Order To Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey To Freedom

This is the speech that Yeonmi Park pours her soul into. She tells the audience about her horrifying experience living and escaping from North Korea. She explains how the basic human rights of North Korean citizens are being violated. From having no social media to having no right in saying what they want to say. She’s tells the audience that horrors started since she was born. She was abducted at birth and knew nothing but the propaganda that “brainwashed” the citizens, about the Kim dictators. Without wasting any time, she explains how other citizens lived. For example, she saw her friend’s mother get executed because she watched a Hollywood movie. She kept going and once she began talking about how she had to bury her father in secret after

Imagine thinking you are living life to its absolute fullest. You are in the happiest country in the world. You have no worries, nor do your neighbors, friends, parents, or classmates. This is how most people can say their childhood seemed like: carefree and happy. That is, until one day you mature a little bit, and realize the world is not all flowers and butterflies. You start to the problems in the world: death, sadness, financial issues, and so much more. Hyeonoseo Lee makes a speech called “My Escape from North Korea.” Her speech is all about how she grew up thinking her life was wonderful, but soon realized the actual tragedies of not only life, but also living in North Korea. Throughout her speech, she used many rhetorical appeals to engage the audience, including ethos, pathos, and logos.

Officially and originally referred to as, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea has had a dictatorship since 1948. (DPRK) On September 9, 1948 the United Nations elected South of Korea to be the Republic of Korea. They then elected North of Korea to be the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea electing Kim Il- Sung as the Prime Minster. This started the dictatorship in North Korea that still reigns on today.

What if everything you knew was a fabrication of reality and the only escape for you or your loved ones was sacrifice? This is the basis for The Orphan Master’s Son, a book by Adam Johnson that details the lives and lies of North Korea. Focusing on a misidentified “orphan” by the name of Pak Jun Do, The Orphan Master’s Son chronicles the life of Pak Jun Do, as he maneuvers the strict rules of the North Korean government in order to live another day. Throughout the novel, Jun Do endures a tough life under a merciless tyrant and a suffering father, remains loyal to his oppressors despite their torment, learns to accept his position in society no matter where he is taken, and inevitably exposed to the truth of his reality. These four themes

In writing Escaping North Korea Mike Kim brought to light the struggles North Koreans face in North Korea, then escaping, and seeking asylum. Kim, before working on the China-Korea boarder, had his own financial planning business but one trip to China changed his world drastically. After hearing the stories of North Korean refugees, Kim found his calling to help these refugees escape a tyrant leadership and create a new life for themselves. Kim in writing Escaping North Korea described his experiences in aiding these refugees escape a repressive country. Escaping North Korea addresses the aspects of life in North Korea that led for them to escape, the problems they face once crossing to China and the

Slavery was, and is, the mistreatment of people as property. Slavery in British colonies dates all the way back to 1619 when African Americans first arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. As soon as the African Americans arrived they were no longer considered to be “human”. Slaves were property; therefore they could be traded and sold. Slaves were cruelly whipped if they did something their master did not approve of. Some slave owners were so violent that they whipped their slaves until they bled and then they would rub salt into the wounds. Morosely, slaves were so horribly mistreated, some chose to take their own lives over continuing to be a slave. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which ended slavery once and

When Simmons first arrived in North Korea she stated that “things went North Korea immediately,” (139) giving the reader an improved understanding of Simmons views on the country. Simmons experiences from her trip proved these notions wrong, and this made Simmons aware that she needed to change her notions. Once she was aware of this, she showed personal growth, by how she was able to alter her notions to fit with these new experiences. Coming into North Korea she never gave the country a chance to change her views, until forced to. What she first saw didn’t help North Korea’s case, “children are assigned their activity or skill,” forced into an “extracurricular-activity jail,” (141) and have no power to change it.

