In order to graduate (Part 1)

Casey Lartigue Jr. and Yeonmi Park

By Casey Lartigue Jr.

Two North Korean refugee sisters graduated from college this past February, one in New York City, the other in South Korea. Their paths in life diverged 13 years ago when they were separated during the chaos of escaping from North Korea.

The younger sister who graduated in New York City is now a public speaker and author. She gained international recognition with a speech that reportedly has been viewed more than 80 million times. The older sister who graduated in South Korea was recently hired as an elementary school teacher, teaching far fewer South Korean children.

Both sisters studied in a non-profit I co-founded in 2013. The younger sister, Yeonmi Park, author of the book "In Order to Live," studied English intensively during 2013-14 before her harrowing speech grabbed international attention. We worked together closely during 2014, on a regular podcast as well and she became the first North Korean refugee ambassador of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center (TNKR). I still remember the moment she called me, almost screaming, "They found my sister!"

She and her mother had been searching for Yeonmi's sister from the moment they were separated during their chaotic escape from North Korea. As we talked one day, Yeonmi began crying, saying she might never see her sister again. That day had arrived, however. After going through the South Korean government's investigation and readjustment time, her sister was released into South Korean society. Three weeks later, in May 2014, Eunmi joined her sister Yeonmi as a student in our program.

Yeonmi was "living in English" ― during 2014 she studied with 18 tutors in 8 months, some weeks studying up to 35 hours a week 1:1. Yeonmi estimated she had learned English in 18 months. She credited three main things:

One: "Friends." Yes, the American TV show "Friends." Can anyone learn English from watching a TV sit-com? Yeonmi says she watched all 10 seasons of 24 episodes of "Friends" more than 20 times. She still watches it, but says, "I stopped counting" after watching the entire series more than 30 times. The characters are like her friends; she can recite entire episodes.

Two: the availability of material. Back in North Korea, she was limited to reading books approved by the gang running North Korea. Despite the limited library selection, she was still a frequent library visitor in North Korea, having to bring firewood to libraries as the cost of admission.

Now a free woman, she devours books, like someone who had been starving for years but is now at a five-star buffet. She saw her first real libraries during her escape through Mongolia and later after arrival in South Korea when she went through the Hanawon Resettlement Center.

In order to graduate (Part 2)

2020-05-24 13:19 | Voices from the North

"The greatest thing about coming to South Korea is that I had access to libraries of books that I had no idea existed," she says.

Three: The Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center that I co-founded with Lee Eunkoo. Yeonmi first entered the TNKR program briefly in May 2013 shortly before she went abroad for a few months. In December 2013, she rejoined us, telling me, eagerly, "I don't want to lose my English." She jumped into the program, collecting as many teachers as we would allow, studying news, grammar, pronunciation, and speech prep.

I joined some of her classes, which often lasted three hours or longer. She would never take a break, she was always prepared, all her tutors loved teaching her. Yeonmi seemed to be collecting her own faculty, like she was the founder of Yeonmi Park University. She was the one student with the whole world ― libraries, books, the internet, tutors and friends ― teaching in what was the best student-teacher ratio in history.

Yeonmi is the ultimate striver. She barely attended K-12 school in either North or South Korea, probably not even long enough to be considered a dropout, and yet she ended up graduating from an Ivy League university. Against the advice of counselors and school officials, she had dropped out of refugee alternative schools as well as traditional South Korean schools, preferring to study on her own at libraries and on the internet. She attained her G.E.D. and made it into one South Korea's top universities. After being accepted into college in South Korea, she then attended an alternative school for North Korean refugees for several months, preparing to enter university. She had overcome the greatest of odds, not for the first or last time.

The first book she read in English was "Dear John." I had never heard of it and have forgotten what it was about, but I remember her excitedly telling me the story. "I never get tired of reading," she says. When her fans would ask me what to buy her, I would say, "Forget flowers or chocolate. Send her a book."

She told me a few years ago that she would listen to English speeches and conversations as she was drifting to sleep, then listened when she woke up in the morning. She questioned why anyone would spend money on classes at language institutes when they have the internet. She knows from experience: She attended a language institute for two months, twice a week, dropping out when she got tired of "What's your hobby?" and "How are you?" discussions. In contrast, she would say, "Youtube has everything."

After we gave a speech together in February 2014, I told Yeonmi I was sure she would become a spokesperson. I convinced the CEO of Freedom Factory to hire Yeonmi as a Media Fellow. My favorite photo with Yeonmi is before she gave a TEDx speech in mid-2014. She was nervous, so following in the Korean tradition of saying "fighting," I bought her a pair of boxing gloves. When she was nervous before the speech, I encouraged her to punch me.

Yeonmi and I signed a contract with Freedom Factory agreeing that I would be her supervisor and mentor. To avoid intruding on her studies, I convinced the Freedom Factory CEO to let her work part-time away from the office. Yeonmi was thankful, but made it clear she did not want an agent, so that is how we worked, with me as her supervisor and mentor. I knew she would be international one day, so I loved it when she called me "Boss." Our boss, Kim Chung-ho, may have wondered about hiring an unknown North Korean refugee who did not have to report to the office, but he could quickly see we had many ideas and were ready to spring into action.

One day when we were preparing for a podcast, I remember looking around; just about all the young South Korean females were taking selfies. In contrast, Yeonmi was snapping photos of new vocabulary words and terms.

She said one day, "My happiest time is when I am studying English with my teachers. Learning should be fun, not to get a good test score." It was routine for her to spend nine hours a day on weekends studying English with volunteer tutors. I remember one day after she studied all day with tutors, that the next day in class at her university, she posted on Facebook, "Someone please come save me." The self-starting striver using the internet and studying as she pleased and who was more concerned about learning than getting a good test score was expected to do the opposite with a professor having a one-way lecture.

Of course, I cannot completely discount that TNKR had a role in her success; I'm thrilled that Yeonmi says publicly that I changed her life. But it would be like Michael Jordan's high school basketball coach taking credit for his success. People do not become great because of a coach or mentor, otherwise, there would have been more Michael Jordans coming out of that high school he attended.

So many people want to see themselves or others as miracle workers, but there is no shame in playing a less heroic role in helping people make their own miracles. If I could perform miracles, there would be more Yeonmi Parks. For evidence that Yeonmi made her own miracle in her way, just look at her sister. Their paths had diverged years before, but when Eunmi had the chance to follow her famous sister's footsteps, she did not do so. She chose to make her own miracle in her own way, going down a different path, as I discuss in part two of this blog post.

Casey Lartigue Jr., co-founder of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center along with Eunkoo Lee, is former co-host of "The Casey Lartigue Show with Yeonmi Park" and "North Korea Today, featuring Casey and Yeonmi." He can be reached at CJL@alumni.harvard.edu