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.Collection: Strength
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.Collection: God
Why would North Korea people care if they have nukes or not? All they want is food. They want freedom.Collection: Food
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.Collection: Freedom
I know the truth of North Korea. The oppression and their tragedy. It cannot be silenced.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Freedom
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.Collection: Mom
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.Collection: Food
In North Korea I thought a frozen potato was the fanciest food in the world.Collection: Food
For a long time, I lost faith in humanity, especially men.Collection: Faith
I do think sometimes, I wonder is it true that every life is equal in this world? Do we care about North Korean lives?
I didn't know people can be good. I didn't know people are designed to be good and help one another.
Risking your life is not an easy thing to do.
I have a dream to have a normal life, someday have a child, get older. But it is hard, it's a big commitment.
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.
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.
We can agree that Kim Yo Jong is not taking over North Korea and I don't think that is in her interest.
Kim Il Sung prepared Kim Jong Il for decades to be his successor and made it very clear from the beginning, 'This is my son and he's going to lead the country' and that took more than 10 years - almost 20 years.
Before Kim Jong Il died, it wasn't like one day Kim Jong Un took over. Kim Jong Il made sure his son was known to the North Korean people and it was clear that he was the next heir. He prepared him for at least three years beforehand.
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 was able to see the lights coming from China. If maybe I could go where the lights are I could find something to eat, that's why I escaped.
The North Korean government are out to get me.
I can't say if I enjoy the attention or not. It's really exhausting. But every speech and every interview is extremely important to me because it could be my last one.
Back in 2014, at the One Young World Summit in Dublin, I shared my story of my escape from North Korea to China in 2007. I had no idea what was coming or what to expect.
I didn't know who Bob Geldof or Richard Branson were and I thought Dublin was part of England.
I didn't know it was even possible to sell humans. I thought people can only sell animals, chickens. But I didn't even know that kind of concept - human traffic - can be exist in the world. So I just couldn't process it when I heard it.
I heard about desert, but I never seen them with my eyes. I just couldn't believe there was nothing, except sand and except the stars in the sky.
There's nothing I did wrong. I was just born in North Korea, and that was my crime.
I wanted to show North Korean people that they have hope, and they can be free someday, like myself.
I know what it means to be a slave, both physically and emotionally.
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.
I was determined that I was going to have a successful and normal life.
If I keep silent, I am betraying my people.
I thought Kim Jong Il was a god who could read my mind. I thought his spirit never dies, and I never thought he was a normal human being.
I just never learned to think critically.
I mean I could not trust men again. I hated men. I hated humanity. How on earth can people sell each other?
Going to Columbia, the first thing I learned was 'safe space.' Every problem, they explained us, is because of white men.
I have visited slums in Mumbai, I have visited slums in other countries, but nothing is like North Korea because North Korean starvation, it's a systematic starvation by a country that chose to starve us.
North Korea spends billions of dollars to make this nuke test system. If they would spend just 20 percent of what they spent on making nuclear weapons, nobody would have to die in North Korea from hunger but the regime chose to make us hungry.
I had to look for food all the time. I had to catch dragonflies, grasshoppers, and that was the only source of protein for me.
I really had loving parents, and my father was the example of perseverance... he never gave up, and he taught me it's so easy to give up, but to fight is harder.
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.
I do want to go home. That's my dream. North Korea is still my home.
I never used a translator, never thought that the journalists might not understand.
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.
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.
I was born at the end of the 1993. The regime stopped giving food to the people. Three million people died from 1995 to 1998. It's one of the world's worst man-made famines in history.
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.
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.
Kim Jong-un and the regime don't just oppress - they play with human lives.