The following is a conversation with Yeon-mi 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 Jung 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, King Jung
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 on me, in part because I
remembered my grandmother, who survived Haldamor, the famine in Ukraine, intentionally created by
Stalin, where four 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 it 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, nowhere to draw the line between good and evil. But Stalin, King Jung Il,
Kim Jong-un, are 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 amid 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.
This is the Lex Friedman podcast, and here is my conversation with Yohan Mi 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 worshiped my ideal 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
that delusion at the time? So not knowing the alternative, would 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 those days kept telling me
that they were our source of meaning and happiness, I don't think I ever got happy by that. Maybe
they are here and there in schools, and like when I was learning propaganda, like, you know,
the proud feeling, right? I mean 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 an interesting memory to look back. What about fashion? I've noticed from
sort of, you know, you have quite an incredible sense of fashion. So contrast that with your time
in North Korea, how do you remember fashion? Just 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 even our dictionary. So of course, I did not know about Victoria. Secret models,
I didn't even know what models were. So when I came out, I learned the model was a job.
And like, what is that? And I'm still confused. So there's so many jobs that we have here
that doesn'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,
like, when people were asking me, can you tell me about, like, 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 the 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, you know, like, as you cannot imagine
life on Mars right now. It's like that kind of difference. I grew up never seeing 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
where Kim's was born. So we, and history was forgotten to us. They didn't tell us about,
of course, Christianity or like the Big Bang. Like, 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 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 Kim's 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're telling is
not 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 that 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 every sense to me what happened to me, my people, and to my country.
Yeah, that there's, there's so many things that 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. 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. They were 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, 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 always kind of found a kinship with
Boxer, the horse, because I just 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, for the pride 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 the 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 cared. 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 receive the first execution, and then they were not doing their jobs, picking out and
keep questioning. They had a question, and then the SNS, they see 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 silent, and everybody was responsible. So the people who knew were too afraid to say,
right? 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.
It's, uh, I don't know that this, that's the reason I've returned 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. You, um, 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, are you able to put that world that you were 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 fears and
they get captured and sent back. I still have, uh, people in North Korea report to me. So,
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 to remember everything. So sometimes it's,
uh, it's, 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
falling 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, like,
if you're in Nazi German 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 that where it was
Ilan was talking about downloading your brain, blah, blah. Like if maybe technology develops,
that I can download some part of my memory and then I can erase your memory. Was I deleted?
And that would be so much better.
This is, uh, sorry for the tough question. But if I came to you, if Ilan 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 will 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? I just don't know.
Well, there's also the, and there's a guy named Victor Franco who wrote the book,
Mansers for Meaning. 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. Like,
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 like, it's almost like,
brings you closer to other humans. So it's this double-edged sword that
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's,
it sucks that our brains are like this. That, you know, love requires hardship. I don't know
why that is. Yeah, that's like, that's the thing. Of course, in my journey, I learned how to survive,
right? Went to not trust and went to run. But I think most of I was keep learning what it means
to be a human being. I think that was like 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 necessary to stay for
people to be grateful and even be joyful to sometimes. Yeah.
So I talk about love quite a bit. And you mentioned that romantic love. I'm fascinated about
love in many aspects. But you mentioned romantic love was forbidden in North Korea.
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, like we don't even know what Romeo and Juliet is, right?
Our movies is never about love stories. But then also they banned the love between mother and daughter,
wife and husband. And, you know, and you between your friends, they deny you being a human. So
only love that I knew was when I describe my feeling towards the leader and in a written form.
That was the only love that people know in North Korea. And now I'm 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, 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 like love is an option. But like, 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 love, romantic love is just one sort of part of it. One echo of the
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 fear
and know about. So I remember, I mean, 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 as they go, they like eliminate a lot of words, right? Now, like later, one word
can represent 10 different things. And like what fascinates me is like how many vocabulary,
meaning people can have. And like when I literally came out, remember I went to San Francisco,
and someone came to me and hugged me. And then he was a guy, it's 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
retirement, Google the gay, and they took, 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 stays 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 where 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 got to 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 learning your thoughts. You control the thoughts. There's so many echoes.
I mean, I have, 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, for sure. It is here 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
bath, 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 a nationalism. This is
a propaganda, right? But now, like, it's the same thing. Like, 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? Like, do you want to be a president,
do you want to run for office? Like, I just 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
felt like I feel like home. And 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, 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.
