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DePauw University issued the following news:
"My journey to freedom is not a hero's journey," Yeonmi Park told an enthusiastic and emotional audience at DePauw University tonight. As a 13-year-old, Park and her family defected from North Korea, a harrowing tale told in her new book, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom. "I didn't escape for freedom," Park said during her Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture. "I escaped for a bowl of rice."
The youngest-ever guest in the 29-year history of the Ubben Lecture Series, Park turned 22 the night before the event and spent her birthday at The Inn at DePauw. Her book was published by Penguin just six days ago. She received several standing ovations and the crowd sang Happy Birthday in her honor as the program drew to a close.
In her speech, "What It Means to be Free," Park told the 660 people gathered in Kresge Auditorium of her experiences growing up in a land where people are repressed, but where citizens have no idea what they're missing because of government propaganda and a system designed to keep them in the dark and powerless.
"North Korea is undescribable and unimaginable, because it's a different universe," Park stated. In her homeland people are not allowed to wear jeans or die their hair, and can be executed for watching a movie. "There's no way I can use human words to describe what's happening in the country, and what's happened for almost seven decades."
Young North Koreans are taught that their country is the best nation in the world, and that the United States and Japan are evil.
"Being in North Korea is not only physically not free, but emotionally not free. You are not allowed to think for yourself. The very first thing my mother taught me was not to even whisper; even the birds and mice can hear you whisper."
She added, "Every basic freedom is denied in North Korea" and that any idea that could promote free will or individualism is kept out of all conversations -- public and private. "There is no Romeo...