#196 – Yeonmi Park: North Korea

The following is a conversation with Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector, human rights activist, and author of the book, In Order to Live. Quick mention of our sponsors, Belcampo, Gala Games, BetterHelp, and Aidsleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. Let me say a few words about North Korea. From 1994 to 98, North Korea went through a famine, mass starvation.

caused primarily by King Jong-il, who at the time was the new leader of North Korea after his father's death in 1994. Somewhere between 600,000 and 3 million people died. due to starvation. From all the stories of famine in history, including my own family history, I've come to understand that hunger tortures the human mind in a way that can break everything we stand for.

In North Korea, during the 90s famine, many were driven to cannibalism. Imagine more than 10 million people suffering starvation for months and years, always on the brink of death. We don't know the exact numbers of people who died because the suffering was done in silence, in darkness. Very little information in or out. Most people had to survive without electricity, without clean water.

medical supplies, sanitation, and food. The North Korean propaganda machine called this the arduous march, or the march of suffering. And words such as famine and hunger were banned because they implied government failure. And once again, now, in 2021, Kim Jong-un, the current leader of North Korea, is calling for his country to prepare for another arduous march, or march of suffering.

Another period of mass starvation as the country closes its borders. Looking at atrocities of the past decades and the encroaching atrocity there now, I think about the quiet suffering of millions of North Koreans. I think about the torture of the human spirit. I think about a North Korean child who could be a scientist, an artist, a writer, but who instead grows impossibly thin without food.

their bodies slowly rotting away as their parents watch helplessly. I got emotional in this conversation with you and me, in part because I remembered my grandmother, who survived Haldamor. the famine in Ukraine, intentionally created by Stalin, where 4 to 10 million people died and many, many more suffered. Imagine knowing that if you don't engage in cannibalism, you will die before your children did.

and then they will be eaten. Imagine, because of this, deciding to murder and eat your own children, as many people did. Imagine the kind of desperation, torture, that leads up to a decision like that. I'm not smart enough to know what evil is, know where to draw the line between good and evil. But Stalin, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un, our men...

who in the name of power are willing to make millions of people, of children, suffer and die from starvation. I rarely have hate in my heart, but I hate these men. I hate that such men exist in this world. I hate that the beauty I love about this life exists amidst such unimaginable cruelty. I have been haunted by this conversation, by memories of my grandmother's pain.

but I've also been warmed by memories of her love. Love gives me hope. Hope for the perseverance of the human spirit, even in the face of evil. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now. No ads in the middle. I think those get in the way of the conversation. If you skip the ads, please still support the sponsors. Check them out. It really is the best way to support this podcast. And they're pretty awesome.

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If you want to know my opinion, it can track a bunch of metrics like heart rate variability, but cooling alone is worth the money. Go to eightsleep.com slash Lex to get special savings. That's eightsleep.com slash Lex. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast, and here is my conversation with you on me, Park. Can you tell your story from North Korea to today as you describe in your 2015 book and with the extra perspective on life, love, and freedom you've gained since then? Wow, that's a long story.

So I was born in the northern part of North Korea initially. And my father was a party member. And my mom was housewife. I had one older sister. And I remember born in that country. I never thought I was in an unusual country. Now I'm thinking about it. It's literally called the Hermit Kingdom. But I thought I believed that I was living in the best country on earth.

It was a socialist paradise, and everybody in the rest of the world worshipped my dear leader. And there was nothing to envy for me. So I had this enormous pride in my heart. And grateful to be in that country. So it was love for the leader, not fear? For me, at least, it was love. Yeah. It was admiration and gratitude.

It changed lately, but for me it was pure, pure like love. Was there any, like looking back with the perspective you have now, would you describe some of those moments growing up? as full of happiness? Or was that delusion at the time? So not knowing the alternative, will you still be able to be happy? The fact that I did not know. Like in North Korea, this is the only country in this 21st century has no internet. And they don't even know the existence of internet.

Not only that, we don't even have this 24-hour electricity. So not knowing definitely helped, I think, to be sane. So as a human being, you're still able to find moments of happiness. I think my happiness was from family, nothing else. Even though they keep telling me that they were our source of meaning and happiness. I don't think I ever got happy by that. Maybe they're here and there in schools and like when I was learning propaganda.

Like, you know, the proud feeling, right? I'm in the greatest nation. Here and there, but like actually true happiness came from laughing with my family and my friends. Are there any childhood memories? Pleasant or painful ones? that stand out to you now? I mean, like, you know, whenever I think about my North Korea, the interesting is there's no color. I mean, one is because North Korean country has no color, right? Most of things are unpaved and trees all cut down.

we have no fear so people cut down trees to make food so but only that like even what we are wearing was like no color so it's um interesting memory to look back what about fashion i've noticed from sort of uh you now you're you're you have quite an incredible sense of fashion so Contrast that with your time in North Korea. How do you remember fashion? Or ways that people could express themselves visually. Was it all bland?

There was no word for fashion in North Korea. We didn't even know. It was not in our dictionary. So, of course, I did not know what Victoria's secret models were. I didn't even know what models were. So when I came out, I learned more that it was a job. And like, what is that? And I'm still confused. So there's so many jobs that we have here that don't exist in North Korea.

What was life like in North Korea as compared to the rest of the world? So maybe you said there's no internet, 24-hour electricity is a luxury you do not have. What about food? What about water? What about basic human rights? I think that's the thing when people were asking me, can you tell me about life in North Korea? And in the past, I was like, I cannot describe it to you.

And initially I thought, oh, because of my English that I cannot find words. It's not that it's a different planet. The common sense that we have doesn't exist there. Like people literally do not. know the concept of romantic love or human rights or liberty. So when I'm thinking back to my country, it's as you cannot imagine your life on Mars right now.

It's like that kind of difference. I grew up, never seen the map of the world. I never knew that I was Asian. Like the regime told me that I was Kim Il-sung, the first Kim race. And then our calendar doesn't begin when Jesus Christ was born. Our calendar begins when Kim was born. So we, and history was forgotten to us. They didn't tell us about, of course, Christianity or like the Big Bang.

Our history began when Kim was born. So everything was forgotten to us. And it was a different meaning, I mean, feeling of existence. You know, it's not even like the same life. I literally think that was almost like my past life. And this is like a new life that I began. You're almost like a different human being now. Absolutely. Yeah. So you've... I have to say I often say that my favorite book is Animal Farm by George Orwell.

I've read it, I don't know how many times. And so I was really happy to hear that that was of the many books, excellent books that we'll hopefully talk about. You've mentioned that Animal Farm had a big impact on you. It was the book that kind of led to a kind of awakening for you. Maybe can you describe what impact it had? So after going through what I went through, right, and I arrived in South Korea after many years of journey, they were saying, so Kims were dictators?

And South Korea is not colonized by American bastards. And Americans, first of all, not bastards. They're good people. And then they said, everything that you believe in North Korea was a lie. It was a propaganda. Then at 15, I was thinking, so if everything that I believe was a lie, how do I know what you are telling me is not a lie? That was so hard. How do I trust ever again? And I just, it was chaos.

in belief right i did not know what was true anymore and that's the moment few years later i read this book like animal farm just by mistake it was a very short book in the library i was like okay i can finish that quickly and When they're ending that, like, last chapter, right, they could not see between the pigs and humans anymore, right, that sentence. I just understood everything what happened. I just made it.

every sense to me what happened to me my people and to my country yeah that there's uh there's so many things i could say about that book yeah there's a haunting nature to the end

And I guess, spoiler alert, but you should have read this already if you're listening to this. At the end, the animals were looking to the humans and to the pigs and they couldn't see the difference. And then there's this kind of... gradual transition from the initial revolutionary steps of animals fighting for their freedom to slowly the pigs Gaining control went from four legs good, two legs bad to four legs good, two legs better.

It was even better, I think, something like that. So like gradually transitioning the ideology under which the farm operates. And I think the gradual nature of that. where basically you have generations born not knowing how things were in the past. And that's what makes the most kind of, for me, haunting transition from... freedom to slavery, to suffering, to injustice, all those things. And the animals don't know they're part of that. And also for me personally,

I've always kind of found a kinship with Boxer, the horse, because I'm kind of an idiot. I just work really hard. I just work hard. And I just love the idea of working hard for an ideal. And the tragic nature of, to the end, that horse boxer working his ass off for the pride of... for others. But yeah, for the pride of the farm, you know. And then the pigs.

giving him sort of using that, but then just sending him to the slaughterhouse anyway, when he was no longer useful. I mean, there's so many tragic elements that echo everything I've seen in the Soviet Union. and many of the elements that you see in even harsher, more drastic way in North Korea. If there's something hopeful you pull from that book.

Like within the suffering, within the gradual decline, the taking away the freedom, there were still moments of beauty, it seemed like. It can be. But I think for me was when I was ending the last page of the book. Until that point, I was angry towards a dictator. Why do you do this as a human being? I was so angry, dreaming of killing him, right? Revenging my father, the people that he killed. But when I was ending the last chapter...

Actually, everybody was responsible to create this dystopia in my country. That animals, initial animals, when they're scared. when they received the first execution and then they were not doing their job speaking out and keep questioning. They had a question and then as soon as they see a fear, they silence.

Because of that, that's when I was like, my grandma knew life could be different. I think the one thing about North Koreans are unique is that they don't know they are oppressed. They don't know that they are slaves to the dictator.

And the fact that other people know they're oppressed, like in America, a lot of people think they are oppressed, like you are not oppressed. You don't even know the definition of oppression. And like that's like when the new animals came, the new animals didn't even know.

what the life could be like. There's no alternative for them to compare even. And I was like, my grandmother knew. Why didn't they not do anything about it? And they were just scared. They kept it silent. And everybody was responsible.

