But when I was seven or eight years old, the film that changed my life was Titanic. It amazed me that it was a story that took place a hundred years ago. Those people living in 1912 had better technology than most North Koreans! But mostly I couldn’t believe how someone could make a movie out of such a shameful love story. In North Korea, the filmmakers would have been executed. No real human stories were allowed, nothing but propaganda about the Leader. But in Titanic, the characters talked about love and humanity. I was amazed that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were willing to die for love, not just for the regime, as we were. The idea that people could choose their own destinies fascinated me. This pirated Hollywood movie gave me my first small taste of freedom.”

They need to control you through your emotions, making you a slave to the state by destroying your individuality, and your ability to react to situations based on your own experience of the world.” Through helping others, I learned that I had always had compassion in me, although I hadn’t known it and couldn’t express it. I learned that if I could feel for others, I might also begin to feel compassion for myself. I was beginning to heal.” In North Korea, even arithmetic is a propaganda tool. A typical problem would go like this: “If you kill one American bastard and your comrade kills two, how many dead American bastards do you have?”The vocabulary in South Korea was so much richer than the one I had known, and when you have more words to describe the world, you increase your ability to think complex thoughts.” Later, I could understand him in some ways. I thought about this a lot. I was going to kill him. I said I’d never forgive him, that there was nothing he could do to make me feel that he could justify what he did. But people can make mistakes. He’d lost his own parents, he knew what it was to live without your parents, so he knew what I was going through. So I cannot hate him any more, but everything is very complex; I cannot say exactly what I feel.

One man, in particular, stands out – Hongwei. He’s a violent gangster, but he also clearly loved you. Do you have mixed emotions about him now? He, after all, helped you escape.I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.”– Yeonmi Park We all have our own deserts. They may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free.” I never knew freedom could be such a cruel and difficult thing. Until now, I had always thought that being free meant being able to wear jeans and watch whatever movies I wanted without worrying about being arrested. Now I realized that I had to think all the time - and it was exhausting. There were times when I wondered whether, if it wasn't for the constant hunger, I would be better off in North Korea, where all my thinking and all my choices were taken care of for me.”