Cultish: Yeonmi Park - A North Korean Defector's Warning to the West

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00:00

Hey what's up everyone, we are super excited to announce that we will be making our first appearance on the road in Simpsonville, Kentucky July 28th and 29th at the

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00:57

We hope to see you there. Now back to the episode. All right, welcome back to Cultish, ladies and gentlemen.

01:05

My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. Very super excited for this interview. We are here.

01:12

I'm actually, first of all, I'm joined always with Andrew, the super sleuth of the show coming from Harriman, Utah. We are joined in two different states, but actually three different states because we are connected with Yomi Park.

01:24

How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. Yes. Very, very, very excited for this episode.

01:32

I normally kind of get the conversation going, but I actually want to go ahead and hand it. So Andrew is my co -host.

01:38

I'm based in Arizona. You are in, Andrew, you're in Utah and Yomi, so you are in New York, right?

01:46

Yes, I am in New York. Awesome. So Andrew, I'm going to let you ask sort of the first question to kind of just talk about.

01:52

We're talking about just really your story, current events, your book, which both

01:58

Andrew and I have read, Wild Time Remains. I think it's an excellent book. A lot of great things

02:03

I really enjoyed, but Andrew, I'm going to let you start the conversation. What's the first question that's on your mind that you'd love to ask

02:10

Yomi in this interview? Yeah, really for our listener base, just in case they don't know who you are, can you give us a brief introduction of yourself, what you're doing right now in New York, like what you're involved in, and then some backstory of your life, because it's extremely important to get to know who you are and how

02:29

God has placed you in the things you're doing today. Yeah. I was born in North Korea in 1993, and I was growing up there believing that I was living in a socialist paradise.

02:41

However, by the time I was 13 years old, we just couldn't simply find any food to survive.

02:48

So at 13, I escaped North Korea with my mother, and as soon as I got to China, we were human trafficked.

02:57

So they sold myself and my mother separately as a slave, and after two years of slavery, actually,

03:05

I was, my mother and myself got rescued by Christian missionaries from South Korea. And they told us how to escape from China, which means walking across frozen

03:17

Gobi Desert into Mongolia from China. So I survived the Gobi Desert, and almost when

03:23

I was 16 years old, I made it to South Korea. And I came to America roughly eight years ago to study at Columbia University.

03:33

And that's when I was waking up to the fact that the ideology is this, you know, in some

03:40

I can mock this ideology that was happening in North Korea, I came to America. And now

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I'm a, I wrote my actually that book to wake up America and I am fighting for human rights and especially trying to let the world know that there are 300 ,000

03:58

North Korean modern slaves in China. And people often don't realize that the slavery never ended, and it's happening.

04:07

And I'm trying to hold Chinese government accountable for their crimes. Yeah, I know.

04:13

Thank you for sharing that, Yomi. So the very first time I ever heard of you is when you were on the Joe Rogan Experience.

04:20

Yeah, so I had to be fully honest when you were first really telling your story of day to day life.

04:26

I mean, my jaw had dropped to the floor. I mean, I've I'm 40, I'll be 42 in April.

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And I think the entirety of my life, you know, different kind of different income, you know, levels in, you know, kind of like good, plentiful and, you know, abundant, but I've never skipped a meal like ever in my entire life.

04:44

I take I've taken that for granted. So I think that would there's so much gravitas that comes with that.

04:50

But question I have for you, I'm looking at a post right now by someone named Tim Kennedy. He's an army ranger.

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He's a military. He's in the military. He's also was an MMA fighter, but he has a post.

05:03

And on this post, it's an aerial view of both South Korea, North Korea and China above it.

05:10

I'm looking at it right now. We might post this on our YouTube video. So on the very bottom of South Korea, there's lights everywhere.

05:16

North Korea is completely there's only a few lights and above is

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China. Could you maybe just zoom in because I know we're going to talk about your book while time remains.

05:29

But I think it's really important for audience to really understand day to day life for you up until you are 13 years old and what that typically looks like because a lot of people just don't truly understand.

05:41

Can you... That's a zoom out picture. Can you just bring us into that? Explain to us a typical day for you in North Korea when you were living there growing up.

05:52

Yeah. I mean, in that picture, as you can see that even in the 21st century,

05:57

North Korean people don't have electricity. The only places that had electricity was in Pyongyang after Kim Jong Il lived.

06:06

And then a few monuments around the country that Kim's had on. And as a day to day as a

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North Korean, it's really depending on what class system you are in. But this is often people don't understand about North Korea.

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It began with the idea of equality of outcomes. That's everybody all equal, you know, communism and collectivism.

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Once government abolished private property, abolished all the people's rights to own anything, what they did was they divided

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North Korean people into 51 different classes. And North Koreans are the same genetics and homogeneous nation.

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We speak the same language. But these 51 classes were basically purely upon what your ancestors did.

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So what my great grandfather did during the revolution, communist revolution, was a landowner, was a capitalist, was an intellectual, was a communist.

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Depending on what he did, our status gets determined when you're brought into the society.

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08:01

So this would be kind of like the caste system in Hinduism or like in India, where you're just born in a certain sect and there's no way to really get out of it.

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Is there a similarity? Is there a way when someone is in these different 51 classes, a way to get out of that?

08:17

Is there a way to redeem themselves for the sins of the past? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but what are your thoughts on that?

08:24

So there's no way of getting out of that. So North Korea, if you marry somebody, like they say, the girl is a lower class and guy is a higher class.

08:33

When you marry, what happens is that you don't marry up. The entire guy's family goes down with the girl.

08:41

Yeah. So that's how they prevent people mixing with each other. And so you only go down with one girl.

08:48

And it's similar like right now in America, where people say, oh, you are guilty. You are privileged.

08:53

I have a son who's half white. And people are saying that he's like privileged and he should be like white guilt.

08:59

And exactly, when North Koreans are being born, we don't choose our ancestors.

09:05

Yeah. So it's not something you can redeem or you can change. It's like, well, your grandfather did that.

09:12

And therefore, this is your life from now on. And Andrew, what questions do you have just about day to day life in North Korea?

09:20

What's in your mind that you'd like to ask Yomi? My question would be for Yomi, just to flesh out that class system a little bit more.

09:28

What did the regime qualify as being bad that puts you in the lowest class that your ancestors did?

09:36

How did they, I'm trying to understand just specifically, what were the sins according to the regime that puts you in a lower class?

09:46

So if you kill somebody or rape somebody or steal somebody, those are not very serious crimes in North Korea, especially raping.

09:56

And those crimes are not even a crime. They don't have a concept of rape there. However, those most serious crimes, what they call is political crime.

10:06

That is where your great grandfather was a landowner. Like he had a tiny land in his garden, or he was a capitalist.

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He had a factory before the revolution. Or he was working in South Korea or Japan.

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So the worst crime is the ideological crime. If they were not pure present communists, that's the worst thing it can be.

10:34

So the people literally did threshold ending up in North Korean prison camps getting executed.

10:40

It's like somebody, like he has a newspaper on the front page. There's pictures of the dictators, right?

10:48

And you didn't see that. And then you saw the bag and you tear down that page and that's a crime you get executed and send your three generations of your family end up in a convention camp.

11:00

Wow. Yeah. Let me ask you this too. When did this all start in just the history of North Korea?

11:06

I know, I remember when President George W. Bush was president and he started talking about North Korea at that time.

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It was Kim Jong -il and now Kim Jong -un is in charge of North Korea. Did this start with Kim Jong -il or was it previous to that?

11:26

When did this really start? How long ago was this? When this takeover happened, where the promise was given that they're going to get people.

11:34

I know I've heard your talks about their promised square, I think like four, three, four square meals a day and providing a food and shelter they get with their property.

11:43

When did this take place? It began with Kim Il -sung, the first king, the grandfather.

11:50

And in the 1940s, like 45, 48, when the

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World War ended, when World War II ended and Japan left Korea, they were colonizing

12:02

Korea for three decades and they left Korea. There was a group in the South that was backed by the

12:07

U .S. That was East and North. And there was a Kim Il -sung in the North who was backed by Mao in China and Stalin.

12:17

So there was two governments came together and then they put this line like in a 38 -pillar there.

12:25

So North chose to communism first, copying Mao and Stalin's version of communism.

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And South Korea copied the American version of free market democracy.

12:36

So, I mean, we know which system wins eventually, right? North Korea is a perfect example of testing ideas.

12:43

We divide a country that has the same people, same genetics, same IQ, I mean, traditional culture, everything.

12:51

And then let's give them different two sets of ideas. And one became the country of K -pop and Samsung.

12:58

One became the darkest country in the world. Yeah. And so when you came to America, I know you talked about how you were studying so much, how you almost were, you weren't even eating, you weren't even sleeping because you just had that much, you just wanted to learn, which

13:17

I really, really admired both in your interviews and you talked about that in your book. That's been a motivation for me, like I need to make sure

13:24

I'm studying as well too. Oh, okay. Yeah. Do you see, have you studied other communist dictatorships like the

13:33

Soviet Union or you think about just other places where it's been fascist, you think, well, there's

13:41

Mao, you think about the Soviet Union, Cuba, Fidel Castro. Have you studied those groups and what similarities do you see and what differences do you see in comparison to North Korea, how communism was ran there?

13:55

Yeah. I think the things like Cambodia, Vietnam, Venezuela and Cuba, of course, the

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Soviet Union in China, I have studied some of those examples for sure.

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And the similarities is, of course, whenever governments take the control, they mess up everything they touch.

14:15

Yeah. They are not very efficient system ever, even though they try, maybe they start with good intentions, but it always ending up the bureaucracy, the corruption, the exploitation of the workers.

14:29

Yeah. It seems like the same thing happening, but other countries, I think, was not quite able to take it to the isolation that North Korea chose to do.

14:39

Yeah. Okay. For instance, North Koreans don't even know the existence of internet. Yeah.

14:45

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So one thing I actually finished watching, have you ever seen or heard of the series

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Chernobyl on HBO? Yeah. Did you see that? Yeah. I have seen that.

14:58

I've seen the book. Yeah. I just watched that series with my wife. I finished up the series last night.

15:03

When you watch that, because it's talking about this nuclear disaster that happened in 1986 and you kind of see in that series both the seriousness of the radiation accident, but you also see just the prominence of what it's like to be in a place where people are all part of the collective.

15:25

But what I noticed maybe a difference was that everyone there seemed to be well fed and well clothed.

15:31

That was significantly different from your day -to -day life with what that was like.

15:38

Can you explain people what that's like as far as the food scarcity and what was that like for you growing up? Yeah, I guess when you grow up in North Korea, the first thing you learn is really looking for food.

15:53

There's a reason for that. When people are left starved, that is really the only thing we are going to think about.

15:59

In North Korea, if we eat breakfast, of course we skip lunch, but we are worrying about how are we going to find dinner to survive?

16:07

And once you find a dinner, you're like, how are you going to find food for tomorrow? So I grew up eating grasshoppers, and that was actually a fantasy for me.

16:18

Only in the harvest season, grasshoppers are not 12 months of the year they are around.

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And also dragonflies in the summer. And in North Korea, we call spring a season of death because you have a harvest and you might maybe dry the vegetables and survive in the winter, but they all will not.

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And by the time of right now, it's time, end of March and beginning of April, we don't have really eat plants to survive.

16:48

So this is where actually most of mass starvation happens during this season. So it's like seeing dead bodies that die from starvation.

16:57

It's like looking at a tree. That's how normal it is for North Korea. And people just look at them.

17:03

And in the morning, you wake up and you go around the train station and they go in a cart and just put them dead bodies like sticks when you are dead.

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And now while it becomes like stick, you are not like you cannot move. So you just pile them up like big sticks and they carry them away.

17:20

Wow. And this is like daily life. I mean, there's so like here's one of the things in all transparency.

