Joe Rogan Experience #1691 - Yeonmi Park

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Well, very nice to meet you, first of all.

   2. YPYeonmi Park0:15

      So nice to meet you too.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Thanks for coming here. Um, is this your first time in Texas?

   4. YPYeonmi Park0:19

      No, I've been here before.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      You've been to Austin before?

   6. YPYeonmi Park0:21

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      So for people who don't know your story, I'm just gonna give them a primer, just to- just to sort of, uh, establish your history. You were born in North Korea and you escaped North Korea when you were 13. Is that how old you were?

   8. YPYeonmi Park0:38

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:39

      Um, I think we should start off with what it was like living in North Korea. Um, I saw your interview with Jordan Peterson and it was, uh, it was incredibly moving and it was incredibly disturbing and eye-opening and, um, it's ha- it's hard to believe for people that don't know what life is like in North Korea, the reality of you growing up in North Korea, but just talking about how you essentially had no food and you would-

   10. YPYeonmi Park1:12

       Hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:12

       ... go looking for bugs to eat.

   12. YPYeonmi Park1:14

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       This was the reality of your existence as a child, that there was no protein.

   14. YPYeonmi Park1:21

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       What ... W- when you ... Now that you live here in America and you can kinda eat whatever you want, when you look back on that, what does it seem like to you? Does it seem like reality? Does it seem like a dream? What does your childhood seem like?

   16. YPYeonmi Park1:39

       It ... Sometimes this feels like dream.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:42

       This feels like a dream?

   18. YPYeonmi Park1:43

       Yeah, so I pinched myself a lot in the beginning, 'cause they say if it's not dream it hurts, right?

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:50

       Right.

   20. YPYeonmi Park1:51

       And you pinch yourself. So a lot of times I pinch myself, because sometimes I'm really horrified if I wake up from this that I'm gonna wake up in my living room in North Korea. So it's ... Sometimes that line is very blurry to me and ... Because it o- the one common thing that North Koreans all have is actually in our dreams when you sleep it's back in North Korea. So in our dream we somehow never able to escape it.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:18

       Hmm.

   22. YPYeonmi Park2:19

       So every day my mom wakes up, like, she tell- tells me about story how she was back in North Korea and I have the exact, the same thing. No matter what, how many years we left afterwards, in our dreams we are still in that country, tr-

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:32

       So that's the nightmare?

   24. YPYeonmi Park2:33

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:33

       The nightmare is that you're still trapped in North Korea?

   26. YPYeonmi Park2:35

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:36

       When you lived there you didn't know that there was another way to live.

   28. YPYeonmi Park2:41

       No. It's, uh ... It's like here right now, we cannot imagine a life in a some different planet in the universe. Right? We just don't know what that life looks like. Exactly the same thing. I never knew the life in different planet could be like.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       And, and where you lived in North Korea there was no internet.

   30. YPYeonmi Park3:02

       Yeah.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. (laughs) I heard…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      is that people eat too much.

   2. YPYeonmi Park15:02

      Yeah. (laughs) I heard that.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      Isn't that-

   4. YPYeonmi Park15:04

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      Isn't that crazy?

   6. YPYeonmi Park15:05

      I was shocked. I never understood having too much can be a problem, 'cause I just never knew that could be a possibility of problem.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:12

      It's the number one problem here.

   8. YPYeonmi Park15:14

      Exactly how having too much is a problem, I don't get it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:17

      I think the ... What is the percentage? Jamie, what is the percentage of people in America that are obese? I think it's large. I think it's more than 50%. I think it's, uh ... And it's a huge factor with diseases and ... I mean, 78% of the people that are in the ICU for COVID are obese.

   10. YPYeonmi Park15:35

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:35

       What is it? I said 42%?

   12. YPYeonmi Park15:37

       Wow.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:38

       43%. So almost half of the people in the country are ob- are obese.

   14. YPYeonmi Park15:43

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       Meaning they eat far too much food.