Yeah. And I suppose in that same way, your, you know, your first maybe two decades of life
are somehow longing for the home that is North Korea. Yeah. And your next two decades of life
might be finding a home in the United States. Yeah. Your dad, can you tell the story of
his struggle, of his death?
My first, do you miss him? Do you think about him? All the time. I had a son when I was 22.
And I had IVF three times. And 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, like when you're so desperate,
you become illogical. Like, I want to believe in that we can like put this idea, right, you come
back to life. And I prayed, please come to me like 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. It became a boy. So I made his middle name, like my father's name,
Jin Sik. I think he's the only North American God, North Korean name. I know. It is.
So he's a part of your father's and your son? Yeah. That's how I, 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 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 can read 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 a thing. It's amazing. Even though I was like 13, right? Like,
life outside of North Korea, it's almost like went by like one second. And my life till that
point was like eternity. 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.
And 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 the thing I was grateful for before I went to bed. Okay, I survived. I didn't get
captured. And I made another day on Earth. So the experience of the minutes is what?
Fear? Fear of being captured? Fear, loss, everything. Because I mean, I saw my own mom in China
to survive. So it was more than that. And it's not feeling. I think that's a thing. In China,
I learned not to fear. And after my escape was a challenge, I didn't feel anything.
And it was hard. Not feeling anything is a torture. It's the biggest torture you can
never feel. Like even if you're sadness, that's better than not feeling anything. And I fear
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 it 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? Like what do you even even feature? I don't even know that word. Like
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 of her. I'm like sad for her. Just looking
at me like, oh, that's interesting. Wow. Just 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, 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 within 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.
And I was going to escape with her. But one day I got like really bad stomachache.
And my parents took me to a hospital, a North Korean hospital. They don't have like X-ray machines.
If you don't even have electricity, they like literally using one needle to inject everybody.
Yeah. And people don't die from cancer in North Korea. You die from infection and fever and
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. And she had... 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 like how hard it is you are selling your own children to China. And as a sexual slave,
they were like her children were like seven, 10 years old. But 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 is 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. You're grateful for that suffering. Of course,
I am grateful. Because the alternative is worse. I would not be here with you. You never knew why
I did this. 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, like, I know your anger directed at the heartlessness of people, the ignorance of people,
like, so when I got out of North Korea, I go into all of them. And I went to South Korea one day.
I was watching television. And it's like a famous Korean Kpop stars and crying and doing some fundraising
concert. And I literally thought, 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.
Do you know anybody who sheds their tears like that? Do another human being right now?
Like, no, right? People 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
want to go to the moon, Mars. And people told them like, yeah, we went to the moon like I did not know
in North Korea. But I think that's what upsets me, like why there is not even one single human
with that kind of brilliance in their brain. They can't save so much suffering, but nobody
does anything. I think that's when I feel like 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? Even if we see satellite photos, there's public executions. I mean, the UN
says this is a Holocaust happening again. And is it happening? If the Holocaust is happening again,
why 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, you know.
Yeah, that we can turn our backs to human suffering at scale when it's right in front of us.
I mean, that makes you think about the Holocaust. This is just everybody was looking the other way.
Because it was almost too hard to look at it. No, it's not. It's an easier thing, like that's the
thing. I was like here just to get the South by Southwest a few years ago. And like they were
everybody talking about like Elon Musk project going to the moon, right? We're gonna be multi-spec
like species. I was like, back then I did not even know who it was. So if you guys trying to go
out to 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, our like planet. Can we do that first and then move on?
Explore the landscape of human suffering, like alleviate suffering in the world. There's
there's a lot of suffering happening in Africa that has to do with disease. And for some reason,
it's 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 like all these efforts to help people from disease. But like
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 have to change that somehow. It's the thing right now,
like China, like they bring the Xinjiang Uighurs, right? They say, oh, there's a vitamin take it
and then it kills their sperm and make it 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 like organs out. Imagine if there's some people who do that with cutie puppies
and cats. There's going to be insane amount of product. 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 rights is beautiful because you care about something who cannot speak for themselves.
The fact that we care about animals is because they cannot speak for themselves, right? They don't
have the 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. Like maybe 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 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? How we can do as individuals and as countries?
