Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Park Yeon-mi

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a North Korean activist Park Yeon-mi.

Last updated on September 17, 2024.

Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector and activist whose family fled from North Korea to China in 2007 and settled in South Korea in 2009, before moving to the United States in 2014. Her family turned to black-market trading during North Korea's economic collapse in the 1990s. Her father was sent to a labor camp for smuggling. They fled to China, where Park and her mother fell into the hands of human traffickers and she was sold into slavery before escaping to Mongolia. She is now an advocate for victims of human trafficking in China and works to promote human rights in North Korea and around the globe.

North Korean - Activist | Born: October 4, 1993

Source: Wikipedia

The oppression is like nothing imaginable - I literally believed that Kim Jong-il could read my mind.

Park Yeon-mi

I'll live longer than Kim Jong-un - he's fatter than me. He doesn't like me.

Park Yeon-mi

Because I have seen oppression, I know what it looks like.

Park Yeon-mi

South Koreans often don't think of North Korean defectors as Korean. While we have been granted citizenship, the locals don't consider us as South Korean citizens. We are often treated differently and viewed differently, even by people who care for us the most.

Park Yeon-mi

For a long time, I lost faith in humanity, especially men.

Park Yeon-mi

Freedom meant for me to wear earrings, not freedom of speech.

Park Yeon-mi

Everything in North Korea was about the leader, all the books, music and TV.

Park Yeon-mi

I wasn't dreaming of freedom when I escaped from North Korea... I was willing to risk my life for the promise of a bowl of rice.

Park Yeon-mi

I was living in the border area with China, in Hyesan City. But after my father was imprisoned for informal trading, I escaped to China.

Park Yeon-mi

I never heard my father telling my mother that he loved her. And my mother never told me she loved me, either.

Park Yeon-mi

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 Yeon-mi

Most North Korean people have never seen a map of the world. They don't even know that the Internet exists. They don't even have electricity.

Park Yeon-mi

My detective just told me, 'Seriously, you are in danger and you have to change all your information.' But I said no because my name, Park Yeon-mi, is my legacy from my father, that's the only one he just left me. I'm very proud of my name so that's why if I die I'm ok.

Park Yeon-mi

I do think sometimes, I wonder is it true that every life is equal in this world? Do we care about North Korean lives?

Park Yeon-mi

My concern is: How on earth is anything more urgent than the lives of people in North Korean concentration camps?

Park Yeon-mi

I learnt about the universe. I learnt about human rights and human dignity - this was so new to me.

Park Yeon-mi

When I was in South Korea, the books that I read about Americans were actually Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. If this country actually oppresses people and enslaves the people, how are those two women billionaires?

Park Yeon-mi

I did everything I can to be free and escaped.

Park Yeon-mi

If I could've had the things that Americans throw away, I never would've escaped North Korea. That's how much we were desperate.

Park Yeon-mi

When I saw my father's death it was not human, he was less better than an animal and I didn't want the end of my life to be like that.

Park Yeon-mi

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.

Park Yeon-mi

We can agree that Kim Yo Jong is not taking over North Korea and I don't think that is in her interest.

Park Yeon-mi

In North Korea, people who are actually oppressed don't even know they're oppressed.

Park Yeon-mi

North Korea cannot change because its people don't realize that there is an alternative to their suffering.

Park Yeon-mi

North Korea publicly denounced me as an enemy of my people and punished all my relatives. They have this guilty by association policy and they go after three generations of your family or up to eight generations of your family.

Park Yeon-mi

If there is no word that means you don't have the concept. In North Korea they eliminate the words: depression, stress, dictatorship, human rights. You cannot think of those. That's why all the brainwashing was possible.

Park Yeon-mi

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.

Park Yeon-mi

Kim Jong-un and the regime don't just oppress - they play with human lives.

Park Yeon-mi

I never asked to be a spokesperson or public figure. It just happened.

Park Yeon-mi

They said if you are in China you have to be sold, you have to get married. And something that still saddens me is that I actually didn't care, I was so hungry.

Park Yeon-mi

Family are everything; everyone understands the strength of family. For me, they were the reason that I managed to get by while I was in captivity and now they are the reason to live in freedom.

Park Yeon-mi

I thought America was different, but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying.

Park Yeon-mi

In North Korea, it was actually an oppressive regime and that's why I escaped with my life.

Park Yeon-mi

I don't think anyone should have power over me, or have the right to tell me what to say or how to think. That's not right. I want to be free.

Park Yeon-mi

English is my third language.

Park Yeon-mi

I have a dream to have a normal life, someday have a child, get older. But it is hard, it's a big commitment.

Park Yeon-mi

I was a slave. I was sold in China in 2007 as a child at 13 years old.

Park Yeon-mi

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

Park Yeon-mi

I thought, if I go to China, I might find food to eat. The only reason to escape was to find a bowl of rice. And I was trafficked and sold in China.

Park Yeon-mi

I know the truth of North Korea. The oppression and their tragedy. It cannot be silenced.

Park Yeon-mi

I didn't know people can be good. I didn't know people are designed to be good and help one another.

Park Yeon-mi

My mum was sold for $65 and I was sold for $260 - at the age of 13.

Park Yeon-mi

Risking your life is not an easy thing to do.

Park Yeon-mi

I think my father would have become a millionaire if he had grown up in South Korea or the United States... Almost anywhere else, business would have been my father's vocation. But in North Korea, it was simply a means to survive.

Park Yeon-mi

North Korea is an unimaginable country. We aren't free to sing, say, wear or think what we want.

Park Yeon-mi

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.

Park Yeon-mi

I am an ambitious person. In the West, being ambitious isn't a bad thing. You work hard and you have a purpose in life. But in North Korea, you can never be individualistic. You can never live for yourself. You have to live for the regime.

Park Yeon-mi

The media's censorship is unthinkable... If we don't stop, we are going to end up like North Koreans.

Park Yeon-mi

In North Korea, when there is an alarm, it means that there is a war drill. It means that you need to run.

Park Yeon-mi

I didn't know what freedom was. I didn't even know the word. I didn't know the concept. I never heard of that word, 'freedom.' To me, the happiest thing was having food.

Park Yeon-mi

People would ask me about my hobbies and what I liked. I had never been asked those questions because what I thought didn't matter. I didn't know what a hobby was. In North Korea we used 'we,' and to say - 'I like this,' - was the worst thing you could say.

Park Yeon-mi

My father died without knowing even this kind of democracy exists in the world. He didn't even know this much food was available in the world.

Park Yeon-mi

My favorite movies were 'Titanic,' 'James Bond' and 'Pretty Woman' - people smuggled in pirate copies from China.

Park Yeon-mi

In North Korea I literally believed that my Dear Leader was starving. He's the fattest guy - how can anyone believe that?

Park Yeon-mi

In restaurants, when people order food - and they have menus - I hate that. Just give me something to eat. Quantity matters, not quality.

Park Yeon-mi

North Korea is a religion. We are told that Kim is a god and that he knows what you are thinking and how many hairs are on your head. It is the only country which talks about 'thought crime' - even thinking is a crime.

Park Yeon-mi

There is a holocaust going on in my country, the world needs to acknowledge that and do something to help the people of North Korea.

Park Yeon-mi

In North Korea I thought a frozen potato was the fanciest food in the world.

Park Yeon-mi

I couldn't imagine that I'd ever see men as normal people and I could never trust them. I couldn't bear any human connection with men.

Park Yeon-mi

Why would North Korea people care if they have nukes or not? All they want is food. They want freedom.

Park Yeon-mi