   16. YPYeonmi Park15:46

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       And for you-

   18. YPYeonmi Park15:48

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       ... that concept must be insane. You might ... Like, you're in the Upside Down world. Like, you're in-

   20. YPYeonmi Park15:54

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:55

       Right?

   22. YPYeonmi Park15:55

       That's the thing is, like, uh, it's like different planet. The common law that I knew in North Korea doesn't apply here anymore. And it is just so confusing to me, how hard it is not to eat? It's hard when you don't have food-

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:11

       Right.

   24. YPYeonmi Park16:11

       ... when you can't find it. And to me, that ... I don't know why that is so challenging.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       Could you do me a favor and just push the microphone forward?

   26. YPYeonmi Park16:18

       Yeah, like this?

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:19

       Yeah, yeah, so it's right in front of your face. There you go.

   28. YPYeonmi Park16:21

       Yes.

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:21

       So, yeah, it, it must be, uh, y- yeah, like another planet-

   30. YPYeonmi Park16:25

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Why did you not…

   1. YPYeonmi Park30:00

      mom was like, you know, father is like... My father wasn't home. He was waiting. But the thing is that's... The tragic thing for North Koreans is we cannot even say goodbye to our loved ones. So if we got caught on the journey and if my father knew that we are escaping, he's gonna be punished so much. So it's better off that he does not know that we are escaping for his own safety 'cause they're gonna torture you to the point that you're gonna say anything 'cause they do this all subconscious, like, torture that they make you not sleep in a single room, has like no air, much air. If you put there for 40 days alone, you go crazy. You say whatever they ask you.... so if he, he actually knew that we were escaping, it wasn't good for him. He would be dead. So I told my mom, like, "You cannot tell father that we are escaping." So that day we climbed up this, like, several mountains, and then we went to the riverside. But she had a connection with the guards.

   2. JRJoe Rogan31:01

      Why did you not bring him with you?

   3. YPYeonmi Park31:03

      Because he's a man and he was sick. And somehow, she said that only women can go.

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:09

      Only women can go?

   5. YPYeonmi Park31:10

      I did not know why... what she meant by that. She's like, "You should just go with your mom. And don't even tell those people that's your mom." She said, like, "You are, like, 18 or something," and my mom was something 30, so she told me that our age wa- age was different.

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:26

      So... and this would somehow now help you when you were going across?

   7. YPYeonmi Park31:29

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:30

      How would that help you?

   9. YPYeonmi Park31:32

      I don't know, all she told me what this is gonna be helpful and...

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Well, part of the issue is, um, in China-

   11. YPYeonmi Park31:41

       Mm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       ... there's a, a disproportionate number of men in comparison to women.

   13. YPYeonmi Park31:45

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:46

       And so they want as many women to come across as... that are, uh, of legal age, like women that can be married.

   15. YPYeonmi Park31:56

       Mm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:56

       Or can... Right? Is that the idea behind it?

   17. YPYeonmi Park31:59

       It's a smuggling. So like it's, it's... you got it right. Because of one child policy-

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:05

       Right.

   19. YPYeonmi Park32:05

       ... a lot of girls got aborted in China, so they kept boys. Now-

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:10

       So there's many, many men that have no chance of ever finding a woman because there are no women.

   21. YPYeonmi Park32:15

       Yeah, over 30 million men in the rural areas cannot find wives. So they-

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       30 million?

   23. YPYeonmi Park32:22

       Over 30 million, and it's number gonna keep going up right now.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:25

       (exhales)

   25. YPYeonmi Park32:25

       So that's a big problem for Chinese region. But the thing is, even that they don't allow North Korean women to stay there. They catch us and they send us back to North Korea. Last month, China repatriated 50 North Korean defectors back to North Korea. It, it's sending them ............................ Literally, they are sending them to death camp, but they... Chinese regime still do catch us and send us back, because they think we are a... posing a threat to the regime and they don't want the regime to collapse. So they are ta- catching all the defectors. But the human traffickers seize the opportunity here because we are so vulnerable, right? We are running away from Chinese authority. So even they rape us and kill us, the last place that we are gonna go is going to police and then report on them.

