The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 111 | Refugee: 'American Wokeism Worse Than North Korea' | Yeonmi Park | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Episode Date: July 24, 2021

Yeonmi Park experienced freedom for the first time at 13, when she watched "Titanic." She didn’t see it in a plush movie theater seat; she watched it over the course of several days because electricity is sporadic in North Korea, where she grew up. "We don’t have a word for oppression," Yeonmi tells Glenn. “There is no hope. There is no moving forward. You are doomed.” Against unbelievable odds, Yeonmi escaped and eventually made it to New York City. Then, she went to Columbia University, where she couldn't believe how American students defined "oppression." She and Glenn discuss the ridiculousness of pronoun checks, the consequences of White House-led censorship, the importance of the Second Amendment, the authoritarianism of Big Tech, and the insanity of corporations’ love affair with China. But even more shockingly, she explains her fear that where her new country is heading could be worse than what she escaped: “Even North Korea wasn’t as crazy as American wokeism.” Sponsor: Built Bar - Staying healthy is tough, especially if you have a sweet tooth. Fortunately, there are Built Bars! They’re made with real chocolate, high in protein, low in calories and carbs, and taste exactly like a candy bar. Go to https://BuiltBar.com and use promo code “BECK15” to save 15% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a place called Peace Village. It's a cardboard city on the North Korean side of the demilitarized zone. It's a facade. It's a lie. Propaganda meant to convince the world that North Korea is a legitimate force to be reckoned with and not some fledgling dictatorship that is slowly starving its own people to death because the actual state never stood a chance to begin with. Today's guest on our podcast knows all about the sophistication and brutality that goes into maintaining this illusion. You are about to hear an incredible story. It is the story of true freedom. It's right there in the midst of the title of her memoir, in order to live a North Korean girl's journey to freedom. North Korean state media has referred to her as a poisonous mushroom and a huge.

human rights propaganda puppet. She has since become part of what she calls the black market generation, young North Koreans that risk their lives to smuggle Western culture into the oppressive regime. It is something that unfortunately not enough Americans know about. The North Korean desire for freedom, anything, any desire is banned. things like freedom of speech, freedom or religion, even freedom of movement are pipe dreams, they're delusions. And when you are confined to absolute oppression, actual oppression, basic humanity seems like an unattainable dream.

For North Koreans, the freedom or the ability to even watch a movie made in the West is unthinkable. The stakes are so high. If North Koreans are caught with media or unregistered devices from South Korea, you can go to 15 years hard labor in a prison camp for that. If the media is from America or Japan, the punishment can be death. Let me say that another way. North Koreans can and have been executed for watching American Idol. It's not an exaggeration. Today's guest had a friend of the family killed for the crime of watching a movie from Hollywood.

I don't care how much you might like Titanic, but your enthusiasm pales in comparison to the liberating enthusiasts of today's guest experienced when she watched a DVD of Titanic that was smuggled into North Korea. At the risk of death, Titanic changed her life. It took her years to escape from freedom and now she lives in America, 27 years old, but she is starting to have nightmares by the familiar authoritarianism that is now no longer even creeping, it is marching in the streets in our own country. Today, I want you to welcome Yonmi Park.

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15% off now at built.com. Yonmi, what a privilege and honor to talk to you. Welcome. I mean, hold on. Thank you so much for having me. I cannot believe I'm actually talking to you. right now. Thank you. So, Yonni, I, I, for people who haven't heard your story yet,

can we start at the beginning? Because I, we must seem so grotesque to you as a society, the way we look at freedom so casually. Tell me what life was like in North Korea growing up. Yeah, I think, so I was born in North Korea at the end of 1993. That was right after, a few years after Soviet Union collapsed. And North Korea is a central government economy. So it's a socialist. There's no private property.

And of course, you know, the regime tells you what to do, what to see, you know. Literally they decide how much individuals should be fed based on your, you know, your song which is a birth class. So even though North Korea began as a communist country, the interesting is that they made a country into the most in a core society by dividing classes. So based on what your grave grandfather did during the revolution or during the Korean War,

that your birth status determined. So there's a big three categories of classes and within three categories, they divided into 50 different classes in socialist North Korea. So before I was born... Is there any way to break out of those classes? I mean, can you advance at all ever as a family? No, because when you great-great-grandfather does something,

which means your blood is tainted. So therefore, in North Korea, this thing called guilt by association. So you, by being associated to that person, you are just guilty. And that's how they prevent people to rise up. And also, I mean, there isn't such a thing called even marrying up. If a women is coming from high class and men is from bottom class, when they marry, women goes down with a man. That's how they prevent mixed with a class. So they really do everything they can to try to not mix them together.

and people stay in their class forever for the rest of their lives. So where does, honestly, where does hope come from when you are a slave to what your great-great-great-grandparent did? Well, there's no hope. There is no forgiveness. There's no mercy. There's no moving forward. You are forever doomed. But the thing is, the country brainwashed the citizens to the point that we don't even know that we are slaves.

to the dictator. We don't even know that we are isolated. No, we don't even have the word for oppression. We do not have a vocabulary for freedom. It's like Georgia verse 1984.

Why do they create this doubles speak, right? Who controls the language can not control their brain, their thinking? So the regime purposefully eliminate this concept. Like even depression,

say, how can you depress? in the socialist paradise. Therefore, people are not allowed to even know what depression is. And that's how we don't even know what I... What did you think the world was like growing up? What did you think the outside world was like? So North Korea still do not know the existence of Internet. They don't even know what Internet is.

And not to mention that, they don't even have 24 hours electricity. And nobody can go to North Korea. Korea and nobody can get out. And therefore, I never even seen the map of the world. I knew Americans. I knew Japanese and Chinese. But that's all about, I think maybe Russia as well, like four countries. And they didn't tell us even that I was Asian.

