where I'm from, if people are like, hey, you're amazing. Nah, either they're trying to set you up

or they want to get something from you, right? So this is the way I grew up. So now I had to change my mindset to understand that not everyone in this world is out to get you. There are people who can genuinely like you just and only because you're you. And once I could do that, then I started to make friends. And it was literally a switch. It was like lights on, lights off, right? It didn't take no, like, preparing.

One day I was like this, and the next day I was like, okay, you know, let me see what this is about. It's interesting to me that your first reaction there, though, would be to kind of be harder and maybe not make friends in that way at first and try to act tough and i say that not because i wouldn't understand with some of the things you came up with as a kid but this is after and it's not that long after like you were in africa where you did have to at least realize oh there is kind of a social order out there like okay respect elders

and you know not everyone's like the people in Brooklyn who are trying to get me into gangs I understand like you're still young impressionable you come back home that life takes you back up but then the guy who sends you here is also a really kind man who takes you in and you're also to your credit extremely kind to him and have a good relationship and have like i feel like you did something at that age with him that maybe you couldn't have done four years before so now he sends you over to germany and your first reaction is to kind of go back to your to your oldest ways yeah that's fascinating yeah that's crazy so you just kind of like you didn't the way you just explained it you're

like i was able to look at myself and ask i think you said like i asked myself why am i doing this like getting to the core of it which is amazing that you were able to do that but then you know like how long in are you three six months in where you start to kind of let the shell off and be a nice guy? Like how long did that take? No, no, no. That's like less than a month, about a month, maybe. Maybe a little bit more. But yeah, it's pretty quick.

It's pretty quick. Because it's hard. You know, everyone is holding your face every second. It's crazy. Like everyone's just like, oh, America, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Like this. And how many kids were in this school?

Oh, it was a lot. It was a lot of kids. It was a lot. Because it's not just ping pong. It's other sports. Yeah, it's all kinds of sports. Yeah, it's a sports. So these kids, they're the best in that town and whatever sport they are.

And they all live there. Oh oh they're all from this place yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah minus a few most of yeah minus the few international kids right but all the other kids are from they're the best so those are like the future pro athletes or olympic athletes or whatever you want to call it now in all fairness all fairness though, like, how did you get accepted in if you weren't like good, good at ping pong? Connection. Just the connection to him. Yeah, that guy had the connection to the school.

He paid for it. Mm. You know, all those schools, like, international, if you have the money, they'll let you in. Yeah. Right? So, you know, he had the money for it and and he paid for it and that's and that's how i got in and so how quickly did you get like amazing i learned i i pick up fast i learned fast and plus like i said it was once again me trying to prove myself

right because americans don't play ping pong so it's always me trying to prove myself. So I always, you know, wanted to get better quickly. And I just kept pushing, pushing, and, you know, just always putting 100% in. Like, I never slacked in training, ever. So when you leave there, I would imagine something had to rub off. Yeah, I was pretty good. I was pretty good. And when when you turn pro though how long so um i come back play some tournaments get better get better get better get

better ranking um and then my big break came not even in like a a sanctioned tournament this was like a hole in the wall tournament in chinatown so chinatown does like this every year they put on these tournaments and you get these guys you've never seen in the circuit ever, man. Some guys. The underground drug cartel of ping pong. Oh my God, it's crazy. That's what it seemed like. Because you get all these Chinese guys you never saw in your life.

But these guys play every day. But you just don't see them. And I was playing this kid who was visiting from China. And the kid was very loud. Every time he went he was like yo chloe oh yelling and i was like what the hell is this kid doing bro i was getting tight because this kid was just like noisy and so then i said okay you know what i'm gonna do the same thing too i'm gonna bring the ghetto out so i was like that's it baby come on send them back let's go talking mad trash just talking crazy trash

and being loud and um at the end of the match uh some people walk up to me and they was like hey do you know Rockstar Games

and I was like yeah Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto of course man yeah and I was like well we're thinking about making

the world's first ping pong game yes I'm in don't even ask again the answer is 100 you're crazy make a ping pong game i'm being oh hell yeah so i i immediately said hell yeah let's do this and um i worked with them in making the world's first table tennis game it's called rockstar presents table tennis so you're in the game. Yeah. Well, my face is not in the game, but my motion capture is the default motion capture for every character. And then they brought in some people to make it a little bit different. What year was this? Oh, my God.

I don't remember. 2001? Oh, so a while back. Oh, no, no. 2006. So this is a while after Germany, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is before I started playing pro.

I've been playing tournaments in America. And they asked me if I was interested. I was like, hell yeah, of course. So I make this game with them. How have you been making money this whole time? Oh, through there? What do you mean? Like after Germany and between this.

Wait, how did I make money? I don't even remember money i don't remember all right we'll leave that i know i know i was doing what was i doing actually how was i making money i definitely wasn't making money that that but like surviving i mean i was surviving oh doing jobs here and there got it you know start teaching a little bit from for beginners like like not not really i had a job um working as an intern for hype williams i mean you know if you know hype williams no he was one of the um most famous hip-hop music video directors oh wow yeah that's cool yeah so i worked there i i like often on job i work oh i remember i

did some temp agency stuff that sucked yeah where, wait, wait, he's saying you two different places Yeah, so that's it was just odd stuff like whatever I could get but you're getting better and better I'm playing all these 20 a lot of time got it So now when this happens is this when you go pro? Yeah, because now you know, I make this game with them Right the game won best sports game of the year beat madden beat uh uh uh what was the nba live really oh kill it it beat everyone because it was the biggest talk right oh it's released on wii that's probably a big part no no i'm just looking it was game was released for xbox 360 in may 2006 and then it went on wii yeah in october 2007. yeah this was probably baller on wii yeah so it was is the first game

real game i still have it at home actually yeah with x with the same original xbox 360 by the way that's cool yeah so um so so yeah so now i make this game with them and uh and i was thinking you know and like i said remember tell you i was always a smart kid always a smart kid so when i said yes i said yes with the intention of knowing that it's a possibility that i could get sponsored to play pro so i i i rocked the first one i said rockstar games i just thought oh my god and imagine me wearing like rockstar stuff i'd be crazy yeah right so i made this game with them um worked really hard on it um then um the mistake i did make though was

I should have told them yo put my face in the game you don't have to pay me for it that's why I didn't put my face in the game it would have been free marketing I didn't know anything about this before until like much later on like I should have told them you can use my face you don't have to pay me just put it

like that would have been cool right to have my own face I mean there's a black guy in there but he doesn't look like me yeah but so anyway um i i i do this game um i do some uh traveling to promote the game like go to japan oh that's cool yeah they they had they had these parties in this crazy apartment where they would invite different genres of people. So one night would be hip-hop night, one night would be tech night. And they would invite people to this apartment to play the game. It was crazy.

So I did that. And that's the thing. I said, you know what? Man, I want to play pro for the U.S. team. But I need money to do it. I said, you know what? Let me ask Rockstar Games if they would sponsor me. So I said, hey.

You need money to play for the u.s team oh pro yeah for sure who's gonna pay for you to go to china who's gonna like that's not when you say u.s team are talking about like the olympic team or well the u.s team so so when you play in the pro tour you have to represent someone yeah yeah so you don't so you represent your country yeah so you represent the u.s team and there's not some sort of i mean this might be a dumb question but some sort of like united states ping pong federation that sponsors their athletes so there's a usatt right but they're not gonna pay for every athlete to go play all over the world right that would you have to make it that would

take an insane amount of money yeah right because think? Because think about it. If you're playing in, let's say for me, I was playing 15 countries a year. Right? That's a lot of money that you have to spend. Right? Because you have to pay for airfare. You have to pay hotel. You have to pay food. You have to pay transportation.

You have to pay entry fee. Right? Yeah. So what the association is going to do is they're going to enter you into the competition because you can't enter yourself right so i can't say oh i'm going to go play german open and just show up no the u.s association has to enter you into the competition right so they enter you into the competition then you're responsible to you know understood now if you're number one on the team or your number one u.s player maybe they'll pay for you but even then they don't really do it

right um because it's a lot of money maybe one or two maybe the big ones they will um but you know i didn't need that i just needed them to enter me in the competition that's it and i you know i took the rockstar and rockstar agreed to sponsor me so that's how i got to travel and play all over the world and three years you were you were pretty high ranked no yeah i was i was pretty good i was definitely pretty good not not really ready for the pro level yet like i was getting killed i was getting destroyed in the beginning in the beginning because i had i had the wrong mindset to begin with anyway um but yeah but i had the money to do it and i was come on man i had the best looking clothes of anyone bro no one no one could mess with it bro i had adidas clothes you have the crazy hairstyles yep crazy hairstyles

rock star rock star logo listen i have i still have one i have one thing left because i gave over the years i've given all the rockstar stuff away to like fans because you know it it's only one of that and i'm the only one who has it no one has it i you give it away i give it away like you know when I was traveling you know so oh can I get your shorts people ask me like in China can I get your shorts okay

so I would go and I would give them the shorts but there was only one set of that it wasn't made for anyone it was made

only for me right so I was the only person that had these logos so just the other day I found in my house the last living thing from rockstar

games sponsorship i found it it's a blue it's a blue you better hold on to that yeah yeah it's it's a lot of that away it's a blue um kind of like a um i don't know plastic not plastic i don't know kind of material hoodie with the logo on it i found it in the house the other day and i was like oh you got to frame that yeah um but yes so they paid for me um and throughout the years just playing in every major country in the world i've been every i've been everywhere everywhere you know i've been there on rockstar money just playing playing ping pong and are you soaking in the cultures it sounds like when you're going there because it seems like when you went to Africa and when you went to Germany, you took a lot of joy in seeing how things were different there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no.