17:27

And Andrew, I'll let you jump in here in a second. Like hearing your interview, both Lex Friedman and Joe Rogan, you gave both examples of this.

17:36

I think here in the West, we are so sometimes isolated from death. You think like a car accident happens with this fatality.

17:45

First responders come in. That's a good thing. But they clean up the mess. They get everything out of the way. And we're given so much.

17:51

You know, you're in New York. You think about Times Square and there's so many lights and things flashing and excitement in the air.

17:56

But I think in some ways we're somewhat isolated from the reality of death like here in the

18:02

West. I don't know. I'll just tell you a story and maybe get your thoughts in the end. I'll let you jump in here a second.

18:08

Like I remember I was a couple of years ago, I was driving home from work and I saw a fatal accident on the side of the road.

18:16

And I saw someone who was a lot who more than like was alive 30 minutes prior. They were dead.

18:22

They were pinned on the bottom of the car. You know, I had PTSD for about three weeks just seeing that.

18:28

But you, on the other hand, this is something that you just saw like on a regular basis, like as a young child.

18:35

And you, like, I just, and it was just, this is just so normal for you. I mean, at what point ever was it like this was not okay for me to see this?

18:46

Was this when you got to Korea, when you got to South Korea, to the United States, where eventually, because this was normal for you.

18:55

Like, go ahead. That's the thing. Like in North Korea, they deny humanity to the point.

19:04

They don't even teach us what empathy or compassion or love is to the people.

19:09

Yeah. So growing up in North Korea, actually, I never thought you had to feel compassion for people who was dying.

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Simply just because it was too many. And also it could be just easily you, you know.

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And so I don't think like, I remember when I came to America, I was writing my first school and my agent was telling me that I need to get a therapy, like go see a therapist for my

19:35

PTSD. And my question was like, what's a therapy? What's PTSD? Not a concept for North Koreans.

19:44

So it's a, of course, it's a great concept. And it's a great thing. PTSD is real.

19:50

But for sure, when you live in that kind of world, you don't have a luxury to get traumatized.

19:56

You don't have a luxury to fear things. It's just survival. Yeah. Andrew, what questions do you have, man?

20:04

Yeah. When I'm thinking about North Korea and the United States or even like North Korea, the Soviet Union, Yomi, what do you think is the fundamental presuppositions behind the worldview, right, of Marxist Leninism and in North Korea that leads to this type of life where there's people dying from starvation, they're not seeing value in the individual human, because here in the

20:29

West, we would say that our modern West society is built on presuppositions that are given to us that are rights from God, right?

20:36

That we're made in the image of God, that we're worthy of dignity, life, respect, and pursuit of happiness, things of that nature.

20:43

What are the fundamental presuppositions of communism that led to a life where there's starvation and death?

20:54

So you mean the examples of what can happen in America that is resembling to North Korea? What I'm asking is, what is the worldview over there with the communist, the communistic worldview that leads to death and suffering?

21:10

What are the fundamental presuppositions behind that worldview? Is there a

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God? If there is no God, is it atheism? So there's no life, no value.

21:22

Therefore, you can do what you want to others in order to exact what you want from them. What are some of those presuppositions that led to communism?

21:31

I think it begins with a lot of things. In order to kill this many people,

21:38

I think there are many gods with a lot of horrible ideas in it. I think one definitely I can see is not respecting individuals.

21:47

In North Korea, all these propaganda slogans we have to say and memorize that as an individual, you don't matter.

21:55

You matter only when you are in a part of a big collective. So the one needs to learn sacrifice for the big collective group, and that's how they teach us.

22:10

Therefore, you're not going to have any respect for human life, right? Because the only thing that matters is a big collective.

22:17

Right. And not only that, the other ideology is about destroying the meritocracy.

22:24

So in North Korea, if you want to be a dictator, I mean the leader, it's not about you become competent, understanding the policies and going to run for election.

22:33

Your father needs to be in the bloodline of Kim, right? And even being a doctor, being a farmer, being a scientist, all of that is purely based on a bloodline.

22:45

Or what would they say, you know, like, do you have the oppressive blood or you have the oppressed blood?

22:51

So people getting elected to power position in decision making, they are very dumb and stupid and very ignorant.

23:00

So when it comes to farming, I think it happened in the Soviet Union, all because our dear leader said this, it's going to work.

23:07

This is a communist way. And of course, it's not scientific at all. So that horrible decision when it comes to farming, economy, healthcare, that does kill most of the people who are in the bottom.

23:22

And the last idea, I think that what is very, very horrible is that, like what you said, they do, they become gods themselves.

23:32

They kill gods. Like what the first thing that North Korean regime did when they came to power was killing all the

23:39

Christians. And if you ever read a Bible or if you ever met a Christian, that's how you get executed.

23:46

So they remove all other competing, I guess, not even either competing, you know,

23:52

God or ideas, and then they become God themselves. And that really kills people's ability to understand truth and think critically.

24:02

So I think it's like, yeah, really. But the thing is, you know, right now in America, they play the same idea of equity.

24:11

It's not about competence and meritocracy. It's all about how can we be equitable?

24:16

Let's hire this many women, this many gender of like different like transgenders to become a pilot.

24:23

Like you just want somebody who can fly the plane very well, right? And this is how it all begins.

24:30

Is Kim Jong, how is Kim Jong Un viewed? And also you think of Kim Jong Il, the similarities.

24:36

Are they viewed as sort of a divine figure, like a savior, like a

24:42

Christlike figure where he is the ultimate savior? Everyone has theirs. They're the ones that must be looked to.

24:50

Or how is he? How is Kim Jong Un viewed? So I gave the time of Kim Jong Il.

24:57

So, you know, I don't know how people really think about Kim Jong Un. Then I meet people that come out of North Korea these days.

25:04

I'm like, what do you think about Kim Jong Un? And of course, they think that he's a son of God, right?

25:10

And when I was in North Korea, too, I literally believed that they were gods.

25:16

They could read my mind. They have supernatural powers. They can move the mountains and like exactly copy the

25:24

Bible telling us that their body dies, but their spirit lives with us forever. And, you know, when you die, we join him in his paradise.

25:35

So they are definitely gods, the North Korean people. Yeah. Yeah. So in your book,

25:41

I want to maybe parse, like bridge a gap between your original book, which is also incredible.

25:47

I listened to that on Audible and also, you know, read your book. I want to kind of connect two areas, maybe like the classroom.

25:54

So we'll get there in a moment. You had issues in your class when you're studying here in the West, but that started with your classroom growing up in North Korea.

26:06

Can you explain like what a day was like for school? And, you know, like we're our podcast, we're

26:12

Christians, but we specifically focus in on cults, also mind control, undue influence, and the pressure to make sure you think a certain specific way.

26:22

Um, take us into a typical day for school, because this isn't just typical education, which you saw that when you came here and started studying, you know, hopefully almost to your death, but thankfully not because you're here talking with us.

26:37

But, um, yeah, take us into what it's like to be in a classroom in North Korea when it comes to specifically state propaganda, indoctrination, you might even call it brainwashing.

26:50

I'm not sure the terms that you would use looking all these back all these years later, like take us into a typical day in class for you.

26:56

And what was it like for you? So when you think about North Korean classroom, just think about it as an indoctrination camp.

27:04

Uh, I remember the first thing we go to the school, the first thing we have to bow in front of the portraits of Kim Jong -un and Kim Il -sung and Kim Jong -suk, their wife.

27:16

And then our teachers would tell us that, uh, the most important father that I have is not my own biological father.

27:23

Mother is my dear leader. You know, the most honorable thing that I can do as a human being is dying for the revolution of the party and my dear leader.

27:33

And even though the, like the food that I'm eating, that my parents worked so hard, give that food to me.

27:41

The first thing that I need to do is not thankful to my parents. I have to be thanking the dear leader every meal that I eat.

27:48

Dear leader, thank you so much for this food. Every meal you do. And then we start a classroom by singing the, you know, the national anthem about how we're going to be being loyal and giving our life to the modern nation.

28:03

And then we have to study memorizing so many useless dates about what they, how many

28:11

Japanese imperialists, how many, how many American bastards got killed by Kim Il -sung and Kim Jong -un, you know, how they made you walk into bullets.

28:22

And like one, one, I remember at a math classroom, my teacher was asking me like, what's one plus one?

28:30

I said two. And my teacher said, you're wrong because my dear leader discovered that young age, that if you add one drop of water to another drop of water, it becomes bigger one.

28:40

Yeah. It's not one. And that's how we proved that math was made up by the white man and racist, right?

28:47

Yeah. To control people. So of course, they go against all common knowledge and common sense.

28:54

But then once that moon around noon comes up, then that's when we need to start our labor.

29:00

Yeah. Even you are five years old, six years old, seven years old child in school, they, you are revolutionary before you're being a child.

29:08

And it's not even a concept of being a minor. So we have to bring our work clothes. So we have to go helping the farmers in the collective farm, helping the dam in the, in the workers.

29:20

And we go, go to factory and work. We go to railroads and break the rocks and, you know, all sorts of work around the year.

29:28

So that's like, so school is more like in the mornings, we learn propaganda. Afternoons, we do free labor for the regime and we work for free and they don't feed us.

29:40

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and check out all the awesome merch back to the show. You mentioned, you mentioned earlier, and also you've mentioned to another podcast that, you know, you were lucky if you were able to find, you know, a grasshopper or a caterpillar on the way home.

30:39

That's some extra protein for you. Did you, when you found those and say you ate one of these bugs that allowed was actually plentiful for you, which is not normal for you, would you, did you, did you, or did you feel inclined to immediately thank

30:52

Kim Jong -il for that, for providing for that food? Does that make sense what

30:58

I'm asking? Yeah, I, I mean, of course it was not plentiful. And I see like below 80 pounds.

31:05

I don't think I would ever overcome of that. For sure. You know, the magnetization that I suffer, like most of North Koreans are on average five inch shorter than South Koreans because of severe magnetization that we have.

31:18

Yeah. But I do get to say that even though I was eating this horrible, disgusting bugs to survive,

31:27

I was always grateful in my heart for the dictators and I respected them.

31:33

And the happiest memory that I have from North Korea was that the time that I had a dream.

31:40

And in my dream, Kim Jong -il came to my school and to Seoul and that made me so happy.

31:46

And I woke up in joy, you know, and was whenever life was hard, I was thinking about that dream.

31:51

So of course I was a completely brainwashed. Wow. Despite that. Did you ever see the movie

31:57

Jojo Rabbit? No. Okay. There is, okay.

32:02

Well, the, there is very interesting just because there, it's about somebody who grows up in a, he's like a school boy who grows up in Nazi Germany.

32:11

And yeah, it's very like, it's kind of funny. It's kind of like a dark comedy tongue in cheek, but there throughout the movie, this young boy, this

32:20

Hitler shows up at his, as his imaginary friend. And I think that the film is done in such a way to show just how

32:28

Hitler was sort of living in his head rent free because of all the propaganda and talking about how he was a fuhrer and that, you know, the state is the savior.

32:38

So yeah. Yeah. You should check out that movie. I definitely would recommend that. What's it called? Jojo, Jojo.

32:44

Jojo Rabbit. I think it got nominated for a couple Oscars a couple of years ago.

32:49

I would definitely check out that film. Andrew, I'm going to let you, I'm going to let you jump here in a second. So I'm in Arizona and like human trafficking.

33:00

I think that's a huge, it's a pandemic everywhere across the world, even here, because we have the, you know, the issues with the border.

33:07

That's always been a prominent issue. We, our pastor, our church, we've actually ministered to people who have been victims of sex trafficking, and it's so heartbreaking.

33:19

And there's a lot of just so much gravitas to your story. So as we kind of transition sort of towards your journey towards the

33:25

West, which is going to go towards your current book, Wall Time Remains. Talk to us a little bit about your escape from North Korea and how that was involved and you escaped with your family.