That was a thing that Kim, they said that I was Kimmer-sung race, the leader's race. And North Korea on calendar doesn't begin when the Jesus Christ was born. It begins when the first Kim was born. And they do not teach us anything before Kim's. And history doesn't exist in North Korea. So what when you... Because I know Titanic played a huge role in getting you out and giving you the desire to see things. So when you saw Titanic, that must have seemed like some sort of...

sort of a fantasy because you didn't know that existed at all. Yeah. It was a, so in North Korea, there's no romantic love. I mean, recently, 2017, North Korea even banned the Mother's Day because he was afraid that people saw their love for the mother going to interfere the love for the party and the deal leader. So they do not allow the normal people love other than the leader and the Communist Party. And therefore, like watching Titanic and seeing a guy dying for a woman, I mean, entire life I was

brainwashed to believe that you got to die for the revolution and the party and the leader. And someone making out of a movie such a shameful story because love is such a shameful thing that we don't even know the world for it. And I think that's when I was, it was like really first time tasting some humanity. How did you get to watch the Titanic? that's a prison sentence. Yeah, I mean, even Mr. Like Kim Jong-un declared war against the Western media. But however, North Koreans are extremely curious about the outside world. So there is a border between China and North Korea and there are smugglers.

So these are blue-leg DVDs. And I think our uncle got the, in back then it was a tape. It wasn't even the DVD. So that's how we got it. But if you get caught or distributed, it can be an execution. So, you know. I mean, I've never watched a movie where I could be executed for it. Was this a regular thing?

Or was this something that you could, so you, it wasn't like watching it fearfully? It was, I mean, you know the. risk. But the thing is, you are so curious. But the thing is, even in North Korea, watching a movie like something like Titanic that is three hours long can take month because we don't have 24 hours electricity. Electricity comes once in a while, especially summertime they come because the dam, the water is full in the dam. Winter time, it never sees the light. So it takes a while to watch a movie. Right, and I heard that you said at one point that when you had a day of electricity, it was like a holiday. It was a big, big deal.

Yeah, it wasn't even a come for like sometimes comes one minute, five minutes. And an hour is a long time to come. But when it comes, the power is so low. You can, like, sometimes very vaguely saline the, like, bird, you know, light burp. Wow. And so, yeah. So, how long did it? take you to watch Titanic. That's three hours.

Exactly. I didn't take a while. I don't know exactly how it long took, but it was like a little segments of something over a period of time. It was like we were sitting and watching an entire movie at one sitting. That's a complete privilege. Yeah. That's unbelievable. Okay. So you watch the movie and you realize that really everything that you think you know is wrong. and... No? Not to that point. No?

Because I was so brainwashed to know even what brainwashing is, right? But it just made me feel really rare, like why there's no political message, why there's no propaganda. And I was wondering maybe somebody died after this movie,

but it wasn't to the point though, you know, what the regime saying is lie or, you know, you don't double think, that you can have two contradicting thoughts at the same time. And North Koreans are the masters at this. Literally, during the day, you sing songs like nothing to envy, because of the great party that we have nothing to envy in this world. That is a literally song that we must sing every single day.

But in reality, you see that the body is on the streets every single day out of starvation. So humans are able to hold. these two contradicting thoughts at the same time. And that's what I think Georgia always talking about the double thing. Right. I just can't imagine what your childhood was like. And we here think that, you know, our founding documents, we hold these truths to be self-evident.

And I used to think that you could go to somebody in North Korea or China and say, the government shouldn't have this kind of control and you should be free, right? And they would say, yes, thank God. But that's not true, is it? It's not self-evident to people who have been raised in a authoritarian regime like that. Yeah, I mean, that is a thing. Like, when we born, a lot of people here, like, they think humans know what freedom is, what human rights is.

I remember going to South Korea for the first time hearing about animals' rights. And I was like, what do you mean animals are rights? You know, I did not know I had the rights as a human being. So, of course, people in North Korea do not even know what human rights is. So these things are, it's a convention. I mean, even founding fathers, it's not like they knew when they were born. And that's why the civilization is important. we are keep evolving, right?

We are, this is the inventions of humanity. It's not something when you came to this earth, we just knew right away. Right. So what is the, after the Titanic, you watch this, you see love between a man and a woman. You had not seen that in your own home with your mom and dad? No.

They never even told us they loved us, because there's no word for love in our school. The romance is a something shameful thing. The only reason people marry and meet the other person is because they want to be royal to the party for the revolution. Individuals exist because we are the revolutionaries. And the worst thing that you can be in North Korea is being individualistic. I mean, in North Korea we cannot even say I. When I say I, I have to say we.

We love red color because the regime says red is a red is. Jim says red is a revolutionary color. You know, we love our country, so there's no word for I in that country. That's how they control our, you know, our minds through the, through words. I don't think most people even comprehend that, that that actually, that kind of stuff actually exists and goes on. All right. So what happens after you, watch the Titanic and you're starting to have these thoughts.

What happens next? Well, I mean, I watched it, and then, but the thing is, you know, the regime makes us starved on purpose. It's a man-made famine. So the regime knows, as North Korea right now from there, if I find something to eat for the breakfast, right?

Then I'm going to worry about what am I going to eat, like, for lunch. If I make it to lunch, I'm going to worry about drinking. Once I make the dinner, I'm going to think, okay, I made one day on earth. How am I going to live tomorrow? How am I going to find food to survive tomorrow? Every single hour is a survivor. And that's, it's a hunger games.