So the people who knew were too afraid to say. And then there's people that just didn't even know. And I don't know what's more terrifying about human nature. Looking at this group of people who are... afraid to say that things could be otherwise and then the group of people that don't even know it could be better. No. I don't know. That's the reason I return to that book often because it's such... Maybe because...

It's interesting using animals to represent ideas that were very human. It almost allows you to explore the darkness of human nature without sort of being broken by it. So you mentioned anger. When I watch your interviews, you're really calm and collected. Not just your interviews, you know, Instagram, the way you present yourself.

I don't know. It seems like you're almost at peace with the world. Is there in private times when you're just angry? Do you feel fear? Do you go to dark places, depression? all those kinds of things, are you able to put that world that you are in behind you? It's a joke because I talk about North Korea every single day and I still rescue people.

like from China and Russia and other countries, right? And sometimes our rescue mission failures and they get captured and sent back. I still have people in North Korea report to me. Like when I talked to my sister who chose to not be in this life, activist life, she forgot most of things. And like for the other hand, I like remember everything. Sometimes it's a blessing to keep reminded of how because it's, you know, they say happiness is a relative thing.

It is sometimes. I mean, the thing is also people say because nobody was full when you're growing up, everybody was suffering, you should have been okay, right? But no, like if you are suffering in that degree. No matter, even if there's no comparison, if you're in Nazi Germany, in the Holocaust, right, in the concentration camp, I'm sure nobody was better than them. I'm sure they were suffering.

It's the same thing. I suffered. But now because I'm in this place, I can't compare easily, right? Getting that perspective. But it is true like I still have days that I cannot get out of bed. And I'm really hoping. Like where it was Elon Musk talking about downloading your brain, blah, blah. It's like if maybe technology develops, I can download some part of my memory and then I can erase it or delete it. And that would be so much better.

Sorry for the tough question, but if I came to you, if Elon came to you and said we can erase that part of your memory, would you do it? Some days I would do it for sure. And my mom would do it 100%. My sister would do it. All other defectors know they do it 100%. For me, I hesitate because I'm a witness. So if I delete that part...

I don't know how real that can be. But it is painful. Like, after I talk, give a speech, right? I mean, I'm fine. But somehow I'm depressed. Sometimes if the talk was very intense, I'm like depressed for three weeks. It takes a while for me to be recharged. But I don't know why it is, you know. Yeah. I just don't know. Well, there's also the, and there's a guy named Victor Franco who wrote the book, Masters for Meeting.

And there's some aspect where, so he talks about the Holocaust and that you can, in those moments of suffering, still discover meaning, still discover happiness in the simplest of joys. While starving, you know, a little piece of bread could be a source of incredible joy. And there's some aspect... in which that experience gives you a clarity about the world. Like somehow experiencing suffering allows you to deeply experience joy and love and...

also empathize with the suffering of others. And it's almost like brings you closer to other humans. So it's this double-edged sword that the highest of joys. sometimes are catalyzed by suffering. And it's hard to know what to do with that. You see that with World War II, the stories of soldiers that have suffered, but some of the... closest bonds of brotherhood, of just pure love was experienced by them.

And it sucks that our brains are like this. I agree. Love requires hardship. I don't know why that is. Yeah, that's the thing. Of course, in my journey, I learned how to survive, right? When to not trust and when to run. But I think most of us keep learning what it means to be a human being. I think that was the ultimate thing I was keep learning. And I still don't know fully what it means. But I do think it seems like suffering is a necessity for people to be grateful.

Even be joyful too sometimes. Yeah. So I talk about love quite a bit. Yeah. And you mentioned that romantic love. I'm fascinated about love in many aspects. You mentioned romantic love was forbidden in North Korea. Yeah. What do you think about love now that you've kind of discovered it? What's the role of love in life? Why was it so...

Why do you think it was forbidden in North Korea? So the tragic thing about North Korea is not only just banning Shakespeare. We don't even know what Romeo and Juliet is, right? Our movies are never about love stories. But then also they... ban the love between mother and daughter, wife and husband. And, you know, and between your friends, they deny you being a human. So only love that I knew was when I described my feeling towards the leader.

And in a written form. That was the only love that people know in North Korea. And now, I mean, like, there are many loves you can experience. I mean, I think you definitely love science, right? But imagine that if you're being denied that. So there are so many loves in life, but in North Korea, all of those things are denied. And I think for me, it's... love what makes you tick like you know love for your child love for your parents love for your friends love for even yourself that is denied so

I mean, many people say love is an option, but then why do you live? I think we live to love. And it doesn't have to be a romantic love. It can be anything. But finding love in any person or any subject, I think that's a goal. I think that's when people find the meaning in something. Yeah, I think romantic love is just one sort of... Part of it. One echo of some core thing. Yeah, science. I love science. I love robots. All of those things. And it sounds like...

deliberately or not, the North Korean regime wants to channel that very deep aspect of the human spirit all towards the leader. Yeah, that's it. That's the only thing they allow us to feel and know about. So I remember, you read 1984 by George Orwell. It talks about double think and double speak. Who controls the language? Who controls thoughts?

And while he does talk about it, as they go, they eliminate a lot of words, right? Now, later, one word can represent 10 different things. And what fascinates me is how many vocabulary meaning people can have. And like when I literally came out, I remember I went to San Francisco and someone came to me and hugged me. And then he was a guy like, oh, baby, don't worry, I'm gay. I was like, what the heck is gay? I don't know, right?

And then they tried to go to a hotel room and Google the gay. And it's like, oh, that's what you meant. And like that, like, they deny what that is. I'm sure there are gays in North Korea. I'm sure there is. But you don't know what it is.

and like that they eliminate words so the fact that you know the concept that is a state much better than and that's the thing a lot of people like when you're born you somehow know what justice is what liberty is and it's all somebody taught you that and like that's the thing why people is like oh humans are inherently know what is right what is wrong what is oppression and like you know that's like bs you gotta learn that's fascinating that words

give rise to ideas. So like as a child, one of the ways to learn about justice and freedom is to first learn the word and then to ask. well, what is it? Yeah, the concept, yeah. And if you don't have the word for it, then you never have the kind of first spark that leads to you trying to be curious about it. That's interesting, and controlling the words. And then, yeah, I mean. Controlling your thoughts.

You control the thoughts. There's so many echoes. I mean, it's a very different but perhaps a very similar experience, which is the journey of my family through the Soviet Union. Because there is a love of country. There is a pride of the people. Like you are proud of your family in general. But I wonder how much of that is polluted by the propaganda.

I think a lot to do with it, for sure. Yeah. It is to this day, I'm like, my father who died in China, and he was tortured, and then he died. He wanted to go back before his... Beth, right? And then it's like, dad, if you go back, you're going to be executed. And it's like, I want to be executed. He wanted to go back to North Korea. To be executed. So he can be buried in his own land.

And then his last wish was, if I die, criminate me, and then bring my ashes back to my country. When I'm dead, I still want to be in my country. And this is nationalism. This is propaganda, right? But now it's the same thing. It's the same thing. If I die, I somehow buried in my land. And I still feel like I'm the outsider.

I'm always longing for my home. It's a horrible home. People say, what's your dream? Do you want to be a president? Do you want to go home? That's my dream, right? And people here don't get it ever. I don't know what to do with that. I love my country. And I think for me, my country is... the United States. And perhaps it will be for you too one day? It is. I think it's becoming, the U.S. has been a very special place in my heart. I think this is the first place I feel like I feel like home.

I mean, I was in South Korea longer and I didn't feel that way. So I think we have very different life stories, but I think it's almost two different people. For me, it's the person that was in the Soviet Union and the person that's here. Those are two different people. That previous person's home in the Soviet Union, and he's part of me. And I suppose in that same way, you're...

Your first maybe two decades of life are somehow longing for the home that is North Korea. And your next two decades of life might be finding a home. in the united states yeah your your dad uh can you tell the story of um of his struggle of his death I mean, first, do you miss him? Do you think about him? Oh, man, all the time. I had a son when I was 22, and I had IVF.

three times and i'm like as you see i'm like 80 pounds but back then i was like 75 pounds because of my severe malnutrition somehow my body is very different and so after three times of IVF after 23, I was still wanting family. And the reason I wanted him is because I felt so guilty for my father that he never seen this world. I somehow...

When you're so desperate, you become illogical. I want you to believe in the Buddhist idea, right? You come back to life. And I pray, please come to me as my son, so I will take care of you. like come back and when i was pregnant with my son even though i planted pregnant with a girl Doctor made a mistake. He became a boy. So I made his middle name, like my father's name, Jin Sik. I think he's only known.

American got North Korean name. I know. It is. So part of your father is in your son. Yeah. That's how I make the sense of it. And that's how I move forward. If I, like as a logical human being, you know, when you're dead, you're done. Maybe that's what I at least used to think. But then life just become too unbearable.

And somehow, that's the thing, like, we tell ourselves stories in order to live. And that's how I came with my title of the book, In Order to Live. I had to tell myself a lot of stories to overcome a lot of things. I think I was a part of it. Can you tell the story of you escaping North Korea to China? Yeah, I think it's amazing. Even though I was like 13, my life outside of North Korea is almost like went by like one second. And my life till that point was like eternity. Wow. I remember.

Being in China, I arrived there at the end of March at 13. And by October, it was six months past. And I literally felt like I lived eternity. One day living in China felt like living one year. One day was a war, like surviving through one day was so hard. Every night I was like... I cannot believe I got done one day today. That was a thing I was grateful for before I went to bed. Okay, I survived. I didn't get captured. And I made you another day on Earth.

So the experience of the minutes is what? Fear? Fear of being captured? Fear, loss, everything. Because, I mean, I sold my own mom in China to survive. So it was more than that. And it's not feeling. I think that's the thing in China. I learned not to fear. And after my escape was challenging, I didn't feel anything. And it was hard.

