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  • Hello everyone

  • My name is Yeonmi Park and it is a real privilege to speak to you

  • I was born in 1993 in the city of Hyesan

  • So Hyesan is just right on the Chinese border

  • So occasionally I could even smell very like fatty oily delicious noodles cooking from China

  • And sometimes when I was little, some Chinese kids were asking me "are you hungry there?"

  • And they would shout across the river and I would say "Oh shut up", you know

  • You are a fat Chinese!

  • Sorry no, no offense. Yeah I like them

  • My family was really happy when most of the men worked as police and doctors and as soldiers

  • And their wives often came from political families

  • So belonging to Choson Rodongdang or Worker's Party of North Korea is a huge privilege

  • But most of North Koreans are not so lucky

  • And in North Korea there is a Songbun caste system

  • So that means there is opportunities and positions in the life

  • So you don't have to plan anything and you don't even have to think too much

  • Because they control everything, they are telling you what to do in the future

  • Yeah this is me and my sister and my family picture

  • So yeah when I was about four or five, my father had a business venture trading from Pyongyang to Hyesan

  • So my sister and I had to move back a lot between Pyongyang and Hyesan

  • Because he lived in Pyongyang from 1998

  • When I was young I went to school and of course I learned about how great our leader was, you know

  • is I mean... but that was not anything special for me because I had so much fun playing with my friends

  • Like go riverside and hiking and swimming

  • Or sometimes I could even play Super Mario game at our friends houses

  • You guys know what is Super Mario Game right?

  • I'm still looking for that mushroom to getting me bigger, taller!

  • Yeah if you know, just tell me after this

  • I went to Pyongyang and Pyongyang was huge

  • While living there I could go to a fancy restaurant for the first time in my life

  • In the morning the cheery songs blast out over the loud city speakers

  • So that means I was in North Korea, the government say

  • the propaganda like "Oh we are a happy country, everybody is happy"

  • But in 2004 my whole world came crashing down

  • My father, my hero was arrested for his illegal trading business

  • And that was three long years before I saw my father again

  • And because of that I could not live in Pyongyang anymore, so I had to go back to Hyesan

  • Back in Hyesan I saw a new side of North Korea

  • This can be explained by the Black Market Generation, which includes me

  • So this generation is those who grow up without much food supplies from the government

  • So we had to survive by ourselves

  • So look here at these pictures, people are selling, bargaining and buying like markets here, right?

  • I think this symbolized the new free-spirit of my generation

  • So I think this is the hope for North Korean freedom for several key reasons

  • Firstly, our relationship with the Kim dynasty is hugely different

  • Because I never experienced any good life under their regime

  • Kim Il-sung passed away in 2004 (correction 1994) and I was born in 1993, so I don't have any memory of him

  • Not like some North Koreans who still have a really good memory of Kim Il-sung's time

  • During his time not many people were starving or dying for food

  • So they still think Kim Il-sung is a good leader

  • But, you know, our kids and my case, I don't care who is that guy, you know

  • He was died after I was born one year later

  • Therefore, we have less loyalty for the regime and never sincerely worshipped him

  • And secondly we had more wide access to the outside media

  • So here Titanic, Cinderella, Snow White, 007

  • All the Hollywood and Disney movies

  • Here is California, where is Hollywood by the way?

  • Yeah, I'm so excited now

  • Yeah, so I saw all these movies, I even saw like WWF, like wrestling

  • Is there anybody seeing that here? Put your hands up

  • Oh okay, good! I saw that when I was just five. It was so violent

  • I thought that most Americans have like big muscles here, you know

  • But you guys are not, so, yeah

  • So that was me, when I was in North Korea I wanted to be like a princess

  • waiting for the prince riding a white horse, that was my dream too

  • Watching these foreign medias, that was a huge joy to see this different world

  • It was so fascinating to see the people, how can they express themselves individually

  • How people can have their own unique style

  • So I made a paper doll and made some unique dress for my paper doll

  • Even though I cannot do it in public, in North Korea, so I like expressed my desire through that doll

  • And while watching all these movies with my friends, and they told me that they want to live in society like that

  • Like South Korea, where they can express their desire and they can be free

  • In North Korea they don't have any freedom to sing, listen to, wear, even dance

  • What is wrong with my body right? So they have to control every clothes

  • You cannot even wear skinny pants and wear a sexy dress. You cannot dance and move your hips, you know. It's so ridiculous right?