It's a North Korea. I mean, Hong Kong games copy North Korea, basically, there is a CAPTA. They divide districts. In the Hangar games, 13 districts, right? North Korea is more eight districts. And only the people in CAPTA get everything they want. And outside of Kaptar, people are starved on purpose. So people don't think about the meaning of life.

We don't think about, you know, how, what is art, right? What is philosophy? All we thinking about is how am I going to make a next meal? How am I going to make it until tomorrow? So that is, you know, so even after watching that movie, it wasn't a thing in my mind, like, what was that? It just was weird why something like that exists. But I had no time to thinking about those things.

It was just survive. How am I going to find food? And so to get out of North Korea, how did this happen? Where did that idea even come from? Yeah, so there's no internet. I never even seen the map of the world. You never saw a map. No, I didn't even know what the race was.

I told you, I didn't even know that I was Asian. I thought I was Kimmerstam race. So, you know, I had no clue there was like Arab, black, white, you know, Indians, like all this, like, race, I didn't even know that. So, but luckily, I was living in the border town of North Korea. But in a, if you see the satellite photos of North Korea at nighttime, it is literally the darkest place on Earth because they don't have lights at night. So I was able to see lights coming from China and night. And then I was wondering, maybe if I go where the lights were, I might be able to find a world of rice. And that's how I decided to risk my life and cross that frozen river.

So it wasn't a political move. It wasn't, let's get out of here. It's just, where can I find food? Yeah. Maybe the lights were, did you even, so you didn't really understand the country of China or anything. It was just... None. I mean, I didn't even not know what free was. So what freedom is, you know?

How do you escape for freedom when you don't even know what escape is and, like, freedom is? Right. Literally for me was, okay, seems like there's some bright lights coming from China. And if I go where there are, maybe I can find some food. Right, that's... But when you are so desperate, in front of your death, there's nothing you cannot do. We'll do everything. Did you go to school?

I did go one or two few semesters of school as a child, but even though it's a socialist free education that teachers demand you to bring bribes and money and supplies, if you don't, they beat you up. So I was so poor to bring those things. I mean, there's no child rights either. There's no concept of minors. They beat kids.

Human's lives are less valuable than cow. animals in North Korea they literally one of the execution that my mom saw was this young man who had turpicalos like TB who was very mannished so he ate a cow in the farm that collective

farm and then regime executed this young man so you know that's how North Korea so when you you say your your parents never said I love you you never I mean it's so foreign to me it seems like

that is something that you just feel, that you would fall in love with somebody, you would feel something different, and you would feel that to your parents. So when a child dies in a family, is it the same as it is here? I don't mean to be insulting. I've just never even heard of anything like this.

Well, I mean, that's a thing. If the child dies, if it's a boy, I'm sure father's will to cry. But if it's a girl, a girl's life a lot less valuable than boys. So they don't really cry. And it's not like also the love. I don't know how to describe the feelings you fear, but it is definitely some types of love.

But we just don't know how to express it. And it's not like cold, but I do not feel emotional. But then we are not just allowed to name the feeling that we fear. And that's how regime makes us keep ignorant. You feel maybe it's just you that feels this way. It must make you feel very different and awkward if nobody's talking about those feelings, being natural. No. And nobody thinks that something should be talked about even.

Gosh. Okay. So you go to look for food. And does your mother go with you or, or you? Yeah. Okay, so the two of you go to look for food. So in 2007, I was, I was 13 years old. I had an older sister who was 16 years old.

We were going to escape together, but she, I got really, really sick. And my sister went with her friend instead. However, she left me a note and then told me, where do I go find a person to help me to go to China. So when I found a note, I asked my mom to come with me. And then when I met the lady, she said, okay, oh, of course I can help you to go to China. And that's when I told my mom, can you come with me? And the same day, this lady was helping us to go to China, but I didn't even ask why she was helping me. You were so desperate. It doesn't matter why they are helping you, you know? If you stay there, you're dying anyway, right?

Why does that even matter? And she was not a good person. It's hard to say. So, yeah, basically, she was a human trafficker. She sold me to Chinese people. But the thing is, that life is that things are not that simple. If she didn't sell me, I would be dead since 2007. Because she sold me that I'm here today and alive.

And you were sold, and your life is, I mean, there's, it's, it's, it's, conflicting stories, even the death of your father. So I don't know what's right and what's not. But I have read that you were a slave, sold into slavery, if you will. Was

it sex slavery? Because I've read someplace that you were selling for $260 and your mother was sold for $65. It was that a sex slavery thing or was it just slavery? It was a, so

So China had one-child policy under the Communist Party. And during the one-child policy, they killed a lot of girls, aborted girls. And then most of them kept the boys, especially in the countryside. Therefore, right now, there are more than 30 million Chinese men who is eligible for marriage cannot find women. So this is where human trafficking happens when North Koreans go across that border into China. Chinese authority catch us and sends back to North Korea to get killed. So then we are so vulnerable, you got to hide from the Chinese authority.

Then who's going to hide us? That's human traffickers comes in. So as soon as crossing the frozen river with my mom, the first thing, this guy is saying, I will not have a sex with you. And I'm 13. I never even seen, I never even knew what sex was. There's no sex education in North Korea. I never even seen people.

kissing on TV. So, and then my mother offered herself, but afterwards they told us that if we want to live in China, we have to be sold as a sex slaves. And they sold my mom away from me for, I think it's over $65. And they sold me for less than $300 because I was virgin and that's somehow expensive in China. And that's how I got separated from everyone that I knew. So how long did that last? It took several months, and I was bought by another human trafficker. So in China, there's a lot of human trafficker ring, as a gang, almost ring, mafia ring. So one human trafficker says, we make a margin, send me to another human trafficker. And that trafficker was a Han Chinese who bought me. I was going to kill myself. And then he said, if I become his mistress,

he was going to help me to bring my family to me. So I did become his mistress at 13. And he brought my mom back from a farmer that he sold. And he brought my sick father from North Korea. And that's how I saw my parents again. So how do you feel about him? I mean, because he was helping you, but he was also using you. That's a thing.