I think the first thing that we can do is speak about Chinese law in this sponsoring dictatorship
in North Korea. Like I have been 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 percent 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 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 solve than even
in the Middle East. There's nothing conflict like 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. All problem is, there's a dictator funded by the second economic power
in the world. And even any military, they know if they kill Kim Jong-un, they're gonna 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 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 fear,
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, for 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 making them into this enemy, like being afraid of China,
being, 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. Or, I mean,
I don't, it's very difficult. They have tried that because of the 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 to blow as much air as he could. And then that man
was like putting more like his jacket on, right? Not taking off. But Sunshine came up, okay,
I'm going to give him a lot of worms. And then he took his jacket out and came out. So that was
the theory. Let's give North Korea as much love they want. Let's give them a lot of money, whatever
they want. Let's give to them. Do they know that we are not here to attack them? And North Korea,
what they did was the guy who did the Sunshine policy in South Korea named Kim Dae-joon won
the Nobel Peace Prize for that. And Kim Jong-il used the money to build new Korean 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 the 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 the thing. People in the West, right? They say, oh, how can it be that bad?
They asked me like, I walking passing this young teenager man and native 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. And he's
asking for food. Do you know what humans demand when they die in North Korea? All they want is
eating, right? 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 is 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 is there, is it, or do we all have the capacity for evil in certain kind of environment,
certain kind of governmental structures inspire a large part 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
anything to form with that morality. I think in North Korea, you can say initially that there's
few guys in the top wanting 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 the internet, 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 adaptable situation, during the Holocaust, those people, they could have been
capable of good too if they were exposed to a different system. 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 really 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 like all about that country. But this system does
promote evil. Well, that's an optimistic view actually because we can fix systems. Yeah.
Yeah. It's harder to fix people. So if we fix systems, then the people are adaptable, as you
said. Absolutely. I mean that, 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, right?
North Korea's army not designed to fight the enemy. They designed to prevent their own people,
the coup d'etat 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
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 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 it, 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,
the Kim Il-sung. He was the Leninist, he was a Marxist, saying, I'm going to create the most
equal society on human face. So it was a communist North Korea. And then they came up with this
Songbun system, it's like family caste system, three big categories, warrior, wavering and hostile.
And that in building 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 secret government document. And that's
how they decided your future. So in North Korea, before you were 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 with became 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 farmers, we keep saying
like, all the animals are equal and some of them are more equal than others. Exactly. 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. It's 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 nineties 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's going to be equal. You're going to have in the working
collective farm, collective worker place. 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 not three million people dying on the streets. The regime then came up with the idea,
okay, our goal is what is successful 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 next meal. All on purpose.
All on purpose. It's manmade famine. International community 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-sik, no, thank you.
Last year, when North Korea had a horrible, horrible flooding, South Korean president begging,
can you get, can I give you please some medicines? 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 starving. And the 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 North Korea regime said, okay, now we cannot give people ration. So which
means Juche 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 gonna 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.
And you know, but when you're a guy, 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. And when it is religion, it's not
forifiable. You cannot challenge it. God's way is suspicious. God works in a mysterious way.
So when you're a God, people are not gonna say, oh, this doesn't make sense, right? You're gonna,
okay, whatever God says, we as a human being, we can never change his thoughts. It's unbelievable
what regimes can do. There's something about famine, you know, that 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 North Korea too. They are humans
right now in 21st century. Seven 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 advances, blah, blah. We are going so fast in advancement.
And we are living this like 25 million human beings in the cage, completely leaving them behind.
And North Korea is living like 16th century. I never, like this morning, I was taking shower,
beautiful shower. Like one, never knew what shower was. I was bathing few times a year,
going to the river. How do they even know what shampoo is? And this is how human beings in 21st
century living. And it doesn't bother us. And rather, most people obsess being a vegan.
And like how, how do you reconcile this? I think we get used to stuff very quickly. We get used
to comforts. 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 the smog, everything on this table,
it 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. Sort of like, so I'm a fan of rockets in space. It sounds
perhaps counterintuitive, but sending rockets to space will help solve the North Korea
a problem because it lets people dream and build cool stuff. So it's not the rocket,
it's the other people that 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 it like,
what can I do to help it? And I think the North Korea one is a tough one now because that ultimately
has to do with revolutionizing government. We gotta change 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.
But for now it's China, but it's 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. So there's an 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 with a lot
of African dictatorship countries. I do think big cryptocurrencies are such a fascinating technology.
