A biography for Park Yeon-mihasn’t been written yet.
“I surrendered all my privacy to write this book. It was so hard and so painful. I went through so much crazy stuff. But I wanted people to realize that North Koreans are just like them.”
“My mum was sold for $65 and I was sold for $260 - at the age of 13.”
“In North Korea, it was actually an oppressive regime and that's why I escaped with my life.”
“In North Korea, people who are actually oppressed don't even know they're oppressed.”
“In North Korea I thought a frozen potato was the fanciest food in the world.”
“There were stereotypes: you are from the communist country so you are not a hard worker. You talk awkwardly and speak with an accent and you don't have any high education like us so you are basically stupid. And I am shorter than South Koreans - I was malnourished when I was young. It made me believe I was a loser.”
“In North Korea I literally believed that my Dear Leader was starving. He's the fattest guy - how can anyone believe that?”
“All the foreign movies we saw about love affected me and my generation. Now we no longer want to die for the regime, we want to die for love.”
“The media's censorship is unthinkable... If we don't stop, we are going to end up like North Koreans.”
“I had to be very unrealistic about my situation. If I was so realistic I would never have made it this far. So, you just sometimes have to be hopeful for no reason.”
“The oppression is like nothing imaginable - I literally believed that Kim Jong-il could read my mind.”
“I thought North Koreans were the only people who hated Americans, but turns out there are a lot of people hating this country in this country.”
“I don't think I will ever understand what freedom means, but I am enjoying learning.”
“North Korea was pretty insane. Like the first thing my mom taught me was don't even whisper, the birds and mice could hear me. She told me the most dangerous thing that I had in my body was my tongue.”
“I came to South Korea with a feeling of deep kinship, but people here perceive me only as a talbukja, someone of a different nationality.”
“In North Korean culture, love is a shameful thing and nobody talked about it in public. The regime was not interested in human desires and love stories were banned.”
“When I was invited to return to the 2015 One Young World summit in Bangkok, I knew that I had to make it back. One Young World had given me a platform, and for me it was vitally important for new delegates to hear about North Korea.”
“North Korea is a very Confucius country. We respect the elders, the hierarchy. It's not like America where anyone can step up and do things, we have our tradition.”
“I never heard my father telling my mother that he loved her. And my mother never told me she loved me, either.”