Not feeling anything is a torture. It's the biggest torture you can ever feel like. Even if you feel sadness, that's better than not feeling anything. And I felt something when I had my son. That's when I started healing. So he was a miracle to save me. But yeah, in China, it wasn't even fear. Like I was numb. You were numb. It was like paralysis. Yeah. Just overwhelming.

The uncertainty of your future. Did you have a sense what your future held at the time? What do you mean future? I don't even know that word. A lot of times I was looking at myself, like I left my body and like just looking at me and just not feeling anything. It's not like I'm scared for her. I'm like sad for her. Just looking at me like, oh, that's interesting. Wow. To not feeling anything. And me being raped, going through every motion of life to survive, right? But like, somehow...

I don't know if you say so or something, like looking at it, it's just like, you feel nothing. You don't feel anything for that person. So even with your mom, like what was, was there some... I don't know, some warmth that you were able to extract from the connection with your mom? Yeah, of course. I think that made me survive. I had a very strong connection with my family.

And I think that's what kept me going to do all of that. I think, as you said, I escaped at 13. My sister, at the age of 16, escaped with her friend first. I was going to escape with her, but one day I got a really bad stomachache. And my parents took me to a hospital. And in North Korean hospital, they don't have x-ray machines. They don't even have electric x-ray.

They're literally using one needle to inject everybody. And people don't die from cancer in neurological. You die from infection and fever. Hunger, right? Most likely you're going to die more by being treated by a doctor than not being treated. I think I was lucky. Even though they thought I had appendix, they operated on me without any painkiller.

And I didn't get infection. I survived. So that's how I got delayed to escape with my sister. And she left me a note in my bedside saying, like, follow this lady. And this is like another... trick about human trafficking, right? She sold me to China as a sexual slave. And she executed for it later. She was executed for that later. She had five daughters.

And she sold all her children to China. And we can now, sitting here, judging on how heartless you are selling your own children to China. And as a sexual slave, they were like, her children were 7, 10 years old. That was the only way for her to save her children. And if she didn't serve me that day, I would be dead right now. So I'm grateful that she sold me. And I think that's the thing is life is so crazy.

You cannot judge. It's just so complex. And yeah, that's how she changed my life by selling me. She sold my mom and myself in 2007 to China. So you're grateful for that. So you're grateful for that suffering? Of course I am grateful. Because the alternative is worse. I will not be here with you. You never knew I existed. What do you make of the others suffering in the world today?

The people there in North Korea. So that is part of your life's work, is helping those people. What do you think about them? What should people know about them? I think that's when I get angry, whenever I think about them. Who's your anger directed at? At the heartlessness of people, the ignorance of people. Like, so when I got out of North Korea, going through all of that, and I went to South Korea one day, I was watching television, and...

There's like famous Korean K-pop stars and crying and doing some fundraising concert. And I literally thought, I was like, oh my God, something is horribly going wrong in this country. Why are these people crying? It was a cheery campaign. And then later it was showing that it was an animal rights campaign to helping out cats and puppies in the shelters. Yeah.

Do you know anybody sheds their tears like that to another human being right now? Like, no, right? People would rather give millions of dollars to save some dolphins than saving these children right now being raped in China. And I think I love Elon Musk. I love these people who want to go to the moon, Mars. And people told them, yeah, we went to the moon. I did not know in North Korea.

But I think that's what upsets me. Why there is not even one single human with that kind of brilliance in their brain? They can save so much suffering, but nobody does anything. I think that's been nice. I feel like it's hard to find hope in humanity. And that's when I get so upset. Because think about like even Biden or Trump or Obama. They know what's happening in North Korea exactly, right?

I mean, if we see satellite photos, there's public executions. I mean, the UN says this is the Holocaust happening again. And it's happening if the Holocaust is happening again. How, why, how are you okay doing nothing about it? But somehow humans are able to, okay, nothing, anything. And this is like, this is hard. Like when people say, I'm going to change the world, I want to make a difference. Like, it's hard to believe it.

Yeah, that we can turn our back to human suffering at scale when it's right in front of us. I mean, that makes you think about the Holocaust. Everybody was looking the other way. Yeah. Because it was almost too hard to look at it. No, it's not. It's an easier thing. Like, that's a thing. I was, like, here to speak at the South by Southwest a few years ago. And everybody was talking about Elon Musk's project going to the moon, right? We're going to be multi-species. I was like...

Back then, I did not even know who he was. So if yoga is trying to go after this earth, you haven't even explored our earth yet. You cannot go to North Korea right now. You haven't explored that part of our planet. Can we do that first and then move on? Explore the landscape of human suffering, like alleviate suffering in the world. There's a lot of suffering happening in Africa that has to do with disease.

And for some reason, even though we turn our back to that kind of suffering too, we still can try to do something about it. And there's still efforts. in terms of healthcare, in terms of medicine, in terms of bioengineering. in terms of all these efforts to help people from disease. But that's almost like converting it into an engineering problem and trying to solve it. That somehow is easier for us humans. But when there's obvious sort of non...

disease related torture of humans, we look the other way. Yeah. Whether it's China or it's North Korea. Yeah. I mean, that has to be changed somehow. We'll have to change that somehow. Isn't the thing right now, like, China, like, they bring the Xinjiang Uyghurs, right? They say, oh, this is a vitamin, take it, and then it kills their sperm and make them not reproduce. Their birth rate gone down something 47% to something 50% in the one-year time. It's a genocide in 21st century.

And they get those people and get their organs out. Imagine if there's some people who do that with cutie puppies and cats. There's going to be an insane amount of protein. They're going to destroy everything. And this is like a human nature that I don't get. Why there's so much anti-human sentiment in this modern world? We don't have to. The fact that I was saying like...

The fact that you care about animals, right, is beautiful because you care about somebody who cannot speak for themselves. The fact that we care about animals is because they cannot speak for themselves, right? They don't have that ability. And there are many people who cannot speak for themselves right now. And why do you refuse to be the voice for them? Because they are simply being a human. And maybe it connects to us not being proud of who we are.

I don't know what it is. Why do they deny humans this way? Maybe they don't like themselves. Yeah, it's almost... We would have to acknowledge some dark things about ourselves in order to start helping. What's the solution? So, you know, I see two solutions. One is on the military side. It's assassination. or the full-on invasion. And then on the activism side, which is figuring out ways to...

Like you said, sort of let people in North Korea understand their situation, sort of from within try to reform. Or maybe there's others. Obviously, there could be activism from the outside to build up momentum for the entirety of the world, especially the world that is not just the United States or Europe, but also is Russia and China and so on.

What are your ideas here? What we can do as individuals and as countries? I think the first thing that we can do is speak about Chinese role in this sponsoring dictatorship in North Korea. Like, I haven't had so much struggle talking about North Korea, right? They say how North Korea is possible. Why is it like the way like this is? 99% accountability going to CCP.

Kim Jong-un cannot last without Chinese help even one week. This is completely funded. This Holocaust is funded by CCP. But if you talk about it in the mainstream, of course they don't buy it. And I think... It's in a way, North Korea is a lot easier to serve than even in the Middle East. There's nothing conflict between people. There's no ideology, no religion, nothing. People are peaceful, right? There's not even one civil...

like any discontent among the people. Our problem is there's a dictator founded by the second economic power in the world. And even any military, they know if they kill Kim Jong-un, they're going to get killed by Chinese. Nobody can dare to stand up against Kim Jong-un because of China's backing it. So somehow, here in the West, we're collectively acknowledging that China is the responsible person for these crimes against humanity in North Korea.

then we can somehow, I don't know, stand up to China. Exactly. We're failing to do that in a way, in all kinds of avenues of life, of public life. Because for many reasons, they're probably primarily financial. But it also... I'm against... I don't know, maybe you can correct me. I'm against sort of... making China this evil enemy. Because I've seen this with Russia as well. And I don't think that leads to progress. I think you want to highlight.

Like you basically want to help China, the Chinese people. become the best version of themselves. So speak to the Chinese people and not making the leaders of China into these caricatures of devils. I feel like the Cold War, the way it was done in Russia. I just...

both sides. They were caricaturing each other through propaganda and the result was not productive at all. It did not help Russia become the best country it could be. It did not help America become the best country it could be. And the same thing with China. I feel like... into this enemy, like being afraid of China, making them into the thing that's going to spy on us, that's going to destroy the rest of the world. That's not going to help China.

like reform themselves. They're going to plant their feet. The dictators, the evil people will become more evil. The power hungry will become more, like they will centralize the power more. It feels like. maybe naive, but it feels like it should be like, again, love, not violence that solves this thing. Now, of course in North Korea, it's like long gone. 80 years. Almost 80 years. Love is not going to solve that problem. It's very difficult. They have tried that.

called something sunshine policy which is there's two people walking down the street and the sun and the wind made a battle so who can take off that man take off jacket so wind tried blow as much air he could and then that man was like putting more like his jacket on right not taking off but sunshine came okay i'm gonna give a lot of warmth and then he took his jacket out and came out

So that was a theory. Let's give North Korea as much love as they want. Let's give them a lot of money. Whatever they want, let's give to them so they know that we are not here to attack them. Yeah. And North Korea, what they did was the guy who did a sunshine policy in South Korea named Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize for that. And Kim Jong-il used the money to build nuclear weapons. So that's how they came with the nukes. So I think that's the thing.

I hope their love solves problems. But there's got to be a way, and the hope is with the 21st century is you can directly speak to the people somehow. When there's no internet, when there's nothing like that, it's hopeless. I think China, there's a hope that China is still. connected to the internet. I love your optimism. I have seen the actual dark side of China on the underground. I hope. I think that's a thing.

People here in the West, right, they say, oh, how can it be that bad? They ask me, like, I walking passing this young teenager man near the world with my sister. He's, like, intestine coming out. through his back, right? And even in that moment, what he wanted was, please give me food. He was hungry.

