Yeonmi Park: While Time Remains

Socrates in the City

Society & Culture

4.7 • 537 Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2023

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

North Korean defector Yeonmi Park joins Socrates in the City host Eric Metaxas to discuss her latest book WHILE TIME REMAINS. In this uniquely sobering SITC interview, Ms. Park details her early years: foraging for plants and eating bugs to stay alive in “Socialist Paradise,” her family’s involvement in the black market, escaping to China and being sold into slavery, and seeking freedom in South Korea by way of the Gobi Desert. The conversation then moves to Yeonmi’s time studying at Columbia University in New York City. With insight from her time spent in a dictatorship filled with indoctrination, censorship, and mob rule, Park speaks to the current American landscape. The interview took place on March 30th, 2023 — 16 years to the day of her escape from North Korea in 2007 — at the Union League Club in New York City.

The post Yeonmi Park: While Time Remains first appeared on Socrates in the City.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Oh my goodness. I always, it's become a cliche.
0:07.0	Every time I come out here, I go, wow, wow, wow, wow, like I was not expecting anyone to show up.
0:12.0	But you're here. Thank you for coming.
0:16.0	This is a really special event in case you didn't know.
0:20.0	And if that makes you nervous, now's the time to get out. Because this is such a special event in case you didn't know. And if that makes you nervous, now's the time
0:21.8	to get out. Because this is such a special event. I have hardly any notes because I feel
0:27.7	particularly unequal to the subject and the story of my guest, Yonmi Park. Let me actually ask you
0:37.2	a question before I begin.
0:38.3	How many of you have never been to a Socrates event before?
0:43.0	Oh, quite a number of you.
0:44.8	Look at that.
0:46.1	Look at that.
0:47.4	All right.
0:47.9	So we will not disappoint you because we want you to come back.
0:51.3	No, we really have been doing this now.
0:53.4	It's really almost preposterous to think of it.
0:55.9	This is, I think we're just starting our 24th year. I was just a kid, just a kid out of grade school,
1:05.4	and I had an idea. You know, in America, you can do anything. You get if you have an idea.
1:10.2	And I was, I was just a little girl at the time.
1:13.2	And I said, I, now listen, I don't want to get political.
1:16.9	But in America, if you put your mind to it, you know, you can just, whatever, whatever.
1:24.3	And I was tiny and blonde.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Socrates in the City, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Socrates in the City and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.