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| Eunhee Park with Thae Yong-ho. / Courtesy of TNKR |
On July 22, Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) held a special forum with Thae Yong-ho, the former North Korean diplomat who escaped to South Korea in 2016. In attendance were four students studying at TNKR. Two of them gave the following responses to meeting Thae.
Eunhee Park, female, escaped from North Korea in 2012
I was so honored to meet Thae Yong-ho. Such a meeting would not have happened in North Korea. His position was so high in North Korea, my position was so low. I was so happy when I was listening because even though his speech was 99.9 percent in English, he used the word "ba kku," a North Korean way of saying "back" when giving directions during his PowerPoint presentation.
I already knew who he was, but I was still so surprised by his incredible lecture. His English is fluent so I thought that I would be able to understand everything, but sadly, I could only understand about 50 percent. Despite that, I was able to follow his speech because he explained things so logically, and he used his experience to help someone like me to catch up to what he was saying.
It was a reminder how important education is, and it encouraged me to continue studying and challenging myself to reach my goals. Because of my own experience at TNKR, I was so happy to hear him praise TNKR. He really has a good understanding of how TNKR is helping North Korean refugees like me even to understand his speech in English and to have the chance to meet him.
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| Ken Eom with Thae |
Ken Eom, escaped from North Korea in 2010
Mr. Thae was really impressive. One, he has fantastic analysis that is really appropriate and understandable. His approach is relatively objective; he is more interested in informing people rather than trying to convince them about what he is saying.
He does have his opinions mixed in based on his experience, such as he argued for sanctions on North Korea. He made sure to inform people about the importance of the capitalist economy in North Korea and the impact of China joining the effort to put sanctions on North Korea.
Two, he is modest and generous. I have met some other elite defectors, but they don't listen or consider viewpoints, they want you to agree with them. Mr. Thae is certainly part of the elite from North Korea, but in talking with him, he just seemed to be another person, rather than someone who expects me to follow everything he says or is still trying to pretend he is elite. I hope I have a chance to talk to him again. I am sure that I could learn a lot from him.
Casey Lartigue Jr., co-founder of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center, compiled these statements from interviews with refugees studying at the TNKR. TNKR co-founder Eunkoo Lee translated their comments from Korean to English.
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