I definitely, especially when I found out that they do hip hop outside of America. What the fuck? Yeah, because let me tell you. So I used to do a lot of hip hop. I used to do a lot of hip hop. At one point, I wanted to be a rap star. And that didn't work out because the producer that was producing us, his kid drowned in a pool.

And he was done with everything so um he just left us and uh then i was like this i don't do it no more because we worked really hard you know we did some show a lot of shows opening up for artists and didn't work out so um i just said forget about it but when i went to germany i saw kids like freestyle i was like holy in german and i was like wait they rap outside of america no way don't listen to these kids and they're german you know freaking heisen and i was like bro so so i would go over there and i would freestyle with them and i would rap and i was like oh snap you know and then in germany is actually where i also got you know the will to want to like make music and so some so one of the the son of the guy told you about uh the famous player he showed me this program called hip-hop ej and it's so it's a program

where you just take like loops and you just put together. You kind of make beats out of that. And I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. So I'll be making these beats. And yeah, man. And so then since that, I was like, oh wow, they do hip hop outside. So when I would go to different countries, I would always look for where the hip hop was.

So it wasn't only about ping pong. So I would go for ping pong and then I would look to see who I could collaborate with collaborate with who that's cool Who I could meet that did hip-hop or where the hip-hop clubs like I found listen I found the craziest underground hip-hop clubs in China Yeah, I was gonna say on that note sticking with you can stick with the hip-hop angle of it as well, but like Because table tennis is so big in

China and like you've said that's like the biggest place you had early exposure because table tennis is so big in China, like you've said, that's like the biggest place. You had early exposure to like the rise of China, if you will, like in the 2000s. What were your takeaways being there? Like what did you see in the culture? How much of like noticing, because we're going to talk about North Korea

in a few minutes, which is fucking wild. But like on China for a minute, like how much of like the CCP culture is kind of within the people or are they afraid of it like versus like also how into western and pop culture they are like what did you notice their pattern man so like i noticed they were really into Westerners like especially me because it was weird like you know what what would happen like so the way pro tournaments work is that there's a preliminary round which kind of means shit and then one person will advance to the first round which means a lot. And I would notice that sometimes

I would go to China and they would put me on the TV table. So there's a bunch of tables, maybe 16 tables, depending on how many. Only one or two, one or two will have a TV camera that airs to TV. The rest don't.

So no one's seeing you play in the preliminary round. And play in the preliminary round. And normally in the preliminary round, not every preliminary match, there's only very few that may get on a TV table. Right? So now there's very few that may actually get on a TV table.

Here I am, it's like 200 men playing this tournament. Very few get on a TV table. I was having sometimes two TV tables in the preliminary round, which is crazy Why why why I'm nobody because you're the Westerner exactly and because I had a style and character that no one else had Hmm, and I remember one time I actually got upset about it and I went to the to the arm Organizationist says says hey can you please take my match off the tv table i just played on the tv table right because i was getting my ass beat right put me on tv to get my ass beat right i said hey can you please take me off the tv table

and then they said why they said wally you are good for tv oh shit they tell me you are good for tv right and then that's when i figured out like i don't have to be the best in the world no there's no one like me i was like the dennis rodman of ping pong i had this crazy hairstyle had this crazy kind of hip-hop swagger that i bring to the sport you know yeah of course i wasn't as good as the best or even close to it but it didn't matter the fact is that i could play a sport that i had no business playing to begin with right everyone said oh why are you not playing basketball or rapping you know that's everybody assumed right yeah there was no one like me that played this sport and and i brought this

this flair and this energy and this this craziness with the colored here and and making noise when i went up point that's it baby let's go you know people people would be like oh my god what the hell people some people got scared man listen i'll tell you a funny story i played one of my first pro tours right um i remember very well i played um first german open and then right after german open i played dutch open in german open i got smashed by everyone all right i was so nervous it was my first tournament even i got i had to play some people that actually trained with in germany i actually played against well circle yeah where where where i i played against them well in practice and then tournament i started shaking got killed tournament quick

then we go to uh dutch open in rotterdam and um no one knows me yet no one knows me but this one everyone will know me and uh first i play against uh if i remember, I play, who did I play first? Was it Russia? And then I play Russia, England, and China. So I think I played England first, got killed, no chance, beaten badly. Then I played Russia, got killed, beaten badly, no chance. Then I played China, right? And as you know, China's the best of the best of the best of the best. Anyone who's playing, as a matter of fact, forget about if they're playing for China.

If they are Chinese. They're good. They're good. They're good. The first thing you do at night before you play the match in the morning, you look at your group. If you see a Chinese name, you're like, damn. And before I say this, it's not racist. This is how we say it.

This is how it goes. When you see a Chinese, you go, goddamn, I got a fucking Chinese. Everyone says it. Every single person. Because you know, if it's a Chinese person playing and it's a pro level, they're good. They're damn, damn, damn good. So everyone's worried. Everyone's worried. So anyway, I get to play this Chinese player.

I never forget his name. His name is Chen Chunji. I will never forget this. I'll be 90 talking about this. I'll never forget his name. His name is Chen Chunji. I will never forget his name. I'll be 90 talking about this. And first game, he kills me. Second game, kills me again, right? And now my friend, who's German, who I became friends with in Germany,

at the time I think he was number maybe 40 in the world. His name was Thomas Kyneth, a good friend of mine and he he's coaching me and he says and so i used to teach him some some ghetto stuff because he's very german and i said no when you make a point you should go boom boom i taught him this when you make a point just go pop pop pop so now you got this really German dude when he would make points, he would go, pop, pop, pop. I told him that stuff. All right, so he was a good friend of mine. And he told me, he said, Wally, come on, fight, fight, pop, pop, pop, pop, right?

So he kind of pumped me up. And then, so I was losing, think i was losing three zero and and and and the games is four out of seven four out of seven to eleven points and i was down three zero already getting killed on the brink annihilated yeah and so uh i go back to the um match and i serve a very fast serve and it's an ace and I go boom boom boom boom that's it baby let's go this Chinese guy's never seen this in his life fucking computer brain is he never seen this right now and then I serve the same serve again ace again right and the guy is like and I'm yelling I'm literally yelling you're breaking at

him like oh let's go yell it out the guy that he didn't know what to do bro guess what I won that game and now everyone knew who I was it was wait a minute. How is this American guy winning a game, right? Then we play another game. We play another one because it's four to seven. I win the next game. 3-2?

This is 3-2, baby. 3-2 against, and here I am, this American guy who just started playing ping pong, beating a Chinese player, which is, people are like, and i'm making the most noise

in the hall i can't remember this is like a hall huge huge hall and i'm making so much noise everybody's like you know all the top players are playing they're looking who's this crazy american guy right so i'm making all this noise and then um the score now is nine six in the sixth game bro no and six eight no it's three to it yeah so so nine so nine six um um you're up in the sixth game nine nine nine six right um so nine six i'm sorry no no i made a mistake it's it's actually i won the first game so it's three one three one nine six three three one so I won one game so it's three one the second so I'm second I'm on the fifth game if game so three one nine six so it's nine six I'm playing to eleven playing to eleven I should win this game I think if I win this game bro I'm gonna take the next game so I'm pumped up you know yeah you know like this and then and then um the

chinese coach calls a timeout because of time listen if a chinese coach calls a timeout for you bro you're doing something right timeout timeout right and um my german friend speaks chinese fluently like he lived in china a lot of his life, trained in China. He's had always Chinese girlfriends, Chinese wife. And the Chinese coach is yelling at the Chinese guy, the player. And he goes, I never saw this guy from anywhere in my life. I've never seen this guy. If you lose to this guy, you'll never play in this country again. And he's yelling at the dude, bro, yelling at him.

Right? And so then me like an idiot, man. And this should be a lesson to anyone who's listening, who's an athlete or whatever it is you do in your life. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Yes. And what I did was I put into my head that I could win this match. Let me calm down now. I lost 11-9 now i lost 11 9.

yes i lost 11 9 bro 11 9. so the points just but everyone knew who you were everyone because of what happened at that point everyone knew all the top players all the top players in the world everyone knew and then they wrote an article about me um that was my first article ever in Rotterdam. In Dutch, they wrote it. I had to get it translated. But it spoke about what's more important. Is it the skill or is it the mental? Because obviously, I was in this kid's head.

I was in his head. Now, mind you, he's way better than me. Like, I shouldn't get five points for him at that time five i shouldn't even get five but i was i managed to win a game and almost take the next game and it's because i was in his head i beat him in the mental space right i made him nervous i made him worry i made him overthink um whatever he was thinking and he almost lost the match yeah so this is crazy it's crazy so you're on the map after that yeah sure after that that's when everyone knew who i was and you're traveling around doing all these pro tournaments yeah

at what point do you get in your head i know where this is going i'm gonna go north korea oh i gotta tell you that thought has that thought has never come in my head. Like, I'm going to go to North Korea. Why do you say to yourself, I want to go there? Yeah, so now by this time now, I've been making some waves in the sport. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink.

