‘This is paradise’: Author who escaped North Korea
Heading to her hotel in a cab and overhearing a conversation about the Blue Jays, Yeonmi Park realized how truly free Canadians are.
The 22-year-old escaped North Korea and the iron fist of the Kim Jong-il regime when she was 13.
During a stop in Toronto on Wednesday to promote her memoir In Order to Live, Park recounted her harrowing journey.
“This is paradise,” she said. “For North Koreans who are surviving there, it’s a luxury to talk about sports. We never had such a thing as being a fan of something. People are talking about the election so freely. They say they’re not going to vote or they’re going to vote. I’ve never heard someone say they’re not going to vote in North Korea. It’s mandatory. You will go to jail for that.”
Park was just nine years old when her mother escorted her to a public square to watch her best friend’s mother be shot to death for watching South Korean films and lending the DVDs to her friends.
A few years later, in 2007, Par
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