What I learned as a prisoner in North Korea | Euna Lee

2,956,636 views ・ 2017-10-20

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Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Camille Martínez
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I recently read about what the young generation of workers want
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in Harvard Business Review.
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One thing that stuck out to me was: don't just talk about impact,
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but make an impact.
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I'm a little bit older than you,
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maybe much older than you,
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but this is exactly the same goal that I had when I was in college.
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I wanted to make my own impact for those who live under injustice;
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it's the reason that I became a documentary journalist,
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the reason I became
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a prisoner in North Korea for 140 days.
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It was March 17, 2009.
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It is St. Patrick's Day for all of you,
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but it was the day that turned my life upside down.
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My team and I were making a documentary about North Korean refugees
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living below human life in China.
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We were at the border.
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It was our last day of filming.
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There was no wire fence
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or bars
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or sign to show that it is the border,
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but this is a place that a lot of North Korean defectors use
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as an escape route.
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It was still winter,
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and the river was frozen.
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When we were in the middle of the frozen river,
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we were filming about the condition of the cold weather
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and the environment
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that North Koreans had to deal with
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when they seek their freedom.
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And suddenly, one of my team members shouted,
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"Soldiers!"
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So I looked back,
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and there were two small soldiers in green uniforms with rifles,
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chasing after us.
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We all ran as fast as we could.
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I prayed that, please don't let them shoot my head.
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And I was thinking that,
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if my feet are on Chinese soil,
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I'll be safe.
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And I made it to Chinese soil.
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Then I saw my colleague Laura Ling fall on her knees.
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I didn't know what to do at that short moment,
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but I knew that I could not leave her alone there
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when she said, "Euna, I can't feel my legs."
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In a flash, we were surrounded by these two Korean soldiers.
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They were not much bigger than us,
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but they were determined to take us to their army base.
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I begged and yelled for any kind of help,
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hoping that someone would show up from China.
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Here I was, being stubborn
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towards a trained soldier with a gun.
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I looked at his eyes.
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He was just a boy.
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At that moment, he raised his rifle to hit me,
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but I saw that he was hesitating.
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His eyes were shaking,
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and his rifle was still up in the air.
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So I shouted at him,
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"OK, OK, I'll walk with you."
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And I got up.
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When we arrived at their army base,
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my head was spinning with these worst-case scenarios,
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and my colleague's statement wasn't helping.
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She said, "We are the enemy."
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She was right: we were the enemy.
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And I was supposed to be frightened, too.
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But I kept having these odd experiences.
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This time, an officer brought me his coat
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to keep me warm,
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because I lost my coat on the frozen river
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while battling with one of these soldiers.
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I will tell you what I mean by these odd experiences.
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I grew up in South Korea.
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To us, North Korea was always the enemy,
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even before I was born.
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South and North have been under armistice for 63 years,
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since the end of the Korean War.
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And growing up in the South in the '80s and '90s,
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we were taught propaganda about North Korea.
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And we heard so many graphic stories,
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such as, a little young boy being brutally killed
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by North Korean spies just because he said,
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"I don't like communists."
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Or, I watched this cartoon series
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about a young South Korean boy defeating these fat, big, red pig,
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which represented the North Koreans' first leader at the time.
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And the effect of hearing these horrible stories over and over
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instilled one word in a young mind:
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"enemy."
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And I think at some point, I dehumanized them,
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and the people of North Korea became equated
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with the North Korean government.
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Now, back to my detention.
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It was the second day
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of being in a cell.
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I had not slept since I was out at the border.
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This young guard came to my cell
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and offered me this small boiled egg
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and said, "This will give you strength to keep going."
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Do you know what it is like,
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receiving a small kindness in the enemy's hand?
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Whenever they were kind to me, I thought the worst case
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was waiting for me after the kindness.
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One officer noticed my nervousness.
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He said, "Did you think we were all these red pigs?"
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referring to the cartoon that I just showed you.
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Every day was like a psychological battle.
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The interrogator had me sit at a table
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six days a week
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and had me writing down about my journey, my work,
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over and over until I wrote down the confession that they wanted to hear.
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After about three months of detention,
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the North Korean court sentenced me
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to 12 years in a labor camp.
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So I was just sitting in my room to be transferred.
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At that time, I really had nothing else to do,
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so I paid attention to these two female guards
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and listened to what they were talking about.
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Guard A was older,
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and she studied English.
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She seemed like she came from an affluent family.
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She often showed up with these colorful dresses,
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and then loved to show off.
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And Guard B was the younger one,
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and she was a really good singer.
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She loved to sing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" --
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sometimes too much.
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She knew just how to torture me without knowing.
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(Laughter)
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And this girl spent a lot of time in the morning to put on makeup,
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like you can see in any young girl's life.
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And they loved to watch this Chinese drama,
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a better quality production.
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I remember Guard B said,
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"I can no longer watch our TV shows after watching this."
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She got scolded
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for degrading her own country's produced TV shows.
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Guard B had more of a free mind than Guard A,
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and she often got scolded by Guard A whenever she expressed herself.
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One day, they invited all these female colleagues --
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I don't know where they came from --
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to where I was held,
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and they invited me
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to their guard room
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and asked
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if one-night stands really happen in the US.
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(Laughter)
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This is the country where young couples are not even allowed
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to hold hands in public.
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I had no idea where they had gotten this information,
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but they were shy and giggly even before I said anything.
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I think we all forgot that I was their prisoner,
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and it was like going back to my high school classroom again.
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And I learned that these girls also grew up watching a similar cartoon,
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but just propaganda towards South Korea and the US.
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I started to understand where these people's anger was coming from.
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If these girls grew up learning that we are enemies,
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it was just natural that they would hate us
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just as I feared them.
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But at that moment, we were all just girls
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who shared the same interests,
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beyond our ideologies that separated us.
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I shared these stories with my boss at Current TV at the time
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after I came home.
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His first reaction was,
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"Euna, have you heard of Stockholm Syndrome?"
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Yes, and I clearly remember
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the feeling of fear
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and being threatened,
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and tension rising up between me and the interrogator
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when we talked about politics.
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There definitely was a wall that we couldn't climb over.
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But we were able to see each other as human beings
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when we talked about family,
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everyday life,
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the importance of the future for our children.
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It was about a month before I came home.
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I got really sick.
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Guard B stopped by my room to say goodbye,
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because she was leaving the detention center.
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She made sure that no one watched us,
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no one heard us,
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and quietly said,
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"I hope you get better
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and go back to your family soon."
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It is these people --
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the officer who brought me his coat,
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the guard who offered me a boiled egg,
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these female guards who asked me about dating life in the US --
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they are the ones that I remember of North Korea:
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humans just like us.
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North Koreans and I were not ambassadors of our countries,
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but I believe that we were representing
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the human race.
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Now I'm back home and back to my life.
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The memory of these people has blurred as time has passed.
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And I'm in this place
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where I read and hear about North Korea provoking the US.
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I realized how easy it is
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to see them as an enemy again.
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But I have to keep reminding myself that when I was over there,
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I was able to see humanity
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over hatred
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in my enemy's eyes.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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