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Because it isn't just about what's on. It's about who's watching. Learn more about Samsung Vision AI televisions at Samsung.com. I'm getting better, you know. And then I realized that, you know what? I don't need to be champion. I changed my mindset of stop trying to beat these guys. They've been playing since three.

You started at 17, bro. Like you beating them is. Like the top guys. Yeah, it's unlikely. So stop. Just be yourself. Go out there and have fun. So I started changing my mindset.

I said, you know what? Instead of me trying to beat them, let me get points let me start with that like i can't get five points so i started to focus on five points just get five points in one game if you get five points in one game you're the world champion and this is another way how i became pretty famous in the sport i would get five points and i would celebrate like I won the world championship, but I would lose 4-0. I lost 4-0. People were like, what the fuck is wrong with this dude, bro? But they didn't know.

I started making these smaller goals so that I could accomplish. So I went from five points to one game. Let me get five points every game. Let me take one game. I'm the champion of the world. And I believed this shit. I believed it. And so I changed my mindset.

So I started getting better and started getting more fame behind it. I started getting more interviews, right? Started doing big events now, you know, where people are like, yeah, you know, we want you to come and do our event, you know, as a ping pong pro. You know, Steve Harvey saying, we want you to come on our show. We want to interview you. You know, all these interviews, all these magazines and stuff. And so, you know, life was getting good as a player, right? And so I started to think, you know, what can I do big this year? Right? Because now I had this momentum of each year, something big happened, you know, and the year before that, like I said,

it was a Steve Harvey show. You know, I was doing a charity for ping pong in Virginia Beach. And then I was on their TV show, the Hampton Road show. I was being interviewed on the TV show. And then Steve's producers saw that TV show and said, oh, we've got to have him on the Steve Harvey show. So I did a Steve Harvey show a couple days later. So that year was a big year for me. I did this and I did that. And then the next year was coming.

What can I do big this year? So I started getting to the mindset of what can I do big this year? And I thought, man, I don't know. So I'm looking to see what tournaments I'm going to play. Okay, Japan, I'll play that. China, I'll play that. Germany, yeah, I'll play that one. Russia, man, I'll play that one.

Pyongyang, what? Pyongyang? Wait a minute. Pyongyang's North Korea. korea and i looked at it said no way there's a tournament no way is it yeah pyongyang north korea and i was like oh my god then it clicked immediately i was like oh my god i should go to north korea to do a diplomacy for world peace and what year is this this is 2015. and the reason i got this idea was because you know american history is a very big american history which is a historical moment uh which is called the ping pong diplomacy right in 1971 richard nixon was the president america established relations with china through ping pong China yes that is exactly what Forrest Gump is doing is playing against the Chinese and that was part of the

diplomacy of China invited American team to come over to China to play ping pong ping pong so I was thinking wait a minute I can do the same thing I could recreate or create my own history by going to north korea and doing the same exact thing so the first thing how much did you know about north korea like as far as like how strict it was for westerners before before i decided or after i decided before you decided i knew nothing right i i just knew north korea was like this bad place that you don't want to go to. But I thought the whole world would say, yeah, let's go as a team.

You know, I thought that I would. Oh, your fellow U.S. guys would. U.S., Germany, other countries around the world, Japan. I have friends now. Now, mind you, I have friends from all around the world right so i thought that they would think it was a good idea that we should all go as a team and to the point of world peace because you know at this time north korea was was pretty crazy right and um everyone said you're crazy they were like you're out of your mind we're not going to north korea you're gonna die there they're gonna kill you you're not gonna come back Korea. You're going to die there. They're going to kill you. You're not going to come back, et cetera, et cetera.

So I was like, all right, you know what? If no one wants to go, I'll go by myself, right? So I called the U.S. team. I says, hey, can you guys enter me into the Pyongyang Open? And then they were like, you know, we don't know if that's a good idea. And I was like, no, but I really want to go i i really want to go um just enter me and i'll i'll make everything happen myself so um who's who's doing that like when you say you you contact the u.s federation like there's someone who's who's the let's say the the head of um there's a name for it it can't be the name the name changes but there's

someone whose job is to enter the athletes into the tournament but are they like calling up no no no no no no no this is all done via online but North that's well this might be a very very ignorant question but like they don't even have access in there oh they have their own access but not to us to their own stuff no so so for example uh because it's an ittf competition um there's an ittf uh i i i don't know i don't know how you would say it it's all connected to the international table tennis federation remember uh sports when it comes to sports anyone can go anywhere pretty much if you play for if you're playing representing a country so there's a form that that you have to fill out and i think that

form like i've actually never even seen the form I've never seen it because players don't get to see it. It's a behind-the-scenes thing. But I'm sure it comes from the ITTF, right? So the initial entry form definitely doesn't come from North Korea. It comes from the ITTF, which is International Table Tennis Federation. Right? Because that's... The tournament's governed under them. So no matter where this tournament's at,

it's always gonna be ITTF that's governing the tournament. That's the international governing body. But I still have to go through North Korea because all this is is the entry into the competition. But now I have to make a visa to get there. I have to have a contact, right? All these things now are done through North Korea. So I'm getting, you know, correspondence back and forth with the secretary general who's, yeah,

because, you know, once I'm entered into the tournament, I need to make a visa. Like, you can't go there without a visa. So how tournament I need to make a visa like you can't go there without a visa so how am I gonna make that visa as this is starting though is this when you start really looking into it yeah now now I start to now now that I'm registered to go and nobody wants to go with me now I started to take a little bit more serious of possible things that can happen that can go wrong yeah Yeah, yeah.

I'm very big on that. I'm very, very big on things that can happen that may go wrong. I had a brief problem years ago in Japan, so I research everything now. I research everything. We'll table that one. Yeah, so I'm watching all documentaries. I'm watching everything. And I think that was the same year that that stupid movie came out i wouldn't say it was stupid it was actually funny oh the dictator yeah like i just thought it was a way to came out so i see that but but i i i

watch movies did that come out there's 2000 2001. 2001. we're in 2015 right now no no it wasn't 2001. When did it come out? The Dictator. Yeah, because you said you went to North Korea in 2015. Yeah, it was 2015. Dictator. Oh, the Dictator is the one with Sacha Baron Cohen.

Yeah. What's the one with James Franco? Is that the one you're talking of where James Franco's in North Korea or whatever yeah I think so I think there was one before the interview the interview 2014 yeah there he goes oh snap so wait a minute the dictator is a different one yeah the interviews 2012 yeah the interview the interview the interview so that's right for us he was right before.

So that came out. And I watched a lot of documentaries. So I knew everything that could possibly happen. What did you learn? That you got to be freaking careful, bro. Like you got to do things correct, everything. What does that mean, though? Meaning they're going to ask you questions.

Make sure you know how to answer those questions. Meaning lie. Yeah. Are they asking you, what do you think of our Supreme Leader? How do you know that? How do you know that? Well, I'm assuming these are the obvious ones we all think of. But that's an actual question.

What do you think about our Supreme Leader? And you got to say, like, he's great, right? I said, he's aight. Because, you know, I didn't feel like I wanted to lie, so I used slang. I always use slang. Like, yeah, he's aight. Because that could mean anything. But that's what I did. Do they know what aight means, though?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're like, what is this I? Yeah, he's I. So, yeah, so the actual, I knew they were going to ask questions. I knew that I would have no contact. That I knew. What I didn't know was that they would take my passport. Oh, they take your passport when you go there?

Where do they put it? They keep it. The hotel keeps it. Oh, the hotel takes it when you grow that's where do they put it? They keep it the hotel keeps it They they have the hotel. They use it. You don't have it So so like when I talk about a lot of times in my some of my viral videos with not North Korea I'll say that I went to the most dangerous country in the world So as I say the number one most dangerous country to write to rattle people's mind I like to use English in a weird way So I'll say I went to the number one

most dangerous country in the world. I'm like, ah, it's not that, it's not dangerous. It's not dangerous. And they'll say, it's very dangerous. And they'll say, oh, other countries are dangerous like Syria. And I'm like, listen, being kidnapped, being blown up by bombs is not the only danger in the world.

When you don't have access and you can't leave. Oh, yeah want that's dangerous And you get thrown into labor camps or executed if you say one thing wrong about the leader It's next level you have to be very very and it's real like like it's it's you have to be careful Did you talk to people who had been there before you went? No, no, no. I don't know anyone who's been there. The only person I ever know who hasn't been there is Dennis Rodman. And he's also one of the inspirations for me saying, fuck that, I'm going to go by myself.

I'm like, hey, if that guy went, I definitely could go. Seriously, seriously. That's one of my inspirations for going. But, yeah um a lot of research a lot so i i know they're gonna ask questions you didn't know they were gonna take the past no i didn't know that that that was that was uh shock shocking did you know like what they're you knew you weren't gonna have access to the internet like the outside world but did you know did you like what did you see when you first went there did you see abject

poverty or did you see what they wanted you to see no you won't you won't see anything you you you're gonna see what they show you that's pretty much it like so you know when i landed um well how did you get there oh yeah that's that's a whole you want to hear that story yeah please pretty crazy that's why you're here let's do it all. All right. This is going to be fun. This is going to be fun because this is not out there a lot. This is some, yeah, it's crazy. All right. So first step, I get contacted welcoming me to come to North Korea. Then they say, okay, you have to go to Beijing.