I think this is an amazing experiment. When that power is in our hands, I'm the huge out of game
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 is 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 a 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 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. Why? You 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 obsessed with power,
him being a god, even starting in Switzerland, didn't change him. And that's why I think that's
a pure evil. You know, I can give him 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.
Yeah. That's what it looks like.
Is there, 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 of, like, North Korea, a lot of CIA documents,
a lot of intelligence people worked there. And even like, worked in North Korea and
type illicit and escaped. I could hear about them. So Kim Jong-un, when he, 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, but not pulling, not like
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
your worthy of it. So it's not like he even feels, he doesn't even recognize that's a suffering.
Like, of course you, 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 has entered his mind. He doesn't even think what we
go through. So he thinks of himself as a god. And then everybody else is just tools that they're
disposable. There was rumors several times of him dying. 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. It's lie, right?
Nobody knows. I'm sure CIA knows, but they may never reveal that. CIA has enough intelligence to
can tell where Kim Jong-un is, what he's doing. They just don't assassinate him because they don't see
the means of it right now. Do you think they can't assassinate him? They can. They do have
ability to get assassinated. Why the hell do 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 saw
assassin Kim Jong-un, they got to pay the price afterwards. There'll be financial, there'll be
political price to pay. It'll anger China. That is a huge piece for them. And then they'll have to
deal. Obviously, there'll be financial, 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 US 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. Yeah, they didn't care. And that's what they're always policy husband.
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,
the North Korea is the number 10 religions in the world. They copy the Bible. So if you believe
that, if there are people believing that God and just Christ, how do you not believe the 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 this Christian like word versus. 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 with us forever. Who can know how many here I have, what I think. And when
we suffer, we go to paradise, Sweden. 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, first son born 2009 and not old enough if he dies now. So either his sister
might rule for a short amount of time as not like a leader, but like temporary placement.
And then when the son is older enough, he might take it off. This is a kingdom that's most likely
in China will do everything they can to maintain that status quo for the North Korean regime.
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 going to
take its course and not 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
a fight for it. Otherwise, you don't never get it. Freedom is something 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? Having had, we talked about love
in the same way about freedom, having sort of discovered it later in life.
What does it mean to you? I think every day I get new definition of freedom.
It is a never ending journey, having this relationship with being free and what it means
to be free, right? I think you definitely can live life without being free and also happy life too.
I saw a lot of North Korean elites were fed and have power, but didn't have freedom or very happy
in a way happier than the people that I found in New York or investment bankers and consultants in
Manhattan and 70% of them go talk to therapists. I was very confused. I remember writing my book
in New York, my editor was saying, you know, you're traumatized. You need to go talk to therapists
and it's like, what is therapy? What is trauma? Because in North Korea, they don't have word
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, how much is it? I should have $200 per hour and it's discounted
rate too. So I can not thank you. You know, I was like, you know, 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're 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
going to represent my own interest, believing that they were good. And with that benefit of that
and good faith, you began the nightmare, right? So freedom is not like a gateway to be happy at all.
You know, where you 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't
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.
Because if you succeed, it's you. But if you fail, it's you. And if you do horrible things,
it's you. 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 the freedom is you as an individual fully living through that. So you talked, your friends
with Michael Malis, 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 human societies,
meaning that humans should all be free to choose how they 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 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 Malis. I kept asking why he's
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 why 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. Specifically, equality of outcomes. So given that we all start
different places, enforce, like measure in some kind of way where people stand and if they're an
equal, enforce equality. 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 gonna know what
is best for you? Nobody knows. We just all do our best. I do think that some governments like in
Switzerland, you know, have more give power to the different states can be good. I think I'm more,
you know, like giving power to the state and let individual decide where they want to go in 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 like, you know, charming and they come here. So in a way that I don't want
to be in a one strong government to make every single thing the same way. In a way, I want to kind
of experiment to everything. We can have anarchy state. There's no police, nothing going on. You
can be whatever you want. And you can go on a state where it's like abortion is bad, blah, blah,
this is bad, all those 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 US government is getting
bigger and bigger and then they try to make every state under one big government. And that's like
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. That white men's
idea of like talking about if you're competent enough, they say, oh, if you're coming from
which 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 go to like Harvard Law School and medical school.
So it doesn't almost is 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 make a market
join the royal family and she became a royal, you go up by North Korea. If someone from high class
going to marry somebody down, you only go down with them. That's how they prevent classmates.
