Yeonmi Park: North Korea | Lex Fridman Podcast #196

The following is a conversation with Yeonmi 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 Eight Sleep. 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 Kim Jong Il, who at the time was the new leader of North Korea after his father's death in 1994. Somewhere between 600,000 and three 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, Kim Jong-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 body slowly rotting away as their parents watch helplessly. I got emotional in this conversation with Yeonmi, in part because I remembered my grandmother who survived Holodomor, the famine in Ukraine intentionally created by Stalin where 4 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 they 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, know where to draw the line between good and evil, but Stalin, Kim Jong 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 amidst 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 Fridman Podcast, and here is my conversation with Yeonmi 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?