And I just came back from Beijing because that this time now I'm pretty good I'm training in China and I just came back and so you have to go back to Beijing to get your visa And I said, okay, you know, I'll go Beijing to look to look at my visa. So anyway, you can't do it in the US No Only Beijing only Beijing and so I go cuz that's the only place the North Korean embassy is. Yeah in Beijing So I I go a flight of Beijing. So I fly to Beijing. At this time, I've had this. Have you ever seen those one-wheel unicycle things?

Yeah. You know who started that in this country, right? No. Me. The one-wheel unicycle? Yep. You started it. I'm the one who.

Fuck out of here. I'm going to tell you how I started this. I brought two back from China before anyone even knew what a Hoover board was any of this stuff This doesn't exist in this country So I found two in China and and somehow I was able to get them I don't know how I was able to get it back, but I got lucky. I know why too I had very good status with an airline. I was like global member So, you know when you're like high status in

the airline they they what's that like china airlines or something no no no no no i was it was united and and i brought two two big oh like are you oh okay two big boxes of the wheel and and you know what if you even google this wheel find any video that's earlier than mines in this country you won't find it mine is the earliest video so I brought two back those became popular so it's so long it's the time is is is so long ago that I used to take my wheel ride it in the airport and ride it to my gate pick it up and check it in no one can tell you that they've ever done that because they haven't been riding as long as I have so I would carry this wheel everywhere I go in the world.

It would go with me, just wheel. You know, get in here, put it, ride it. So I brought this wheel with me back to China and I went to go look for the embassy. And as I'm riding to the address that they give me, I can't find an entrance to the embassy. So I ride around the whole compound because this is the end embassy because there's two soldiers standing standing you don't look

sketchy at all yeah it's so i'm writing i'm writing around the embassy looking for a door right and every embassy in the world has a glass door that says welcome and what you do you sure about that i mean possibly it should i mean everyone i've been to yeah i can think of a few that probably don't but but you go inside right you you you know where you can go in yes so um i couldn't find a door to go there's a big metal door it looked like something out of some crazy movie there's a soldier who told me that i can't stand there so i had to go across the street so i go across the street and i called the number that they gave me right the contact and i say hey um so they say hey they go oh mr green how's this guy having the number no it's me i have no idea right and i say

yeah it's me he goes hey um where are you i said i'm trying to get in but i cannot find the entrance to get into the embassy he goes oh don't worry i'll be right out so i'm standing across the street from north korean embassy and this guy comes out i see him coming out he comes across the street hey mr green how are you i'm fine how are Oh man? He he goes uh, uh, welcome to coming to to North Korea They don't like to say North Korea by safety RPK TPR K DPR. Yeah, that's they they believe why did they do that? Because they believe there's only one Korea. They don't believe in North and South so it's democratic the one China Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly So so he comes out and he goes hi hi, thank you, blah, blah.

He goes, I need your passport. I said, no, what do you mean you need my passport? He goes, yeah, I'm going to take your passport to go make the visa. I said, what do you mean? We're not going to go in? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will make the visa. I said, bro, I'm not giving you my passport.

Are you crazy? And the reason why I didn't give him my passport is because i don't know if you know this but if you lose your passport two times in seven years in america you will not get a passport from the country that you're in right so normally if you lose your passport if you're in china you go to american embassy they'll print you a passport temporary one and you can use it to get back um if you lose your passport like i did twice i'm speaking from experience i've lost it twice because i didn't think a passport, I thought a passport was just a piece of paper. So I was just losing that shit.

One time I lost it in New York, and the other time I got stolen in China. And the third time when I did lose it in China, they would not give me a passport. They said, no, they said, we can't issue a passport. It has to come from your government so what they do is they're going to investigate the hell out of you to make sure you're not selling it but luckily i have a friend who has some friends in politics and i was able to get my passport back

but that's another story so anyway i didn't want to yeah i didn't want to give this guy my passport because i don't know him i don't know you don't want to risk it yeah and what if i lose my password again maybe i can never travel i don't know what it was, you don't want to risk it. Yeah, and what if I lose my passport again? Maybe I can never travel. I don't know what it was. I was like, no, I'm not giving you my passport because I can't afford to give it to you. I don't know you. And he was like, no, but this is how we do it.

We take the passport. We go in. We come back and bring it back. So I took out my phone. I took a picture of him. And the guy freaked out. He was like, what are you doing? I'm taking a picture of you.

Why? Well, because if I'm giving you my passport, then this is a picture that i can show the authorities this is who i gave my passport to in case i don't get it back if you give my passport i'll delete the picture and so then so so then he agreed to the passport i got on my wheel when it rode around right around right uh got some food came back now i come back call him say um he calls me he says oh passports visa's ready so i come back to the same spot across the street now picture this you have a black dude right looking like me you know with glasses on and crazy hair crazy hair and you have this little asian dude coming out we're standing across the street from the

north korean embassy he's handing me a passport and i'm handing him cash there's all kinds of coming out. We're standing across the street from the North Korean embassy. He's handing me a passport and I'm handing him cash. There's all kinds of wrong signals there. The dude's giving me a passport, right? Because I have to pay for the... I have to pay for the thing. I'm giving him cash. And we exchange. They don't take visa? No.

Oh, that's a whole... Listen. That's another story. So now this part is done i have to leave tomorrow because you make the visa today you got to leave tomorrow right to go to north korea yeah yes the day before so now next they have to go to the airport to fly to north korea what are you flying on ah so what i did was i chose the north k airline. Oh, my God. Because do you know North Korean airline has the number one? I know they had airplanes. Yeah.

Listen, it's the worst rating of all airlines, number one. You don't say. It's the North Korean. I wonder why. Is there duct tape on the fucking wings? So I wanted to get the full feel of what it was like to go to North Korea. So I could have took Air China, right so i could have took air china right i could have took the chinese airline but i wanted to take north korea so it's called air koiro right

so so so now i have to go buy this ticket for the same minute i'm leaving so i i i go to a smaller airport in beijing which i've never been to this is the this is like the kind of you know how we have actually all our airports are major do we have a small airport like in new york maybe i know less i might get y'all that for saying this but you know how like chicago has o'hare and it's like the biggest airport ever but then they have like i think it's called midway okay so let's say that's small yeah it's like midway so so is there a smaller airport i've never been there no one speaks english in this airport it's crazy like freaking if you go to you know the the international everyone speaks english but this one no one so i'm trying to find the north korea airlines no one knows what i'm talking about i'm spending just too much time looking for this place

can't find it mind you it's actually inside so you actually have to go into like pass where all the uh you have to go through immigration first and then you get to to the uh north korean thing to buy the ticket so it's not outside it's actually inside so i go inside finally find a place and i say hey um here's my visa so they give you a visa and it's a piece of paper it's a piece of paper for a reason so they can take it back later so it's a piece of paper and I go and I say here's my visa um I want to buy the ticket to go to North North North Korea and I give it to them and then they told me I was like 300 something and they're looking at you like you're fucking crazy yeah they're looking at you like you're fucking crazy. Yeah, they're kind of looking at you weird.

And then I take out my card, and they go, oh, sorry, sorry, no card. What do you mean no card? It's like, oh, cash only. What? I said, where do you, I said, I've traveled the entire world. I've never bought a ticket with cash in my life, ever.

Well, you're in North Korea now, bitch so so they're like so they're like no cash only so now i gotta go back out go to the atm and take out 340 us dollars in r&b which is chinese money so now i gotta take a bunch of money out my bank's like flipping out what the hell's going on this guy's like trying you know what's going on with his account and i go back and i pay them in cash right now they give you a receipt that has a number on it they didn't give me a boarding pass right so oh wait even better no boarding pass and no return ticket oh that's how you like that to him. I'm out at this point. I'm gone. I'm on the first flight back to fucking New York. Yo, so, so I go to him and I says, where's the boarding pass?

Oh, you don't need it. No boarding. Someone's going to take you to your seat. Ah. Right? So someone will escort you. And I say, okay, how about when I want to come back? And they say, oh, it's okay.

You're not coming back. back so so since they said your your guide i didn't know what i knew what a guy was a guy was someone who was going to you know kind of like help you it's like your baby you knew what it was i knew what i knew what it was it's like your babysitter so when you get there you have one you have a guide yeah and they said your guide when you're ready to come back, you tell your guide, your guide will make the ticket. Will actually make the reservation. So anytime a non-North Korean comes into the country, they have a guide. Yeah, you have a guide.

That person is your babysitter. You cannot go anywhere, do anything without that person. That person will escort you to where you need to go, take you to where you need to go. God damn. And that's the person that's going to where you need to go take you to where you need to go and damn and that's the person that's gonna report back to The government right each person that is a guide is the elite and they work directly for the government So they're everything you say they're going back That's why I say you have to be very careful what you say because it will go back. So anyway, um, I was like, that's that's why I say you have to be very careful what you say, because it will go back. So anyway, I was like, that's crazy.

There's no ticket to come back. It's mad. But I really wanted to go. And so I took their word that I would be able to tell my guy I would come back. And I was just excited to go to North Korea. No one's been to North Korea. So I was like, I really want to go. So they escorted me. They they escort me to my seat and

when i was going to sit down i noticed that everyone had these pins these little pins like everyone wore a pin everyone like the passengers yeah they all wore these pins even the staff and i was like oh man these pins are cool the staff. And I was like, oh man, these pins are cool. Like a regular, you mean like something you just put on your suit? Like you know how the other president of the country? Yeah, the lapel. Was the flag? Yeah, it's the lapel. Well, they all had pins.