33:37

Remind me again, just kind of bring us into that part of your story, if you could. Yeah. I mean, so you mean how

33:44

I escaped or? Yeah. Yeah. So as I said, you know, when I was, by the time

33:50

I was 13, we were really in a bad position somehow. We, it was getting harder and harder finding food.

33:58

So my sister was 16 years old, escaped first. And she left me a note and saying, like, if you go find this person, she's going to have you to go to China.

34:10

And I found the note and I went to find that lady with my mother that morning.

34:15

Yeah. And then when I found the lady, she said, oh, if you go to, I can help you to go to China and your mom can come too.

34:22

And she said, if you go to China, you're going to meet your sister and they will have food and I will help you.

34:28

But thinking about it now, like there was a reason why somebody was helping me.

34:33

Yeah. And there was a reason why she was doing that. But it didn't occur to us that to ask why she was helping us.

34:41

But in some sense, it didn't really matter. Even if she said, like, I'm going to send you to Chinese, I don't think

34:47

I had a choice not to go. Because if I stayed behind,

34:52

I mean, there's 1000 % guarantee of me dying from starvation within that week.

34:58

Yeah. So we crossed that frozen river. And of course, first thing

35:04

I was seeing in China was my mother being raped right in front of me. And then they told us that we had to be sold as slaves.

35:12

And the reason why they were selling North Korean women in China was because of the one child policy that was implemented by the

35:21

Communist Party in China that they make people only have one kid. And therefore, they are working way more girls and boys.

35:29

Yeah. So now there are a shortage of 33 million women for this 33 million men who cannot find wives.

35:36

Yeah. They are the main customers of buying North Korean women as their, you know, supposedly just a sex slave.

35:45

Andrew, what's in your mind? What questions do you have? Yeah. So with that, with that one child policy, creating a lack of women in China, because they're murdering babies in the womb is

35:58

China. China obviously isn't turning out. They're not unaware of this selling

36:04

North Korean women into slavery from China. How does that relationship develop between North Korea in China?

36:12

Because it seems like North Korea is kind of dependent upon China. So is China, therefore, then taking advantage of North Korea and taking some of their women in a sense like not?

36:22

I don't know. Like, how does that dynamic work between the two governments?

36:27

It's very odd to me. Just trying to understand that. Yeah. So North Korea's main sponsor is

36:34

China's Communist Party, right? North Korean region cannot survive even one week without CCP.

36:41

And their relationship is a little bit of bittersweet. So China wants North Korea to be one of their like those regions of Xinjiang and Tibet.

36:51

Theirs. They want the North Korea to be part of China. And every day they are doing that.

36:58

I mean, they are doing that in so many countries in the world, especially in North Korea. They go, okay, why don't you guys lend us this mine for 200 years?

37:07

And they lend this town for 300 years and 50 years of lease they get from North Korea.

37:13

But imagine after 200 years, like it's of course theirs, right? So that's how they go.

37:20

They don't say we're going to invade you and take your land. Oh, I'm going to give you this much economic support and defend you in the global international stage.

37:29

So why don't you give us this much for like lending us lease, right? So they lease so many things from North Korea.

37:36

And when it comes to defectors, the Chinese Communist Party actually don't want North Korean defectors.

37:43

They actually bring these girls from like Burma, other countries for the

37:49

Chinese men to marry. North Korean defectors, they don't want it because when we are in China, none of North Korean women want to be in China, right?

37:58

Nobody want to be trafficked and then live as a slave. North Korean women all want to go to South Korea or like Japan, like Canada, America, UK.

38:07

There are many democratic countries accept North Koreans as refugees. So Chinese government had made a promise with North Korea that if they catch

38:19

North Koreans, they're going to send them back to North Korea because Kim Jong -un doesn't want defectors go out like me, become a spokesperson and expose the regime.

38:30

And that has been a very hard for Kim Jong -un. So they are like at every level trying to control defectors.

38:38

China actually captures defectors if they find the police and then send them back.

38:43

And that's why we are being vulnerable. So human traffickers know that we cannot, even they rape us, even they kill us, we cannot go ask police for help.

38:53

Because if we ask police for help, I mean, we are literally sending Jews to Auschwitz, right?

38:59

They are going to send us back to North Korea and kill us. And most painful death you can imagine. So these traffickers, they find opportunity in that vulnerability.

39:08

And that's why they are setting us and North Korean women cannot get help from authorities. Yeah. I have a question too, just about understanding

39:17

China and its relationship to other countries. I think overall, and you can let me know,

39:22

I think communism is an overall worldview where the state is a savior. You see it manifest itself sort of differently, whether it's the

39:29

Soviet Union as depicted in Chernobyl or North Korea or China. A couple of years ago,

39:36

John Cena, who's the WWE wrestler. I'm a big pro wrestling fan, by the way.

39:42

So I kind of, you know, I might have watched a few of his matches, but he kind of became a movie star and he was doing a world tour for one of the

39:50

Fast and Furious movies. And in one of his tours, he called Taiwan a country.

39:57

He later had to do a video. Well, he did a video. He didn't have to do it. He chose to do it, saying that I love and respect

40:04

China and the Chinese people. And I am very sorry for my mistake. And his mistake was identifying

40:10

Taiwan as a country, which, I mean, I don't know. I was kind of baffled by that because,

40:16

I mean, John Cena, I've always saw him as like a very pro -America, pro -support the troops. So I could just tell there's something underlying that I think maybe defines the

40:29

Chinese government. I don't know. From your perspective, did you see that happen?

40:34

Or what's your opinion on that, on his response? And what does that say about the Chinese Communist Party?

40:42

I think it says more about what's happening in America, the moral decay of American minds.

40:53

I mean, of course, that's why I also wrote my book. In my book, I talk about how

40:58

I met all these movers and shakers. And then people talk about the Black Lives Matter and slavery is wrong and racism.

41:07

All of those people, I've been asking them, like, this actually true horror is happening, that you can actually make a difference on.

41:16

Everybody's saying, if the Holocaust doesn't happen, I was alive at the time, I would have saved Anna Frank. Yeah.

41:21

I would have been different. And I'm telling them, yeah, it's happening right now. Well, what are you doing?

41:27

And they're all trying to make money. So, of course, that was completely disgracing.

41:32

This man who grew up in freedom, who's been benefited by this free democracy, do not defend this truth and being like, bow time to this horrible regime.

41:46

Yeah. But he was not only one, right? Like NBA stars. I mean, Hollywood, academia and politicians.

41:53

I think it's everywhere in America. The people who are hijacked, the institution that were hijacked by Chinese Communist Party.

42:00

Yeah. And will not speak up and stand up and holding Chinese government accountable.

42:07

And I think it's a real problem. It's a complete threat to our country. And I think that it's very scary because there's no morality.

42:17

It's nothing matters to these people other than just making some money for themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

42:22

Andrew, I'm going to let you jump in here a second. I think I remember it was a while back when they were filling Mulan, the Disney remake of Mulan.

42:29

And I think there's a camera shot where they show the set of the movie.

42:36

And literally in the background, you can see, basically, you want to call it a concentration camp or an internment camp, like literally in the background.

42:48

I mean, it's stunning. Yeah. For the readers in Xinjiang, I mean,

42:54

Disney denounces all sorts of hate. And they say, we stand, we go against all the hate and all of those things.

43:02

But when it comes to China, I mean, they're OK with anything. So the hypocrisy of American mainstream culture,

43:08

I think that I was not understanding. I did not expect that was happening here.

43:14

Yeah. And now I see that every day more and more. And it's completely heartbreaking. Mm hmm.

43:21

And Andrew, what's on your mind? Yeah. What do you think, Yami, has led to this decline of morality in the

43:28

United States of America, where it's focused more, people are focused more on money than they would say their neighbor?

43:34

I would think that in order to truly love your neighbor, you first have to love God. Like when I think about the

43:40

Ten Commandments, the first table of the commandments is love God. And then what follows is love neighbor. My thought would be that what's happened in our society is that we have people that are fundamentally denying the very foundations of what makes other people matter, right?

43:57

Being made in the image of God. Freedom even mattering because it's a right given to us from God.

44:03

When the sun sets you free, you are free indeed. First Corinthians seven states, if you are, if you were when you're called, if you are a slave, set yourself free.

44:11

If you have the opportunity, which I find that's what you did. So praise God for that. You found yourself a slave and set yourself free.

44:17

And you have a beautiful story that shows God's providence all throughout your life. But what in our nation, which was built on the backs of a

44:26

Puritan faith, is happening so that people are living in America, yet denying the very foundations that give us the reason to pursue freedom, life, and the pursuit of happiness.

44:39

Like what's going on here today? That's leading to communism influencing our culture so heavily.

44:47

Yeah, I think I had to think about Christianity a lot in the last several years, and especially when my son was born.

44:55

And that's when I saw a miracle and I became a believer.

45:00

I mean, how can you not have to see that, right? But I think the other thing is that if people don't understand that freedom without virtue, it's anarchy.

45:13

And in America right now, it's anarchy. They say, I have a freedom to treat myself as a heroine on the street in New York City, in San Francisco.

45:21

And well, it's a freedom. They have a right to kill themselves and harming other people. So, right?

45:28

But I think that virtue came from God. And when you don't believe

45:35

God, the danger is that you believe in anything. And that anything is a lot of times very scary things.

45:43

Yeah. So, I would not assume that if you don't believe in God, you're going to believe in bad things.

45:49

That's an automatic assumption. But there is a complete danger to the society when people choose to believe in everything.

45:57

And that's very scary society to be in. So, I think this is where I keep thinking now is that, of course,

46:05

I support legal immigration in America. As an immigrant myself, I became American last year.

46:11

But when Americans, I keep saying somehow, as this is a slogan, they don't even question.

46:16

They don't even think. Somehow, they keep saying diversity is our strength. And it's scary.

46:23

Like diversity is, I feel like the commonality, the common value, that's what the strength is.

46:30

It's not just some, everybody look different. Everybody thinks different. That's going to be a strength. And I love that diversity of opinions.

46:40

But there still has the common thing that we choose to believe and we choose to defend, right?

46:45

There should be a meaning in that. And when the nation completely divided in what is matter in life, what is important in this country, even this country is important.

46:57

And I think that's why it is so brilliant on government part.

47:03

They chose to divide people. In North Korea, they made us not trusting each other, even our moms and our children.

47:12

Because the first thing my mother told me was that birds and mice couldn't hear me. So she told me not even whisper.

47:19

So when you don't trust each other, what happens? You're going to trust the government. And that's how they come into your lives.

47:26

And I see that every day. Like when I was so amazed when I came to America, first, how much people are so trusting.

47:34

Like you get into Uber and you somehow think that just Uber driver is not going to carry you, right?

47:39

Yeah. You order pizza and then somehow you think that nobody put poison in it.

47:45

Right. And society works beautifully when there's a trust. And that trust is getting destroyed every day.

47:52

No, no. Yeah. Yeah. No, I believe 100%. I think like social media, for example, is a huge blessing.

48:00

I mean, the fact that now I could hear you tell your story.

48:06

And was the Joe Rogan experience, was that the first interview you ever did on that high level when you're on there?

48:15

Yeah, I have interviewed Dr. Peterson. Yeah. And of course

48:22

I left before that. And then I think Joe Rogan interview really made a lot of Americans to hear my story.

48:29

Yeah. Yeah. So my question would be is that, I mean, you grew up in a communist society where if you said anything outside the confines of what the state wanted you to say, there would be severe consequences.

48:46

Your life probably would have ended. What did it feel like to be on Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, to really express yourself on that magnitude for the very first time?

48:57

Aside from maybe some social media comments and the YouTube comments, but to express yourself fully without consequence, what did that feel like?