   26. JRJoe Rogan33:14

       Why did they think that women coming over from North Korea are gonna somehow now collapse the empire?

   27. YPYeonmi Park33:21

       Because, uh, the... that's what Kim Jong-un believes. He thinks they're gonna collapse through the defection, through the defectors.

   28. JRJoe Rogan33:27

       Mm.

   29. YPYeonmi Park33:28

       So after Kim Jong-un came into power, he literally... the country cannot afford the electricity, put up a electrified fence entire border. Not only that, putting the machine guns with the guards, have a shoot-to-kill order whoever crosses. They don't even bother to ask you stop. They shoot you right there. And not only that, he buried the landmines on top of that. The-

   30. JRJoe Rogan33:53

       So there's electric fence, and then there's guards shooting to kill, and then past that there's landmines?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   So they experiment on…

   1. YPYeonmi Park45:00

      a lot of, of the weapons, biological weapons. So they, you know, keep tr- trying to... They are s- North Korea spends entire their GDP on developing nukes and, uh, wea- weaponries. I mean, they, they are the biggest provider to the Middle East. When there's a war, they buy missiles from North Koreans. North Korea makes money by selling as-, I mean the crystal meth and opium. That's how Kim Jong-un makes money in hacking, right? He steals a lot of Bitcoin and get out of banks, like ATM machines, that's how he makes money, 'cause they don't export anything other than drugs and weapons and hacking and human trafficking.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:40

      So they experiment on their own people to find out if these biological weapons work?

   3. YPYeonmi Park45:44

      Yeah. And also, they need a lot of concentration like prisoners because they have to clean the nuclear debris because they do a lot (laughs) of tests, like, uh... So since 2017 North Korea conducted almost 30 missile tests. If the one test missile cost to, to feed a 25 millions entire year, so he, if he chose to do four like less tests, nobody had to die from, in North Korea, from starvation. And right now Kim Jong-un recently admits that 11 million North Koreans are severely malnourished and he's proud to say that. And he's, he's not even, like, bothering to hide it like in the past, like, "Yeah, they are starving. So what?"

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:26

      And he's fat?

   5. YPYeonmi Park46:27

      Oh, yeah. That's his problem, being too fat.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:33

      (sighs) Wow. So they, they're forced to clean up nuclear waste from these-

   7. YPYeonmi Park46:40

      The debris, everything, yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:43

      ... test sites? And of course they die from radiation.

   9. YPYeonmi Park46:45

      Of course. They, they don't last really three month. Normal life expectancy when you go to concentration camp is three month.

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:51

       Three months?

   11. YPYeonmi Park46:52

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:53

       And-

   13. YPYeonmi Park46:53

       So they need a lot of those people.

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:54

       And they just use those people for fodder?

   15. YPYeonmi Park46:57

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:58

       How many people are... Do they know how many people are in these concentration camps?

   17. YPYeonmi Park47:02

       Nobody knows exactly, but, uh, 700,000 of them. But there's also prison camps. Concentration camps, prison camps, and labor camps.

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:12

       And some people are born into these camps?

   19. YPYeonmi Park47:14

       Yeah, those are people in the concentration camps, and they don't even get to know the name of Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-un. They're too, too below the level. They don't even bother to tell them who's the leader of the country is.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:28

       And what did someone in their family do that would allow them, that would make them get put into these concentration camps?

   21. YPYeonmi Park47:35

       So they find out later their great-great-grandfather was, uh, working with the Japanese for like a week when the Japan was colonizing or the Korean War starting, they were talking to American soldiers, or they were, they're like, like cousins of nephews of like some in-law was a Christian, 'cause North Korea's number one Christian per- persecution country, 'cause they copy the Bible, right? They said, "Oh, Kim Il-sung loves us so much. He's a god. He gave us his son Kim Jong-il and he dies, but his spirit's with us all the time. That's why they can read my thoughts, knows how much hair I have and that's how..." So be- when you become a god, you don't need to explain, you don't need to make sense.