And in the pins were pictures. And the pictures were of the Supreme Leader, or the Supreme Leader and his dad, or the Supreme Leader, his dad, and his dad's dad and his dad's grandpa grandpa right and everyone had one everyone had a pin and i was looking i was like man i want one of these pins right i was like you know everyone has one i don't have one everyone has one and only people who didn't have one also were chinese were were flying there. And I was like, oh, man, I want one. So there was this stewardess, right? And I talk about this in my daily news article. There was this stewardess. She was pretty hot.

And she looked so sweet and nice. And I thought, oh, man, this is a great airline. The seats are nice. It's clean. There's hot stewardess. Like, this is, you know, North Korea there's hot stew it is like it's you know not North Korea's not that bad until I asked her for a pin I sort of pans like hey um she came so I can I have that she gave me the dirtiest look I ever got and just walked away didn't like oh and I was like oh I didn't

realize how important those pins were until until later so they're like an official thing yeah like you can't lose that like you cannot lose that you're being it would be a serious problem like that everyone every citizen has to wear that you have to wear it there's not one person I saw in North Korea that did not have it on. Like, every citizen has to wear it. Oh my God. Yeah, it's pretty intense. So now we get to, you know, I get to North Korea.

And I'm pretty excited. As soon as I come down the escalator, it says, welcome to Pyongyang, and there's my guide. And they purposely, and I... um they purposely and i were you told at this point you were gonna have the guide no i knew you knew but had they okay oh i didn't know when she was gonna show up i didn't know she was gonna be a she but she happened to be a she and she happened to be pretty hot and you know why oh they want to trap you oh yeah they so want you to try they know everything about you before you go there how

i don't know bro i i don't know but they do they they they no one goes listen no one goes into north korea without them knowing who you are they might search your social media social media for sure because when i came back i'll tell you the story later when i came back my social media was acting crazy so so so they searched everything and and and they knew that i was into asian chicks and they knew this right because they probably planted the stewardess that's it maybe right listen think about it why my guide now there's a lot of athletes there who were not from North Korea, from Syria. How come my guy was like the hottest? Yeah.

Like by far. Yeah. Like she looked like a model, like a model. And, you know, I get it. I see these guys like, oh, snap. Damn. What's going on, bro? I'm like, yeah, this is looking good.

And I was like, and in my mind, I'm like, man, North Korea is not this bad. Come on. I mean, okay. You know, I had a, man, North Korea is not this bad. Come on. I mean, okay. I had a little issues, but come on, look at this. So I get this guy. She introduces herself to me. Tells me that she's my guide. They take all my shit, computer, phone.

Where they put it? They do something with it. I guess they check it to make sure. Because there's certain things that you're not supposed to bring They can't bring books can't bring music So so they they check it. I don't know what they do. Yeah, you basically can't bring your phone Yeah, well, no, you can bring your phone. You can bring your phone, but it has music on it Yeah, it has both. I think they search I think they search they I don't know what they do

But they take it from you They took my computer took my phone it took it from me for a little bit before I left. And then they delete all that stuff off there? No, no, no. They give it back. I mean, I didn't have music on my stuff anyway. I don't have books on my phone anyway. But they gave it back.

They gave it back. I don't know. I don't know what they did with it. And you never know what they're really doing with it. I mean, there's technology. And so they gave it back. So I have my computer. I have my phone.

Because my phone is where I have all the footage of everything I did every day. I filmed every single thing. Oh, yeah. You filmed? Oh, yeah. I'm doing a documentary about it now. You were allowed to film? So you can film.

So being not allowed to film is a misconception. You can film anywhere they take you. But you cannot walk out of that place and go film on your own. Because then you'll be into some serious so i have i have footage of every single thing i did every single day um but anyway i meet the guide and uh she just said something like she's hot she speak good english it's okay it's okay but it didn't matter because she was hot so it was like it didn't matter it was was like, yeah. But I knew not to try to push up on her. Yeah, because if you go for that.

Exactly. You might be in big trouble. So I was a good boy. I was a good boy. And she and two other guys took me to the hotel. So we got to the hotel. I saw the hotel. I looked up.

It was amazing. Everything looked amazing. Driving through the city was a little strange because you didn't really see a lot of people. It looked like one color. It looked weird. There was one huge black hotel. It was all black, very tall. But I heard about this in the documentary.

It's not real. It's just for looks. And then as you drive through, you drive through all these sort of like huge buildings. I have this on video too. Huge buildings that are for sports. So, you know, in America, we have buildings that we use for different things, right?

We have, maybe this building can be, can have basketball, wrestling. They had a building for each sport, a huge building. And it would have the sport of it. Basketball, boom, huge building. Tennis, boom, huge building. Swimming, huge building. And you see all these buildings in a row as you went by. And the buildings, I don't know if they actually use them i don't know what it is um but

they're definitely meant to make you feel like wow you know because i was like wow this is incredible right um then they bring you to the hotel and like i said the hotel looked really amazing uh they charge you premium dollar for this hotel, mind you. And then he took my passport. And I was like... At the hotel. Yeah, and I was like, I don't get my passport. And he said, oh, we have to hold it. And then that was when the reality sunk in.

Reality didn't really sink in that bad, even with all the craziness with the visa and not getting a boarding pass. But once they took my passport then at that point in my mind i was like yeah you you you are really here now like this is real and i was like all right so i never passed for i couldn't contact anyone how long were you planning on being there again originally i was supposed to be there for about seven days okay um but i got out early but um so anyway um after that now it's time to practice you know take to get ready for the tournament and um i practice i practice with the north korean team it was so great yeah it was crazy it was crazy because remember how

they react to you yeah so there was no Westerners for me to practice with it was no team there's nobody right I don't know anyone from Syria I didn't know anyone from Vietnam right and so uh they they said oh you can practice with the North Korean team okay all right so I can possibly go around the dude's looking at me like i was crazy he was looking like i was great like he was looking at me i was really crazy and so um but once he saw me play he was surprised right so the sport broke the barriers down that he had because in the beginning he didn't look friendly at all he but then once he saw i could actually play then it kind of like was like okay maybe he's cool because i could play and where are you guys practicing oh in the

training hall there's a training so so my every day was from my hotel to the training hall to the tournament hall to the training hall to my hotel hotel training hall tournament hall training hall hotel is the guy just sitting there in each place the guy comes to pick hotel hotel training hall tournament hall training hall hotel is the guy just sitting there in each place the guy comes to pick me up every single day and sits there waits for me to finish then brings me back and so practice with this uh north the north korean was pretty fun you know it's cool then i asked him to take a picture after and i have the picture and he's just like um you didn't but you didn't really have any real conversation with him you just practiced no he can't speak english yeah there's there's like but there's no translator there or anything no no there's no there there's no you so you're not allowed

to conversate with north korean citizens i don't know if you know that no like you're not allowed to so for example um while i was there in the hotel there was a girl right across from me from was she from england so my career she's from i was wondering what the hell she was doing north korea and she said that she applied for this this this job to teach english and she said she didn't think she was going to get it but she wound up getting it oh my god so she teaches english there and and i was like oh how is that she said in a very low voice because they're listening to you. It's pretty crazy. She says that when she goes to teach, the guide brings her,

sits there for the whole lesson. She's watched. As soon as she finished the lesson, she's taken out. So there is no fraternizing with the with the people that you with the kids it's like a black mirror episode yeah yeah yeah so so it's not like you know in every other

normal school what happens right after the class some kids come up to the teacher and you talk it doesn't exist no immediately she says as soon as lessons over immediately she comes there is no. There is no talking. There is no talking with the kids. You teach, that's it.

And so that's why you don't get to talk to normal North Koreans. You won't have the opportunity to, right? Because everyone I'm talking to, even if it's a North Korean, is an athlete or part of the government. But a normal person you you will never have a chance never never never so um you know this is my everyday life and then uh but there is one crazy thing that happens um now i'm feeling a little bit more comfortable right because i've been there it was like a couple days two days now and now i'm ready to you know not really start trouble but i like to see how far i can get is this something i like to do when i travel um put

your hand on the coffee yeah yeah a little bit a little bit so um i had never met brainwashed people in my life like someone who's like really truly truly truly brainwashed i never met brainwashed people in my life, like someone who's like really, truly, truly, truly brainwashed. I never met. And I wanted to see the extent to how much brainwashed are you really? Or is it our media, which always says all kinds of crazy things about the world? It's not true. I want to know myself, just for me. So I started a conversation with my guide.

And the conversation started like this i said hey um you guys really hate westerners but why do you like me right now i don't know if they like me but the reason i'm saying why you don't like me is to diffuse any kind of idea that i'm starting anything so i'm being really smart about what I'm doing. And she goes, no, we don't hate Westerners. We just don't want Western influence. We want the pure Korean culture. And of course, I want to get deeper. So I agree.

And I say, yeah, I agree with you. Us Westerners, we mess everything up. I'm trying to get on her good side. And then I say, but in order for any country to get to that next level, you need the influence of other countries, other surrounding countries, Western countries, all countries. And she said, that's not true.