I forgive him a long time ago. There is, in a lot of times I'm grateful because without him, I would not have saved my parents. So, you know, it's always that I know at this point is that, you know, through my journey, most of the things I learned, like, what, it really means to be a human being. Nobody is pure evil, right? Nobody is pure evil. Even this guy who was so heartless raping 13 years old, still has somehow heart helping me to

get my family. So, you know, that's the thing that's why all I can be is grateful. I cannot hate that lady who sold me in the child. Chinese because if she didn't sell me, I would not be here today. You are stuck with this guy and you meet Christian missionaries? Yeah. After almost two years in China, I met through a non-unercent factor of missionaries. And she told me, this missionaries would help us to go to South Korea and be free. And that's when the first time I heard free.

And I remember I was asking her, I was 15 years old at the time. I was like, what do you mean? Like, I'm going to be free in South Korea. And for us, that freedom meant was wearing jeans, watching TVs, and nobody going to arrest you for that. I did not think freedom meant freedom of speech or like all this thing. Freedom meant watching TV and wear jeans. And to wear jeans. Yeah.

Because in North Carolina you get punished for that. You do not have freedom to even what kind of haircut you got. It was a joke for Westerners, but that's how little freedom North Koreans have. We don't even have a freedom to have a haircut that we want to. When every single clothes, the song that you listen to, how you dance, why you watch, why you read, what you say, where you go, where you live, every single thing decided by the vision for us. And you, you didn't have internet, you didn't read, really, you didn't understand freedom of speech at all.

Were there, when you have the classes, did you know that all of that or some of that stuff existed in Capitol City? Did you, or were you so separated from any kind of knowledge that you didn't know life was different, even in your own country? I had also, my father was a, did while he was a party member when I was younger until he was sent. So when he was in the party member, because he was engaging in the black market trading. And in North Korea, black market means selling rice, dried fish, sugar, and clocks. Because in socialist system, you cannot trade, right?

government controls the means of production and who gets what. But the thing is, after the 90s, after Soviet Union collapsed, the regime is not decided not to feed the people, not to give us public rations. But then, instead, they start still batting the trading. So all we all left was dying. That's why in the 90s, more than 3 million North Koreans died from starvation when I was a child. And that's why if North Koreans were forced to engage in the black market, and I think that's why you're saying that I was a black market generation,

that regime just decided not to feed us. And the only thing could feed us was through the black market, through trading. And that's how he was forced to join the market. And that he got caught because he was selling copper later, silver, like NICARE. And then there's an in prison camp. And that's how my blood was tainted. I was a prisoner's daughter. And yeah, our life became miserable.

Wow. Okay. So the missionaries, and I don't think people understand that there are these Christian, almost underground railroads that are happening in North Korea. And they're heroic people, heroic people. What is the risk for them? And what, how does that? they get you, how did they get you out of North Korea and China? So there are many, many, many pastors,

missionaries got stopped by North Korean agents in China, got murdered, got life sentenced into Chinese prison camps for helping North Korean defectors. So there's many nameless people who have done that. These are hidden heroes. So one of these missionaries helped us was helping, putting us in a charter and taught us Bible. Several months of Bible studying, they told us they could not literally going into desert with us, right? Only way for us to go to South Korea was getting out of China, but then we don't have ID or passport to get out of China and cross the border, which means then we had to walk across a frozen Gobi desert from China to Mongolia. Most likely you might not make it. The chance of making is like 1 or 2%.

One or two percent. Yeah. And it was also minus 40 degrees in 2009 in February. So if you don't move in that desert for even 10 seconds, you're going to frozen to death. If the guards doesn't shoot you, your next chance of getting killed is also being frozen there. And all there are wire fences with electrified, like wire fences, you get electrified. And that's why now nobody really crossing the Gobi Desert anymore. I think you were the one of the last few people tried that path escape.

So they set you out with food and a map? No, I mean, everything gets frozen, right? I mean, everything gets frozen in that. So we didn't even have much gear. We didn't even have clubs or scarves. We just had some light jackets. In 40 below temperatures? Yeah.

It was cold. I remember I've never been called like that in my life. But they gave us a compass and then say go north and west direction. Between the north and west direction, follow this path. And if you cross eight wire fences, that should be Mongolia. And then we cross, I think, in my memory, over like 16 wire fences. Some people remember 12 wire fences

depending on how we thought about. But eventually we got into Mongolia. We got caught by Mongolian soldiers and they helped us to go to South Korea. So they were friendly. They helped you. The Mongolian soldiers weren't. So they, when we got caught by them,

they were trying to send us back to China. So Chinese would send us back to North Korea to be executed. So, we have brought these like poisons and lasers with us because going back north korea get torture and executed is a way painful process and it's killing yourself right there so we all right to die when that happens so when this mongolian soldier were trying to send us back we all got out the like laser and poisons and then that's they was like okay we cannot let all these eight people

die and they they decided to reach out of south korean embassy instead of the chinese one God was with you. All right. Yeah. So you get to South Korea. Take me now how you got to America. Yeah. So I was in South Korea for five years.

I was catching up with education. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I've heard you say this before, that you were catching up with education. But that's not the same as, you know, we would think, oh, well, you had some elementary school and now you're just catching up. You knew nothing of the world. So how did you get in five years caught up? What was that like?