His intestine is hanging out of his body. Yeah. And he's asking for food. Do you know what humans demand when they die in North Korea? All they want is eating, right? Yeah. And people say, oh, nothing can be that bad. But people just here haven't seen an actual true evil. Would you say that the evil comes from a tiny minority of people? Or does it permeate much larger parts of the population? Like if we look at sex trafficking, how many people, like is it 99.9% of the people are...

longing to do good in the world? Or do we all have the capacity for evil in certain kind of environments, certain kind of governmental structures inspire a large problem? percent of the population to do bad things? I think humans are capable of anything. There's no exception. I don't think there's any saint who born with a morality. I think... in north korea you can say initially that there's few guys in the top wanted the power and then doing this but

Eventually, it made a society where people don't even know what compassion is. We don't know the concept of, we don't know that you need to feel bad for another human being when they're suffering. The fact that you know compassion is in your knowledge. That's why you do that. Humans need to learn. It's not anything bad about human nature. It's just saying humans are capable of everything. We are the most adaptable species on the planet. That's why we created.

like talking this way, right? No other animals have done it because we are so adaptable. That is a good thing and that's a bad thing. So in that adaptive situation, they all can be, I mean, during the Holocaust, right? Those people. They could have been capable of good, too, if they were exposed to a different system. And that's why when people underestimate evil, that's what scares me. Evil is evil. It's a different thing.

It's a completely different thing. And of course, I get your idea. We don't want to isolate 1.3 billion human beings on Earth by Chinese. But the thing is, we are talking about this regime. Not the people. I love Chinese people. I speak Chinese. I love all about the country. But this system does promote evil. Well, that's an optimistic view, actually, because we can fix systems. Yeah.

It's harder to fix people. So if we fix systems, then the people are adaptable, as you said. And then the question is, first of all, you have to... Talk about it just as you're doing. You're right now like this little flame that burns bright and it's really important for North Korea. But just keep talking about it until there's... until hopefully it leads to at the highest levels of power revolutionizing the systems in the world. And then in China and in North Korea, do you see?

North Korea being a potential instigator of a nuclear war. They will not start a nuclear war as long as they can do whatever they want right now. North Korea's army... not designed to fight the enemy. They designed to prevent their own people, the Kuteta and the revolution with their own citizens. That is 1.6 million North Korea with a tiny country, the fourth largest armies in the world.

So this country designed to fight with their own citizens. And the army, the fourth largest in the world, is designed to basically fight its own people. oppress their own people that's what north korean military is about okay let me uh ask you some

aspects about North Korean life. Can you describe the songbun system of ascribed status used in North Korea? Yeah. So that's a very interesting thing, right? Right now, there are a lot of people playing with this ideology of like... democratic socialism socialism communism whatever you call marxism leninism right they have all like these similar features where we give collective power to a certain entity and they will make the decision for the

bigger good, right? And North Korea came up with the idea that Kim Il-sung, he was the Leninist, he was Marxist, saying, I'm going to create the most equal society on human face. So it was communist North Korea. And then they came up with this 성분 system. It's like family caste system. Three big categories, warrior, wavering, and hostile. And that in between three classes, they divide into 50 different classes.

So a lot of people don't even know which exact class you belong to. That's a sacred government document. And that's how they decide your future. So in a way, in North Korea, before you're born, your life is determined for you. And this is almost a joke, right? They dreamed of creating the most equal society. They ended up becoming the most unequal society in the face of humanity. So there are 50 different classes and where the one guy on the top became a god.

So when this animal farm, as we keep saying, all the animals are equal and some are more equal. More equal than others. Exactly. Oh, boy. But it's not only, it's just more equal. One guy in North Korea became a god. So North Korea was born. out of Marxist ideals. Yeah, from Stalin. Can you comment on Juche ideology, which seems to... be its own kind of socialism. But with unique aspects here, it really does ideologically says the importance of having a great leader.

Is there some interesting similarities or differences that you can comment on between other implementations of communism throughout history, the Soviet Union, China, elsewhere? So Juche is very unique. It came around the 90s after Soviet Union collapsed. So before that, North Korea was very still loyal to the Marxism and Leninism, which is state takes care of you. We are going to give you the right education, health care, your livelihood. Everybody is going to be equal.

going to have in the working collective farm collective workplace everybody collectively do things together and let's work for the paradise but 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed And until then, North Korea was heavily subsidized by Soviet Union's aid. And then Soviet Union didn't give them anything. So now 3 million people dying on the streets. The regime then came up with the idea, okay, our goal.

is what is successful ruling for us is keeping the 10% of population alive, which is in the capital Pyongyang. So they designed the Hunger Games. There is a capital. 13 other districts. Everybody on the countryside on purpose being starved. So those people who are starving cannot thinking about meaning of life, cannot thinking about shooting to the moon, right? They're not going to think about anything. All they're going to think is like finding this meal.

All on purpose. All on purpose. It's man-made famine. International committee was begging to give North Korea food. Why not? Still at the UN, they beg. to give North Korea formula, medicine, and food. They are begging, can you please feed your people? And Kim Jong-un said, no, thank you. Last year, like, when North Korea had a

horrible, horrible flooding. South Korean president begging, can you get, can I give you please some medicines? Like, no. Because he wants to be the one provider. He doesn't want people to think other people giving him the thing. So on purpose, other people are starving. And that Juche idea is that's when you're coming from. So until that communism was about like status being a father figure, takes care of all your needs, right? Give the power to us.

and you are all good. But the North Korean regime said, okay, now we cannot give people's ration, which means, 주체 means self-reliance. You need to take care of yourself while you're giving every right to us. So now, In the 90s, the regime told us, okay, we are not going to give you ration. You cannot trade. That's illegal. But you find your own way to survive. So be self-reliant. That's what Juche is.

But when you're a god, you can do whatever you want. You don't need to make a sense. That's the difference being a god and being a leader. When it is religion, it's not falsifiable. You cannot challenge it. God's way is... suspicious. God works in a mysterious way. So when you're God, people are not going to say, oh, this doesn't make sense, right? You're going to, okay, whatever God says, as a human being, we can never change this thought.

It's unbelievable what regimes can do. There's something about famine that is another... is another level of evil to me. You know, what Stalin did in Ukraine in the 30s. Fuck them. Yeah. this is what torture is cannibalism yeah and um north korea too they humans right now in 21st century 7 billion people on this earth right now. You make enough food for 10 billion people. Nobody should be starving right now. It's worrisome to me.

the humanities moving forward with technological advance, blah, blah. We are going so fast in advancement. And we are leaving this like 25 million human beings in the cage, completely leaving them behind. And North Korean is leaving like 16th centuries. I never, like this morning I was taking a shower. Beautiful shower. Like one, never knew what shower was. I was bathing a few times a year, going to the river. How do I even know what shampoo is?

And this is how human beings in 21st century is living. And it doesn't bother us. And rather, most people are obsessed with being a vegan. And like, how do you reconcile this? I think we get used to stuff very quickly. We get used to comfort. That's just the way of human life. You take the beautiful things for granted. So I try to appreciate everything I have. So whether it's...

like the food I have now or like the luxury to have a diet and be struggling with that or just the basic simple moments of being alive with the people I love. Or actually I get like, I think I'm on drugs all the time because I feel like just even like. this mug everything on this table just brings me joy but it's like filling your life with joy in the full capitalistic American way you can still at the same time

not feel too bad about yourself and still focus on the suffering in the world. And I think there's some way that in trying to build a better world in America, it has ripple effects elsewhere. So I'm a fan of... rockets in space. It sounds perhaps counterintuitive, but sending rockets to space will help solve the North Korea problem because it lets people

dream and build cool stuff. So it's not the rocket, it's the other people that like are inspired by the rocket and then look to other problems in the world i mean that's what elon did is like he saw problems in the world and saw like what can i do to help it and i think the north korea one is a tough one though because that's ultimately has to do with revolutionizing government. We got to change China.

In China. That's what it takes. Changing China's communist party is impossible. That's why we couldn't solve North Korea for that many decades. For now, it's China, but it's China, it's... so it's uh russia it's certain aspects of the united states and struggling with that There's a bunch of technologies that are striving at this. For example, I don't know what your thoughts about cryptocurrencies. I love it. idea that money could be a way to destroy

or to challenge the power centers of the world. So if you take away the power from fiat currency and give it to this thing that can't be controlled by government, this cryptocurrency, whether it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, all those kinds of things, That's a way to get money into the hands of people to where the government can't take that money away. But North Koreans don't have electricity, no internet. So we can do that with China.

We can do it a lot of African dictatorship countries, right? I do think cryptocurrency is such a fascinating technology, right? I think this is an amazing experiment. That power is in our hands. I'm the huge advocate believer. But I think North Korea is too behind. I think that's what is unique about North Korea is that most of the things that we talk about.

It's a different planet, literally. The common law that we have is now applicable. What about Kim Jong-un? Kim Jong-un, yeah. Is he intentionally evil? Or is he mindlessly propagating an evil system created by his ancestors? What's your sense of the man? So with Kim Il-sung, I can give him more benefit of that.

He was an initial true believer of communism. But then as later he gained the power, he realizing, I think, I guess back then he thought most of people are dumb, right? Individuals are dumb. So therefore, I need to make a decision for all of you. That pure arrogance came from out of him. Even that I can tolerate. Okay, fine. And Kim Jong-il, who never like, yeah, fine. He grew up in that system too.

But Kim Jong-un is very unique. This guy was educated in Switzerland, in the heart of democracy. He knew how human beings should be treated. As a child, he went. When you're a child, your brain is very susceptible, right? You would change anybody. Like, why the mom was so obsessed with changing young people's minds? Like, that's every revolutionary they do, right? They go change young people's minds first.

