A Quote by 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

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Been Care Citizens Citizenship Consider Defectors Differently Even Granted Korean Koreans Locals Most North North Korea North Korean Often People South South Korea Think Treated Us Viewed While

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Park Yeon-mi
North Korean - Activist
Born: October 4, 1993

I feel very sorry for the one or two North Korean defectors who were caught by Chinese police while entering South Korean or foreign embassies in Beijing, but their arrest drew the whole attention of the world.

Kim Young-sam

Beijing cannot sit by and let her North Korean ally be bombed, nor can it allow U.S. and South Korean forces to defeat the North, bring down the regime, and unite the peninsula, with U.S. and South Korean soldiers sitting on the Yalu, as they did in 1950 before Mao ordered his Chinese army into Korea.

Pat Buchanan

I think the regime in North Korea is more fragile than people think. The country's economic system remains desperate, and one thing that could happen for example would be under a new government in South Korea, to get the South Korean government to live up to its own constitution, which says any Korean who makes it to South Korea, is a Korean citizen. A citizen of the Republic of Korea. And you could imagine the impact that would have inside North Korea if people thought, "If I could get out and make it to South Korea, I could have a different life."

John Bolton

If you're in the rural South, you don't get Korean TV, unless you can find a Korean grocery guy who has been taping Korean programs and then offering them.

Lee Isaac Chung

Even though some heartless North Korean, Korean-Chinese, and Chinese citizens have exploited vulnerable defectors for money, I witnessed many acts of kindness by the Chinese.

Lee Hyeon-seo

I am one of the lucky North Koreans who made it out of China. North Korean defectors in the country are terrified of trying to leave because they are often caught at the borders as they attempt to cross into Mongolia or Laos.

Lee Hyeon-seo

So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.

Kim Dae Jung

I don't think the current regime of South Korea will deal actively with the issue of North Korean defectors.

Kim Young-sam

North Korean defectors who speak out against the regime always feel nervous. We never know what the North Korean government is planning. It's really difficult for us to show our faces and speak out, but we feel obligated to do something to inform people about the ongoing tragedy inside North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

In contrast, Western historians, and those in South Korea, say the North attacked the South on June 25, 1950. Both sides agree that after the war began, the North Korean Army captured Seoul in three days and pushed as far south as Pusan before American troops arrived to drive back the North Koreans nearly as far north as the border to China.

Sheryl WuDunn

The North Korean Communists are implacably pursuing their military buildup in defiance of the international trend toward rapprochement and of the stark reality of the Korean situation, as well as of the long-cherished aspiration of the 50 million Koreans. The North Koreans have already constructed a number of underground invasion tunnels across the Demilitarized Zone.

Jimmy Carter

I watched a lot of documentaries about North Korean defectors. I also practiced speaking in a North Korean accent with a teacher, and studied a lot.

HoYeon Jung

We're often overseas, and many people sing along with our songs in Korean and tell us proudly that they studied Korean. It makes me proud.

Jin

My parents fled from North Korea during the Korean War because they despised the North Korean Communist regime. They fled to seek freedom and came to South Korea.

Moon Jae-in

North Korean defectors often find it hard to settle down. It is not easy for somebody who’s escaped a totalitarian country to live in the free world. Defectors have to rediscover who they are in a world that offers endless possibilities. Choosing where to live, what to do, even which clothes to put on in the morning is tough enough for those of us accustomed to making choices; it can be utterly paralyzing for people who’ve had decisions made for them by the state their entire lives.

Barbara Demick

No one shall take a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean consent.

Moon Jae-in

A Quote by Park Yeon-mi

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