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:19

       So they essentially use the story of the Bible for Kim Jong-il and, and-

   23. YPYeonmi Park48:25

       Kim Il- Kim Il-sung. Yeah, they copy the Bible. Exactly copy the Bible.

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:29

       Wow.

   25. YPYeonmi Park48:29

       That's why, like, I believe that Kims was reading my mind and if the people believe in the Bible like, like Jesus knows what you're thinking, why do you think it's surprising that North Koreans believe that?

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:40

       So someone's great-grandfather speaking to the Japanese would be the reason why they would be raised in a concentration camp-

   27. YPYeonmi Park48:47

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:47

       ... and never even be told the name of the leaders?

   29. YPYeonmi Park48:49

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:50

       And that's happening right now?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. YPYeonmi Park1:00:00

      popping up in New York. So a lot of people demand that now.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. YPYeonmi Park1:00:04

      So if individuals are being educated on what is happening and who is actually responsible for supporting North Korean regime and how hard it is for the people who are being oppressed. If they start demanding the politicians and the world leaders and companies to be conscious and act, I think that is, at this point, my only hope is individuals. I have stopped trying to talking to UN. I don't even give talks anymore at the UN.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:32

      Did you give talks in the past?

   5. YPYeonmi Park1:00:33

      Yeah, yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

      What was the response?

   7. YPYeonmi Park1:00:35

      They... In Geneva, in September, the Gen- Human Rights General Assembly meeting, how dumb of them, they literally put me alone to right next to North Korean delegation team because geographically we are somehow close. So these five guys from North Korean delegation team are swearing at me. And the UN, that's what they do. That's how dumb they are.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

      They sat them next to you?

   9. YPYeonmi Park1:00:57

      Yeah, they put me right next to North Korean delegation team.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       And no protection?

   11. YPYeonmi Park1:01:03

       No. I was so scared that going to ho- like hotel room that night, 'cause I don't have like anybody protecting me. So...... I have tried, of course. But at the UN, who decides the human rights violators? Chinese and Putin and Saudis do. They decide who actually violates human rights.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:22

       That's crazy.

   13. YPYeonmi Park1:01:23

       Yeah. So I have to go ask Chinese who actually committing this crime and complain. So of course, they are not gonna listen to me. So what is the even point of the UN for this, right? And of course, I ... I met Nancy Pelosi, I met a lot of politicians and on surface like, "Oh, that's really horrible. Let me think about what can I do." But, of course, this is not what they care. They, they care about the systemic oppression that is happening in America more.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

       They care about what's gonna get them votes.

   15. YPYeonmi Park1:01:49

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

       And what's popular, what's, what's-

   17. YPYeonmi Park1:01:52

       Exactly.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       ... on people's minds right now.

   19. YPYeonmi Park1:01:54

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:55

       And whatever the narrative is that they're currently pushing-

   21. YPYeonmi Park1:01:58

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:58

       ... that's gonna allow them to get elected again.

   23. YPYeonmi Park1:02:00

       Yeah. It's all about their own interest.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:03

       So when you spoke at the UN, what was, what was the reception like?

   25. YPYeonmi Park1:02:08

       Oh, they are saying like, this is the West propaganda trying to interfere other people's autonomy. And North Korea is a state of, of their own, you should not interfere the other people's affairs. That's like still to this day Chinese narrative, right? They don't, don't ask us what we are doing to Xinjiang Uighurs or Falun Gong or, like, organ trafficking, all of that. It's our own business.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:29

       Organ trafficking?

   27. YPYeonmi Park1:02:30

       Yeah. So when North Koreans go to China, we ending up, like, several different sources. Worst cases, they take us and they take our organs out and suddenly we die.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:43

       Like which, which organs?

