The Jordan Harbinger Show

578: Yeonmi Park | A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom Part One

Oct 26, 2021

Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector and activist, shares her gripping experiences from a regime that manipulates language to suppress individuality. She reveals the bizarre black market for human waste and the eerie absence of concepts like 'love' and 'oppression' in North Korea. Yeonmi discusses the absurdity of the regime's propaganda, the harsh realities of daily life, and her feelings of liberation from being on the regime's kill list. Her stories paint a vivid picture of the struggles faced by citizens in a society shrouded in extreme control and isolation.

01:06:46

Episode guests

Yeonmi Park

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

2min

A Glimpse into Life in North Korea: Deprivation and Struggle

3min

Behind the Veil of North Korea

5min

Commercialism and Healthcare: A Contrast Between Freedom and North Korean Reality

2min

Survival and Struggle in North Korea

11min

Language and Love in North Korea

4min

Love and Control in North Korea

6min

Unmasking Kim Jong-un: Realities vs. Propaganda

13min

The Paradoxes of North Korean Life and State Control

2min

10.

Life Under Strict Regime Control

2min

11.

Breaking Bread and Borders

16min

12.

Escape from North Korea: A Journey of Survival

6min

Yeonmi Park (@YeonmiParkNK) is a North Korean defector and activist whose harrowing experiences are chronicled in her book In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom. [This is part one of a two-part episode. Please stay tuned for the conclusion later this week!]

What We Discuss with Yeonmi Park:

Why there's a black market for poop in North Korea.
How the people of North Korea are kept isolated from the outside world to the extent that they use a different calendar, have never heard of Shakespeare, and don't even have words for "oppression" or "love."
How North Korea's guilt-by-association policy can carry punishment for people who are within several generations of someone perceived as offensive to the regime.
Why Yeonmi finds being on the North Korean regime's official kill list to be "liberating."
How long it might take to watch Titanic in a country that only turns on the electricity for State holidays (and the ultimate penalty for getting caught doing so).
And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/578

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