It was. So when I got there and I was like 17 years old, South Korean age, which means kids are in high schools, right? And then they did a placement test on me. And they were like, you need to go to school with a six, seven years old. because I never even knew what the plus or addition or in a division or never even seen the map of the world. I don't even know what continents are, not even mentioned the countries. So, and of course I was not going to go to elementary school. So I took GED.

I crammed up from, you know, elementary meter and high school education 12 years into one year. And I told myself. And I took GED. I got a high school diploma, and then after I arrived in South Korea, one year after, I went to university. That, I mean, that is remarkable in and of itself. You come to America. Well, before I get there, tell me what the experience. I mean, I remember when I was, I'm a self-educated man, and at 30, I really realized I was a dope and I didn't know anything.

And so I really went and applied myself. And it was such a great period of my life of seeking answers, you know, not just going through life and having to go to school, but actually wanting to know. And the things that I learned at that time period, it was a really special time in my life. I got to imagine it was the same for you. What were the things that you learned that you sat back and just thought, this is incredible? Yeah, I think that was a thing. So after going through all of that, arriving in South Korea, they were saying, oh, you know what, that Americans are not bastards.

And South Korea is free and they are not colonized by America. And Korean War started by Kim or so, not Americans. And by the way, Kim's were not gods, they were like dictators. So everything that you believed was a lie. And for me, it's like, so if everything that I believed was a lie, how do I know that what you're telling me is not lie? That I did not know how to trust again. It was, it was like, I don't know what you're telling me is a lie or not, right?

But what helped me was when I was reading this book called Animal Farm. Called what? That was Animal Farm. Okay. Oh, Animal Farm, but George Orwell. Okay, yes. That book really explained to me what happened to my country. I could see in that young little animals comes up later, right?

They have even no clue what the life looked like before the revolution. Right, that's like those little young animals comes in. They don't even know the time before that everything happened. And the people, because they were scared, and the price of silence is that what we get. And I was thinking, my grandma knew. She lived before Kim's, and she knew before Kim Communist Party came in. I had no clue. And I think that's when I realized, oh, this is what happened to my country.

And that's also when I was really thinking I had to speak back. Okay. So when you come to the United States, you know, there's a TV series called John Adams, about one of the founding fathers of America. and he is over in France. Have you watched that? I have watched the first four of them. Okay. So have you gotten to the part where he is in France?

I'm not sure. Okay. Well, watch it. It's an amazing thing. He's sitting over there and they are just a decadent society. And America has nothing and they're struggling for freedom. And they're all painted up like they used to be in. France and they you know it's the kings and all of the wealth and I saw that and I thought I think

that's the way at some point we are going to be perceived as we have all this wealth and we're just squandering our time and we don't really appreciate what we have but more importantly we don't even understand what freedom really is because we've had it for so long. Yeah. That must have been your experience when you saw America and you started to see how we are treating our own freedom. What was that like?

It broke my heart. So after five years in South Korea, I came to America to write my book. And then I was attending Columbia University in New York. And this is when I was actually started to fear what's going on. Right? At Columbia, it was almost like North Korea in some sense. I mean, even North Korea wasn't that crazy compared to America's walkism. It's a...

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold it just said it. Even North Korea was not as crazy as American wokeism. Is that what you just said? Yeah. Because, I mean, the punishment, of course, in North Korea is going to be three generations execution. But the thing is, I mean, in Colombia, they teach you sensitivity training, right? It's mandatory.

How can you be, how you should be so sensitive to every oppression, every injustice that you see. And then, of course, in North Korea, we don't have 90 different pronouns, right? Like instead of, like, before all every lecture, especially thinking about this big, like, like over 100 students at there, and they serve a class. Everybody said before their name major, they go talk about their pronouns. And then some of them are gender fluids, so they might feel like a boy in the morning and go like afternoon. How do they supposed to know that? So instead of me trying to understand who they are as a person, as a character, and their contents,

I am obsessed memories in their pronouns, so I don't look like a bigot. I mean, what a waste of time? What a waste of energy? And then of course, when you go there, like the old talk is that there's no place for hate speech here. But like how do you define hate speech? And these people are obsessed with feelings. They're like, I feel like I'm oppressed. It's not different. It's different like being actually oppressed and you feel like oppressed.

People in North Korea don't know even they're oppressed. That's actually what oppression looks like. I mean, the fact that you know you're oppressed, that is not right. You don't even know the definition of oppression. So did you express any of this when you were first sitting in class at Columbia University in America? What was the first thing that jumped out at you and you thought, oh my gosh, I've seen this before? So it was like that. I remember at this orientation before living classes, at the students' mandatory orientation.

before your courses begin. And the first person comes in, and then she was asking, oh, who, you know, this, like oppression, this infiltration of this hatred is everywhere. Embedding our constitution, embedded in every system they receive. But, for example, who likes to read Jane Austen? And me is like, I love reading, and in North Korea, there's even no love stories. I love to read things that was before Kim's, right? And I was like, yeah, me, I love Jane Austen.

And she was almost saying, oh, this is a kind of example that you don't notice. She was saying Jane Austen had a colonial mindset. She would benefit from colonialism. And she believed in white supremacy and racism. Therefore, by reading her work, you are subconsciously becoming racist. And you're being brainwashed by her. And this is how you need to watch out and be sensitive to every single thing that might, you know, has an injustice.