This guy was so upset with the power. Him being a god, even studying in Switzerland, didn't change him. And that's why I think that's a pure evil. You know, I can give more benefit of that to his grandfather and father. But when it comes to Kim Jong-un, this is like what pure evil looks like. Pure, selfish being. That's what it looks like. Is there some sense where he's justifying everything he's doing to himself? Or do you think there's a psychopathic aspect to where he enjoys the suffering?

I think in his life, right, I read a lot about, like, North Korea, a lot of CIA documents, a lot of intelligence people who worked there, and even, like, worked in North Korean tablets and escaped. I could hear about them. So Kim Jong-un, when they are born, they treat like gods. So they never have a sense of them being a human. They're like equal with others. For them, like we are just any kind of tool.

Like that when Napoleon thing does, right? Anybody's a tool. Like once Boxer dies, get him slaughtered for my cause. And they do not even feel guilty about it because they don't view us that you deserve, you're worthy of it. Yeah, that's right. So it's not like he even feels, he doesn't even recognize the suffering. Like, of course, this is what you do, serving me. Because I am, I am this. So I think that's like beyond that.

It's not like suffering enters his mind. He doesn't even think what we go through. So he thinks of himself as a god. Yeah. And then everybody else is just tools that are disposable. Right. There was rumors. several times of him dying. Yeah. Do you think he is, obviously his health is not good. Do you think he will die soon? What happens if Kim Jong-un dies?

Well, when it comes to North Korea, anybody knows what Kim Jong-un does is lie, right? Nobody knows. I'm sure CIA knows, but they never revealed that. CIA has enough intelligence to tell where Kim Jong-un is, what is he doing. They just don't assassinate him because they don't see the...

needs of it right now. You think they can't assassinate him? They can't. They do have ability to get assassinated. Why the hell did they not assassinate him? Because they don't care. They don't care about the suffering of 25 million people. They got to pay the price. If they assassin Kim Jong-un, they got to pay the price. There'll be financial, there'll be political price to pay. It'll anger China. Absolutely. That is a huge piece for them. And then they'll have to deal.

Obviously, there'll be financial and military consequences of having to deal with the turmoil, the uncertainty, the revolutions that will spring up. Yeah. That's the thing. That's why they don't want to take that risk. They don't want to do anything. The U.S. now became very passive when they pursued these moral values to the rest of the world. They did the same thing with the Holocaust in the early days, actually.

They were like just, they didn't care. And that's what their always policy has been. They don't care, I mean. So if Kim Jong-un dies... It's going to be very hard for North Korea to replace anybody in his position because Kim's is a brand. It's not just like a leader for us, right? Whenever we think of Kim, who came with my mind, like who's like almost God figure. North Korea is the number 10 religions in the world. They copy the Bible.

So if you believe that, if there are people who believe in God and Jesus Christ, how do you not believe that North Korean believe in the same thing? So Kim Il-sung's grandfather and his parents were devout Christians. So Kim Il-sung grew up with these Christian verses. So when he found his country, he said,

I love my people so much that I'm giving you my son, Kim Jong-il. His body dies, but his spirit is with us forever. Who can know how many hair I have, what I think, and when we suffer, we go to paradise with him. And when you block every single information going into country, of course people are going to believe it. So who would be the successor if he dies? He has a son, a first son born in 2009.

not old enough if he dies now. So either his sister might rule for a short amount of time as not like a litter, but like temporary replacement. And then when the sun is old enough, he might take it off. Because it's a kingdom. That's most likely. And China will do everything they can to maintain that status quo for the North Korean vision.

So North Korean people have no option here. We just need some leader to courageously come up and do the right thing. So we can't just wait this out. No, we can't. It's not something that takes its course and it's going to change. Like we not even know that economic freedom does not bring political freedom. We know in China it doesn't. That's the unique thing about freedom. You got to fight for it.

Otherwise, you don't ever get it. Freedom is something that has to be fought. And if nobody fighting for freedom, it's not going to be there. Can we talk a little bit about freedom? What does it mean to you? We talked about love in that same way about freedom. Having sort of discovered it later in life, what does it mean to you? I think every day I get a new definition of freedom.

It is. It's a never-ending journey, having this relationship with being free and what it means to be free, right? I think. I think you definitely can live life without being free and also happy life too. I saw a lot of North Korean elite tour. were fed and have power, but didn't have freedom, were very happy. In a way, happier than the people that I found in New York were like investment bankers and consultants in Manhattan. And 70% of them go like talk to therapists.

I was very confused. I remember writing my book in New York. My editor was saying, Yemi, you know you're traumatized. You need to go talk to a therapist. And it's like, what is therapy? What is trauma? Because in North Korea, they don't have order for stress or trauma. Because how can you be stressed in a socialist paradise? So they don't let you be knowing what that is. And then they were like, yeah, hearing people having problems, go talk to therapists. And I was like...

Like, how much is it? $200 per hour. And it's discounted rate, too. It's like, no, thank you. You know, I was like, no. And we know that freedom comes with responsibility. And in a way, it's not that easy to be free. Thinking for yourself constantly. Like when you... In a way, I understand, like, let's give government every power we have. Let them decide what education that I get. Let them decide where I live. Like, you know, let someone figure that out for me. And that's how North Korea began.

hoping the government's going to represent my own interests, believing that they were good. And with that benefit of doubt and good faith, it began the nightmare, right? Yeah. So freedom is not like a gateway to be happy at all. In a way, it can make life a lot more complex. But then it's fun. Isn't it? You start thinking for yourself. You start making mistakes. And it's so fun to be free, even though you can be suffering way more than the people who are not free.

The thing about freedom is when you have freedom, you also have the responsibility for your actions. And that could be a huge burden. Yeah. Because if you succeed, it's you. But if you fail, it's you. And if you do horrible things, it's you. Or if you don't do something, for example, if you don't help people in North Korea, it's you. And that's a huge burden.

And living with that burden is a kind of suffering. I mean, there's some aspect in which freedom is suffering. It is suffering. Because life is suffering and then freedom is... You as an individual fully living through that. So you talked, you're friends with Michael Malice. He believes...

And so I want to kind of ask you about government. He believes he's an anarchist. And he believes kind of in freedom fully implemented in... in human societies, meaning that humans should all be free to choose how they... you know, transact with each other, how they live together. There shouldn't be a centralized force that tells you what to do. Do you think there's some role for government in a healthy society?

So if we look at North Korea, there's the most horrible implementation of government. But then if we look at what the United States strives to be, at least in principle, there's... There's an ideal of a government that represents the people and helps the people. Is there a place for that kind of ideal? Or is government always going to get us into trouble?

I am not, I mean, I spoke to Michael Malice. I kept asking, right, why is anarchist, right? And he doesn't believe in military, none of it. And I was like, I don't think I want to be in that world you're describing. That's pretty scary. I want the law enforcement. I want, like, I don't... In a way that... So why equality makes no sense is that the fact that when you and I were born, we were born in a very different capability of thinking.

different intelligence, different capability in our physics, right? So equality is nonsense. You can never achieve that, right? So to me, that's when it's very scary. When the government tries to enforce. equality on everybody that is impossible that's specifically equality of outcomes so like So given that we all started different places, enforce, like measure in some kind of way where people stand. And if they're an equal, enforce equality. Yeah. And that's what leads to the kind of.

things that you mentioned with the class system in North Korea. Yeah, so I think that's why government can be bad. They can be very dumb. And another thing is that they cannot know what you want. A lot of times people don't even know what they want as an individual. Like, how the heck do you assume government is going to know what is best for you? Nobody knows. We just all do our best. I do think, though, some governments in Switzerland, you know, give power to the different states.

can be good. I think I'm more giving power to the state. and let individuals decide where they want to go within states. I mean, why did you choose Texas, right? There's no income tax, right? There's a lot of things people find Texas charming, and they come here. So in a way that I don't want to be in one strong government that makes every single thing the same way. In a way, I want to kind of experiment everything.

We can have an anarchy state. There's no police, nothing going on. You can be whatever you want. And you can go to a state where it's like abortion is bad, blah, blah, this is bad, all these conservative values. and let the ideas compete and let them how they're being practiced in real life. But I think it's very scary when...

the U.S. government is getting bigger and bigger, and then they try to make every state under one big government. And that's when I get really alarmed. Are there things that you see in the United States in the current culture? that kind of has echoes of the same things you saw in North Korea that worry you? So much. Absolutely. It's in America now. The meritocracy doesn't matter, right? It's evil.

The white man's idea of like talking about if you're competent enough, they say, oh, if you're coming from rich white family, you are going to be competent. So other people don't have a chance. But look at Asians who came from nothing as competent. and then go to Harvard Law School and medical school. So it doesn't, almost it's like there's no incentive for you to work hard anymore in the system right now.

That is North Korea. There's no incentive because you're born with your class already. So no matter what you do, you can never. So the horrible thing about North Korean system is that there's nothing even holding Mary up. So if you're coming from other cultures that like Meghan Markle joined a royal family and she became a royal, you go up. But in North Korea, if someone from high class is going to marry somebody down, you only go down with them. That's how they prevent class mix.

Right, that kind of enforces the separation because there's huge disincentives to marry, to integrate between classes. Yeah. What do you do about this kind of... especially in universities, but in companies. I'm thinking about starting a company, so I'm looking at this very carefully. There's these ideas of diversity and meritocracy that's a tension. I think there's a big way in which diversity, broadly defined, is not at all in tension with meritocracy. So...

Having a variety of people, backgrounds, way of thinking, all those kinds of things is a huge benefit to any group. But the way diversity is often defined... is by sort of very crude classes of people, whether it's by skin color or gender or some very kind of large group way. And that... That actually does two things in my mind. One, it drowns out real diversity or not real, but the full spectrum of diversity, which is like within class diversity of like... Are you somebody who is...