49:07

It's amazing. Actually, before that, I spoke at TED and other more mainstream platforms.

49:14

I mean, Joe Rogan is mainstream, but TED is a little bit different word. And I think it was,

49:23

I mean, the beginning when I was speaking out, it was a miracle to me when people were telling me, you have a right to criticize your own president.

49:33

And in the beginning, I was horrified. Why would you do that? And it was like, this is a true freedom.

49:39

You have a right to criticize your own leader, right? And everybody is equal, especially the governments are the people's servant.

49:47

We hire them to fight for our rights. It's not like we work for them. In democracy, that is the opposite.

49:54

We are the ones that have all the authority and we hire the politicians to represent our interests.

50:00

So for me to understand that for the first time, and somehow you're not going to get killed even if you criticize your president.

50:07

And of course, I'm exercising my right many times now and it still shackles me that this is a norm.

50:15

And where I grew up, that was not a norm. You literally, they come after eight generations of your family if you criticize your own leader.

50:23

Mm -hmm. When you first came to America, and Andrew, I'll let you jump in here for a second. What was just, maybe just have some fun here.

50:30

What was the most surprising thing off the get -go? Was it the amount of food? Was it just the diversity of people?

50:38

What was initially the most culture shock thing coming to America? It's like, of course, a million culture shocks that I felt, but what shocked me was the abundance of choices that individual get to have.

50:52

Yeah. I mean, to me, I associated freedom with a choice in the beginning. Like I went to grocery store,

51:00

I went to like Walmart in the beginning. That's the first place they took me when I came to America.

51:05

And of course, there's a size of chips, like it was a half of my body, like so big, so much food.

51:12

But when I went to like pick up apple, I mean, there are a dozen different apples. Like for me, apple was apple one type.

51:19

And here, there's like the crispy, honey, garlic, so many different types of like apple.

51:26

I was trying to pick up the toothpaste and there was like mint, wine, completely all in one, like dozens of toothpaste, right?

51:35

And then like when I go to restaurant, it's like in North Korea, I never seen a cookbook because we don't have ingredients to make different types of food.

51:44

We just put everything, whatever we find that day. And here you have choice to eat that day.

51:50

It's like different types of food, like fish, meat, vegetable, and pasta. So I was like so overwhelmed.

51:57

Like how do you make a decision? And I was seeing my American friends, like they were like loving the choices they were giving.

52:05

You know, they loved all, having all the options. They were not getting overwhelmed by that at all. And for instance, for me to choose one for me, like whenever I go to restaurant,

52:14

I don't care, just give me something. I like everything, you know? So even ordering food was, it took a while, like at least five years for me to adjust.

52:24

And even learning some menu was a work because I never knew that types of food existed.

52:29

So I did not even know what they were. So I couldn't even order it. Right, right. And also one of the things you did talk about, maybe you can elaborate this, because I mentioned it earlier, you had this almost unhealthy obsession of just studying and learning.

52:46

I don't know if it was maybe making up for lost time. Like what prompted you?

52:51

Did you start studying right away when you got to America? Was there kind of like a motivation for you to start that? And yeah, kind of take us into that.

52:58

Like when did that all start for you as far as just the studying, wanting to go to school and just to learn? Because you had to do a lot of catching up to bring us into that.

53:06

Yeah, it really began when I got to South Korea. And that's really for the first time

53:11

I was safe in my life. You know, not every guy I was seeing was trying to rape me. And I was not running away from police and authorities and human traffickers.

53:21

So at almost 16 years old, I got to South Korea and I heard this place called the library.

53:29

And that was my dream place, right? Because so many books in library you get to read.

53:37

And I was reading like 100 books per year while studying at the university.

53:43

So for me, it was as I just knew how much I did not know. And as you learn more and more, you know how much you don't understand too, right?

53:52

As you learn more and more, it's not like helping you to think I know now. It's like, oh my God, I did not know this much.

53:57

Like every time that's how you realize it. So and I mean, still to this day,

54:03

I'm terrified at how much I don't know and how ignorant, how dumb I must be. I think that paranoia is making me very hungry for the knowledge and the truth.

54:15

So especially reading the Western classics that really opened my eyes and helped me to think critically for the first time.

54:25

So it's now seeing this new generation in America, TikTok and Instagram, and don't ever pick up a one book of Western like classic books.

54:35

And no wonder this country is like, you know, collapsing right now. Oh, definitely. Andrew, what questions do you have just about like the library?

54:44

I know like just for me too, I'm from the 80. I'm from, I feel like I'm an 80s kid. So I, oh my goodness.

54:50

I, you'll be like, I loved libraries as a kid. I was just so overwhelmed with like all the different books, like all of that.

54:58

And this is even pre -internet. So we actually had to, you had to pull out the giant thing with the files where like the alphabetical to find out whether books were there.

55:06

So like, I'm very much an old, that was very old school for me when it came to libraries. But anyways,

55:12

Andrew, what questions do you have for you on me right now? Yeah, yeah. So real quick, when you were in South Korea, is that when you started reading the

55:20

Western like classics? Yeah, I read the, that's one tier, so in South Korea, when

55:27

I got there, besides all the culture shock, they were telling me that everything that I believed in my life was a lie.

55:36

It's like scrap everything that you know about the world and everything you were taught in North Korea, that's all lie.

55:41

And I was thinking, so everything that I believe was a lie, then how do I know what you're telling me is not a lie? I just could not trust ever again.

55:49

I could not believe anything again. And when I, just one day in the library, I picked up this book called

55:55

Animal Farm. It was a tiny little book. And I thought it was like about animals, right?

56:01

And reading George Orwell's Animal Farm in 1984 afterwards, that's when

56:07

I really truly understood what happened to North Korean people, what happened to me, and learn about this system.

56:15

And that's when I really trusting now, okay, like that was a brainwashing, that was a propaganda.

56:21

And that helped me to open the eyes to the Western classics. And I was reading

56:27

Bastia, The Law, the John Stuart Mills, like the Liberty and all other books.

56:33

Wow, so real quick, Jerry. So you go, you're in South Korea, you're reading these

56:39

Western classics, you're reading George Orwell, and then you come to the United States and you want to continue your education, you end up going to Columbia.

56:46

And I would think coming from South Korea, you're like, I'm going to Columbia, I'm going to learn so much more about the giant of Western civilization.

56:56

But when you end up in Columbia, it's almost like you're going backwards in time to North Korea, where you're learning about bloodline issues that are now distorting the way that people view the world.

57:09

Like no more, it's like, well, George Orwell, that's white privilege. You know what I mean? Like things of that nature. There's a section in your book,

57:15

I want to read it to you real quick, just to see if you can flush it out a little bit more. It's from Wild Time Remains, page 30 into 31.

57:23

It says, you're talking in regards to Columbia. It says, a safe space in this context presumably would mean a place where ideas could be expressed without fear of reprisal.

57:32

Instead, it meant a place where, to invert the phrase popularized by Ben Shapiro, feelings don't care about your facts.

57:38

I started to despair that my new institutional home would not be a vehicle to search for truth, but the opposite, a cult.

57:45

Can you flush that out a little bit? Like, what was it like? You think you go to this, like Ivy League institution to learn more, but instead they're actually almost trying to brainwash you again.

57:56

Yeah, I remember the very first orientation and my instructors were telling us, you know, how we need to stay woke and be woke.

58:05

And I was like, I'm awake. You know, I did not understand woke was a different thing. I was like, okay, let's give you examples of, you know, being woke and what would that be?

58:16

And she was asking who likes to read Jane Austen? And of course I raised my hand. I mean, it's beautiful literature and it's way more complex than just romance, right?

58:26

And she was saying by reading Jane Austen, that's how you get brainwashed because she was living the era of white colonialism and she somehow depicts in her work is that only white men are capable of lawful thinking.

58:41

So she propagates those ideas and therefore that's how you, you know, become racist.

58:47

And that's how society were so systemically racist. And that's how we need to stay woke to find those examples and look for those, you know, bigotry.

58:57

And I mean, I come to the heart of the West where this beautiful Western classics should be celebrated and now they're being denounced as the sign of bigotry and racism.

59:11

So, and then of course letting that, like before the every class, the professors would send these emails to us, trigger warning emails that today in this classroom, we are going to cover this topic.

59:24

If it triggers you in any way, don't come to the class. You don't even need to tell me, don't do the reading.

59:30

And you don't even need to tell me why this triggers you. I'm like, what on earth are you going to Ivy League school and paying this much money if you cannot handle reading something in an

59:42

AC, nice classroom? You know, where it's not like the bullets are hanging out, like it's not unsafe.

59:48

Literally most safe campus, they are air conditioning on you and the food on, everything is safe.

59:54

And then you cannot handle reading some words. And I think that's when I thought this civilization is dying.

01:00:04

It's, I don't think I will ever understand why the professors are forcing people to become like this snowflakes that one incapable of handling any kind of difficulty in life and making them almost a handicap, not physically, but emotional handicaps that cannot tolerate any kind of pain in life.

01:00:29

In George Orwell's 1984, you remember the popular segment where I believe the main person in the book, yes, is forced to admit that I believe two plus two equals five.

01:00:44

What did you, when you first read that, how did you process and how did you process that when the very first time that you read that, just kind of given where you came from?

01:00:54

I was thinking, oh, this is how North Korea made, they read 1984 and they copied it.

01:01:01

But then I was reading the book, I mean, this is North Korea. And I was thinking, this is how they made the complete dystopia, it's not a, they just copied the book.

01:01:15

Right. And they made the reality just like that to the North Korean people. And I was amazed how somebody did not live in North Korea, did not live in,

01:01:25

George Orwell, as far as I believe, wrote it in the 19, later 40s or 50s, right?

01:01:30

He did not get to see North Korea in the 80s, 90s, and predicted that in advance.

01:01:37

Right. And somehow humanity learned nothing from him. I'm still repeating the same mistakes.

01:01:44

Right. And maybe I could connect something together. Remind me again, remind our audience again, what was the equivalence that was made about mathematics in North Korea?

01:01:56

I think of that one, what was the issue with one plus one equals two? Or what was said about that then in North Korea?

01:02:02

Yeah, it's like the Kim Jong -un as a child, he learned that if you add one drop of water to another drop of water, it does not become two, it becomes bigger one.

01:02:13

So that's why one plus one is not two, it's one. Right. So you see a similarity there.

01:02:19

And what I want to connect this to, and this directly relates to your book, which again,

01:02:25

I definitely recommend an excellent read, Wild Time Remains. It's available right now, pretty much on Amazon, any of your favorite publishers, wherever you buy books at, is here's a connection.

01:02:35

I just pulled up an article from the Scientific American. Here's the headline. Here's the headline.

01:02:41

It says, Modern Mathematics confronts its white patriarchal past. Mathematicians want to think their field is a mediocrity, but bias, harassment, and exclusion persist.

01:02:54

So what you're beginning to see, and there's several other articles that state math is racist, almost like a redefining of, you know, two plus two does not equal four.

01:03:06

I don't know. When you see articles like that, and you've seen a lot of those, like what comes to mind? Because there's definitely, you do kind of elaborate on this in your book.

01:03:14

Yeah. I mean, it's the exact same thing at Columbia. They say, oh, SAT is racist because, you know,

01:03:21

Asian kids do so well on it. And Latinos and other kids are not. So they say, you know, exam is racist.

01:03:29

And drinking milk is racist. Eating meat is racist. I mean, literally, at that point, you know, it's a destruction of any kind of truth and common sense.

01:03:43

And it's that the fabric of the communist society is always that they have to attack the truth.

01:03:49

The people don't understand the truth. And because truth works, right? But if it all lies, it don't work.

01:03:57

So it's the West. What shocks me is that North Koreans don't have internet.