  • We really, really hate it. So underground we dance and we will do the disco, you know. Watching the movies

  • So I can do the wave sometime

  • Yeah so today we are more capitalistic and individualistic

  • Because when I was just seven I was just busy working with my homework from school

  • And my father just told me that, "as long a you know how to count money, you don't have to know all these things"

  • So I thought about it and then learning about Kims, it was not anything useful and practical at all

  • So I quit, I didn't really study much after that

  • That means, how much we really care about the market

  • You know how to survive by ourselves, without relying on the government

  • So government's Kim dynasty was really nothing to us

  • And of course we are more individualistic so I think this is a really key point

  • Once you start trading for yourself, you start thinking for yourself

  • That is a really big problem for the totalitarian government

  • So why I left Korea is my father's imprisonment destroyed my reputation too

  • So under Songbun Caste System his sins are my sins, so I am guilty too

  • So I wanted to get married with a man who has a good background

  • And I wanted to go to university being a doctor, but I was guilty and I couldn't go to university

  • So there was no bright future for me, so we had to get out from there

  • I went to China with my family, so my mom my father and I had an older sister

  • You saw the picture but I lost her

  • Three people went to China and for the first time I couldn't believe my eyes

  • Like in the streets the kids were dying their hair and ripped the jeans, you know, they were so free

  • And I was like "oh my god, I cannot believe this" In China I could see all these movies in public

  • So, wow, this is really heaven, this is the life that I was expecting for

  • But in China as a North Korean refugee, I could not have enjoyed all these things

  • Because in China the Chinese government do not accept us as refugee status

  • So I had to hide everytime and always be careful, so I can say that that was the most hardest time in my life

  • And really sadly my father passed away in 2008 for the colon cancer

  • So my mom and I had to find a way to leave again

  • So we took the most dangerous journey, we went to inner Mongolia in temperature minus 40 degrees

  • It was really cold and included a three year old boy

  • So we put him to sleep, not making any noise, so we gave him some medicine to sleep and we just walked

  • So I crossed the 16-wire fence in that temperature, and so I brought one compass but it was not useful at all

  • So I just literally followed the poster from the Big Dipper

  • Just follow the star, and then I made it, yeah I really made it

  • So I got into South Korea and when I was just finally emerged from the system I was a free woman

  • But I also faced challenges fending for myself in South Korean society

  • And sometimes I had struggles with my identity, so "who am I?" "Am I North Korean or South Korean?"

  • Is there any country that I can proudly call I am from?

  • But later, it doesn't matter at all. I'm just being me, be myself, that is the most important thing so..

  • I'm Park Yeonmi

  • Nowadays I am fighting for my dream, reconciling North and South into one Korean people

  • So I am going to tv shows and interviews telling my story.

  • I really try to show the people the true heart of North Korea

  • Not the Kim's propaganda or how crazy they are

  • but just the people

  • My people, our people

  • So, my speech title is "Nothing is Forever"

  • I believe that nothing in this world can last forever

  • Not even the North Korean regime, they might not look unchanged but the people are changing from the bottom

  • So, I can say the biggest change in North Korea is that the people no longer believe the Kim's as gods anymore

  • They know clearly why they are poor

  • Because outside media and information is setting them free from the brainwashing and dictatorship

  • So they want to be free, they want to escape

  • They want to live their lives as they wish, but they don't have enough power yet by themselves

  • But we all have that power to support and help the North Korean people

  • So everyday in China and elsewhere

  • Thousands of refugees are facing the daily terror of deportation

  • So please support organizations like LiNK, who's helping North Koreans and rescuing them from China

  • When I was crossing the Gobi Desert, scared of dying, I thought nobody cared

  • But you have listened to my story, you have cared, thank you

Hello everyone

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