Are you somebody who's exceptionally good at mathematics? Are you somebody who's exceptionally good at psychology? Are you good with people? Are you good with numbers? All that kind of stuff that I think spans or intersects in fascinating ways with these kinds of groups. So that's diversity. And then meritocracy is this thing that

Probably the reason I wanted to move to Silicon Valley and the reason I didn't is like having a fire to change the world within you. Like meritocracy is like, I want to be the best in the world at this and I will strive and work hard. not stepping on others, but like purely within yourself, be the best version of yourself. That idea is in some ways being...

Not celebrated or... Demonized. It's literally meritocracy being demonized right now in America. Working hard is a symbol of you coming from some established family. The fact that you celebrate accomplishment, hard work is a sign of your patriarchal, whatever thing they call it, right? They want to abolish that. They want to stop giving kids grades. That's what they're already doing, right? They want to stop. We should abolish it.

SAT in America they take to go to college, right? They won't even abolish that. Some kids have no ability to do math. So why do we have to force them to learn math? And that's what comes with humans overcome challenges. That's what makes us special. But then like, because these kids coming from this family, let's find a reason why they cannot. And then they don't have to do that thing.

they still deserve the same job. They need to be a lawyer and doctors. And that's like what in North Korea was like not, there was not a meritocracy beginning with, right? Did you born in the same family? The family, the blood, right? Like if one person does something wrong, it's like collective guilt. Because I spoke out. Three generations of my family got punished, who I left behind.

And then in America, I see the same thing. Like if you're somehow great-great-grandfather owned a slave, now you are privileged and you're guilty because you are white and guilty. But how do you change your ancestor? How did you have a saying on it? And that is where there's no way out. There's no forgiving. There's no moving forward. And this current culture in America now, like I remember at Columbia, like...

Before class, everybody had to go round of saying, tell us what your pronoun is. And my English, my third language, I learned as an adult. Even saying he and she, I'm confused. It's a pure mistake. And they say, call me Dave, because I'm gender fluid. Basically, I can be a girl, but next hour you talk to me, I'm a boy, right? Yeah.

And if you don't do it right, they're like, look at you. Why are you a bigot? Right? It makes me so nervous. And this is where I come to. This is a regression of civilization. We are regressing as a humanity here. like the enlightenment all of those things made us so much brighter and looking forward now we are going backwards

Well, I think there's a pendulum aspect to it because it's my hope in terms of backwards. So a pendulum goes backwards too, but it just goes back and forth, I think. And then in the long arc of history, we're making progress. I think... all of the discussions of diversity and inclusion and all those kinds of things, I always thought that they're healthy in it.

in moderation right there should be a small part of the conversation amongst other things the the natural aspect like it seems that they kind of have this way of just consuming all conversations. It's like the meetings, like diversity and inclusion meetings multiply somehow, where it's like the only thing that you're talking about. And it's very kind of absurd. And when I look at, even at MIT,

it's a strangely disproportionate amount of discussions about that. And also to me as an engineer, those discussions are very frustrating because they don't seem to actually do anything. So like they want... to bully people instead of creating systems that fix definitive problems.

And that in itself, that kind of bullying, that's the same kind of thing you saw in terms of McCarthyism in America against the communists. You certainly saw that in Soviet Union against everybody who's not communist. It creates... hate not progress when you talk to Jordan Peterson recently and people should listen to that conversation it was a fascinating one I think he

He almost got emotional on the discussion about universities and your experience with Columbia, because he, like myself, for perhaps different reasons, have a hope for our academic institutions. some of the most incredible people some of the most incredible engineering and idea development innovation happens in universities and so we both deeply care about them

Is there something? So the reason he got emotional, the reason he was kind of hurt is the fact that you were not deeply inspired by your experience. I don't deeply. It made me dumber. It made me scared. It made me terrified that... I had to censor myself in America. Like, are you seriously telling me that you don't ever censor yourself when you talk? Can you truly say whatever you want about race, about anything, gender?

We all censor ourselves. Let's be honest, right? We are all doing that. And that's what I learned. Like, I thought I was coming to a country where never needed to censor. Like, first thing my mom taught me growing up in North Korea was... Don't even whisper because the birds and mice could hear you. And I thought, okay, now America is truly the land of the free home of the brave. You can say anything you want, and then you have freedom to change your mind and evolve.

right but the people now demand you to be the perfect version they demand you to be you cannot change your mind and then what is the meaning of life you cannot grow right you should be feel safe to talk about anything and then later okay i was wrong But now if you do that, you got to get penalized for it. I mean, censorship is a funny thing because you probably should not say dumb things. You should try to say...

things you want to say in the most eloquent, the most effective way you can. So, I mean, that's what editing is, right? Yeah. So there's some level of like being careful with what you say, not because you're afraid.

of some overarching kind of group of bullies, but you want to be the best version of yourself when you express stuff. But there's some sense where in the university setting, you can put that self-censorship like level down more and say stupid stuff right and explain and play because you should be forgiven for that kind of

uh play especially when you're discussing difficult aspects of human history whether that that include racism that that include uh atrocities i'm still nevertheless sort of hopeful but at the same time I'm surrounded by engineers. Yeah. So I don't get to interact with people in humanities much. And it seems like there's getting worse. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. Yeah, I don't know.

Well, I do sort of interact with psychologists, but they haven't touched on those kinds of topics yet. I still, sort of in defense of psychology, I still... I wish I had more numbers. Yeah. But I still feel like most psychology people don't partake in this kind of stuff either. They're just doing excellent research. We're just highlighting... That's what America does well. You're kind of highlighting anecdotal experiences and making a big deal out of them.

But that's good because it's a slippery slope. If those things start to overtake all of academia, it starts becoming a big problem, even in the engineering field. So we should be concerned. But it is truly tragic that somebody who's exceptionally well-read, whose fire was stoked first with Orwell, that fire should burn bright. Like this should not be...

you should be writing many books. You know what I mean? Like, and you'll be, you talk to Jordan, you know, it's very possible depending on what you want to do with your life, that you'll be a future Jordan Peterson, right? So like that. And Colombia should be a place that enriches your mind. And the fact that it didn't is tragic. I was there four years.

It wasn't like I had one class that was bad in one semester. Yeah. That was the thing when Dr. Peer was asking, is there any one class that had no sentiment of this virtue signaling and politically right? Yeah. There was none. Entire course. I think I took 126 credits total. Not even one class.

It doesn't matter if we were talking about classic art. And that's the thing. I literally thought, okay, I pushed the semester to the core, like the art and music, right? So I thought this is going to be the least politically correct class I can take. And then it begins with, who has a problem with calling this course the Western Civilization of Art and Music? And everyone was raising their hands. Because, like, why do you have to learn about this Beethoven and Mozart, the bigots?

And all the people, like, you know, everything ruined by white men. Yeah. And even music, even these paintings. And I didn't raise my hand. Everyone was looking at me. How do you not have the problem with the West? Like you should hate the West. You're Asian. So I think that's the thing. I think the problems are way deeper than what people think.

And that's what I learned. It's like, it's not that safe in America. We can't go completely to the South. And looking at even Europe, that is like, I used to be way more optimistic. But now I actually see, wow, this country can't go to South. And we might, if U.S. force that, right, this is the only country left to battle with the Communist Party in China. We may lose.

opportunity to be free ever again as a humanity wow so i mean that puts a lot of value on having these kinds of conversations it is i mean i'm troubled I'm troubled by a lot of things, but like censorship on YouTube, for example. Yeah, it was very annoying to have to listen to Donald Trump all the time. Just create drama. The news cycle was completely drowned out by Donald Trump. But banning him from Twitter, it was like...

That was scary for me because it's like that's a step towards a direction where you're going to, like where does that take us? You're going to silence. then it's like Jordan Peterson is next. That's why we need to promote freedom of thinking and speech, right? And one thing that I love about Dr. Peterson is humans, he's a psychologist, right? He talks about we...

We think by talking. That's why when you go to therapy, you talk and then you hear yourself and then you think and you come up to the answer. It's so important for humans to talk so we can think. So when they say you cannot talk, means you cannot think. And they don't know the consequences of that. And this is why I promote, I want the freedom of speech, even though it hurts, ridiculous, you know.

Sometimes it can be dangerous. But the price, the alternative is so bad that we should make this trade-off. Everything has a trade-off in this world. And it comes with a sacrifice, right? So I think that's... That's what I want to see in America. But it's unfortunately like the people like you say, who decides what is hate speech? What is dangerous? That's what I've been getting scared. Because everybody's imperfect.

Yeah. How do we want to give that power to them? And they're going to decide. Today they might agree with me. Say, okay, your speech is good. Promote is good. And then they might come back next year and say, your speech is bad. What are you doing that happens to you? We have to almost like get ideas out and then play with them. I think what's a really important component of that is forgiving each other for like realizing that we're a different person.

day by day and certainly years later. And I think some of that is... both cultural mechanisms of saying like we forgive each other for wrong ideas or not wrong ideas but for who we are the the full evolution of the human being for the steps we've taken on that evolution and also creating mechanisms that allow you to allow us to forgive each other. Like, for example, on Twitter, it's like horrible with this because

One of the main viral ways that people create drama on Twitter is like pulling up an old tweet that somebody said, right? And then saying, oh, this is the guy that thinks that. Yeah. But that's like the opposite of the mechanisms we need to forgive ourselves, forgive each other for the things we've said in the past. And so part of that is the cultural part of this is the...

the technological mechanisms. You mentioned Jordan Peterson. You had a great conversation with him. What was chatting with him like? I'm just... I'm just curious because he's deeply passionate, especially on the Soviet Union side, about the atrocities of these kinds of systems. What was it like? What did you agree with him on? What did you disagree? What were some...

things you both kind of learned from each other through that conversation, do you think? So here, so my story, the Jordan Pierce, a very long one. So one day I was walking down in Chicago and they were like, huge theater were sold out. He says a big letter, Jordan Peterson sold out. And then it was a huge theater in the middle of Chicago, right? Like, he doesn't like comedian. Like, who can be selling this entire thing out at like 7 p.m.?