01:04:02

They cannot Google things to understand the truth. But in America, with this many books, with this much internet access and knowledge access, people still be able to get brainwashed to this degree.

01:04:16

I think that's what's shocking to me. That, you know, like people are still capable of being brainwashed to this degree with all the resources available to them.

01:04:27

Yeah. And why the importance of education and importance of, you know, what school that our children going to.

01:04:36

Because it all begins from their classrooms and from their teachers. And I'm a mother myself now.

01:04:41

And every day, I'm so sorry. The first time I'm talking about this, like my son is like four when he was last.

01:04:48

I mean, not five, even four. One day comes on and I asked him like, hey, like now we play toys.

01:04:55

Can you clean up your toys? And he was saying, oh, that hurts my feelings, mommy.

01:05:01

I'm not sure how on earth somebody tell you would be like hurting your feelings.

01:05:07

And of course, I did not like his teachers doing that. Yeah, like nobody in our family ever saying that it hurts my feelings ever.

01:05:16

It's not a thing for North Korea even talk about. Yeah. So I was thinking, oh, my

01:05:22

God, like already at four, the brainwashing began. Is it?

01:05:28

Yeah. Isn't it amazing? I mean, you're a mother and you have a son who's four years old. I mean, is it sometimes, is it baffling you just how person and Andrew, you've got four children.

01:05:40

Does it ever just baffle you sometimes just how perceptive children are of the world and how much they take in around them?

01:05:48

Like, what's it like viewing this through like now you growing up in Korea, but now just through the eyes of a mother.

01:05:54

Bring us into that if you could. Yeah, I think it's children are so impressionable and they're very imaginative, like children believe in,

01:06:02

I mean, Santa Claus, they believe in magic, right? They believe in Spiderman. My son thinks

01:06:08

Spiderman's neighborhood is their best friend. That's so imaginative. So of course, they're going to imagine all sorts of stuff and I'm not going to validate all this like imagination, right?

01:06:20

Yeah. And like, it's a one day my son was like, oh, asking, oh, can

01:06:26

I be a girl? And I asked him like, do you think I can be your dad? He's like, no.

01:06:32

Okay, I don't think you can be a girl. And that was the end of the question. He never asked me, can I be a girl, right?

01:06:39

And it's just like telling them a common sense a lot of times works. And I think in North Korea, like parents, of course, like we all get brainwashed, but in some sense, still like, you know, the biology, still like men and women is a true thing.

01:06:58

It's a true thing there. You know, and we still care about some sense of facts over feelings.

01:07:05

Like in America now, everything is about how you feel, right? How you feel, that's your truth.

01:07:13

Like in Colombia, everybody, this is my truth. This is my lived experience. Therefore, this must be like overriding the facts.

01:07:20

Yeah. Maybe this is it. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

01:07:25

Go ahead and elaborate on it. But I was just going to ask you real quickly. Did you have a thought you wanted to finish? I'm sorry.

01:07:32

Oh, no, I was saying that like even North Korea didn't go this far. Yeah. I think that's why

01:07:37

I said even North Korea is not that crazy. I don't think they believe in there's 10 different thousand genders, right?

01:07:44

Right. So in some sense, the West kind of expanded. Oh, yeah.

01:07:50

In a way, yeah. Like it was there. It's just interesting because like I, you know,

01:07:55

I think this whole idea, for example, of just the gender confusion and the pronouns, this was not even existent five years ago.

01:08:02

The very first time I even heard of this was when Jordan Peterson came to prominence.

01:08:07

When I saw the video, I think it was of someone else filming him when he was just a professor at whatever university it was up in Canada where this conversation and I was still not even understanding what they were wanting.

01:08:21

And now this is everywhere where people now in Fortune 500 companies might, if they don't identify somebody by the certain, you know,

01:08:30

Z's or pronouns, you could lose your job. And this happened in such a short amount of time.

01:08:37

It's really mind baffling to me. Yeah, that's the thing, how fast a society can collapse.

01:08:44

It's hard to build things. It takes time to build things. Destroying it, it's very quick.

01:08:51

Yes. I'm sure you know that being, having a son. Yeah. So where do you think this, or when do you think this began in the

01:09:01

United States, right? The communist infiltration. Because if I'm thinking about like Marxist communism,

01:09:07

I'm thinking about the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, right? Like the proletariat wanting to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

01:09:12

They gain class consciousness to then overthrow, the working class overthrowing the elite. There's always a strategy, right?

01:09:19

Like in North Korea, it was like Juche was like the type of strategy that was unleashed on the people and then create that class system.

01:09:26

Like, how does this begin in the United States? And what is the strategy that is being used in order for these people, let's say woke people, for example, to gain this class consciousness, to then want to overthrow the existing social structure, the political structure that we have.

01:09:44

In the US, to me, it's a bit unique is that the people who believe in this like gender, you know, like 10 ,000 different like genders or this stuff are the people actually previous people.

01:09:58

They are usually college graduated white labor people. I'm so sorry to say that I don't think

01:10:04

I ever meet someone from like Vietnam, refugee in Cuba and refugee come here, having time to think about those things.

01:10:12

You know, they are learning English for the first time. They're trying to make things work in this new country. So it's a luxury belief you can afford when your life is very good.

01:10:24

And they use this to almost control the majority of people.

01:10:29

I don't think it's a actually suffering, you know, workers are rising up to overthrow the capitalist.

01:10:37

It's like that. In America, they are borrowing. It's like we are oppressed.

01:10:43

Of course, they're not oppressed. I mean, my friends at Columbia, wearing this like 100 bucks yoga pants or their green juice detox, they're not oppressed.

01:10:51

But they are using those slogans to gain more control in the society.

01:10:58

And I think gain more power. I mean, whenever you say these slogans, well, your status goes up, you're more popular and more people kind of follow you and respect you and you get a better job.

01:11:12

And all these companies now have diversity hiring, right? They have to have a quota, like North Korea.

01:11:18

It's like they have the quota of like, we need to hire this many people for this role who are gay or transgender, women of color, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:11:27

So it's almost like a tool they are using for their personal gains.

01:11:33

Yeah. And they are already established class in America.

01:11:39

That's what's shocking to me. The people complain they're oppressed and America is horrible. The people who are precisely being benefited by this current system like AOC, like Bernie Sanders, right?

01:11:51

They are rich, they are famous, they are popular and they're all day long telling how America is oppressive to them.

01:11:57

And then they're actually people who come from oppressed world, they are grateful for America. They want to die for this nation.

01:12:04

And they are, so yeah, I think that's what people don't understand in general. Sorry for interrupting your currently scheduled programming, but did you know you can go to apologyastudios .com

01:12:14

and become an all access member? With all access membership, you get exclusive content from all of Apology Studios productions, not to mention

01:12:22

Kultish is an Apology Studios production. So you'll get access to Kultish, the aftermath where Jerry and I talk together after our most recent series, discussing what we thought.

01:12:32

It's really cool. We have a lot of fun doing it. And you know, we can't do this without the studio.

01:12:37

It keeps the lights on and we can't also do this without you. So please go to apologyastudios .com

01:12:43

and become an all access member. Now back to the programming. Another question I have, maybe you can kind of blend this in together because you have several books that came to mind.

01:12:52

Both of you mentioned your book and I'm going to mention another book in a second. But also George Orwell had another book,

01:12:59

Animal Farm. I'd like to get your thoughts, Yomi, is that could you maybe just, for anyone who hasn't read it, describe what the summary of Animal Farm was and how do you see the

01:13:13

Animal Farm manifesting itself now in the United States? I would love to get your, I'd love for you to elaborate on that and get your thoughts because I know that was one of your favorite eye -opening books in your whole journey that you talk about in your book.

01:13:26

I know, thank you. So let me try my best. No pressure, no pressure.

01:13:31

So there are animals who live in the house. There's a master who is a human being and the animals thought they were oppressed because, you know, there's a master and of course, master's not always perfect and they had to work in the master's house to get food.

01:13:46

And so they thought, okay, if we get rid of this human guy, we can be the, you know, in charge and we can divide everything equally and we take care of each other.

01:13:56

It can be a complete utopia. Everything is fantastic. But they do get rid of this master who was a human with walking with two feet.

01:14:05

Once this animals removing and the revolution succeeded, right? And the pigs who were the one in charge because they were able to,

01:14:15

I think, ride and think better than any other, like how the other animals. So, and then once these guys come to power, they, in a way, becomes a lot worse than this human master.

01:14:28

And they keep changing the slogans, you know, once you, the animals, we don't sleep on bed.

01:14:35

But now, later, they like sleeping in this mattress and beautiful like bedsheets. And then they become this specialized class and who was actually worse than the human master.

01:14:46

And that's the irony of it. They overthrew this human master in the idea of a perfect equality of outcome and paradise.

01:14:55

They create the system that completely of taking advantage of the lower class.

01:15:02

And all these animals believing that if they worked hard one more day, they are going to get a beautiful retirement because that's what the ruling class promised these animals.

01:15:11

Yeah. And of course, when the time comes up, then retiring, they get butchered and get killed. So there's no digging in the system.

01:15:19

So that really shows the promise of this good intention of equality of outcomes.

01:15:26

It's going to always bring a horror to all of us. And it's going to give a rise to a special group that's going to take advantage of everything.

01:15:36

And I think that's why right now in America, the exact same plot is playing, right?

01:15:42

This group in the American elite telling American people, look at how horrible billionaires are.

01:15:49

Look at the corporations. They're so evil. And we need to overthrow them. We need to take their money.

01:15:54

We need to tax them 99%. And if we do that, we're going to give it to you all.

01:16:00

And you guys get the universal income, free health care, free education. We are going to take care of you all.

01:16:06

Of course, that's not what's going to happen, right? And it's going to bring a literally death of millions of people in America.

01:16:13

And that plot is always playing in every common countries. That promise of utopia, promise of equity, what it can bring it to a society.

01:16:24

That's what we need to learn. Yeah. Speaking of American elites, you do talk about this at the very beginning of your book, how when you were going around,

01:16:34

I think you had done the TED Talk, but you had some opportunities to, I think was it with Jeff Bezos?

01:16:40

From some very high prominent people, you met Jeff Bezos, Harvey Weinstein, kind of when he was still before the whole

01:16:47

Me Too thing movement blew up from my understanding. And you saw people who initially were touched by your story.

01:16:54

But then when you began to actually bring up the solution, people had sort of a change of heart per se.

01:17:01

Can you bring us into that if you could? Yeah. In my book, there's a chapter about the hypocrisy of American elite.

01:17:10

And I think two events that was really stuck with me. One actually is like what you said, Jeff Bezos had this off the record private events that he brings people who are interesting, the billionaires, movershakers, the producers, and how did the writers come there?

01:17:26

And somehow he saw my speech that I gave once before, and then he invited to this gathering.

01:17:33

And then he flew me from New York on a Gulfstream private jet with Harvey and some other very famous people that I still don't know who they are.

01:17:43

And then I go to these events. And then this is actually not that long before the

01:17:50

Me Too. Harvey would give a speech and everybody stand up giving a standing ovation, calling the man, the legend, the hero.

01:17:59

Everybody was respecting Harvey Weinstein so much. I thought like this guy must be a saint, right?

01:18:06

Everybody standing there trying to hold his hands. And then I share my story and Jeff Bezos was in tears and he was asking me what kept me going.

01:18:16

And I said, like my father. And I said later, like there's a way, like you guys have all the platforms and influences.

01:18:23

You work with China. Please like let the world leaders know that China is responsible for this crisis.

01:18:30

That we need to convince China to support the human rights and human rights of North Korean people.

01:18:36

And they all like just looking at me as if I'm some like a mark coming from different planet.

01:18:42

They say like, I care what you went through, but please don't tell anybody that I know you, that we met, that we are friends.