And that's when North Korea and regime always says, you don't know how many layers of enemy infiltration in our country. And that was, like, my first orientation. Did you say anything? No, because everybody was looking at me. And then a few times I tried to speak about, I remember in this class, like Western Civilization Music. And before even the class starts, the professor asking you're pronounced blood, and then they were saying,

who has a problem studying Western Civilization music? And everybody raised their hands. The reason is why they have a problem with studying Western Civilization music is that because white men who silenced and killed all minority groups. Because of their aggression now, we have to study these bigots who are like Mozart and Beethoven. And it's a shame that we are not studying. some guy from China or like somewhere in Africa. And I was saying like

I mean as a Korean we would not say studying somebody Korean musician, right? I mean, after all, this is the West. And after all, they did so much for the humanity and advancement of music. And they were like, oh, you are brainwashed to think it's okay to study

Western men's achievement. What is what is going through your mind when you're sitting in there, what was, what were you thinking? It was scary to see that group think again. It was, wait, wait, wait, wait, I want to make sure I understood you. It was scary to sit and see that group think again. Because it's, in that scenario, right, like, you,

majority can be very stupid. We know that. And especially when people do this thing, group think. As a group collectively, we're going to process this information. They are usually tend to be not creative, and they do make a lot of biases. So at Columbia, everybody is echoing with each other, right? It's like echo chamber. And if the people like me who were thinking differently, we are just too afraid.

Because we are paying so much money to go to this school. if we cannot afford not to pass a class or graduate. And all might even expel from the school because they are saying how you say, what you say, how you look, whatever you do can cause someone's uncomfortableness, it can be a reason for the university to expel you. So now it seems like everything can be offensive. It's like you are walking on this like ice, you know, like a little shit,

Like, you don't know when it's a break. It's like every single thing can offensive, and all it matters for them is how you fear. And I was like, why Americans are so obsessed with your feelings? It's all about how I feel like, I feel like I'm a slave, I feel like I'm oppressed, then it must be something wrong with the system. That's how they go for, right?

It's their interpretation is so simple. So the reason why I said, good for you earlier, when you talked about how the woman, who smuggled you into China and you said, I'm grateful for her and I don't think she's necessarily bad because, and it wasn't a bad thing, because I'm here now.

I got out. And that was a lesson I learned from my father early on. He taught me, he said, there is no, there is no bad. There's no bad things that happen to you. it's how you how you define it and what you use it for you know what you learn from it and what you use it for and i i think when you have been trying to figure out what is wrong with my fellow countrymen and i think the biggest thing that we have lost is gratitude we have we are not

seemingly grateful for anything. Everything is a problem. Everything is holding you back. Everything is an excuse. And when you lose that, nothing is worth anything. No. I think that's the thing. It's like seeing that America's attack of meritocracy,

like what have the Western civilization that was merits, competition, that the ideas compete, made people to overcome their challenges and their limits. And humans can overcome so much. I mean, look at the sports players, right, what humans can do. And now the fact, like, Asian study hard is a sign of white supremacy, sign of privilege. And the fact that you are really wanting to do work well is it's almost oppression for them.

And that's like in North Korea, like you, you, But how much you want to work hard? It doesn't matter because there's no incentive. Like it's just what kind of family and bloodline did you born with? And here in America, it's like the same thing. Like, what the heck is white privilege? What the heck is like white guilt? Nobody today was born under any slaves.

And it's exactly the same thing. Like, I was not participating during the Korean War. I don't even know what the time looked like. It was my decision that I did. did not fight in the right side of the war. But you are forever doomed, forever punished. This is the thing that really strikes me as so important to your story. The idea that not only if you commit a crime, does your whole family pay for it in North Korea,

but your great-great-grandfather committed a crime and forever, there is. is no forgiveness. And that is the world we are headed towards right now. Tell me what, explain to people who are on that bandwagon why that is a bad idea. It's not just a bad idea. That's not just. Nobody, I mean, when we are born, we are like a very independent individuals. We're not a lineage of something, anything, right?

And it's not justice. That's not right. That's not fair. And it's like they're saying, blaming these white people for slavery. It's the same thing we are blaming these little young kids were born in Japan for Pearl Harbor. Who does that?

Nobody is responsible for that crime at this point. And in America, I see this punishment and never letting ever go. Right, even though this country there's so much to fix it and evolve and making things better. And it proved to us that this country is so flexible that wants to fix things and making things better.

But no, no, no. What they want is because this country has done things bad, therefore only way to almost do that is tearing down this country, tearing down the U.S. Constitution. That's like what every single class talking about, Colombia. That is the only way we are going to actually bring real justice This is the only way we can do that is by tearing down everything that this country has built.

You are, when you are looking at people and you say, well, this is, you know, they're part good. They're, you know, they're not all bad. They're not all bad. Even though they did bad things, the guy who was having sex with you at 13, yet he saved your family. there is this thing in in people whether they are actively engaging in what I would call evil acts unknowingly or if they just didn't know any better it's you can't judge the person just for justice you have to look at the entire person and we are throwing out the the the majority of what the has done because we made mistakes.

Well, everybody makes mistakes, and you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Exactly. I completely agree with that. It's like whenever I look at this man, right, he was also a gang member as a child. He's coming from a very poor family in the countryside. He didn't even have elementary school education. All he saw was violence. He never learned how to treat people.

better. And he never even learned how the world works. And if he wasn't born in that Chinese common country, oppressive country, he was born in somewhere like nice in European country or America, he might become a completely different person. His environment was so harsh and different. And that's a thing even though America has a very, very dark history at some part, is that the judging it from our current perspective is not the way to look at problems. And right, in these people in America, there's no mercy if you make a mistake, if you make a stupid to you like 10 years ago, they might can bring that back to you and then cancer you. And that's what communists do.

There's no forgiveness. There's no moving forward. They are going to forever, forever, like, punish you for that. and you can never make it up. Let me ask you a couple of questions here. And just to get your point of view, when you see the push now to silence voices and to the White House calls it flagging for misinformation,

but you can be banned from all platforms is what they're pushing for. What does that say to you? So this is why speech is so important. The unique thing about humans, right, that is I think Jordan Peterson talk about in this book that humans, why do we go to therapy? Because we think by talking. So when you make people stop talking, means you're going to make them stop thinking. If the population stop things, it's a lot easier for the authoritarian to rule the country and control the population.

