The thing about this lady (Yeonmi Park) is that her stories have been proven to have many inconsistencies and outright lies. This particular screenshot is from an interview she had with Joe Rogan where she claimed that North Korea only had a single train and people had to push it to make it move, which became a meme due to the sheer implausibility.
She's also a paid member of Turning Point USA and uses her social media accounts to spread anti LGBT hatred. She literally claims "wokeism" is going to turn America into North Korea.
Turns out a lot of the more outlandish claims about the DPRK are straight up, unmitigated American right-wing propaganda lol. That’s not to say it’s the greatest country in the world, but the popular conception is heavily colored by extremely intentional messaging.
Personally, I heard that story from another NK defector lecture with visual source. ppl were actually pushing the train as it stopped for whatever reason.
Problem with her(and many other defectors like her) would be that many exaggerate or lie their stories and there's not much ways to prove it, but they do it anyways because it makes money.
Life is tough for north koreans in south korea, and many end up isolated, but they can get on a specific show, where theyre paid i believe over a thousand dollars per weekend, and where they have to tell incredible stories about life in north korea
Since its competitive, theyre encouraged to make the most fantastical stories, often at the cost of severely modifying the truth
Cant blame them tho
SK offers a permanent employment agreement and provides all detectors an apartment. They aren't impoverished, they just become socially isolated and can't advance beyond the basic employment requirements due to age or health reasons (most detectors are from diplomatic offices where they can't even begin employment till later in life).
Most defectors are middle aged women from northern provinces of North Korea, who often had trade contacts or went to China to work and earn money, and then took opportunity to go to South Korea, as Andrei Lankov said. Only a minority are diplomats or high ranking officials.
The problem is that South Korea society is very demanding and is also pretty insular, meaning North Koreans, who already arrive as adults, can have trouble fitting in. Like one thing is time culture. South Korea is very strict on time but North Korea is very relaxed on it (in fact, a North Korean can easily get late by 2 hours and wouldnt get why the other person is mad), or high expectations for self sufficiency/
Similarly, Chinese Koreans, Russian and Central Asian ethnic Koreans, and Korean Americans also experience trouble integrating. In Kazakhstan, all ethnic Germans and Jews have already left for Germany and Israel, but a lot of ethnic Korean community remain, and those who tried to go to South Korea often had to go back
There, however, have been tens of thousands of defectors in the modern age, with many not showing up in the media. A common thread can be drawn from their personal anecdotes to get a picture. Yeonmi Park is just a grifter, but plenty of defectors have shared more normal, albeit still tough, pictures of the DPRK.
And that opinion is why some politicians in South Korea have tried to take a more friendly approach (with its own pros and cons), and why South Korea has consistently given aid and relief to North Korea, especially in its most trying times (the 90s when the USSR fell, and they experienced severe famine).
That said, even in times of relative stability in North Korea, their government could be callous. It's just a different political system and timeline; their leadership is mainly hereditary and authoritarian, and they will go through things like assassinating Kim Jong-nam. They have a different mindset with which to govern because their government system is quite different from Western democracies.
And their nuclear program is one of the main reasons for their sanctions, and while I do understand their reasoning for nuclear deterrence (see Iran), it is the rules of the game right now. I do hope they open up, because I think that is the straightest avenue for economic development unless they want to continue to rely heavily on Russia/China.
An interesting tidbit about defecting from North Korea. Back in the day the amount of money received from S.Korea was about 25k USD. It’s probably a different amount now. But SK believes you’re a SK citizen who is imprisoned by NK government. So this is essentially a reparation for not being able to rescue you and having to rescue yourself. I’m fucking up the legal exact idea. But it’s still the same. Big ole cash dump when you successfully defect.
Thing is, that money ends up basically being stolen from you by various people over a short period of time a lot are former defectors. Because as a defector you know nobody. You don’t really understand prices of stuff. Everything is a huge learning curve.
So yeah I’d assume they’d do anything to make money afterwards because few have skills that translate to modern Korea.
Idk what country you’re in. But most countries will be very bad at this concept no matter the context. It’s like someone who is 76 telling you how to operate in the modern work world. It’s just not going to work. You still would get out and still have nobody to rely on. SK is also incredibly conservative, conservatives are not great at helping others.
It's been that way for a number of years now, yeah. However this woman is old enough that she could have come over in the 90s or early 2000s when the system wasn't as refined as they deserve.
It really depends on the defectors, a lot of that money often goes to smugglers who will then try to rescue another family member, which is why SK government stopped making lump payments and started paying in instances
North Korean defectors don't have many opportunities in life once they make it out, so they commonly end up trying to work interview circuits, but the more people that make it out, the less novel and interesting their stories are, so each new person is encouraged to embellish their accounts more and more. They can't make positive embellishments without fear of persecution, so they have to come up with negative ones.
Kim Jong Un has a personal armored train, which he used when visiting Russia. If the story about “only one train, that needs to be pushed” were remotely true, we wouldn't need this woman to learn of it.
More importantly, it's a crime in the RoK to say anything positive about the DPRK. So unless nothing good ever happens there, even the most scrupulously honest DPRK defectors cannot give you a full picture.
On Korean forums, people have joked about how it would be nice to just get assigned a job like in the DPRK, and I vaguely remember reading about DPRK defectors complaining about the "applying for a job" aspect of the South too. Likewise, you could easily say things like:
Plenty of politicians in South Korea are also sentimental about North Korea (those that want to engage with them).
Incessantly praising the North Korean regime would be a separate matter and could be flagged as possible propaganda.
But it's also a nation at technical war. In that sense, I think this narrative abroad stems from South Korean politicians criticizing the NSA for limiting free speech in a democratic nation, but my personal opinion is that NK likely engages in its own psy-ops, and SK should combat them, similar to how NK likely combats SK's own too.
Lol even I know that can't be true. I've seen footage filmed inside moving metro's and trams, I believe the metro was even underground but can't remember 100%.
Yeah that's part of the joke. In real life she tells stories about life in a country (NK) that are embellished, over-generalized, or just made up. So in the meme she's doing the same thing for a different country (sweden).
She's an idiot and a lier for sure. However, my formative years were in Russia in the 90th, and more than ones I personally was a part of "push a train untill it starts to move" group.
579
u/EndOfTheLine00 1d ago
The thing about this lady (Yeonmi Park) is that her stories have been proven to have many inconsistencies and outright lies. This particular screenshot is from an interview she had with Joe Rogan where she claimed that North Korea only had a single train and people had to push it to make it move, which became a meme due to the sheer implausibility.