The lives of North Korean women.
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Eunhee Park |
TEDxDongdaemunWomen
• December 2018
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Behind happiness there is sorrow, and behind sorrow there is happiness….
The way to overcome is not to get rid of them, but to get over them and become free from obsession.”
Throughout her adult life, people have said that she always looks happy and positive, that she “must have grown up in a very good environment in North Korea.” People have mistaken her “happiness” and “positivity” as something that she was born with.
Not so. With tremendous effort, she chose to look at the bright side of life. This determination has brought her to this point.
As a child, she grew up in a broken family with a father who did not respect the vows of marriage.
After her parents’ divorce, she essentially became an orphan as her father started a new family and her mother became mentally ill and abusive, eventually ending up in a mental hospital. Although her grandparents took her in, this was no consolation.
She thought of herself as “an orphan” born to an “unfortunate fate,” and lied to people that her parents had died when asked.
From within, she fought the efforts of the North Korean society that wanted to label and define her as a troubled child and forged her own future leading to her escape from North Korea in 2012 in search of freedom.
The toughest thing in the world may be to share your inner most secrets. Sometimes, it makes you feel naked. Seeing this story as a source of strength for others to break from the shackles of cultural and traditional norms, she has decided that it is worth telling.