I said, no, it is true. I said, look at every major country in the world. They have influence from the world. And she said, that, it is true. I said, look at every major country in the world. They have influence from the world. And she said, that's not true. Everything in our country was done by our great leader and this and this and that. And I said, yeah, but your great leader has Western influence. Now I'm going into the yellow. You said that.

Oh, it gets better. It gets better. It gets better. How'd she look at you when you said that she gave me this look she says that's not true immediately i said yeah it's true i i said i said you're great i said you're a great leader speak first of all you greatly speak english very well and your great leader loves basketball you know she says basketball created by a great leader bro listen listen listen listen when i tell you i held in this laughter so hard i i had to hold it in because if i would have laughed i'd

probably been arrested i hold it in and and i had to move on to the next question because when she said that i you know in my mind i was like yeah you are brainwashed because common sense would say your great leader is what 28 basketball isn't around forever when he created basketball he was like nine six like it doesn't even make sense so i left that question and i moved on to another one right i'm in the yellow now and and i said okay okay do you know that your great leader studied outside of North Korea? Oh, no. Bro, now I'm in like a bright red, right?

And she goes, that is not true. And now I'm getting kind of pissed off a little bit. Because I tell you, I tell you, remember we had the conversation before? I said, I get pissed off when people tell me I can't do shit when I'm wrong and I know I'm right. You got to keep your wits here. So now i'm forgetting the whole purpose and i'm getting pissed off and i'm like this is true i'm like the whole world knows this i say he studied in switzerland bro you even know what that is uh i i don't know i don't know but i i said studying switzerland and then she, that is not true.

And I go, oh, my God. Yeah, you know what? You're so right. Oh, man, I made a mistake. That was the Cuban president. I'm so sorry. Oh, my God. Because the way she said that is not true.

She was going to report you. I just saw 20 years hard labor for corrupting the minds of the citizens. I just saw it flash, right? Is that what it's called? Yeah. It's like the crime? Corrupting the minds of the citizens. I just saw it flash, right? Is that what it's called? Yeah. That's like the crime? Corrupting the minds? And I just saw it. I saw it flash, like, right in front of my face.

Like, just flash. And I got myself out of that shit so fast. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. It was the Cuban president. I didn't even know who the Cuban president was, bro. And I threw it out there, bro, and ended that conversation real quick. And how did her, did her, like, that's another thing.

She laughed. Yeah. She, when I said the Cuban president, she kind of, like, smiled. Like, because I was looking for that smile because I was really worried at this point. See, that's interesting. Yeah. Humans, no matter what, have certain emotions that even in the oddest of spots they can feel because you don't just you know a fake smile can happen but like you can't fake smile if you don't really know how

to smile yeah right so so she knew to like this is something that in her brainwashed ass like she found funny for real yes so it was so like you see how like even when you're brainwashed you can still feel and you don't have access to other humans around the world and what they think and feel meaning like no impetus for it and your life is kind of miserable but it's the only life you really know you can still feel real emotions like you and i do that's bizarre that's yeah and and that's gonna bring us to the next part of this okay Okay, right exactly. It's crazy You just hit it on the nail so hard, right? So after all it is now, you know, I get to play against the North Koreans now mind you I went to North Korea

Without a plan. How do you do diplomacy for world peace? I don't know. I'm a kid from the projects How do you do it? I don't know you're that when we get there exactly I thought I would figure it out when we get there exactly i thought i would figure it out when i get there i thought it was something that i was passionate about that if i really believed it was going to happen it would manifest itself it would find a way that it would show me the lights would open up and i'd be like yo that's how you do it right i had no idea if i was going to do it but i got to play against a North Korean opponent now I could have played against the Chinese and a Syrian and I would just say hey, I went to North Korea That was it

But I did get to play against the North Korean and this is official. This isn't the training. Yes This is a match and in one of those buildings you were saying like one of these main sports building in the in the table tennis Hall where they have the the pro tournament how big like how many people in the 5 000 people oh all all north korean and we have this on video yeah because you were taking your own yeah exactly exactly so i'll put that in the corner of the screen it's one of my viral videos actually is is this so um as i'm walking out to play this north korean um me and him were walking out together with the two umpires and people are looking at me like i am crazy like you could feel it like when you walk out and 5 000 people look at you you know if you walk out one person look as you don't know but if everyone looks at you you can can feel it. You can see everyone's eyes. But they had seen, I mean, to be very basic about it,

they had at least all seen a black person before now because Rodman had been all over state TV, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so they're like, oh, wow. So they're probably like, who the hell is this black person? But they know. You remember, I got lined. And I think when Dennis Rodman went,

I don't remember if his hair was done the Dennis Rodman style I don't believe it was but I'll pull it up yeah right because you remember I had all kinds of lines in my head like designs and listen you would not be surprised how I don't know if you call it ignorance or just not knowing. I've been axed before. Before, was I born like that? Yes. So if people don't know, they just don't know. I'm pulling up a picture behind me, by the way, of Rodman. Every picture you see of him, he's wearing the hat.

So they didn't even see the hair. Yeah. So I can't really tell if he had something going on up top but he's literally got a hat and oh man so i must have been so now this sheds more light i must have been real crazy to them yeah yeah so you know i i have my hair the way it is now you know bleach with crazy designs in it and it might have been a color i have to go back and look at the video it might have been a color i i i don't remember if it was a color or not or if it was just bleached but yeah man i'm gonna try to pull it up while

you're doing this you in north korea is that it right there is that the picture with the kid oh that's the dude bro look at his face and you got the full bleached hair i'll put that in the corner of the screen yeah yeah you see his face see he didn't know what to do there no you can tell your girl knew to smile when she felt something was funny exactly right here he's like i don't even know what's going on exactly exactly yeah yeah no body language that was my practice partner wow wow like nobody language so so you go into this stadium you're playing against a new player this guy everyone's looking at me and you hear these murmurs like i don't know what they call them. Like this. And if 5,000 people do this, it's crazy. It is the most craziest feeling.

So I'm looking up. And in my mind, all kinds of movies are playing out. Like, suppose everyone just came and just wanted to attack, kill the American. Like, I would be so dead. There's no way I could escape this. All kinds of things are going through my head. So we get to the table. We inspect each other's paddles because you have to check the

paddles you know to see what kind of rubbers each one uses and um after that um we start to play and now i go into fight mode now now the brains change the mindsets change i'm no longer worried about the 5 000 north korean people i'm about to kick this guy's butt i'm gonna kick his ass let's go and so the first point i make it second point i make it every time i made a point there was something like in the stance yeah like like just just horrible like just really eerie like just weird and you're not being yourself yet. You're just kind of like. I'm not even loud yet, bro. I'm not even, like, loud. I'm just playing, right? Every point.

Every point, right? And I'm like, damn. This is weird. And I'm like, all right. So then he makes a point, and they start clapping, but very loudly. Now, mind you, there's other matches going on at the same time, right? But every person is watching my match. Everybody's on me.

And he made another point, and it got loud, really loud, the way they were cheering. Made another point, loud. And every time he made a point, it got so loud to where I couldn't concentrate. So they weren't clapping for him. They were clapping against me. It's different. It's a difference. It's a difference when you...

Right. It's different when you're just clapping for your guy to win, than when you're actually clapping against someone and letting them know that you're not supposed to be here. Fuck you. And so... they did it so much to where I started to get upset. I started to get pissed. Now I'm starting to get pissed off. And I'm starting to get angry to where I started to get upset.

I started to get pissed. Now I'm starting to get pissed off. And I'm starting to get angry because I can't concentrate. It's just so loud. It's so loud. And I've never been in that situation before. Usually I'm always the underdog, right? So no one's clapping against me.

No one. No one in the world is clapping against me. Maybe I go to China. I go to China playing against the Chinese. The Chinese people are clapping for me because they know i got no chance right they're clapping for me so i never i never had this experience where i was like hated and no one and and so anyway um you know i get upset i'm upset and i'm in my head now and i look up right and i really want to just like freaking curse everyone now i'm'm like, fuck all of you. And shut the fuck up.

They wouldn't know what you said. Yeah. But I really wanted to say like, shut the fuck up. Because that's my favorite word. Shut the fuck up. But I looked, but I thought, and like I said, you know, I always have that guy on my shoulder. And I thought, you know what? Don't forget your purpose.

Don't forget why you're here. Right? Don't forget. You know? And I thought about it. Yeah, if I did that, that would just solidify what they think about Americans, that we're evil, we're animals, we should be killed, we're the devil, and this is what they're taught. And so I just looked up and I smiled.

I don't even know where the smile came from. There it is. Because I don't smile a lot. I looked up and I smiled. I don't even know where the smile came from. There it is. Because I don't smile a lot. I looked up and I smiled. And when I smiled, I noticed that there was a different tone immediately. Like there was a little bit of like a chuckle. It didn't sound like that mmm sound. So they recognized that.

And I was like, oh, this is interesting. So then I was like, Wally, this is where it's going to happen. Your diplomacy world peace is happening it's going to happen. Your diplomacy world peace is happening right now. Right now. You need to focus on the crowd because that's who you have right now. So then I would play. I would look up and I would smile.

Guess what? They would smile. And I was like, holy shit. No shit. Yeah. I was like, oh, my God. People are smiling. Right? And then I would laugh and they would laugh.