01:18:49

And they were even afraid to be associated with me once they found out that I was exposing China's communist party.

01:18:56

And then they see people was every day putting those black squares on their, you know,

01:19:01

Instagram and Twitter handles and saying the slavery is evil. The American system is horrible.

01:19:07

Oh, when they did the blackout after George Floyd? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, they're denouncing slavery, denouncing hate, the police violence.

01:19:17

And yeah, there are people in North Korea, from North Korea in China, their organs are harvested out of them.

01:19:23

Right. And these people now want to stand up for the same tragedy. So, and then of course, the

01:19:30

Me Too blew up, right? And I called these people like, did you know that Harvey was harassing women?

01:19:36

I was like, of course we knew. Did you not know? And then the same people who were accusing him during the

01:19:42

Me Too of sexual violence, those actresses were in the same spot with the Jeff Bezos event and giving him a standing ovation.

01:19:50

Right. They would only choose to stand up justice when it's convenient. When there is actual no price to pay and only thing they gain is a, you know, the recognition and fame.

01:20:01

Right. So I lost my faith in American elite. And last thing was when I met

01:20:06

Nancy Pelosi in New York. It was like, all of these people are always having these off the record dinners, right?

01:20:15

To, I know there's billionaires and tycoons come and New York Times editors and coming too.

01:20:21

You said Nancy Pelosi? Yeah, Nancy Pelosi. Okay. And then there's a lot of traders and hedge fund tycoons in New York comes.

01:20:29

And then she was saying, you know, tomorrow morning you need to get ready because I'm going to announce the impeachment of Trump.

01:20:36

Mm -hmm. And you know what this means? You need to get ready. And I was thinking, what does this mean on earth?

01:20:42

How on earth does this mean? Which means markets are full tomorrow morning when this news comes out.

01:20:48

So you need to short the market. And I was, I lost my words.

01:20:55

Like this lady always talking about how she's fighting for the people of, you know, like who are marginalized in the society, aiding billionaires and hedge fund managers in New York City and telling them how she's going to announce this in the morning in DC.

01:21:11

Right. And that is it. I don't know if that's not insider trading, what it is. Like what is this insider trading?

01:21:17

And her husband apparently running a trading firm too. Oh yeah, yeah. And I think it's,

01:21:24

Andrew, what are your thoughts, man? Yeah, I mean, the Bible says that the mercy of the wicked is cruel.

01:21:29

And it's looking to exercise capital gain off the suffering in backs of others.

01:21:36

And talking about kind of like with when you were bringing up animal farm, I love how you said earlier that the government exists to be the servant of the people.

01:21:44

Well, it tells us that in actually Romans 13, that the government is given to us by God to be a servant of God.

01:21:51

And the word that's used in the Greek is to be a deacon, one that is supposed to serve people. But what happens is when people don't actually have a standard in terms of how the government should exist, it'll actually not exist in the way that it should exist given to us by God.

01:22:08

So Jesus, it says he's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It's like the mistaken animal farm is the animals thinking that they can overthrow a man.

01:22:16

Well, there's someone above the man and his name is Jesus. So even if you overthrow the man, you still have to answer to Jesus.

01:22:22

And he actually judges nations in the present. So when nations aren't operating the way scripture says nations should operate, judgment does follow.

01:22:31

And that's the reality. So like with Nancy Pelosi or Jeff Bezos or any of these people, it's like, well, how can we get through to these people?

01:22:38

I think that the gospel is actually the answer because in order to love your neighbor, truly you first actually have to be in a relationship with your savior.

01:22:48

And the only way that can happen is through someone being told, look, it's not your whiteness that makes you guilty before the one and holy

01:22:58

God. It's the fact that we're born sinners. We're born sinners. We're born people that want to have a knowledge of good and evil, but we don't actually have the wisdom to discern between the two, right?

01:23:09

So we do what is wrong and right in our own eyes. We see that all throughout scripture. But then we actually have

01:23:15

Jesus who comes, who's God in the flesh, who dies on the cross for our sins. And he was perfect and sinless.

01:23:21

It's solely just through faith in him that we can stand right before God. And it says in the scriptures that our hearts of stone are taken out and they're replaced with the heart of flesh, right?

01:23:31

And then it says in the Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is actually the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. So it's a humility of ourselves to say, look, we don't know how to do this perfectly, but we actually have a beautiful and amazing

01:23:42

God who condescended and gave us his law in the Bible that we could follow so that we can actually have a nation and a society that can actually flourish.

01:23:53

So what we find now, at least in our society, is we have people who are standing on the backs of giants, right?

01:24:00

Like they're standing on the word of God and the blessings that we've inherited from our nation. And now they're spitting in the face of God and they can't live according to that standard.

01:24:10

So they think instead of just coming to faith with God, that they have to repent of their whiteness or white privilege.

01:24:20

There's like this massive confusion that exists within our society. They're repenting to the wrong God, right?

01:24:26

The Bible says that those who search after idols, they'll become just like their idols.

01:24:32

And we're seeing that actually happen today. Like how can we, I guess here's the question I'm asking.

01:24:38

So how can we re -humanize like the North Korean people to the United States population?

01:24:45

Because I know for me, when I watched documentaries like from Vice or other people that have gone inside North Korea, like they're trying to expose what's going on there.

01:24:55

But what it almost does in a sense is it makes you terrified of actually the people in North Korea. So how can we re -humanize this population here so our hearts can break for them to actually make the biggest difference?

01:25:09

What do you think, Yomi? I think when it comes to like looking at North Koreans who are marching and looking like robots, they are really dehumanized in the media.

01:25:22

And it's true, a lot of them are brainwashed. What we should not fear is lie, right?

01:25:30

Lie doesn't have any power. Like when I came to America, that's when I learned. Like all my life,

01:25:36

I believed that Americans were cold -blooded reptiles who are monsters. And they come to America.

01:25:43

The first thing that I saw at the Houston airport was this guy in his hoodies, with his son eating big chips of bats.

01:25:50

And just big smile. Americans are smiling so much, right? And I'm thinking, of course these are not monsters.

01:25:57

These are lovely people. And that fear just went away. So those are the things that we are seeing from these documentaries are the people who have to do that.

01:26:08

Like they have to play the dictator. Almost, you know, like sensational way because that's the only way they survive.

01:26:16

And when it comes to really meet people one -on -one without the government, they are human beings just like us.

01:26:24

And no matter the brainwashing, if it's a lie, that will lose power. And I think that's what it is.

01:26:31

The North Korean people are ready to be joining the world and be free country.

01:26:36

But the dictator would not let them. That's why every year they use bullets to control people.

01:26:42

They use the wire fences and concentration camps to control people because people really want to be free.

01:26:50

And imagine how many people are standing up. That's why there's hundreds, thousands of concentration inmates who are

01:26:56

Christians who want to be free. And they end up in the concentration camps.

01:27:02

So yeah, I think what we need to worry about is really removing this force that sustain this regime, that is

01:27:08

Chinese Communist Party. And if we expose them, if we hold them accountable and if they change the direction one day, okay, we are not gonna sponsor this dictatorship that does not want

01:27:19

North Korean people to even be fed. They can literally choose a government that is willing to feed the nation's people and then still somehow hold the communist ideology like China, right?

01:27:32

Like they can do that. Like you can still have complete control over people and then just feed them some food.

01:27:38

But even that they're denying because they're so evil. And we can at least ask

01:27:43

China to do that. Like, okay, maybe we can ask to remove Kim Jong -un but at least can you make sure that this much food is going to the people?

01:27:53

Yeah, I think what's also just interesting too when you talk about humanizing and I appreciate all that you just said there is that I think even people who live in communist countries, like I said,

01:28:04

Andrew and I were both Christians. We believe that people, people have every single individual, like the unique individual human dignity, value and worth all come from a

01:28:13

Christian worldview. But I really think that people insatiably, we have the law of God written in our heart.

01:28:18

So that desire for freedom, you see the difference between like West, East and West Germany with the

01:28:24

Berlin Wall while people would literally risk their lives and would die constantly by trying to escape over that wall.

01:28:30

And you see insatiable freedom when Ronald Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, and that happened.

01:28:39

You just think about the very first time I saw an election taking place in Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

01:28:47

You just see the insatiable desire for people, not only for freedom, but to not live by lies.

01:28:54

I mentioned earlier, I just watched the final episode of Chernobyl with my wife last night. The part that was very intriguing for me is when the engineer who is really explaining the mathematics and the science and the nuclear physics behind Chernobyl and what actually happened during the trial.

01:29:11

It was just, you saw his absolute commitment for the truth, but he knew it would just come at this cost.

01:29:20

And I think honestly, and you can maybe give your thoughts and I feel like you have some really unique insight here. I think it's honestly, there has to be a precedent where you have to believe in the truth and hold to it no matter what the consequence is.

01:29:34

I think Jordan Peterson did that when he stood his ground and you see where he is now. Yeah, I think it's insatiable desire to stand for the truth.

01:29:45

In fact, have you ever heard of Francis Schaeffer? Yeah, Francis Schaeffer is, he was a

01:29:51

Christian philosopher. He wrote a lot just on the relationship between how a Christian should interact with the state.

01:29:57

You should definitely, there's a book called A Christian Manifesto. You should send it to her. We could send it to your assistant.

01:30:02

I think - We'll send it to you. Yeah, we'll send it to you. But I think one of the things he says is, he says, if a

01:30:08

Christian is called to be a missionary in a totalitarian society, he must preach the gospel and preach the truth if necessary, suffer the consequences.

01:30:18

So even like here in America, just with Nancy Pelosi said like doing that, where she's going to short the market after she impeached

01:30:26

Trump. I mean, the Bible talks a lot about how economically, how unjust weights and measures are an abomination to the

01:30:35

Lord. So I think even as a Christian, like I would have a responsibility to preach out against this just because those decisions are affecting the average working person and working family, just this insider trading.

01:30:50

So I think there's a lot that comes with that. But yeah, what do you think about all that? Yeah, I think it's a,

01:30:59

I think that's for sure. Like it's a, I mean, what she does, it's a,

01:31:08

I mean, when there's no truth, the world is very horrible place.

01:31:14

I think that's what Dr. Peterson says, you know, by telling the truth, you make the world a better place. I truly believe that.

01:31:21

It's a nothing else matters when there's no truth. I mean, so because of that, when all these politicians lie after lies and lie after lies, then at this point, we kind of expect them to even lie.

01:31:35

Yeah. And that's how we got so comfortable with these lies. Because you always have the expectation that of course the politician's gonna lie, you know?

01:31:46

And that becomes like when you don't fear the Lord, I think that's what it is. You know, you become the matter of yourself and your ego, and you don't serve anybody.

01:31:57

And it's just your own greed and ego. Yeah. And it's a sign it does get corrupt that way.

01:32:03

So I think I do like the sympathetic to the people who are atheists.

01:32:09

But I still think that those people can still value the truth same degree that Christians do, right?

01:32:15

If a society agrees that truth really matters, the transparency matters, then we will not have all these problems right now.

01:32:23

But there's now the teachers, professors telling, truth doesn't matter, it's your feelings. Whatever you fear, that's the truth, right?

01:32:31

And then everybody's confused. Right. The anarchy begins. Yeah, absolutely.

01:32:38

So there's another book I would definitely recommend you check out. Your book made me think of it. So there's a book by someone named

01:32:44

Eric Hoffer called The True Believer. And it's called Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movement.

01:32:50

So it's really about how people get radicalized and how group thinks start.

01:32:56

And one of the things is he talks about in, if I can find the quote here, by Eric Hoffer with The True Believer, is he basically says, it is the, let me see if I can find it here.

01:33:10

Oh, yeah. So it says, it is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies, and traitors, where everyone's always looking to each other to rat each other out.