And then with my, like, ex-husband, we were walking the street. And then we saw people were, like, selling this, like, tickets. Like for a very higher price, right? And then do you want the ticket? And then he was like, yeah, sure. We ran in. It's packed. And then I was just... gave birth or like, but I wasn't able to understand his English that much. My English was still... And you didn't know who he was really? No.

They were just curious. Yeah, it was like 2018. Who's the guy that sells artists in a theater? Yeah. Yes. I saw Dave Rubin came up before him and make jokes. I still don't know who Dave Rubin is. Afterwards, I met them all. But back then I had no clue what that is. And then he was giving lessons. But what I got from that night was not what Jordan said, but what people did on the audience. These people, like, I don't know.

thousands of people in this big theater crying like babies. And that was like... Whatever that guy is doing is very special, right? He wasn't making any jokes. He had no slides. Just one simple person standing in the huge giant theater talk. And no home time, too. And people cry.

And I was like, wow, okay, whatever that is, I got to check it out. And then I got home. And then later, many years later, I got a book. And I would start reading his book. And it talks about, it explains so much, right? Like now. at colombia learn like everything gender is like made of concept construct like the hierarchy is my man's idea making the hierarchy

And then he begins with the number one, the laughter, how the hierarchies, evolution of history that is within us, that we want a hierarchy, right? And then chapter five about socialization of child, you know, how do you... raise them and all of it and then what's why telling the truth is matters right and there's a why like in his entire 12 lessons i read it and there's like

I was so grateful that I'm alive. There are people who always say, if Socrates is alive, how much would you pay to have lunch with him? That kind of thing, right? So for me, it was like, okay. I'm like... alive in the same contemporary world one of the greatest thinkers of my entire generation and then like how much money hang out with them exactly right how much money would I pay no no limit

amount. And I reached out to Michaela on her podcast on Twitter and connected. And then one day she would say, do you want to go on my father's podcast? I was like, what? I was like, of course. I was very nervous, but I didn't expect him to be that connected. Yeah. Because I thought he was a psychologist. He saw so much suffering in the world. He studied Soviet Union. His hobby is collecting those things to remind him of the suffering of a human being. So sometimes some people hear so much.

They become like very, you know, not engaged. Yeah, desensitized. Desensitized. He felt, he was feeling, he was, it's almost like he was living through the experiences with you as you were talking about it. It was an amazing conversation. So Jordan is one of the great thinkers of our time, but I would say the greatest thinkers of our time is Michael Malice, who you've also got the chance to talk to. So he wrote a book on North Korea.

It's an interesting style book. I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot from Michael about it. And it's interesting that he chose... North Korea as a thing to study. That he, of all people, this fascinating human being that is Michael, chose this darkest of aspects of... of humanity to study. What do you think of Michael? What do you think of his book on North Korea called Dear Reader that people should definitely check out? Absolutely. So back then when I reached out

Michael through Mutual Friends, South Korea, my English wasn't good. So I got a copy in my hand. I tried to read and a lot of them I didn't understand. But I thought it was very fascinating how he explained North Korea through the leader's perspective, right? Nobody has ever done that. And you can review so much about the state and absurdity of the entire situation.

And also through humor. And that's what's amazing about Michael is he knows full gravity of tragedy. He knows full suffering. He's not just like people here in America on the BuzzFeed making fun of Kim Jong-un's haircut. They don't care what people go through. Michael cares. Deeply cares. And then he still does ridiculous jokes. So that kind of reveals in a dark way the absurdity of evil. Yeah. He does that masterfully. He's a genius.

He is definitely a genius. If he watches this, let's not make his head too big here. But is there some aspect to... I mean, there is an absurdity to the whole thing. Kim Jong-un is this, I mean, it's almost like a caricature of evil. It's a joke. It's a joke. A lot of people think it's a joke. They just think like, this is too...

too absurd, they laugh. Like, can you imagine you laugh at Holocaust? This is that ridiculous. Can you maybe psychoanalyze that a little bit? Because... that that's where my mind goes to like he's so ridiculous that you can't it's almost like hard to believe this is real yeah Is that just my kind of and people's desire to escape the cruelty of reality by just kind of making a joke out of it? I think it is.

a few things, right? So North Korea as a nation, number one or number two smartest IQ people in the world, despite their malnutrition. So... So there's, I mean, that's an interesting point. So in your sense, the people still carry the brilliance. There's a culture there that's like... hungry to become realized.

Like the people that are silenced by the electricity, by actually having no food, all those kinds of things. Like if you add the electricity, if you add the food, you're going to have a cultural center of the world. Like South Korea. That's what they exactly did, right? The exact same Korea. One became world, like, 11th largest economy. One became the world's most, like, poorest nation, right?

And this is a perfect example. I don't know if you read that book, Why Nation Affairs? The system. It's not about a culture. It is not about people. It is not about IQ. What makes us different is a system. South Korea, North Korea is a perfect example of that. One is exact same capability. We are a homogeneous country, same language, tradition, all of that. We gave them a different system. One is free democracy, one is dictatorship.

and came up with the biggest different result. And I think North Korea reveals that to us. It's not because we are great that we are living in this prosperity, free market. The ideas gave us to this. The system we built, our ancestors built, gave us this privilege. It's not us. Nothing is about us being special here, right? The system that we have is quite special. And North Korea proves that to us. It doesn't matter even if you're smart. That's all irrelevant.

And I think that's why people just keep denying that they want to feel special. Like, because I'm awesome, I got all of this. Like, no, it's not you you got this. And when people say, like, I hate capitalism, I was like, without capitalism, how do you come up with this thing? Literally. How did you come up with this? The systems matter. Matter. And they matter.

Like way more than this individualistic society would like to imagine. It is the most important thing you can have in life, choosing the right system. Do you have advice for young people today? You've lived an incredible life and you have, I hope, an incredible life ahead of you. What advice would you give to young people today, high schoolers? college students, how to be successful in their career, maybe successful in life. Last thing I want them to feel is guilty. It doesn't do anything.

Right. So I hate when people talk about, oh, why guilt? It's like that doesn't make even any sense. Right. I think the fact that they born with freedom is a blessing for all of us. It's not like I want them to do something because they are guilty. I want them to do something because they are grateful.

It is true. Like we are sitting here, the fact why I have children is suffering. Having kids, you don't sleep. Costly. Like so much work. Like any like logical, rational mind, you should never want children. right why would you do that to yourself especially as a woman right yeah you don't want to do that to yourself but think think about like we are sitting here today two of us

in this amazing technology, this country. Because somebody in Savannah, hundreds, thousands of years ago, they're hunting berries and surviving cold. Every suffering that you can imagine, they fall for us. That's why we ended up here. So life is ultimately bigger than us.

I think that's what I want them. It's not like I want them to do the right thing and be the best person themselves. It's like I want them to feel grateful. And we should be feel grateful. For the freedom. And then take full advantage of that. I mean, it starts with the freedom to experience everything in life. And for your life, literally. Like life. Like how my father, you know, working, dying is a lot easier than living.

Dying takes like a few minutes, right? Maximum. And leaving takes forever. So when I was facing this unbelievable challenge. I thought, okay, this most rational thing I can do is killing myself right now. But the hardest thing I can choose is to live. And my father did that. Even in the concentration camp, even no matter what he said, life is a gift.

you need to fight for it. And I think that's what's missing here, that we don't think life is a gift. It's a gift. Like, how many people had to fight for me to be here today? think about the sacrifice they made for many many many generations i don't even know what they went through i can't even fathom what they went through they fought for life yeah

And that is my responsibility enough. So it doesn't make them, their fight was not meaningless, right? It meant something because now I'm carrying on that fight. You mentioned considering suicide. Do you think about your mortality now? Now that you're perhaps in a slightly more comfortable place, do you still think about death? I do because I was informed actually when I was 21 that I was on the killing list of Kim Jong-un by South Korean intelligence. And then I...

I had to leave you with that, right? But now I actually feel more because, I don't know, you follow Jamal Khashoggi's story, the Saudi journalist who got chopped off in Turkey's embassy, right? His reason why he got killed was he became very prominent on Twitter. He had a huge voice and Saudis followed him.

Now I became very first North Korean to have this many social media followings. And recently North Korea started an investigation team to analyze whatever I do, even though it's first time for them. So they don't even know what to say at this point. They're like, this is so new. What do we do? With Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong-un got killed in Malaysia.

That is another tragedy that I feel so sorry for the U.S. government is that Kim Jong-nam was giving information to the CIA for the past 10 years. That trip... When he got killed in Malaysian airport, he was meeting up with the CIA agent for two days on the Northern Ireland. CIA could have protected him. They didn't. They let him die. Who killed him?

North Korean Kim Jong-un cared. Do you know the Malaysian, the ladies, the VX, the nerve agent? Mm-hmm. North Koreans care them. In Malaysian Europe, in the international land. So even Jamal Khashoggi, who was a U.S. resident and a Washington Post journalist, when he got killed in Saudi like a lamb, they chopped him into pieces. In that most inhumane death, what was the consequences for the Saudis?

Nothing. The word is we think we're living in justice country. No, there's no justice. There is no accountability for killing any descent, no matter how big their names are. So you don't think you're... vast and quickly growing social media presence protects you? No, it does opposite. Because Kim Jong-un...

Initially, when I spoke out, I don't know if you went through it, they did everything they could to character assassinate me, saying, I'm a liar, I'm a CIA spy, I get paid. And then they reached out to Penguin, saying, we're going to blow up.

You cannot write this book. And they did it with Sony. They hacked the Sony studio for making that stupid movie interview, right? And then Penguin did their investigation. They met every survivor that I went through in the desert. They got the voice recordings of them.

