The United States As Seen Through The Eyes Of A North Korean

[dales]

North Korean defector says 'even North Korea was not this nuts' after attending Ivy League school

Teny Sahakian

Mon, June 14, 2021, 8:07 AM

As American educational institutions continue to be called into question, a North Korean defector fears the United States' future "is as bleak as North Korea" after she attended one of the country's most prestigious universities.

Yeonmi Park has experienced plenty of struggle and hardship, but she does not call herself a victim.

One of several hundred North Korean defectors settled in the United States, Park, 27, transferred to Columbia University from a South Korean university in 2016 and was deeply disturbed by what she found.

"I expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think," Park said in an interview with Fox News. "I realized, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying."

Those similarities include anti-Western sentiment, collective guilt and suffocating political correctness.

Yeonmi saw red flags immediately upon arriving at the school.

During orientation, she was scolded by a university staff member for admitting she enjoyed classic literature such as Jane Austen.

"I said ‘I love those books.’ I thought it was a good thing," recalled Park.

"Then she said, 'Did you know those writers had a colonial mindset? They were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you.’"

It only got worse from there as Yeonmi realized that every one of her classes at the Ivy League school was infected with what she saw as anti-American propaganda, reminiscent to the sort she had grown up with.

"’American Bastard' was one word for North Koreans" Park was taught growing up.

"The math problems would say 'there are four American bastards, you kill two of them, how many American bastards are left to kill?'"

She was also shocked and confused by issues surrounding gender and language, with every class asking students to announce their preferred pronouns.

"English is my third language. I learned it as an adult. I sometimes still say 'he' or 'she' by mistake and now they are going to ask me to call them 'they'? How the heck do I incorporate that into my sentences?"

"It was chaos," said Yeonmi. "It felt like the regression in civilization."

"Even North Korea is not this nuts," she admitted. "North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy."

After getting into a number of arguments with professors and students, eventually Yeonmi "learned how to just shut up" in order to maintain a good GPA and graduate.

In North Korea, Yeonmi Park did not know of concepts like love or liberty.

"Because I have seen oppression, I know what it looks like," said Yeonmi, who by the age of 13 had witnessed people drop dead of starvation right before her eyes.

"These kids keep saying how they’re oppressed, how much injustice they've experienced. They don't know how hard it is to be free," she admonished.

"I literally crossed through the middle of the Gobi Desert to be free. But what I did was nothing, so many people fought harder than me and didn't make it."

Park and her mother first fled the oppressive North Korean regime in 2007, when Yeonmi was 13 years old.

After crossing into China over the frozen Yalu River, they fell into the hands of human traffickers who sold them into slavery: Yeonmi for less than $300 and her mother for roughly $100.

With the help of Christian missionaries, the pair managed to flee to Mongolia, walking across the Gobi Desert to eventually find refuge in South Korea.

In 2015 she published her memoir "In Order to Live," where she described what it took to survive in one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships and the harrowing journey to freedom.

"The people here are just dying to give their rights and power to the government. That is what scares me the most," the human right activist said.

She accused American higher education institutions of stripping people's ability to think critically.

"In North Korea I literally believed that my Dear Leader [Kim Jong-un] was starving," she recalled. "He's the fattest guy - how can anyone believe that? And then somebody showed me a photo and said 'Look at him, he's the fattest guy. Other people are all thin.' And I was like, 'Oh my God, why did I not notice that he was fat?' Because I never learned how to think critically."

"That is what is happening in America," she continued. "People see things but they've just completely lost the ability to think critically."

Witnessing the depth of American’s ignorance up close has made Yeonmi question everything about humanity.

"North Koreans, we don't have Internet, we don't have access to any of these great thinkers, we don't know anything. But here, while having everything, people choose to be brainwashed. And they deny it."

Having come to America with high hopes and expectations, Yeonmi expressed her disappointment.

"You guys have lost common sense to degree that I as a North Korean cannot even comprehend," she said.