Through this book Demick establishes her deep knowledge of North Korea all the while following the lives of six defectors as they fought to survive. Demick shows us the struggle that these North Koreans face as their country is consumed by an economic crisis and a famine that killed one fifth of their population, while it also gave us a glimpse at what we never think of when we hear about this country. The collapse of North Korea’s economy caused factories to close and other jobs to be terminated. This led the citizens of North Korea to lose their only source of income and forced to find other means to support their families. It caused them to make sacrifices in order support their families and essentially learn to become selfish, to turn a blind eye to the ones around who were also suffering in order for themselves to survive.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea is a novel by Barbara Demick, the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times. It is published by Spiegel & Grau in the United States. It was originally published in 2009, however this version that I had read was published in 2015, with a chapter put on the end of the tome to update it to more recent events. Demick starts out the piece in North-eastern North Korea, specifically the city of Chongjin, the third largest city in North Korea, a major part of the North Korean steel industry. The subject that the author pursues is how an average North Korean lived in the transition of regimes and the struggles that it came with.

When we analyzed Francisco and his family, we kept on mentioning he was “in poverty”. However, I feel like we were not looking at the whole picture. When we actually analyze the North Korean children that are “also in poverty”, we can see that they live in a far worse world. For example, in The Circuit Francisco never actually talks about hunger. Francisco was also able to go to school and work in the fields for money. However, the North Korean kids who are in poverty cannot do anything like that. The impoverished kids pick up crumbs off the mud path and become delirious with not having enough food. They also are not able to work for any money or get to go school. When we used to compare Francisco to us, we used to think he was in bad poverty.

For my project I choose to do the prison camps of North Korea and how it's very unfair for the family's. I think it's bad for the families because if a person in said family commits a small crime the entire family goes into a prison camp even if another family didn't know they were related to said person, once the families are put into prison camps they are forced to do hard labor for the rest of their lives, and there's not enough space in the camps causing the “supreme” leader to build more camps slowly causing his citizens to die of starvation.

In the article “Escaping North Korea”, the author reassure the existence of living God. God always has the right plan for the country, and the people who dare to flee the country. “I know God has not abandoned North Korea. But most North Koreans live and die under the rule of the Kims and have never heard of a God who creates, cares, and cherishes.God however makes a way for His servants. He miraculously opens doors and hearts to fulfil His great commission”. (Waugh 1) God never stopped giving hope to Yeonmi and her mother along their escape, and provided them with many ways to find her sister, Eunmi.

Imagine seeing death, betrayal and feeling hurt on a regular basis. It is something common. Imagine being a child in war torn Korea, where freedom is only a dream. Where your happiness can come from the simplest of things because you’re taught that happiness never lasts. 1945, North Korea. A war is raging on between the Japanese communists and the “White Devils” and inside of this war torn country, a young girl clings onto the little hope she has left. In the novel, “A Year of Impossible Goodbyes” Sookan, the young girl, shows many characteristics, including being, caring, mature and prepared. In the book, Sookan shows that she is prepared. Even with all that life throws at her. For one, she goes to a school run by japanese communists who are

This article deals with the United States and its attempts to deal with the dangerous matters of North Korea. Some of the problems that were brought up in this article were North Korea’s plan to restart a plutonium based nuclear program at Yongbyon, North Korea’s plan to build a new highly enriched uranium (HEU) nuclear program, and the tension that emerged between the United States and South Korea. Even though many problems were occurring, there were some positive things that were happening at the time. The United States began negotiating with North Korea and South Korea about establishing railroad links, demining portions of the demilitarized zone, allowing athletes to compete in the Asian games, and allowing abductees to visit Japan.

Hyeonseo Lee gave a presentation on TED Talk entitled, “My Escape from North Korea”, summarizing about her life in North Korea. She was born and raised there and sing patriotic songs. All the history books told her that North Korea was the best country in the world. As she got older, a famine struck North Korea in the mid-1990’s. Although, she never experienced starvation, she witnessed the events first hand. This was the pushing point for Hyeonseo, who decided to leave North Korea. Due to China and North Korea’s stringent border policies and the Chinese government immigration policy, the life of a North Korean refugee is challenging and extremely risky. They risk being deported back to the very country that they escaped from. There are reports and stories about the violation of human rights and labor camps in North Korea. She would live in China for ten years before moving to South Korea. Hyeonseo was forced to help her family escape from North Korea. The regime caught Hyeonseo for sending money to her family. Lee’s family to be relocated by the order of the North Korean government. She needed to smuggle them through China to a South Korean embassy in Laos. Unfortunately, Hyeonseo Lee’s story won’t be the last we hear about the abysmal conditions in North Korea. There are, potentially millions more, stories detailing the humanitarian disaster in the country and we must take steps to prepare for the eventual collapse of the country.