Because they don't want them to change their mind later, right? People remember differently. So they got the voice recording. It's like the Penguin Riegel thing got the old audience. And now we are ready for the lawsuit. We are going to publish this book. Because we checked to verify every single thing that was going in the book. And North Korea couldn't do anything anymore.

But that's character assassination. Which, by the way, that's a whole other conversation that you were able to survive that. I appreciate the kind of strength it requires to survive that because you don't know. And your character being assassinated is in some ways... be as painful as actual assassination. It's the worst. Everybody think you're a liar. Everybody think you're a liar. And now everybody, like you said, this nature of internet is that.

As long as something is written internet, they think that's a fact. Any stupid person can start a blog and write about you. But they think, oh, because it's written on intern, it's legit. Especially negative stuff. That's the thing I was kind of trying to elaborate on. There's a viral aspect to calling somebody a fraud or a liar.

that nobody questions whether it's true or not, it just spreads. And it's a dark side of our human nature that we want to destroy the people who are rising. We cannot stand it. Yeah, any changemaker in this world who wasn't controversial, right? Martin Luther King Jr., like Nelson Mandela, he was called as a terrorist, right? So I just did not know.

The character assassination is the thing. It'll probably continue with you. It will continue with you forever. So you have to get stronger and stronger, I think, in the face of that. actual assassination and perhaps it's me being hopeful because i have a situation with russia that i hope i'm not under well i don't care actually but there's some aspect in which social media presence

I thought, protects you a little bit. Because just imagine the outrage from an attempted assassination of you. But what was outrage when Jamil Kashuki got killed like that? Was the social media presence large? Over 1 million people. I don't have that following. He was 1.6 million Twitter followers. And the outrage wasn't there? No, because Saudis spoke to Amazon.

The Prime Studio, Netflix, there were people made a documentary about it but told everybody cannot get that deal. So there was a huge censorship on that. And people, of course, like, I mean, they can talk about it one day. distance from Saudi got killed. Horrible. But it just dissipates. They move on to the next cute puppy, right? The next cute cat. That's what the nature of this new generation does. They desensitize. It doesn't affect them. They keep following the instant pleasure.

Instant high. That's what Instagram does to you. It changes your brain. Like that's why I was really spoke of shallows. We became shallow and shallow and our brain changed permanently. So this is a generation. We can get them angry for like 10 minutes.

minutes create hashtags for one day but then as quick as that was it goes down like instantly and i think that's the well that means that okay so that means that there is uh it's an effective way to get rid of opposition is by murdering them and that means a united states if it stands for freedom if it stands for the

Freedom of exchange of ideas should be protecting people like you. But they don't, because they don't want to be involved. They didn't even protect Kim Jong-nam, who was giving information 10 years, risking his life. That's what is so, I mean... Working for CR is not bad. I'm not. I don't. I hope. I mean, the thing is.

He was giving information to bring down the vision. That is valuable. That is something noble about him. But then you don't go extra miles to that. That's when I lost my faith in the U.S. system as well. Like this country just cares about saving face. What is most minimum cost they pay for anything. And like I went to South Korea, constantly every single day intelligence calling me. Yeah, like the North Korean agent going this place, where are you going? The U.S. assistant came to U.S.? Nobody.

Listen, when people say you're a CIA agent, I wish they called me. I wish they called me. I wish they. I really truly do. But nobody, nobody does here. I'm sure they know what's going on. But the South Korean agent is more like, oh my gosh, we don't want you to get killed as a South Korean citizen, right? Yeah. And now I'm trying to become a citizen. So in a way, I don't know what's worse.

Are you afraid for your life? I was afraid. For the several, three, four years, I was afraid. And it was, but I had to come terms with it, like my enemy. It's not some crazy psychopath. It's a state with a nuclear power to attack the most powerful country. If Kim Jong-un decides if I die, I'm gonna die. It's not up to me, right? So in a way, also it's liberating.

that you it's like if you are like afraid of some mobs or some like gangsters on the street it's almost like you have power over a little bit you gotta be like thinking that's my fault i went that way right but when it comes to kim jong-un I know my enemy is so much bigger than me. It's in a way a liberation. And also, I live a lot. So I have seen a lot. I've seen everything.

I don't have that much regret left here. Like, okay, I'm going too soon, you know. It's like, okay, maybe it's time. Like, death is a part of life. In some sense, you're willing to accept death to keep fighting. for freedom in your, in at least in part, a place you call home. Yeah, it is. Do you hope that one day you can return to North Korea? I hope so. I hope I bring my son and tell him this is like where.

your ancestors from too. It would look very different than the place you came from in your, as you hope. Do you hope that there's a democracy one day? that North Korea looks like South Korea. Well, that would be in paradise, right? But I'm a rational optimist. I'm not just optimistic because I have to be. I think as long as there are people who have changed the world, right? Like who believed in something and worked for it. And like, I don't know, like this.

like a few people holding entire this word right i really believe in that i think as long as that continues that can happen in my country As long as people like you someday decide to do something about North Korea and working for, using your brain power to solve this puzzle, how fascinating would that be? That's why I continue to speak. continue to recruit to inspire millions to do something

The books you like are all the books I love. I have to mention this. You mentioned briefly with Jordan, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It's an incredible book. Yeah. I mean, I don't know exactly what I want to ask here, but there's some... I think the book kind of, through telling a story, reveals that life is... suffering and yet there's beauty in it the beauty in every moment that uses kind of a river yeah paint a metaphor is there is there um

Is there something that you could say, speak to, like how that book impacted your life and the way you live life, maybe the way you see life, whether it's on the life is suffering side or that life is beautiful side? I mean, he goes through an entire journey, right? He goes in this state of, I'm so enlightened that I cannot deal with the people who are in love and cry about it. Right? They're like, that's so, like, primitive.

Once he has his own son, he's actually being attached. He actually cares. He actually really does the whole thing. That's the thing that he used to think not. Once his son comes to find him, he looks at life differently. I think that's the thing. I did have that kind of journey where nothing matters, right? So bitter. So like, so cynical. And after I met so many incredible people, I was talking about that person who told me he was gay. He told me, I love you.

And I was like, why do you love me? In the past, people, when they wanted me, it was because they want to rape me. Everybody wanted something from me. That's why they wanted me. And I never understood you can love somebody unconditionally. And this gay guy, the last one was going to sleep with me, right? And he loves me. And I think I had a blessing after my journey, meeting people who loved me unconditionally because I was just being a human.

And I think that's what it is now for me that like him, I live for love now. I live for love. Any kinds of love. Love for knowledge. I like, I read so many books because I love books, right? I love. what i do i love my people i love humanity you know even it sometimes annoys me i love myself and that's beautiful too the annoying parts are beautiful too what do you let me ask the ridiculous question what do you think is the meaning of this whole thing

of what's the meaning of life? Well, I think at this point, I stopped questioning why I'm here. Right. Like it doesn't matter. Someone put the atom there or a big bang. I'm here. That's truth. Right. I'm going to accept that fully. So what instead of me keep asking the impossible question, what I'm here, I'm going to let you do that. Do that. Right.

You guys go out in the space and look for the evidence. I'm content. You accept that you're here and you're just going to enjoy, like you're here for love, as you said. That's the thing. I think I'm here for the... process of pursuing something bigger than me process of doing something it's not like a model it's not a virtue signaling thing it just makes me happy that I fight for something bigger

like that me right it's how boring is it every day you get up oh my god I'm gonna buy myself this I'm gonna get this for myself it's so boring isn't it so in a way I think That's what it is. I'm grateful that I'm in a state. I don't have to fly for myself anymore. But more new people have to do that. And that's sometimes more than enough they have to do. And I salute them. They are doing fighting, saving themselves every day. But now I'm not there. I'm very blessed. That's why I'm very grateful.

So fighting for something much bigger than you, but do you still believe that you can change the world? That you can be a thing that, at least in part... helps north korea or even broader helps alleviate some suffering in the world so that's the thing uh i was reading this book for the by randomness Yeah. I was like, there were people who were like, oh, my God, you're so courageous. You're amazing. I was like, no, I'm not. I'm horrible, right? I know myself. You don't want to tell me that.

It's random why I end up here. Like, why did I pick up English so quickly? Why do I love books, right? I don't know why. Yeah. It's random. Don't ask why. Just enjoy it. Yeah, it's random. I think, I don't know how the history will remember me. I think the only thing I have to at this point to make sure is that the people, after I'm consulting a lot of security teams, like now North Korea became a lot smarter. Like you said, they make it more disguised as a suicide.

And I call accident. So when I die, they don't even know I got killed. Yeah. I think that's a higher chance. So I think that's a thing like. People are suffering, take it or not, it's your choice. And at least it's my responsibility for them to know what's going on. I think if you did not know and didn't do anything, you are not even guilty of a thing. But once you know, then you are not doing it.

then something is not right. So that's what I'm doing. I want people to know. And then what they want to do is not my problem afterwards. So my role is very small in that regard. And I just hope that we'll humanize North Koreans for the first time because we have been so dehumanized. Right. Like we are like looking like robots. If you look at us marching and cry, like when the leader dies, almost seems like we don't even have the same emotions. People cannot connect us in the same level.

And I think that's something media have done to us. And you're shining a small light on this dark part of the world that I think... And you make it, you're so modest, but I think you will have that little light just might be a big thing that changes that.

incredible amount of suffering that's happening on that part of the world. You know what I mean? You're an amazing person. I'm so fortunate I get a chance to talk with you. I can't wait what you do in the future. I hope you write many more books. I do hope you continue making videos, continue having conversations. You're an inspiration to me and millions of others. I really appreciate you talking with me today. I'm so honored. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to this conversation with Yonmi Park, and thank you to Belcampo, Gala Games, BetterHelp, and 8sleep. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now, let me leave you with some words from Bob Marley. Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.