   29. YPYeonmi Park1:02:45

       Everybody. Your eyes-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:46

       Heart.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:23:28

   How did you escape…

   1. YPYeonmi Park1:15:00

      sick father from North Korea. That's how I brought my parents back to me.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:05

      How did you escape from him?

   3. YPYeonmi Park1:15:07

      Two... after almost two years, he became a gambling addict. He was a big gambler. He's spending all his money and somehow this evil man was letting me go, 'cause he couldn't even afford to give me food at that point, he w- he was so broke. So he said, like, "I'm letting you go." And in some ways, in his most evil way, he loved me. So after two years, I was let go, and then I went to this chat room. So this is another thing. A lot of North Korean girls, uh, capturing these chat rooms where we do body cams. Clients are South Koreans. So we chat and then we show our body. But North Korean women, we choose that route because it's better than being touched by men in person. Right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

      Right.

   5. YPYeonmi Park1:15:55

      It's you're not raped in person.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:57

      So, this is all on the internet with web cameras?

   7. YPYeonmi Park1:15:59

      Yeah. That's sm- or so number one thing that North Korean women do in China or this nightlife. So in that room, I heard about something called the South Korea for the first time, because the clients are South Koreans.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:16:12

      You didn't know what South Korea was?

   9. YPYeonmi Park1:16:13

      I knew the different name, like, different name, but I knew that country was colonized by Americans. I heard that in South Korea, the South Korea was very corrupt capitalist and raped by American soldiers every day and they all, like, cannot go to... kids cannot go to school and they all want to come to North Korea.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:16:33

       That's what you had learned from North Korea?

   11. YPYeonmi Park1:16:35

       Oh yeah, that's what I thought.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:36

       Wow, they all want to go to North Korea?

   13. YPYeonmi Park1:16:38

       Yeah, they all want to come to North Korea. The entire humanity wants to be like North Korea. So we are so fortunate. They tell us that we have nothing to envy in this world.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:50

       Wow.

   15. YPYeonmi Park1:16:51

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:53

       So you find out about South Korea from these chat rooms and you start to get a different idea of what South Korea must be like?

   17. YPYeonmi Park1:16:59

       Yeah. And we met this defector lady in that chat room. She told me she knows some missionaries and if we become Christians, they're gonna help us to go to South Korea and be free. And that's when I heard, like, free for the first time, I asked her, like, "What do you mean free?" And she said, "Oh, you can watch TV and you can wear jeans and nobody gonna arrest you for that in South Korea." (laughs) So that's what I thought of freedom.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:17:26

       Watching TV and wearing jeans?

   19. YPYeonmi Park1:17:28

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:17:28

       That's, that's what you thought of freedom? Wow.

   21. YPYeonmi Park1:17:30

       It was never like freedom of speech or none of that. It was like, "Oh, that's cool. I can wear jeans." (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:17:36

       (laughs)

   23. YPYeonmi Park1:17:36

       'Cause I was a teenage girl. I wanted jeans. In North Korea, you get sent to prison camp for that.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:17:41

       You get sent to prison camp for wearing jeans?

   25. YPYeonmi Park1:17:43

       Yeah. It's a joke for Westerners that North Korean, even haircut is, like, ordered by the regime. Like, the only thing that North Koreans are allowed to do that in that country freely, really, is breathing. Everything else is controlled. What we wear, what we watch, what we listen to, how we dance, what haircut that we get. Every single thing is controlled by the regime.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:18:11

       So you're working in these chat rooms.

   27. YPYeonmi Park1:18:14

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:18:15

       And you meet this woman and she says, "You just have to become a Christian"?

   29. YPYeonmi Park1:18:19

       No, we have to go there was shelter that Christians had. So we have to go in there, study Bible and we have to prove our faith to them. Then they're gonna rescue us. That was a condition to be rescued, by Christians.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:18:32

       So it's a Christian missionary-

Episode duration: 3:13:43