And I was like, whoa, this is they would laugh I was like whoa this is crazy sounds like oh man this is it so I play now for the crowd so then when I did make a pile go yeah all right they would laugh right a little bit you hear little chuckles of course when you made a point they would clap louder to the point where towards the end you know would make a few points and people would clap a little bit right this is a group people that that hated me when I first came in right and so then at the end, I would make a few points and people would clap a little bit. Right. And this is a group of people that hated me when I first came in. Right. And so then at the end.

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So, when people don't want to shake your hand, what they do is that they put their hand out and they leave their body back. So, it's kind of like this. It's almost like the body doesn't want to... It's almost like I'm shaking your hand, but I'm not really a part of this handshake. And he tried to do that to me.

He put his hand out to kind of like touch my fingers, It's almost like I'm shaking your hand, but I'm not really a part of this handshake. And he tried to do that to me. He put his hand out to kind of touch my fingers. And I grabbed him by his arm, pulled him in, and gave him a bear hug. Holy shit. Yo, gave a North Korean kid a bear hug. Boy, he's probably never been hugged in his life. What did his body feel like? Like freaking out? So the beginning is really funny.

So I tell you, I'm recording this, right? I'm recording this. Yeah, you have the camera. So my camera's behind me facing his face now i didn't see the face until later but um i'm gonna tell you what happened i held him and when i held him his face was confused at first then guess what he smiled right now like you said you just mentioned before you can't fake that that's a human emotion he smiled because he probably enjoyed the hug that this crazy black dude with yellow hair gave him because if he was scared his face would have stayed the same but his face was first like this and then he smiles right and that's and he probably got hung later for it but yo listen listen shouldn't be laughing

but christ listen this video went went viral and uh that's the number one that's the number one comment it's like you just sent this to guy yeah this dude's done right so but but yeah but he smiled right and and and i thought man you know if i went all the way to North Korea just to get that smile Just that one smile was worth it all those people who saw the hug they even cheered they clapped and they cheered for the hug Right all the fans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so so that means that they're They're human just just like us and there are emotions that even the government can't control. Because I'm 100% sure that if he had a chance to think about whether he was going to smile or not, he probably would not have smiled. Sure, but it's a reaction.

But it's a reaction. It's a human emotion. You can't control it. So for me, the diplomacy for world peace of what i did is a success because a lot of people say a lot of people say this a lot of people go oh you know one person can't make a difference one person can change the world and i say i agree with you it's not our job to make it's not our job to change the world you can't change what doesn't want to be changed, but it's our job to plant the seed. That's what our job is. I can't change him, but what I can do is put some scenarios in front

of him to make him think. So by planting the seed, by giving him that hug, you know, for the rest of his life, he's, listen, he will never, those people, 5,000 people and him will never forget that hug. It's never going to be forgotten. There's no way you forget something like that, right? So if years down the line, the government says, yeah, you know, all Americans are evil and they're bad. Not this one. Exactly.

People are going to remember, hey, you know what? I remember this crazy guy with yellow hair that came. And even though he lost the match, because I lost, in defeat, he still hugged our guy and showed respect. So that's the seed that you plant that hopefully in the future, that creates change. It's a true Tupac Shakur way

of looking at it. Yeah, man. I'm not saying I'm going to change the world, but I guarantee I'll spark the mind of Will. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I wasn't even thinking about that,

but yeah. Spot on. But man, it was incredible. It was just incredible. And then then when i saw that smile because i didn't see the smile until much later i didn't check the foot what did it feel because yeah you see it on the footage from the other side later but what did it first of all how long were you bear hugging him like five seconds yeah five seconds maybe like what did it feel like was it like dead fish yeah yeah yeah you feel him start

to no no at first he was like i you could tell like it was like you said with the picture he didn't know if he wanted to be hugged or not like that's what i felt like like he wasn't like pushing away but he also wasn't coming in right it was like it was like that middle like like you said like he didn't know if he wanted to be. But then at some point he committed. But then you can see he kind of committed. And he smiled. And that was like, oh my God.

When I saw that footage, when I got back to America, I was like, holy shit, he smiled. I was like, that's crazy. And I was like, oh my God. And that was the only match you played? I played against China, in. Oh, I played China first So I played North Korea. Yeah, yeah, yeah I played against China first and then I'm really good at Scott the North Korean guy and I'm sure that was set up. I Know I'm gonna be yeah 100% I'm sure that

Being the only Westerner. they're not going to put me against Syria and Vietnam. They have to put me against a North Korean. And the reason why is because they always want to make to their people that they're the greatest. I don't even remember the soccer thing. You remember the soccer thing? The Brazil thing? You don't know about the soccer thing so apparently freshman so apparently they played the world cup they scored the first goal and then they said yeah you see we defeated the greatest country ever but they got annihilated all right they got destroyed i think it was like

10-1 or 8-1 but they did score the first goal though that's where the game ended that's where the game ended so so so they always have the need to to um show that they're powerful and that's why if if an american gets detained the only way you come out of north korea is if somebody who's high in political world comes to get you yes cuz right to show legitimacy and they have to say you see the great this leader of blah blah came all the way great Dennis Rodman came yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but you know about peace price seriously man Christ that is such a it's crazy you really live something forget the ping pong aspect of it like even without that you live something that so few people at least in the western world ever will or frankly ever want to i mean i i'm curious about it like if i could

teleport there you know without anyone knowing and just take a look for a while i'd do it but like i have less than zero interest in ever fucking going there. Right. As things stand right now. Right. And yet you spent four days there. And like you said, you were training. And then what day?

Like day three, are you playing the matches? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So then the fourth day, what are you doing before you leave? Actually, I think it's five days I stayed there. Okay. Because day three played. Day four, I was kind of like, that was the day I decided I wanted to go back. Why did you decide you wanted to go back?

Because I lost already. I was out of the tournament. They asked me if I wanted to go on a tour. And I didn't want to do the tour. Why not? Because it would just make me angry. Because I saw the documentaries and the tour is going to places that are doing a lot of American bashing. And I would definitely probably get myself arrested.

Good call. I stayed away from any kind of tour stuff. How much did you see then outside the hotel and the places? Like on the way going to the places. And what did you see then outside the hotel and the places like on the way going to the places you see and what did you say like you see i saw very few p i didn't see like a lot of people i didn't feel like it was like new york city or or like it was kind of like in the morning there's a video i have where i video the morning is not one car in the road yeah man nothing you know what i would think from the total outside the way i kind of imagine it on how it's explained it's almost like the truman show yeah they have there's

a few bit characters who are there to just kind of like act like they're there for real but they're really not and yes it's just empty streets that look a certain way and everyone lives behind them and now this is different the truman show but everyone lives behind them and less than slums yo listen listen uh i'll tell you one more story i forgot to tell you so oh yeah and this is what led me to want to leave so i told my guy says listen i've been here a couple days already can we go outside like outside across the street was like a beautiful park big park you know and when someone says they want to go outside, I mean, I guess common sense says I want to go to the park.

It's like right there. And she says, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can go outside tomorrow. Okay, cool. So tomorrow comes morning, I eat breakfast, she picks me up, and we go downstairs. Then we go outside of the hotel, like where the cars pull in, and then she just gets on the phone and starts talking. And I'm like, I'm looking at her like, what's going on? And then she's a good 10 minutes just talking.

And I'm like, just, what was this girl doing? And then I say, hey, can we go to the park? Go to the street? She goes, oh, sorry, sorry it's forbidden what do you mean go to the park yeah what do you mean it's forbidden oh no no it's forbidden you can't go yeah so i was not even allowed to go with her to the park i wonder what's there no i know why I know why so like I said before They don't want citizens and any Westerner Conversation all the people that you conversate with are the elite they're trained to talk to you in a certain way They're trained to ask you questions in a certain way

They don't want you to influence they don't want you to influence any of the citizens if I go across the street to the park there's a possibility that a citizen could be there, there's a possibility that I could look at them, possibly I could smile at them maybe try to talk to them

even just my presence would be an influence because they would see me they would see that i tried to talk to them or i tried to reach out to them or i smiled to them that's an influence right and they're not trained for that so that's 100 why uh we couldn't go to the park because it's a park and we just stayed downstairs and I decided, and even when I wanted to leave, I told her, I was like, I want to leave tomorrow. Really, like tomorrow.

And then she was like, oh. And then, so I almost got upset again. And I was like, I want to leave tomorrow. And then she goes, oh, I don't think it's possible tomorrow. I said, no, it's possible tomorrow. Because I asked him. Now I'm getting, because I tell you, when people tell me I can't do shit, I get upset. And now I was already fed up.

I didn't want to be there anymore. Going to the, I couldn't go to the park. Couldn't do anything. And I felt, now I finally felt like I was in jail. Like now it felt, now it really felt, it didn't feel like jail before, but now it felt like jail. Because now I wanted to do something and I wasn't allowed to do it. And now I'm angry. And I said, no, I want to go tomorrow.

And she says, I said, no. I said, they told me that when I want to come back, I tell you and you make the ticket. I want to leave tomorrow. I tell you, and you make the ticket. I want to leave tomorrow. Now I'm getting upset. Now I'm at the point, because sometimes when you grow up in a project, sometimes we let our anger get the best of us. It's a human trait, man. And to the point where you know, like, bro, you can get arrested.

