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My wife came across this video (linked below) and called me in to watch midstream. It’s an interview with Yeonmi Park, who escaped from North Korea via being a sex slave in China, eventually making it to South Korea and ultimately the United States. I could tell after just a few minutes not only that she had a powerful story to tell, but also that she was extremely intelligent and had conceptualized the psychological and political fundamentals that frame her story to an amazing degree. When asked what books influenced her once she gained her freedom, she named Animal Farm, The Communist Manifesto (to understand what happened), and said that she had read 80% of Atlas Shrugged.
I searched her name here on HBL, and found this post from Thomas Reardon in August of 2019. I haven’t watched the TED Talk referenced there but will soon.
I wonder if ARI has approached her for any interviews or events.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za34H-dT8I0&ab_channel=Valuetainment
*sb
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Re: Mark Peter’s post 102754 of 5/31/21
I ran across Yeonmi’s videos early into the pandemic. I too think it would be interesting for ARI to interview her.
/sb
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Re: Trevor Tompkins’ post 137508 of 6/2/21
I agree with your post title. That connection occurred to me as well.
*sb
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The Objective Standard had a review of Yeonmi Park’s autobiography In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom (link).
They also had an article on “Leading an Enlightenment Life in an Anti-Enlightenment World” that featured the stories on Yeonmi Park as well as those of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Deborah Feldman (link).
/sb
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Re: Mark Peter’s post 102754 of 6/1/21
I listened to her interview and then quickly read her book over two sittings. I have some snippets to share that may entice others to do the same or just be valuable on their own.
I could tell after just a few minutes not only that she had a powerful story to tell, but also that she was extremely intelligent and had conceptualized the psychological and political fundamentals that frame her story to an amazing degree.
She Was A Learning Machine:
The following are descriptions of how she earned the nickname “Learning Machine” once she reached a South Korean school and education program:
But I was not a popular student….
The girls thought I was strange and aloof. The teachers told me that I wasn’t “opening up” enough. I wasn’t interested in spending a lot of time reading the Bible and going to church, which was very important to everybody else. All I wanted to do at the Heavenly Dream School was study. I was so thirsty to learn that I couldn’t tolerate any distractions. My nickname was “Learning Machine.”…
I didn’t feel that I was getting enough of what I needed out of the school’s curriculum, and I didn’t like all the extra religious activities. I didn’t like having to pretend to believe more deeply than I did…
Once I was home, all I did was read. I inhaled books like other people breathe oxygen. I didn’t just read for knowledge or pleasure; I read to live. I had only $30 a month to spend, and after expenses, I would use everything I had left to buy books. Some were new; some came from a secondhand store. Even if I was hungry, books were more important than food…
I crammed twelve years of education into the next eighteen months of my life…I vowed to myself to read one hundred books a year, and I did…
I read to fill my mind and to block out the bad memories. But I found that as I read more, my thoughts were getting deeper, my vision wider, and my emotions less shallow. The vocabulary in South Korea was so much richer than the one I had known, and when you have more words to describe the world, you increase your ability to think complex thoughts…
I was starting to realize that you can’t really grow and learn unless you have a language to grow within. I could literally feel my brain coming to life, as if new pathways were firing up in places that had been dark and barren. Reading was teaching me what it meant to be alive, to be human…
I could finally think about something beyond food and safety, and it made me feel more fully human. I never knew that happiness could come from knowledge. When I was young, my dream was to have one bucket of bread. Now I started to dream great dreams.
The City as Alive:
Sometimes I wondered how there could be so many lights in this place when, just thirty-five miles north of here, a whole country was shrouded in darkness. Even in the small hours of the morning, the city was alive with flashing signs and blinking transmission towers and busy roadways with headlights traveling along like bright cells pumping through blood vessels.
Learning To Self-Assert, Learning the “I:”
I don’t know if the other defectors had the same problems, but for me the most difficult part of the program was learning to introduce myself in class. Almost nobody knew how to do this, so the teachers taught us that the first thing you say is your name, age, and hometown. Then you can tell people about your hobbies, your favorite recording artist or movie star, and finally you can talk about “what you want to be in the future.” When I was called on, I froze. I had no idea what a “hobby” was. When it was explained that it was something I did that made me happy, I couldn’t conceive of such a thing. My only goal was supposed to be making the regime happy. And why would anyone care about what “I” wanted to be when I grew up? There was no “I” in North Korea—only “we.”…
When the teacher saw this, she said, “If that’s too hard, then tell us your favorite color.” Again, I went blank…
In North Korea, we are usually taught to memorize everything, and most of the time there is only one correct answer to each question. So when the teacher asked for my favorite color, I thought hard to come up with the “right” answer. I had never been taught to use the “critical thinking” part of my brain, the part that makes reasoned judgments about why one thing seems better than another…
The teacher told me, “This isn’t so hard. I’ll go first: My favorite color is pink. Now what’s yours?” “Pink!” I said, relieved that I was finally given the right answer. . .
In South Korea, I learned to hate the question “What do you think?” Who cared what I thought? It took me a long time to start thinking for myself and to understand why my own opinions mattered. But after five years of practicing being free, I know now that my favorite color is spring green and my hobby is reading books and watching documentaries. I’m not copying other people’s answers anymore.
In North Korea The Most Dangerous Part of Your Body: Your Tongue:
Many years later, after she told me her story, I finally understood why when my mother sent me off to school she never said, “Have a good day,” or even, “Watch out for strangers.” What she always said was, “Take care of your mouth.”…
In most countries, a mother encourages her children to ask about everything, but not in North Korea. As soon as I was old enough to understand, my mother warned me that I should be careful about what I was saying. “Remember, Yeonmi-ya,” she said gently, “even when you think you’re alone, the birds and mice can hear you whisper.” She didn’t mean to scare me, but I felt a deep darkness and horror inside me.
The Life or Death Importance of Art:
I’m often asked why people would risk going to prison to watch Chinese commercials or South Korean soap operas or year-old wrestling matches. I think it’s because people are so oppressed in North Korea, and daily life is so grim and colorless, that people are desperate for any kind of escape. When you watch a movie, your imagination can carry you away for two whole hours. You come back refreshed, your struggles temporarily forgotten.
*sb
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Re: Mark Peter’s post 102754 of 6/1/21
This is just making the rounds today. YP recently conducted an interview with Fox News. . . calling out Columbia University for its wokeness/anti-thinking/anti-Americanism.
North Korean defector says ‘even North Korea was not this nuts’ after attending Ivy League school (use this link; the picture below is not a link)
/sb
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