Right. That kind of enforces the separation because there's like huge disincentives to go
to marry, to integrate between classes. 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. So 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 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
is 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 patriarchy or
what everything they call, right? And they want to abolish that. They, they wouldn't like stop
giving kids grades. That's what they're already doing, right? They want to stop, they want to
like we should abolish like SAT in America they take to go to college, right? They won't even
abolish that. So yeah, 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 this kid's coming from this family, let's find the reason why they cannot
and then they don't have to do that thing. But 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 even
meritocracy beginning, right? Did you go 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 are left behind. And then in America, I see the
same thing. Like if you're somehow great, great grandfather on the slave, now you are privileged
and you're guilty because you are white and get them. 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 forwards. And this current culture in America now, like I remember at Columbia,
like before class, everybody have to go around 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.
But this is a pure mistake. And they say call me day because I'm gender fluid. Basically,
I can be a girl. But next hour, you talk to me, I'm a boy, right? And if you don't do it, why
they like look at you? Why are you big? 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. And 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. 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 moderation, right? There should
be a small part of the conversation amongst other things. 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 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 wasn't fascinating. I think 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 innovations happens in universities. And so
we both deeply care about them. 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 didn't deeply. It made me
dumber. It made me scared. It made me terrified that I had to censor myself in America. Are you
seriously telling me that you don't ever censor yourself when you talk? Can you truly say what
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. I thought I was coming to a country where I never
needed that. The 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. 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. You should be
feel safe to talk about anything. And then later, okay, I was wrong. But now if you do that, you
gotta 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 and explain and play because you should be forgiven
for that kind of play, especially when you're discussing difficult aspects of human history,
whether that include racism, that include atrocities. I'm still nevertheless sort of hopeful, but at
the same time, I'm surrounded by engineers. 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. 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, 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, this is 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, like you, whose fire was stoked first with Orwell, that fire
should burn bright. You should be writing many books. You talk to Jordan, it's very possible,
depending on what you want to do with your life, that you'll be a future Jordan Peterson.
And Columbia 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.
That was the thing when Dr. Peer was asking, is there any one class that had no sentiment of
this virtue signaling politically right? 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 last 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 problem with calling this course the Western Civilization
of Art and Music? And it was raising their hands. Because why do you have to learn about this better
than Mozart, the bigots, or the people, like everything ruined by white men? And it's even
music, even these paintings. And I didn't raise my hand. Everyone's looking at me.
How do you not have the problem with West? You should hate 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 not that safe in America. We can go completely to the South.
And looking at even Europe, I used to be way more optimistic. But now I actually see, wow,
this country can't go to the South. And we might, if the US forced that, right, this is the only
country left to battle with the Communist Party in China. We may lose the 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.
Like just like create drama, like news cycle was completely drowned out by Donald Trump.
But like banning him from Twitter, it was like,
that, that was, 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 people. 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 psychologist, right? He talks about
we, we, we think by talking. Yeah. That's why when you go to therapy, you talk and then you'll
hear yourself and then you think and you come up to the answer. It's so important for humans to talk.
So we can't 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, it can be dangerous. But the price, the alternative
is so bad that we should take the, you know, make this trade off. Everything has a trade off in
this world. And it comes through the 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, what I've been getting scared. Because everybody's
imperfect. 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, promotes good. And then they might come back
next year, say, your speech is bad. What are you going to do when 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 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 a Twitter is 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. And, 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 as the technological mechanisms. You mentioned Jordan, Jordan Peterson,
you had a great conversation with him. What was chatting with him like? 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, 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's my story to Jordan Peterson. I mean, 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 to Jordan
Peterson sold out. And then it was a huge theater in the middle of Chicago, right? Like,
it doesn't like committee like who can be selling this entire thing out at like 7 p.m. And then
with my 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 they want the ticket and then he was like,
yeah, sure. We went in. It's packed. And then I was just a keeper or like, but I wasn't able to
understand his English that much. My English was still. You didn't know who he was really? No,
no. You were just curious? Yeah, it was like 2018. Who's the guy that sells out a theater?
Yeah. Yes. I saw Dave Rubin came out 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 like making any
jokes. He had no slides. Just a warm, simple person standing in the huge, giant theater talk
and long time too. And people cry as like, wow, okay, whatever that is, I gotta check it out.