That is why whenever there's authoritarian wises, the first thing they go after is freedom of speech. Because that's how you control people's minds. That's how important it is for us to keep talking. That's how we only pursue and think and find truth. And this country now, it's almost like I think, you know, fish is in the water, never know that they're in the water because they were just born with it. And for Americans, the same thing, they're born with the freedom. So they don't even know what life would be like without freedom because they never experienced it. So they are like so naively because I think majority people are good.

Not the extreme on the left, not the extreme on the right, those few really bad people. I think majority people have good intentions. And these people now is like, oh, because we don't want Nazi to speak. We don't want the racist to speak. So I don't mind giving up a little of my liberty and then silence those people. people and let government decide who is racist. But where is the guarantee that that government is not going to corrupt? Because nothing is harmful to individuals than the government.

No, but even this pandemic didn't kill as much as, I mean, Stalin or Mao killed human beings. The government is the most dangerous thing to humanity. And the fact that we are going to give this, like, I mean, that is the thing people don't understand that is the price of freedom, that we have to listen to some people that we don't like. But the thing is, there's difference between action and speech. This is mere talking ideas, and the people here have no resilience. What is this thing called triggered, right? All about safe space.

If you hear something that you don't like, these people are like popping in tears, and they break down. And this is so, so sad. What happened to these people? Well, I do know. Education. Bad education. When you said when you lose the freedom of speech, you lose everything else, can I just go through just a couple of amendments that we are constantly violating now in our constitution?

The first one is freedom of the press, which includes. the freedom to question your own country and say, what are you doing? We have a right to petition our own government. We have a right to gather on the streets and freedom of association without fear of the government. And the freedom to not just speak out, but the freedom of the press to question the government and even get it wrong sometimes. but they have a right to do that. Those are all things that you never grew up with. Never even heard of.

Never even heard of. Tell me about your thoughts on the Second Amendment, which is the right to keep and bear arms. How would that have changed things for you? Well, I talked about it on my YouTube channel. Of course, that video got flagged. So last time, a few years of the years of, ago in Hong Kong, we all know that when the Chinese Communist Party taking over Hong Kong,

75% of Hong Kongers went on the street and demanded freedom and independence from the central government. But Chinese regime still took it over. Nobody without even taking the tanks because nobody in Hong Kong had guns. Imagine those 75% of people had guns. Chinese government could not take them over like that. And right now, under Kim Jong-un, if the people, not even like 100% of the population, just even 40 or even 20, 30% of the population had the guns in their hand. The regime cannot do that to the people. And of course, you can say, like, yeah, yeah, then the government has a nuclear bomb.

They can bomb you guys. But the thing is, the regime is going to kill your oil population, but then who are going to rule over? Nobody. That is unthinkable. And the thing is, even if, say, government is going to get rid of 80% of the population and the 20% lives. But that 20% is so the bloodshed of 80% of their population not going to be slave to the regime. They're going to fight till their death.

So it's impossible for enslaving people like that, like North Korea, if the population owns the right to guard themselves and defend themselves from the government. And the thing is like it's about like even capitalism and, you know, a defense is that even money itself isn't bad. It can cure diseases. It can feed a hungry child. Now there's so much attack on capitalism. And the thing is nothing lifted human beings from poverty more than capitalism did. And poverty sucks. It kills people.

It really nothing is worse than poverty. And people in America almost they think this in. equality is the same thing as poverty. They are so hating inequality that, therefore, they want to get rid of everywhere and let's be poor. All their people like North Koreans together collectively. Well, people here in America think that they are poor. I mean, the poorest people in America are better off than some countries where you're rich.

I would imagine that even the poorest among us here are far better off than those except for the very elite. North Korea. Even very elite is not going to have 24 hours electricity, so you guys are way better off. I've been to a homeless shelter. I've been working at the homeless shelter and feeding them, cleaning their bed. At the homeland shelter, they had this fridge, filled with a soda that was working 24 hours, four hours. They had heating. In North Korea, even elites in Pyongyang don't have heating. So that's a thing like, inequality does not mean poverty. And of course, any cause

exists. Look at North Korea. There's one guy is a god and 25 million people are slaves. So do we want that instead? People here will say, well, that's just that's just, that's just communism gone awry and that's not what we're looking for.

We just are going to do it right this time. How do you respond to that? People have tried every single time it failed. And whenever government decides the means of production, because I mean, people as a person being, I don't even know what I want all the time. How do you think government can know what is best for every individual?

That is impossible. That's not even rational, right? So the fact that you believe somehow government is going to have the best interest for you as an individual, that's impossibility. And that's why they make mistake. And these people have no real education. They don't know what it has done to humans whenever we pursue the paradise. whenever you pursue this

power that's perfection where nobody suffers, everything is equal, everything is the same, it brought us help. When you hear people here in America talk about China and make excuses for it to say that, you know,

our own capitalist here say that China is the model for the future, for the West. And the fact that we are buying, and embed with the Communist Party, and we are using and accepting the use of slavery to make our products cheaper.

What do you say about that? This is a complete hypocrisy of America's mainstream corporation and Hollywood and media. It's sickening. Do you know that why North Korea exists? I mean, the United Nations, in 2014, with their COI report, called what is happening to the North Korean people right now.