"Where are we going from here?" she wondered. "There’s no rule of law, no morality, nothing is good or bad anymore, it's complete chaos."

"I guess that's what they want, to destroy every single thing and rebuild into a

[Econoline]

Sorry, I don't believe any "news" story if it comes from Faux News.

[ex-khobar Andy]

During orientation, she was scolded by a university staff member for admitting she enjoyed classic literature such as Jane Austen.

"I said ‘I love those books.’ I thought it was a good thing," recalled Park.

"Then she said, 'Did you know those writers had a colonial mindset? They were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you.’"

I wonder if that 'university staff member', if she existed, had ever read Mansfield Park. Austen was, at least by the standards of the day, quite vocally against the slave trade. I think I'm with Econo on this.

[liberty]

Sorry, I don't believe any "news" story if it comes from Faux News.

How about his one:

North Korean defector says 'even North Korea was not this nuts' after attending Ivy League school - KWNG 105.9FM (q-mediadigital.com)

Want to buy her book?

https://www.amazon.com/Order-Live-Korea ... 014310974X

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom Kindle Edition
by Yeonmi Park (Author), Maryanne Vollers (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

An eloquent, wrenchingly honest work that vividly represents the plight of many North Koreans.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Park's remarkable and inspiring story shines a light on a country whose inhabitants live in misery beyond comprehension. Park's

[Econoline]

Sorry, I don't believe any "news" story if it comes from Faux News.

How about his one:

North Korean defector says 'even North Korea was not this nuts' after attending Ivy League school - KWNG 105.9FM (q-mediadigital.com)

Same story, identical wording. Every media outlet reporting this story — every one I've tried to trace back to an original source — seems to have at its source this Fox News story:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/north-korean-defector-ivy-league-nuts

Want to buy her book?

The book was published almost 6 years ago and the Fox "news" story was published today. Regardless of the book's veracity (I have no opinion, but Penguin is a reputable publishing house anyway) it has no bearing on the Fox story. It's "red-apples-to-orange-dog-turds".



ETA: I think Fox News had it first, but it appears to have gone up on Breitbart at almost exactly the same time:
https://www.breitbart.com/education/2021/06/14/north-korean-defector-on-u-s-ivy-league-education-even-north-korea-was-not-this-nuts/

[liberty]

The point is, did she say these things, and did they happen? That is all that matters. I don't care about the source. If a criminal claims to have information on police corruption, should it be ignored because of the source?

[ex-khobar Andy]

The point is, did she say these things, and did they happen? That is all that matters.

I'm willing even to concede that she said these things. But it's hardly the point. It's like death threats on the internet - I'm sure they happen but unless the issuer has some real intent and means and isn't just being the usual sort of 1% (10% nowadays???) asshole, they mean nothing.

Fox News is using this sort of story to say 'I told you so.' Being nice to someone of a different culture by not insulting them (aka political correctness) is bad for you and will lead to all sorts of evils such as New Coke and Priuses and Elton John.

I don't know how many NK defectors/refugees there are in this world. Finding one who is willing to say bad things about their current situation (and she has a presumably $$$ successful You Tube presence) is probably not difficult.

[Sue U]

"I went to Columbia and it was exactly like North Korea."

First: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Second: No, it's not.

It only got worse from there as Yeonmi realized that every one of her classes at the Ivy League school was infected with what she saw as anti-American propaganda, reminiscent to the sort she had grown up with.

There is no university in the Ivy League or anywhere in the US where "every one of [the] classes" teaches the same thing, let alone "anti-American propaganda." (But just imagine the propaganda potential for Geology 101!) Significantly, the story in the OP fails to identify any such class or the "anti-American propaganda" with which it was "infected." And FSM forbid that any Fux News staffer seek to verify or contextualize any of these claims before spewing them all over Nana's tee-vee.