And then I got home. And then later many years later, I got a book. And I will start reading
his book. And it talks about expense so much, right? Like now at Columbia, learn like everything
gender is like made of concept, construct, like the hierarchy is my man's idea of making the hierarchy.
And then he begins with the number one, the, the laughter, how the hierarchies evolution of history
that is in reading us, that we want a hierarchy, right? And then chapter five about socialization
of a child, you know, how do you raise them and all of it. And then what's why telling the truth
this matters, right? And there's a why like in his entire 12 lessons I read it. And then it's like,
I was so grateful that I'm alive with this. And like, there was people always say,
if Socrates 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 would I pay, right? No, no limit
amount. And I like reached out to Michaela on her pockets on Twitter and connected. And then one day
she said, do you want to go on my father's podcast? And I was like, what? I was like, of course. And
I was very nervous, but I didn't expect him to be like that connected. Because I thought he was
psychologist. Like he saw so much suffering in the world. He studied Soviet Union, his hobbies
collecting those things to remind him of the suffering of a human being. So sometimes some
people hear so much atrocity, 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 Malis.
You've also got the chance to talk to. So he wrote a book on North Korea.
Yeah. 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 humanity to study.
What, 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 threw me two friends out of Korea. I, 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. So, but I thought it was very
fascinating how he explained North Korea through the dear leader's perspective, right?
There's nobody has ever done that. And you can review so much about the state and absurdity of
entire situation. And also through humor. And that's what's amazing about Michael is he knows
full gravity of tragedy. He knows a full suffering. It's not just like people here in America and
the BuzzFeed making fun of Kim Jong-un's haircut. They don't care what people go through. Michael
cares and deeply cares. And then he still does ridiculous jokes. So that, that kind of reveals
in a dark way the absurdity of evil. Yeah. And he does that masterfully. Do you?
He's a genius. He is definitely a genius. All right. Let's, let's, if he watches this,
you know, let's 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,
he's almost like a caricature of evil. Like, it's a joke. A lot of people think it's a joke.
They just think like, this is 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 too. Like he's so ridiculous that you can't, it's almost like
hard to believe this is real. Yeah. Is that just, 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? Like, it's a North Korea as a nation,
number one or number two smartest IQ people in the world, despite their magnetization.
So, so there's, I mean, that, that's an interesting point. So, in your sense, the people
are not done, still carry the sort of the brilliance. There's a, there's a culture there that's like
hungry to become realized. Like the people that were, like that, that are silenced by the electricity,
by the 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 more like 11th largest economy. One
became the world's most like Polish nation, right? And this is a perfect example. Like if I don't
know if you read that book, Why Nation Fairs? The system. It's not about a culture. It is not about
people. It is not about IQ. What makes us to different is a system. South Korea, North Korea is a
perfect example of that. One is exact same capability. We are homogeneous like country,
same language, tradition, all of that. We gave them different system. One is free democracy,
one 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 are 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. Without capitalism, how do you came up with this thing? Literally.
How did you come up with this? The systems 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 fear is guilty. It's, it doesn't do anything, right? So I hate
when people talk about a white 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 want
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? 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 they can imagine, they fall for us.
That's what we ended up here. So life is ultimately bigger than us. And I think that's what I want
them. It's not like I want them to do the right thing and be the best version of themselves. It's
like I want them to feel grateful. And we should be grateful for the freedom and take full advantage
of that. I mean, it starts with the freedom to experience everything in life. And for your life,
literally, like life, how my father, you know, working dying is a lot easier than living.
Dying takes like few minutes, right? Maximum. And living takes forever. So when I was facing this
unbelievable challenge, I thought, okay, this is most rational thing I can do is killing myself
right now. But the hardest thing I can choose 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 as 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,
therefore, fire 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 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 had to live with that, right? But now I actually feel more because I
don't know if you follow Jamal Khashoggi's story, the Saudi journalist who got chopped off in Turkey
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 the first time for them. So they don't even know what to do at this point.
Like they're like, this is so new. What do we do with Kim Jong-nam? Kim Jong-nam, the half brother
Kim Jong-un got killed in Malaysia. That is another tragedy that I feel so sorry for the US government
is that Kim Jong-nam was giving information to the CIA for the past like 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 them?
North Korean Kim Jong-un killed them. Do you know that in Malaysia, there were the ladies of the VX,
the nerve agent. North Koreans killed them in Malaysian airport, in the international land.