The only resemblance that we can find in the human history is a Holocaust. So UN said Holocaust is happening again. And here in America, we are denying again. Why are we denying again? Because North Korea is funded, sponsored by Chinese Communist Party. Michelle Obama has no problem for the standing up for the girls who were captured by Boko Haram and ISIS. Every Hollywood celebrity no problem standing up for all these causes, but nobody wants to

standing up for the North Korean girls who are being raped and sold in China. Right now, slavery is happening, and these people have no problem talking about the slavery that happened in this country hundreds of years ago, but they do not want to talk about that slavery is happening, why not on their communist Chinese party? Right now, there are almost like 300,000 North Korean girls in China are being sold and killed and raped every single day. Not even one single corporation standing up for that. Why did they talk about slave? I mean, look at LeBron James. Look at Jonson, all these people bowing to Chinese Communist Party. And this is why it scares that there's no motor. The

chaos in modernity is no value. And they sold their souls to Chinese Communist Party. And it's an invisible world that we are in with Chinese Communist Party. And I don't think people know how serious this thing is. When you look at what we have here far as tech, you must, it must the Internet and everything must be almost miraculous to you. I mean, 12 years ago, you were being raped every night by a man. and really didn't know about all this technology. Now that we have it and you see it, the way it's being used by Silicon Valley in China

and the way we are beginning to use it, is it a blessing or a curse what's coming our way? I think it's like that. Tech itself is a very neutral thing. As long as we use in the right way, it can help us immense than it has when it comes to medicine, education, right? It's like exactly like that.

Like the gun. There are good people who can use it to care enemies, bad people, and bad people use it to kill good people. What's concerned with Chinese technology, with especially facial recognition, to know who is committing crime, and they give social credit scores. So if your social credit was low,

that you cannot even buy a bus ticket to go see your parents. That's what Chinese regime does right now. And I thought that was only happening under the authoritarian Communist Party in China. But it seems like happening in America. Right now, I mean, U.S. government was recently here that they decided what is fact and not. And I'm going to let Facebook know. So Facebook knows which one to blog and which one is not. So they are basically working for the government.

And this is the thing is I'm not anarchist. I think we need the government to break down this tech monopoly. right? Like this is not some like a small individual company does something and it's not like some cake shop who wants to follow their religious like belief. That is okay but when it comes scale of Google, Facebook, Twitter, this is the biggest monopolies in the world. And if they set the narrative and tell us what is true and not, then I will really free now. So I do think we are, it's unbelievable how fast, fast, this erosion

of Americans' freedom is going away. I could talk to you all day long, and I know I've taken up too much of your time already, but let me just ask you two more questions. The role of God and faith, you had no hope. Your God was the Kim

family. Yeah. How important is that for a free people to have a God that is a God of love and harmony and peace? I think that, I mean, after North Korea, right? And I was so hated that something is not veryifiable. What scared me about North Korean regime is that when it's your being got, you don't have to be logical. You don't have to bring evidence to show you to believe because now Kim says I'm a god. So therefore if you suffer you can die from me and I don't even have to explain

it to you because it's a faith. That's a different thing. So I do not deny that. There are some religions are bad, very harmful and there's a lot of extremists. We know that and that's why I cannot fully support any kind of faith. But the thing is, when, I mean, we don't even hardly do you understand about science, right? The things are, that's what humbly, the humility is what's lacking in here in America. When you go like talking to social just warriors on campus,

they know every single truth, they know every single fact, they know how to solve the world. And they do not understand the complexity and the difficulty knowing how things actually working. And that a little of humility would really work and they calm them down a little bit. But to me, as I'm getting more, that I became a mom last few years ago

and I do send my son to church. It's for me more like that. It's important to hear what is good and what is bad. Because current society now is almost like, yeah, if you identify yourself as a unicorn, it's okay. Go, be a unicorn. Be a BVibab vampire, right? There's people not even identifying themselves,

not just a different gender, even different animals, and different race. It's like one, this British guy saying, now I identify myself as a Korean, right? There's a complete moral chaos. And I think this is like what's scary thing about without God is when you don't have a God, people is willing to believe in anything, that anything is scary, isn't it?

You sound like Nietzsche. Why did you come here? Why did you come to the West? You could have lived anywhere. And, you know, speaking Korean, it would have been easy for you just to stay in South. Korea? Well, there are few reasons. South Korea, I'm on the target list of Kim Jong-un.

I mean, Kim Jong-un assassins is a half-brothered in Malaysia a few years ago. Kim Jong-un do not allow people to challenge him even after this game. So I've been warned by intelligence that I'm on the killing list, so I don't know when I'm going to be poisoned or killed. And geographically getting away from Kim Jong-un was a good idea. But not only that, why did I not go to UK or other European countries? and came to America is that because it's simply this is the greatest country in human history. Like how can we deny that?

Despite all the problems this country had and has, still this is the best human experience we've ever ever done. And I believe in the possibility of this country and I applied to become a citizen this year. And if the country of grants to me, I will fight for this country. like I'm fighting for North Korean people. How worried are you that we're on the wrong path? Pretty worried. Pretty worried. Last summer in Chicago, I was robbed by these three black young women.

And bystanders on the street, like these white people on the Michigan Avenue, were calling me a racist. While I'm being beaten by these three black, it was during the ruling during the BILM protest. And that was the first time. I was judged by my skin color in my life. I lived in China, Mongolia, South Korea in many countries. First time I would discriminate for my skin color was in America. Now almost like nothing a color became a discrimination. This country is regressing, right?

We know that. It's destroying that everything that civil, even movement has built. What Martin Luther King Jr. fought for, they are destroying that terror part. we cannot lose hope you are you are you I think you give a lot of people hope you are a remarkable individual the accomplishments that you have achieved the education I mean you haven't hesitated on anything that I have thrown your way and to think 15 years ago you knew nothing You are truly a remarkable human being, and it's an honor to talk to you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.