What this story is, quite obviously, is actually propaganda from Bullshit Mountain directed toward fanning the flames of the culture wars Fux News and other right-wing media depend on to keep their consumers "enraged and engaged." It is meant to generate hostility and mistrust toward education generally and elite universities in particular, confirming the right-wing myth that colleges are full of commies brainwashing our tender utes, stifling freeze peach, promoting Godless European-style "football" and generally bringing about the apocalypse, and that you can't believe anything that some academic with a PhD says because their only goal is to destroy America. Only Fux (or Breitbart or Newsmax or OANN) brings you the truth that education and expertise are worthless because them eggheads is all Antifa BLM Marxist Socialists and probably Muslims!

Gah.

ETA:

Oh, BTW, here is the LinkedIn profile of the bylined author of the story: Note her extensive journalism background.
Gah.

[ex-khobar Andy]

A couple of years ago Ms Park wrote this, for "The Hill":

I escaped from North Korea — Trump just reduced my chances of returning alive and free
BY YEONMI PARK, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 07/06/19 09:00 AM EDT 
 900
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Congratulations, Mr. Trump — you’ve gone where other U.S. presidents would not. In paying a friendly visit to the giant gulag that is the North Korea, you’ve taken another step toward legitimizing the Kim regime. In doing so, my chances of returning alive and free to that land have declined again.

The regime likes these photo-ops. Pyongyang had to ransom two journalists in 2009 to get Bill Clinton to visit. Carter went in 2010 under similar circumstances. State media celebrates and publicizes these occasions. They send a signal to the rest of the country that the regime will be there to last. You’re giving this to the regime for free, Mr. President. I thought you told us you were a good negotiator?

North Korea is a country that deliberately starves its own citizens. Its gross domestic product could feed its population of 25 million twice over, but the regime chooses to keep its people on the edge of survival. Conditions are so bad that people risk their lives to live as slaves in China rather than be tortured and starved in the North.

My friends and family are among those who have made such a choice. In the last 80 years, more than 6 million people have died because of the Kim regime’s brutal dictatorship. Potentially 3 million perished in the famine of the 1990s alone. Would you have congratulated yourself for being the first president to visit Auschwitz, not as a liberator but as a “friend” of Hitler?
North Korea is an artificial construct — as arbitrary as a line on a map. It’s a Soviet-designed totalitarian state that works so well it outlasted its creators by 30 years. Kim Il Sung was installed by Joseph Stalin to keep the North in the Soviet orbit.

Kim’s grandson is kept in place with your help. The Kim regime is not the legitimate government of the North Korean people any more than a German built concentration camp was the legitimate government of the Polish region of Auschwitz.

There’s no need to take my word for any of this. Satellite images will show you the concentration camps. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean. North Koreans routinely risk death to escape to the South. You’ve met many North Korean refugees who back all of this up.

Why then do you give these criminals what they want? It’s glaringly obvious that you do so simply to pretend that you’ve accomplished something. It’s a victory as false as Neville Chamberlain's at Munich. Only a weak man would give in to criminals. Only a weak man who has failed in his campaign promises to the nation.

I am grateful to the United States for defeating imperial Japan and liberating South Korea. Soviet aggression led to the further enslavement of my people in the North. I do not ask Americans to fight a war to set them free. But I ask you not to collude with the criminal Kim regime or to obstruct others from working toward my people's freedom. I ask this for selfish reasons. I would like to go home someday. 

Yeonmi Park is a human rights activist who was born in North Korea. She escaped as a teenager with her family and now works to bring attention to the horrors of the political oppression in her country. She is the author of “In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom

I wonder when Fox (allegedly) "News" might print this.

[Econoline]

The point is, did she say these things, and did they happen? That is all that matters. I don't care about the source. If a criminal claims to have information on police corruption, should it be ignored because of the source?

If that criminal has proved to be an unreliable source—supplying false "information" time after time after time after time, always falsely accusing the same people over and over—then yes, that criminal's information should be ignored unless it can be confirmed by another source.

[Burning Petard]

So Fox thinks it is "news" to interview an author of a book that came out five years ago. Has anybody told Sean Hannity who won the election last November.?

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