So even Jamal Khashoggi, who was a US resident and the Washington Post journalist, when he got
killed in Saudi like a lamb, they chopped them 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.
Now there's no justice. There is no accountability for killing any decent, no matter how big their
names are. So you don't think your 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,
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 had 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 recording 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 recording got the old audience. And now we are ready for the lawsuit.
We are going to publish this book because we check the verified every single thing that was
going in the book. And North Korea couldn't do anything anymore. But that's character assassination.
That's a whole nother conversation that you were able to survive that. I appreciate the kind
of strength that requires to survive that because you don't know. And your character
being assassinated is in some ways can be as painful as actual assassination.
It's worse. Everybody think you're a liar. Everybody think you're a liar. And now everybody,
like you said, the 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 the internet, it's a 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. Any changing maker in this world who wasn't
controversial. Martin Luther King Jr. like Nelson Mandela. He was called as a terrorist.
So I just did not know. The character assassination is the thing. Probably
continue with you. You have to get stronger and stronger. I think in the face of that.
But actual assassination, 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, assassination of you.
But what was our rage when John McCushy got killed like that?
Was the social media presence large? Over one 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 him but told everybody don't 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. Some distance from
Saudi got killed. Horrible. But it just dissipates. They move on to the next cute puppy, the next cute
cat. That's what the nature of this new generation does. They desensitized. It doesn't affect them.
They keep following this instant pleasure, instant high. That's what Instagram does to you. It
changed your brain. That's what I was reading. It spoke about shallows. We became shallow and
shallow and our brain changed permanently. So this generation, we can get them angry for like
10 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, it's an effective
way to get rid of opposition is by murdering them. And that means the 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. 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
CI is not bad. I don't... I hope... I mean, the thing is, he was giving information to bring down
the regime. That is valuable. That is something novel about him. But then you just don't go extra
miles through 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 of the minimum cost they pay for anything. And like,
I went up South Korea constantly every single day intelligence calling me. You're like the North
Korean agent going this place, where are you going? The U.S. hasn't came to U.S. Nobody.
That's when people said like, 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 kill your South Korean
citizen, right? And now I'm trying to become your citizen. So it's in a way, it's... 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 came terms with it. Like, my enemy is 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, it's just 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 like my enemy is so much bigger than me.
It's in a ways of liberation. And also it was... I just... I live a lot. So I have seen a lot. I
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. So... 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, that 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?
That's... But I'm a rational optimist. I'm not like 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 though. Like Alex Shiro's a few
people holding entire this world, 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 will decide to do something
North Korea and working for it 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. So I have to mention this. You mentioned
briefly with Jordan Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is an incredible book. 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 painted metaphor. 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 of suffering side or that life is beautiful side? I mean, he goes
through entire journey, right? He goes in this state, like, I'm so enlightened that I cannot
deal with the people there in love and quiet about it, right? They're like that's so primitive.
Once he has his own son, he actually being attached. He actually cares. He actually really
does the whole thing, right? That's the thing that he used to think not. Once his son comes
finding 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 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 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 the one who
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 stop questioning why I'm here, right? Like, it doesn't matter
someone put that out on 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. The science 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 you 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 that every day you get up, like, oh my God, I'm going to buy myself this.
I'm going to 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 fight for myself anymore. But many 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. I was reading this book
fooled by randomness, right? They were here like, oh my God, you're so courageous. You're amazing.
You're like, no, I'm not. I'm horrible. I know myself. You don't want to tell me that.
It's random why I end up here. Why did I pick up English so quickly? Why do I love books? I don't
know why. It's random. Don't ask why. Just enjoy it. Yeah, it's random. I don't know how the
history will remember me. I think only thing I have to at this point to make sure is that the
people after consulting a lot of security teams, like now North Korea became a lot smarter. Like
you said, they may give more disguise as a suicide and a car accident. So when I die, they don't even
know I got cared. I think that's a higher chance. So I think that's the thing. 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.
Right. So my role is very small in that regard. And I just hope that word humanized 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 deal later 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 it 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 solid. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to this conversation with you on me park. And thank you to
Bell Campo, Gala games, better help and eight sleep. Check them out in the description to
support this podcast. And now let me leave you some words from Bob Marley, better to die fighting
for freedom and be a prisoner all the days of your life. Thank you for listening and hope to see you
next time.