01:33:23

Right? And you see this with wokeism, like for example, where if you say the wrong word, or if you tweet the wrong thing, like 10 years ago, people go after you and it's your turn to be canceled.

01:33:39

Like you're the latest sacrifice. Right? It is sort of like a weird pseudo religion. Yeah, I think this, what do you think about when it comes to like that aspect of the radicalization of people spying on each other?

01:33:52

You saw that with the KGB in Chernobyl, like that was portrayed. You had that in North Korea where if someone said anything, maybe that was not in the favor of the

01:34:03

Supreme Leader, they would probably - COVID America. Yeah. Yeah, COVID, if you're not wearing a mask, or if you are not social distancing, you saw that.

01:34:12

I don't know, from your perspective, give your thoughts on that and how do we address all that? I think this is where it comes down to where, like,

01:34:21

I was thinking about a long time, why does the North Korean regime remove the word love from us?

01:34:27

Yes. Because ultimately, the meaning of life, the purpose of life, all come from love.

01:34:33

They exist to love, right? And when you remove that love, you need to replace that with something and give to people something.

01:34:41

And then they give things like this, like hate, anger. And when

01:34:46

I go to Colombia, they said, stay angry, stay outweighed. And I'm like, you're living in the best country in human history, what do you mean stay angry?

01:34:57

And look at all this injustice, look at all this, all systemic racism, stay angry.

01:35:03

And what calmest countries does is that, hate, distrust, destruction.

01:35:11

And when you come to a nation that loves God, they say, love your neighbors, love yourself, love your

01:35:18

God, love your children, love your parents. And also coming from forgive, you know, forgive, and like be grateful, be joyous.

01:35:30

The complete, complete different message. And even not as a Christian, you can completely see that one coming from love, come from light, one come from darkness.

01:35:42

This is evil's work. When everybody keep telling you, stay angry, and hate, and distrust, and destroy, like dismantle the system.

01:35:52

I mean, destroy the constitution. Like this is evil's doing, right?

01:35:58

So that's why whenever you go, this is a Marxist and socialist countries, they don't talk about love.

01:36:05

They talk about destroying, the revolution. And now in America, this country does not have any mercy.

01:36:13

Like you said, in cancer culture, what I was arguing in my book is that, like we have a right to be wrong with our opinions.

01:36:21

I have a right to change in my mind. I like move on from it. Like there's no way we're gonna know everything at this moment in the perfect way.

01:36:30

Like if people made a mistake in the past, we should forgive them. And that's what God taught us, right?

01:36:36

Forgive. And this culture is like not letting you forgive in any way. Like you gotta punish them.

01:36:42

If they made a mistake. There's no redemption. There's no mercy, just punishment, pure brutality.

01:36:50

Yeah. In fact, there's another quote from The True Believer by Eric Hofer. And he talked about the radicalization.

01:36:57

And this is something I really identify with what you just said. Eric Hofer says in his book, The True Believer, it says, hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents of a true believer.

01:37:09

Mass movements can arise and spread without a belief in a God, but never without a belief in a devil.

01:37:17

What are your immediate thoughts upon hearing that quote? How do you resonate with that? Of course, every socialist revolution began with that hatred, right?

01:37:28

The hatred for things. And it was never about self -responsibility of what you can do as an individual to make a difference.

01:37:37

So I think that's why it's very, you know, in America was a friendly country.

01:37:44

I don't think people were yelling at each other because you're not wearing your mask properly. Right. You know, people would not yell at each other.

01:37:51

Like, I remember I come to America in the beginning. I was like, people saying, hello, how are you? Like, why are they interested in how

01:37:57

I'm doing? I was so curious. Like in other countries, nobody cares how you're doing, right?

01:38:02

They don't ask how are you to you. And in Korea, actually, how are you doesn't exist.

01:38:08

Right. Because people don't care about you. Why are they asking how are you there? Right. And now,

01:38:14

I mean, leading through the pandemic, I was in Chicago. People were angry at you for everything.

01:38:21

And it was just even a little bit of cough, sneezing, just looking at you as if I'm like murdering them or something.

01:38:27

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can I share you a story real quickly about, I mean, all of us had a story with dealing with something weird during COVID where this defies a logical sense.

01:38:38

So I was going to get coffee with a friend of mine. I was meeting up to get lunch with a friend of mine, but I wanted to go just get some espresso.

01:38:46

I'm kind of a coffee snob. So I wanted to get a shot of espresso. And I went to this one place right by where I live.

01:38:53

And this whole place, this restaurant is a vegan restaurant, but they had a little coffee shop. Everything was shut down.

01:39:01

The only thing they had was a little walk up window where you could walk up and do takeout.

01:39:07

And again, so this window, it's the way I access the window, I'm on a public sidewalk.

01:39:12

And so I'm on the public sidewalk and I'm looking at this lady who's inside. She's wearing a mask.

01:39:18

There's almost like a pseudo face shield in front of her. And I'm just sort of looking at the menu and she's looking at me like she's terrified of me.

01:39:26

And I'm just trying to like, oh, hi, how are you doing? I'm just looking at the menu. And she asked me, says, can you wear a mask, please?

01:39:34

I'm like, no, I'm outside of your restaurant. I'm on a public sidewalk. I'm just looking at your menu. And she was insistent that I have to wear this mask.

01:39:44

And it made no sense to me because I'm on the outside of the restaurant. And it wasn't like I was trying to fight her because I gave him a point.

01:39:51

I'm like, I'm just not gonna fight this war of people who believe this stuff for now. It was like, she was insistent.

01:39:58

And it was almost like this two plus two equals five moment for me, where it was like, I can't do this.

01:40:06

And I felt sorry for her. I just had to walk away and give up on my order. So I had to give up on that espresso. But it was just, it was such a strange time, like both in, you look at how people reacted to COVID, but then like with George Floyd.

01:40:22

Yeah, talk about that. Cause you were in Chicago. That was kind of like, Chicago does have that reputation of being a violent city in many ways.

01:40:32

Talk about that. The interaction that took place, cause that was sort of inspirational for writing your book. Yeah, like you said, like I was living through the pandemic and until then

01:40:42

I was really not as a classical liberal at all. I was still, my agent was telling me, don't talk about this stuff.

01:40:49

You're gonna get cancer. You have to like fight it. And then I was in the pandemic time.

01:40:55

I had a son who I was sending to daycare. He would put a mask up until here eight hours a day.

01:41:03

And then they literally opened the strip clubs next door. And then

01:41:08

I tried to take my son to a park playground in the summer of Chicago, like outside.

01:41:15

And there's nobody around. I'm trying to go to playground. Playground is locked. But right next door, the dog parks is open.

01:41:23

Dog owners can go to dog park and dogs run around and they can talk to each other. But humans, with a human baby, we cannot enter the park.

01:41:32

I'm thinking you guys treat animals way better than human child right now. Like in North Korea, they treat cows way better than humans because cows are owned by collective farming by the government.

01:41:44

So if we humans eat the cow, we get executed. Not the cows. Wow. So I was thinking human, like child, because they cannot speak for themselves, like you lock up the playground and you're gonna let the dog park open that humans go in there anyway.

01:42:00

There's no common sense on it. But one day I was walking on Michigan Avenue in the day broad light and I was getting robbed by several black women.

01:42:10

And it's okay. Anybody can be a thief. I mean, the people that raped me, they were Asians. I mean, everybody can be a racist.

01:42:16

It's not about race thing. And I was a guy robbed and I was getting punched. I was getting beaten.

01:42:22

And I was trying to call the police on these criminals and people circling me on the street and telling me that I'm a racist because they said the person of color, the skin color does not make them a thief.

01:42:34

And I'm a bigot because I'm trying to call the cops on these thieves. And I was suddenly, people just attacking me that I'm a racist.

01:42:42

And that's when I thought, in this country gone way too far. You know, when

01:42:49

I was at Columbia, I thought like, this is a classroom thing. Once these people graduate from university, going into real world and start paying taxes, they're gonna come to their own reality, right?

01:42:58

That's how we view usually. Okay, you can be crazy in college. And maybe once you graduate, you learn the life responsibilities, you're gonna be fine.

01:43:06

But this madness so gone did that this is like the madness of the crowd.

01:43:12

People lost their ability to see the facts. And all they saw was that I cannot be a victim because I'm an

01:43:20

Asian. And this woman who were robbing me cannot be a criminal because they are victims. They're oppressed people.

01:43:28

So I thought I need to, I mean, America does not have that much time left to turn this back.

01:43:36

And I think people living in America usually think that somehow revolution begins with every one of us become radicalized.

01:43:45

That's not how it happens. If the main institutions get radicalized enough, then they can start a revolution.

01:43:52

It's called the hotspot. You know, it's most of the revolutions does not begin because 100 % of the people agree.

01:43:59

Usually people in the position of the power and they think that they need to start a new revolution.

01:44:05

They started. And the American revolution, our cultural revolution begun and it's a silent one.

01:44:12

And of course, we don't put people on the fighting spot, but they lose their jobs. They lose their livelihood.

01:44:18

They get attacked on the streets, right? And people don't understand that we are living through our moment of revolution right now.

01:44:26

Yeah. Yeah. And it's also, this is, this would go either way, but it only really takes a small amount of people to make a significant difference.

01:44:34

I actually just, just, you know, I just found out about this the other day. Actually, I'm just curious.

01:44:40

Cause I mean, in your real quick, in your studies, you read a lot about American history, right? Yeah. Who's your favorite president?

01:44:49

I mean, so many, so many. Or just one that comes, one that comes to mind.

01:44:55

It can be anyone. It can be anyone. The recent memory is definitely Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan. And of course, the

01:45:01

Lincoln. I mean, America has so many great presidents. So I mean, of course, George Washington.

01:45:06

I mean, he's the man of character, right? He set the tone for this nation. So I think that's how

01:45:13

America is so blessed that we had incredible leaders in the country. Yeah. Right.

01:45:19

So I just found this out, speaking of George Washington, and you think about the revolutionary war, I just found this out that it was only really 3 % of all the colonies in America that like participate, the population of the men that actually fought in the revolutionary war at that time against the most powerful empire in the world.

01:45:38

So only really makes a really small amount to make a difference. And so I think it's -

01:45:44

Yeah. It was like 3%. Yeah. Crazy. I just found that off. And I grew up being obsessed with the revolutionary war.

01:45:51

I grew up around pre -internet. I grew up, I had encyclopedias and I had the library. So I would get everything that I could on the revolutionary war.

01:45:59

But yeah, it wasn't like every man called to arms. You're looking at roughly 3 % of the population that participated in the

01:46:04

American revolution. It's pretty wild. And thinking about now, this is the country where now we're still relishing in those freedoms.

01:46:13

Like, let me ask you this, because one, this has been such an honor to be able to talk to you. I mean, I remember,

01:46:19

I never imagined the very first time I listened to you and like, jaw was on the floor, just hearing your whole story.

01:46:25

And when you were talking on Joe Rogan, then on Lex Freeman, Jordan Peterson, that one, me and Andrew would even have an opportunity to talk to you.

01:46:34

And what can the, because a lot of times people will look at what's going on and they don't really have your story.

01:46:40

And you think about China is a big country and most people who listen into your story,

01:46:46

I mean, most people aren't a super elitist. They're not a

01:46:51

Jeff Bezos. They're just the average person doing their day -to -day life. Like, what do you think, what can that person do to this?

01:46:59

Because if you look at the huge picture and even your story and all that we talked today, like it feels overwhelming, but we all have to start somewhere.

01:47:06

Where do you think that is? It's actually, you know, it's a, like the, you know, as a butterfly effect, a small replay effect, all individuals do little things in our lives.

01:47:19

It can make a lot of difference, especially if you're a parent, you need to choose the right textbooks for your children and tell them the value of freedom, the price of freedom and the meaning, what it means to be an

01:47:33

American, what it means to become a citizen of a free country, right? And that's one way changing the world, literally.

