The screen is dark because what we will hear is a story of darkness young me

Park is a North Korean defector and the human rights activist she escaped to

China in 2007 and settled in South Korea in 2009 Yeon-mi

you left with your mother to China when you were only 13. Can you tell us what it

was like being a child in North Korea?

YEON-MI: My mom telling me not to even whisper the

birds and mice can hear my whisper so like I was so surprised when I came to

rest in the society and parents encourage their children to speak up and

express their feelings by what I had to learn was that's more age how not to

express my feelings and not even think deeply and also I was like normal child

in North Korea of course I went to school and I learned the math like here

I was very differently to learn the math the questions was like there are 10

American passers in your clear the five of them and how many left to care and I

say America five American bastards and I had to say American bastards I could not

say just Americans and of course we play the game in school and we build a

snowman there and put pig nose and it's represent the American and we put the

hot water there and they disappears and we say hooray on our campus we

disappeared and they told us that the rest of the world are just on impure and

disgusting and dangerous place and we have nothing to envy outside the world

so our country was the past and that was the thing I learned and that was my life

A: In North Korea you came from from family had some privilege but your

father got in trouble with the regime for sending medals to China so at the

age of 13 with with your mother you decided to leave why and how did you leave?

YEON-MI: so North Korea is everything is not free we cannot choose what to wear

we cannot want to sing a song that we wanted to sing government to telling us

what to do what to wear what to watch so we cannot thank him for our serves and

and also we are not equal in that society we have a sanguine system which

means your division puts people into strict classes and one speaker my father

became prisoner I was picking previous prisoner starchy and therefore I didn't

have any future and you were very starving A: You were starving

YEON-MI: yes, so I ate dragonflies or grass and think that I could care from the nature and we

realized we had to get off from this here and that was go to China. So in 2007 my

sister left first and my mother and I followed it later and there was one man

actually who taught us told us he can bring us to China so in the border a

reporter there guards with a gun standing the earth and if they see

anybody's cause they would just shoot them and this man who brought us Hindus

and border guards so we crossed a frozen river but once I arrived in China I saw

my mother was being raped in front of my eyes and I was 13 years old a time and I

got there the broker was telling my mom I wanted to have a sexy reader I was 13

years old and I did not even know what sex meant that time and she told them no

you cannot do that so she had to be raped in order to protect me but that

was not a they told us in China the government's worth tried as catchers

back so if you wanted to live in China then you have to get married to the

Chinese man and unless if you don't you can go back but if going back north

creates death sentence anyway we are going to die for the starvation so as I

was age of 13 and my mom I was separated and she served for Chinese poker and

both of us have been trafficked

A: While you were living with this man that you could be reunited with your with

your mother how did that happen?

YEON-MI: I never knew what

human trafficking was and I could imagine how people can sterling people

people I and I just could not believe they were negotiating price and from my

eyes and the men who bought me he was telling me if I was trying to kill

myself and he told me if I become his mistress

you'd by my mother and by my father from North Korea and I thought if I sacrifice

myself then I can see my parents and I decide to be his mistress and he bought

my mom back and he bought my father from North Korea my father arrived in China

he was very sick and he got the colon cancer from the prison here so he also

died for the cancer eventually

A: you and your mother stayed together and decided to

get out of China no no there was a way for us to find our Island but we heard

if we go to South Korea we can have the asylum there and we just wanted to give

a last try we just wanted to live like human beings with dignity and we decide

to walking across the kaabah desert so far with people in our team we walked in

quads A: walking through the desert must have been so cold

in the minus 40 degrees and it was one night one day and we follow the compass

first time but of recognized compass later so we had to follow the star to

know if the during the summertime the censorship might be more harsh than

uture so in the minus 4 degree nobody thinks some people would cross the

desert and just chose that time and it was just

really randomly and I was lucky so I was 15 years old of course I felt very you

know it on a time and we were ready to kill ourselves so we brought knives and

poison with us if we caught by Chinese police or if we were sent back to coin

sent back to North Korea but that time when I crossed that desert I've heard

really only the stars were with us and even this University's earth just opened

and us and I was just completely alone that does everything but absolute

longing less source is something that I could not just sender A: we heard how they

indoctrinate kids but what I was wondering

did you ever feel like,

there is something not right about all this... YEON-MI: it's very it was a big dilemma

for me for a while because when I was in North Korea

I saw the foreign video from the black market and that video was the movie

Titanic I could not believe how come people are

making a movie for us such a shameful story because in North Korea there's no

love stories no love songs everything is about our dear leader and I just could

not believe and I really literally thought oh I know actors DiCaprio and

the new baby died but I was so glad he was alive and I think that really movie

showed me something humanity and something else out there but sir I could

not imagine our leader would be he cannot make miracles for us he's not

like a person he's a god-like figure he can do everything and this universe

chose him to be our captain of this earth and I learned all this

University's humanity I adore him and I that was my belief even when I was in

China people were saying all your leader is bad that's why he was were starving I

was so upset with him why would you say that you are later and I was defending

my leader even I was a refugee in China so it's really I still don't believe how

that is possible even recently now I'm in the States in the American pastures

country I'm enjoying this partisan probe and full prosperity I think but when

once I watching documentaries North Korean documentaries and I see that big

smile of a leader that monument I fear something warrants me here and I know

they are just bastards you know they are jerks but I fear that a few seconds

later stop I cannot do I've cannot fear this feeling now so it's really scary in

some sense to me but A: finally is there

anything you want to tell people? YEON-MI: Yeon Su doesn't like me at all for some

reason

I I think the the first thing I realized that for the first time in my life I own

me I own myself

and this is so powerful to me and never under myself I was belong to the States

I was belong to a man who bomb me and so many people enough they aren't allowing

themselves and I have a voice now there's a freedom allow me to have a

voice I wanted to use this voice and I want everyone use their voice you had a

lie on the darkest place in the world I wanted to say that the people in North

Korea time for food and dying for freedom it's not the freedom I'm talking

about freedom of expression or speech just freedom of wearing jeans or

watching movies they don't even have the universe Korea but these people are just

like us the cars being sold for $200 like 13

years old 15 years old they fear what your fear and the people in North Korea

they have hope they're low parents they love their sons and I that's why I want

to tell the world these people I just like this they deserve a war it is over

here and I think I wanted to let the world know we are same and that's why

it's not only North Korea human rights as a human being

it's our rights if people can treat it like this very North Korea I think it

all makes us unless a human