You're so angry, you don't even care. At this point, I didn't even care, man. I was like, I want to leave tomorrow, and I'm getting angry. And then she looked a little bit angry. And she goes to me, okay, tomorrow I pick you up. Like, what the hell? So I went to the hotel. I was pissed off.

I went up to the hotel. And she's, oh, it's 6 o'clock in the morning. She said, I'll call you. I'll call you. She calls me. She says, tomorrow is 6 a.m. 6 a.m. Like, what the fuck? Can't let me sleep in. I'll call you. She calls me. She says, tomorrow is 6 a.m. 6 a.m. Like, what the fuck?

Let me sleep in. I wasn't even worried about that. I was thinking, there's no flights at 6 a.m. leaving North Korea. That's the first thing I was thinking. I'd take you to labor camp. Listen. Listen. Listen.

Hold on. So I'm like, wait a minute. She picks me up. 6 a.m. in the morning. I was like, this is crazy. So now it's me and two other guys. Two guys in the front, me and her in the back in the morning i was like this is crazy so now it's me and uh two other guys two guys in the front me and her in the back in the car right so so now we're going and i realized hey where's my passport they didn't take my passport bro oh it's still at the hotel so we had to go back to the

password now listen now i'm getting a little worried now now i'm a little worried like how you forget my passport so you know what's going on so this is no joke like so they take me back to the hotel they get the passport and the two guys are just weird in the front like you know when people just feel weird like the whole situation feel weird and now i have a good memory and they were taking me back to the airport in a different way that I came. And this way looked really strange. Like it didn't look like the grand streets of things where I saw.

This was some kind of like back alley shit. And I was getting, and that was the first time I got a little worried, man. So I had a pencil, I had a pencil, a pen, a pen in my bag. I took the pen out and I had it in my hand. Like, I tell you, like, whenever I get a little, like, nervous like that, like, I'm at the point where,

yo, you're not putting me in no fucking camp. You're gonna, I'm gonna die here, but someone's gonna die too. And that's the mentality I had since I was always a kid. Like, I would fight five people, people but i promise you the one person that i grab he's gonna get it maybe a little bit worse than i'm gonna get it and so i took the pencil i had a pencil in my hand i just held it in my hand like this in the corner because now i was getting this is the first time i was scared i was never scared the whole time i was there except with that

conversation a little bit but now i'm worried because you know when i told i went to leave i was not nice at all as soon as she told me i couldn't i kind of like blew up i didn't yell but my voice raised and i got really upset and and now i'm thinking these are taking me somewhere and i was a little worried man i was a little worried had the pencil in my hand because i'm saying the first person that grabbed me, I'm fucking stabbing them in the neck. I'll die here, but someone's going to die.

And as we're pulling out, I don't know why they took... I think they... Listen, honestly, I think they did it on purpose. That English teacher told me nothing happens by chance. She said nothing.

She told me everything... That's what she told me. She said, be very careful. Nothing is by chance. Everything they do is planned. And I think, I don't know, man. I don't know if it's true, but I just feel after, you know, what she said and what I've seen, that because I was upset, maybe they wanted to scare me.

And I don't know if it's true. Maybe they just took a different route. But this was not the route that we took. And I don't know if it's true. Maybe they just took a different route. But this was not the route that we took. And it looked crazy. Streets were smaller. It looked like a place they would take you if they were trying to fucking take you. So all I kept thinking was like, oh shit, yo, are they fucking taking me somewhere?

Because I kind of yelled at her. And I'm like, where? But then we came out and I started to see the airport from a distance and i was like thank god oh man but that was the that was the only time i was like really really scared man so but she gets you up to the airport and you get right the fuck out she gets me to the airport no they didn't buy anything they i guess the ticket the ticket was there i don't even know how it worked bro she just takes me to the airport north korea airline or whatever same thing takes the airport um i still don't have my passport by the way i go the immigration talks to me on one side i go through to the other side so i pass through

the other side then that's when they give me my, then that's when they give me my passport. So they give me my passport back, and then now I'm in the airport waiting for the flight. But then now I have to be mischievous again. So apparently, before I went there, I found out there's some alcohol, which is sort of kind of forbidden for Westerners to buy. It has a snake in it.

A big boa constrictor. Big snake. So alcohol with a big snake in it. Wait, like a real snake? Yeah, real boa. The bottle's about that big. And it's got a snake inside? A big one. Big one.

And the snake. So I wanted this alcohol because I heard about it. The fuck? Yeah, I heard about it before I went there. And so I asked the, you know, they sell some stuff, you know, like before you can leave, you can buy. And I said, hey, do you have the alcohol with the snake in it? They said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I was like, come on, come on. I know you have it.

Oh, no, no, no. I said, come on, man, come on. I won't tell anybody, please. I really want to bring this back to Americaica please i know you have this because the person that told me about it said hold on oh your headphones are off yeah there we go yeah so the person that told me about it said that you have to just keep asking and and and they'll probably give it to you so finally they spoke korean to each other. They said something, and the person went in the back,

and they came back out with this box like this, about that big. And they charged me $300 US dollars. Bro. Was it shit, too? Was it total shit? Listen, listen. You know what?

It was worth the $300 because I brought it back and I brought it to the club. Yo, listen, this is crazy. So it looked crazy because it was a real boa and it was kind of like fermented, like it was spoiled at the top. Like the head was like, the head was like, it was crazy. That's got to be illegal. It is. It is. So I brought it back to the club.

But when I was coming back, when I was coming back to the US, so a lot of people asked me to have any problem from the government. Because the government didn't know I went to North Korea. The US government didn't know. No, no, no. They don't know I went to North Korea. Oh, because you did the visa. I didn't tell them the visa's in Beijing.

As far as they know, I went to China. You went there fucking blind. Yeah, exactly. i didn't tell them this is in beijing as far as they know i went to china they're right blind yeah exactly so like the federation didn't inform the government you were going no no no no no no they didn't know because when i came back right when i came back was real funny um i went to immigration that was fine but the people who check where you go it's not immigration so much it's customs because you fill out that form yeah Yeah. So when I gave my form to him, I said, okay, go. As I was walking out of the airport, the customs officer called me back.

He said, hey, hey, hey, come back, come back. Where the fuck were you? Exactly what it was. He was like, what? He's like, this says you're in North Korea. And I was like, yeah. And he was like, why? And what were you doing in North Korea?

I said, well well i went to play table tennis ping pong for the usd that's exactly what he did that's exactly hey listen oh my god bro bro bro that's exactly what was his reaction. And after that, he said, bro, he goes, listen, listen. He says, listen, I've heard a lot of stuff, but that's far-fetched. That's what he said to me. And you had the videos, though. I said, listen.

I said, Google my name right now. I play ping pong. I play. That's what I do. And he literally Googled my name and saw. And he let me go. They were about to take me in the back, bro. They were about.

That would have been a funny conversation. No, no. But I was scared. I was really scared because I had the alcohol in my bag. Oh. That might have been an issue. Yeah. Because it's got like the dead animal in there.

Definitely been an issue, bro. Yeah. That's so illegal, bro. And I was like, oh my God. They're going to go through my bag. They're going to find this fucking alcohol with a snake that I wasn't supposed to bring back. I was like, oh my God, I'm in trouble. I'm going to be in so much trouble.

I'm going to be so in trouble. But he goaled me and he saw and he let me go. Oh my God. Yeah. And I bring that alcohol to my club, shared it with people at the club. People drank it. That's disgusting. I made the boy gay.

It was very disgusting. I'm never going to drink that. Sorry. Don't give it to me. Oh my God. But yeah, man, that trip was crazy. That is absurd, man. So you went and did something that, as I said, none of us pretty much are ever going to do.

You lived, but you also left behind that little seed, as you put it. And that's pretty cool because you know there's that woman ying ming park or oh i definitely fucked that up the one that defected yeah yeah she's on like every podcast yeah yeah yeah and i've i've seen her on a couple different podcasts she was on flagrant she was on joe rogan she's been on a bunch of stuff and you hear about what the people over there go through and how, just like you said, they have no idea. Yeah. I mean, it is unfathomable.

And for you to give them just a little something, you know, of humanity to hold on to is really, really cool. And I'm glad you got to do that. But your life, man, like what you've done for yourself and being an entrepreneur and becoming a pro table tennis player and traveling the world and doing all this against all odds is an amazing inspiration, too. And I really appreciate you going through that in full today, you know, kind of how you got there and how, yes, like there are some people like that guy who kind of took you under his wing a little bit and sent you to Germany and then some of the pro players you met that certainly, you know, are credit along the way to you. But a lot of what you did was you finding yourself in situations and having to tell yourself what it was and was kicked out of his left left your house. I guess under wild circumstances It's 16. I mean all the odds were against you and here you are today and and for everyone listening out there and watching You know, I'm sure they feel the same way. I do. That's that's a pretty fucking amazing thing. Appreciate that Listen, man. I I'm really glad he came down here and did this this this is an amazing story that i hope more people will hear through this podcast and and through others but i'm gonna have to come up to the to the new york location yeah that's it you said it's way bigger than philly right way way way

let's go it's gonna be fun bro you gotta come and again if people haven't been to a spin in new york philly boston dc where all these locations are you gotta go it's awesome so looking forward to that but thank you again for coming down and we'll do it again sometime definitely definitely alright everybody else you know what it is give it a thought get back to me peace