01:47:42

And if you're somebody in college and going to college, you can talk to your classmates.

01:47:48

If they say capitalism is evil, okay, let's talk about why do you think capitalism is so evil? Let's talk about it.

01:47:55

And you don't have to get angry at them or shout at them, but you can gently with love and talk to them.

01:48:01

If in your entire four years of college, if you were able to convert one person and at least made them to think differently once about capitalism and free democracy, you made a difference.

01:48:12

And when you vote, of course, we have power as voters in America. We can elect people who recognize the threat of CCP in free countries, right?

01:48:25

It's like the threat of China is not just for North Koreans, it's for the world right now. We are dealing with China.

01:48:32

And America is the only superpower have resources stand up against China. No other country has a bigger economy than America and China is second.

01:48:41

So nobody's capable of doing that. The EU, they don't have that power.

01:48:48

So really America is the only one can hold China on check. And that's why it's

01:48:54

American people's job to hold them accountable, right? I mean, that's why

01:48:59

Trump did an excellent job raising that awareness in American minds of the threat of China.

01:49:05

He really made that to a light and more people was able to see how

01:49:10

China was cheating when it comes to trading with America, with the world, you know? They were like complete gangsters.

01:49:16

Right. And we cannot get bullied by this horrible, horrible like party. And so you can elect white leaders and we can raise the conscious of the people and talk about it.

01:49:28

You can share on social media. If you are, I don't know, a business person, you can support this like non -profit organizations that's spreading the word of truth and gospel.

01:49:40

And if you are somebody who doesn't have a lot of resources, you can volunteer. So it all goes back to that self -responsibility.

01:49:49

Yeah, self -government. Yeah, self -government that it's your responsibility to raise your children the right way and yourself, take care of your body and your mind.

01:50:00

And a lot of people think that somehow changing the world is like the massive thing. And sometimes it begins with making your bed, like what

01:50:07

Jordan Peterson talks about. It really does. When you get your house in order, like if you cannot even govern your own home, how dare you trying to change the world?

01:50:16

Yeah, I can say as a newly married man, making your bed in the morning makes all the difference in the world because it starts your day with a happy wife versus a wife saying, could you make your bed?

01:50:26

And kind of being upset. So I'm learning about that as a newly married man. So I would agree with you.

01:50:32

I agree with that philosophy by Jordan Peterson a lot. You got to start somewhere. Yes, that's so little, yeah.

01:50:39

Yeah. Andrew, what other questions, what are some final thoughts you have for Yami as we wrap up here?

01:50:48

Yeah, yeah. I just want to encourage you, Yami, that Romans 8, 28 through 30 says, God works all things together for good, for those who love

01:50:56

God, for those who are called according to his purpose. That means everything in your life, whether we understand it right now or not, even the suffering that we go through,

01:51:04

God is the one who will always do what is right. And he is the God of justice. And justice will occur for the wrongs that were committed in your life and for others.

01:51:12

Even if we don't see it right now, God is both the just and the justifier. And speaking to what,

01:51:20

Jerry, you were talking about earlier, it was only 3 % of the American population that went in the revolution.

01:51:25

I think we see that all throughout scripture, right? We have Moses leading Israel out of Egypt. It was just Moses and Aaron leading 3 million people to go across the

01:51:34

Red Sea. God always makes massive movements out of small amounts of people, like Gideon, 300 men versus 120 ,000.

01:51:42

As long as we are doing what is right, what God tells us we're supposed to be doing, God will be there with us and bless us for it.

01:51:50

And that's something that we need to understand in our nation today. We can fight against the dead gods of this world as much as possible, but if we're not doing it in the light of the gospel and the truth that God has given us, we can't expect

01:52:04

God to bless us in our endeavors. And that's a fundamental reality of the world because Jesus Christ is

01:52:09

King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he is judging things in the present. So we wanna do things in such a way where we can honor

01:52:16

God to love our neighbor, regardless of what happens to us or how many of us there are, right?

01:52:22

Like 12 disciples, let's say minus Judas, and the gospel changed the world 2000 years ago.

01:52:30

Like that's a fundamental reality. All of the significant advancements we have in this world come from the backs of those who went and preached the gospel to the

01:52:39

Romans and were impaled on stakes, eaten by lions. Like this is a reality of what happened historically in the world.

01:52:47

And now the world has changed because of it. God always does mighty works out of small amounts of people. Even the most people that are the most depressed, like it says all throughout the

01:52:56

Proverbs and the Psalms that God is for those people. So what we need to do is we need to be faithful to love our neighbors, first starting with our self -government in our local nation, and then expanding that to the world.

01:53:08

Like these North Koreans, man, they need Jesus. They need Jesus because it's Jesus who is the one that will set the captives free.

01:53:15

And he has people there. He says, I have sheep that are not of this fold, referring to specifically the

01:53:21

Jews in Jerusalem at this time, but meaning that there's sheep of Jesus all across the world. And he cares about them.

01:53:27

That means they're there in North Korea as well. Like you said, Yomi, there's people that are being executed right now for being Christians.

01:53:32

Well, Jesus cares about that. And although we see massive amounts of suffering in this time, I take hope in God's word by saying that one day

01:53:41

I know North Korea will be overthrown by the power of the gospel and those people will be set free.

01:53:46

But that's what I got to keep my hope in, right? Like these are altogether, I'm a creationist.

01:53:52

So I believe that we all come from Adam and Eve. So the people in North Korea, I understand, are also my relatives, distant as much.

01:53:58

So it breaks my heart to hear that people that I am related to though very distant are being killed for things that are, it's just absolutely ridiculous.

01:54:08

So my hope is in Jesus and the power of the gospel and us taking things captive by the word of God so that he can break the hearts of stone, turn them into hearts of flesh to cause them to want to love their neighbors.

01:54:22

So I want to encourage you with that, Yomi, especially in your life and what you're going through today in America and even standing up for what you believe in a

01:54:29

New York city of all places. That's a place that is extremely leftist compared to,

01:54:36

I'm in Utah. That's even more conservative than Arizona. We start calling Arizona, Utah's Mexico border now because of the recent election.

01:54:44

So I want you to encourage you to continue to stand on the truth, to stand on God's word, to shine the light of his word into the nation because it's

01:54:55

God's word that does the convicting of hearts because he is the creator of heaven and earth and the hearts, even the ones that beat against him.

01:55:03

So I just want to encourage you with that. Yeah, yeah, thank you again.

01:55:08

I just had a question again. And like I said, I think, you know, we were talking about just like truth. And I think one of the things too, is that even the idea of like freedom of speech, that underlying comes from a

01:55:18

Christian worldview. So I think one of the best ways to practice what I preached is to give you, you know, a voice to express yourself.

01:55:25

And I think your message is so incredibly important. Question for you, Yami. You're doing the book tour now.

01:55:33

This is your second book. What does the future look like for you? Do you see yourself writing more books?

01:55:40

I don't know, would you entertain like running for like public office? Or do you just see yourself involved in like human rights?

01:55:48

I mean, like I said, whether it's for, you know, fighting for those who are, you know, less people, just people who are discriminated against.

01:55:57

I don't know, what does the future look like for you? Where do you see yourself in the next two to five years? Do you have any ideas of what that looks like for you?

01:56:04

Yeah, for the next two years, definitely no plan to write another book. I think maybe every seven years.

01:56:13

Every seven years. That's a good biblical number, yeah. Yeah, it's hard to, you know, I don't have a lot of ideas to write another one that quickly.

01:56:23

But I love, I enjoy writing these things down. And, you know, think

01:56:28

I love thinking now and think critically or so. But I always know that there was a reason why

01:56:34

I got rescued by this Christian missionaries. And yeah, there's only 200, like nine of us in America from North Korea that made it in the last 80 years.

01:56:46

So I have the obligation not to forget my past and my people.

01:56:53

And I still believe in humanity. I really think that if I let the world know what's happening and not just the leaders, corrupt leaders, but the average people, you know,

01:57:04

I do think that they will join me and demanding justice for North Korean people. Wow. And that's my hope.

01:57:10

Like if I convert one person, that's enough, right? So that advocacy work until my last breath, it will not end.

01:57:19

I will fight for North Korean people until I die. Besides that, I don't ever think

01:57:25

I'm going to run for office for that because I think there's a lot of smarter people can do better job.

01:57:33

But I mean, my job is really, you know, be a good mother, be a good daughter, be a good neighbor.

01:57:40

And I work with a lot of non -profit organizations already. So like I'm on the board of Human Rights Foundation and we work with a lot of business from all around the world.

01:57:50

And people are suffering under tyranny. And we try to free as many people as we can.

01:57:58

But you know, it's a long game for sure. So a lot to fight against right now in the world.

01:58:06

Yeah. And I think that's one of the most important things is not to go overwhelmed with just what can you do right now? And just really just speak what you believe is the truth.

01:58:15

So I think that's a really good thing. So again, just it's been, Yomi, it's been, I know we're going to maybe a little bit overboard, but again, this has been just an absolute honor to be able to speak with you.

01:58:27

I think you have such an amazing story. It really, I walked away the very first time

01:58:33

I heard you, just it was in my mind for days, your initial conversation that I heard. And I just, yeah, your story is without significance.

01:58:40

So just, I would just encourage you keep on boldly, you know, talking about the truth and the evils of communism and these oppressive states.

01:58:49

I take what I have, my freedom for granted so much.

01:58:55

And even talking to you now, it's just such a refresher that I can't take anything for granted.

01:59:00

You know, you think about, I'm thinking a lot too about the world, my children, I want my children to grow up in.

01:59:05

You've resonated, I really resonate with that too. So again, thank you so much. I am going to try, what

01:59:11

I want to do actually, as we wrap up, I want to just, I want to make sure I get you, I want to send you those books by Francis Schaeffer and Eric Hoffer.

01:59:19

That'll be very, I think you would just enjoy them. So I'd love to give those to you as a gift. I'll reach out to your assistant and do all that.

01:59:24

So yeah, all that being said, do you have any final thoughts or anything like that as we wrap up here, just with the conversation, any last word you'd like to say to our audience?

01:59:34

Oh, I think I'm just grateful for you guys for having me. And so I think for everybody, it's a fear, it's so sad.

01:59:42

And I meet a lot of people that feel like they're losing hope. Yeah. And the despair is really on both sides, but we have a lot to be hopeful for.

01:59:53

We still have so much more than anybody can ever have in the world. And Americans are really blessed because of the prosperity,

02:00:01

I don't know, God gave to us really. I don't think, I never thought human beings were able to have this much stuff.

02:00:09

And we do have that much stuff with us. So I think not losing hope and not getting overwhelmed, just take one step at a time.

02:00:20

And we just go with the gratitude and with the conviction and hope and love.

02:00:26

And then life is beautiful all over again. I think that's the thing. When people keep saying, how are you not traumatized?

02:00:34

Why are you so normal? In America, they expect you to be a victim and not functioning very well after you go through something, horrible thing happen to you.

02:00:46

And almost like the society expects you to perform less. And we should believe that.

02:00:53

We are very strong. Humans are amazing. We can overcome so many difficulties.

02:00:59

So have that faith in us that I think we are fine.

02:01:05

Yeah, awesome. Well, again, this has been an absolute privilege, honor to be able to speak with you.

02:01:12

Do wish Godspeed, all the best. Again, if you want to check, if anyone would definitely check out her

02:01:18

Yomi Park's latest book, While Time Remains. And then also your initial book, your initial memoir, which is

02:01:27

In Order to Live. That really explains a lot more in detail. Both books are fantastic and excellent. So you can definitely check those out.

02:01:33

All right. All that being said, thank you all for listening in. This has been a great insightful conversation.

02:01:39

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