Skip to main content

2014-02-14 Yeon-Mi Park`s debut


Yeonmi Park, February 14, 2014, making her debut!

Yesterday I was one of the speakers at a special session on North Korean refugees at the Canadian Maple International School. Wow, it was a wonderful time!

* Yeon-Mi Park delivered her first major speech in English. She was wonderful! She told her story (35 minute speech without notes), discussed different aspects of North Korea, and then handled questions from students for more than an hour. She did seem to be nervous at the beginning-she took a deep breath just as she started, looked at me, then told her story from her heart.

* Returning from the speech, I told Yeonmi that she had star potential. She told me that she didn't believe it, but I told her that the way she handled Q&A and told her story, I would be lucky to have her still returning my phone calls within a year.

* The students had many questions. They have been learning about North Korea. They are now reading "Escape from Camp 14" featuring Shin Dong-hyuk. So they were thrilled to actually meet someone born and raised in North Korea. If there had been an election held at the school yesterday, Yeonmi easily would have been elected as principal.

* It seemed that the teachers, staff and school leaders were even more thrilled than the students were!

* Oh, but it seems my reputation proceeds me. They warned in advance that the students could not be photographed with us without parental permission. Fine with me, I only want photos with people who want them with me! The students wanted photos with us, but I had to remind them that no photos were allowed with them. If they knew me, they would have known how funny it was that I was strictly enforcing the no-photo policy that day.

* I was the warm-up act to Yeon-Mi. In my speech, I challenged the students to go beyond the typical clothing and school supply collection drives. The thing that really helps organizations: Money. Hold a fund-raiser. After more than a decade of being on the boards of various organizations, I have witnessed many organizations quietly try to figure out what to do with donated items they couldn't really use, re-donating it to other organizations. But I have never witnessed them trashing or "re-donating" money because they didn't know what to do with it.

* I can understand Yeon-Mi's nervousness. As Winston Churchill once said: There are two things that scare a young man:1) Asking a beautiful woman out on a date. 2) Making a public speech.

Plus, she was giving a speech in English. 

* Also, thanks to Heesuk Seo for taking great high-rez photos!

Update: I was right! 8 months later, she gave a speech at One Young World.

She has remained a big fan of the work of FSI (formerly TNKR).

One of Yeonmi's fundraisers: https://give.lovetnkr.com/Yeonmi

And my birthday video where she says I changed her life.

The teachers and staff members seemed to be even happier than the students.

She talked for 35 minutes--without notes, telling her story. Then, during Q&A, she handled the questions with ease. At that point, I made a note to myself that she was going to be a star.

I was the warm-up act, discussing ways the students could get involved in a practical way. I mainly talked about Mulmangcho because they are high school students, but at that point it had started to look like TNKR (now FSI) might survive so I would talk about it to adults.

I told them about the Mulmangcho School and how I had been inspired by Prof. Park Sun-young to get more deeply involved with NK refugees (to be a doer, not just a talker).



Yes, Michael Malice. I had received a copy of your book and mentioned it.

Q&A time...

Yes! She took a deep breath before starting her speech!!!


Posing for photos after the event.

The students had already read Shin Dong-hyuk's "Escape from Camp 14."

With Heesuk Seo of the school. She took the best photos here.

Yeonmi and Heesuk.



After the speech, Yeonmi and I joined another event. Joo Yang and Stephanie Choi (one of Yeonmi's TNKR tutors) were there.

with Tim Peters and Adam Malcolm (one of Yeonmi's TNKR tutors)


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

2020-04-26 "May I choose more teachers?" TNKR Matching session #102

2020-04-26, TNKR Matching session #102 The Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center (TNKR) humbly began in March 2013 with 5 tutors and 5 NK refugees being matched together. We held that first session at a TOZ business center in Gangnam. Seven years later, TNKR has now matched 455 North Korean refugees with 1,027 tutors, coaches, and mentors. Today we held our 102nd Language Matching session at our slightly expanded office near the Sangsu Subway Station. Instead of just being something that Casey and Eunkoo did short-term, TNKR is now an official organization in both South Korea and the USA, we have been featured in media and by other organizations (just yesterday, we were featured by KOTESOL), and we have fans and donors from around the world.
Read more

2020-11-26 My basketball story

This photo was uploaded today by my aunt Annette. This was back in the day, when 1) I had a head full of hair and 2) played basketball a lot. That first year of playing organized basketball, I focused on playing defense. It seemed that everyone wanted to shoot the ball, so I passed the ball and played defense. I probably led the league in steals, rebounds and blocked shots. I enjoyed taking on the best player from the other team, I felt like I would get better, quickly. The second year, I was a different player. I will never forget the first game that second year--we lost 29 to 26, I scored 18 points. I probably led the universe in scoring that second year, although we didn't win much. One thing I learned from that experience is that one great player 9 (at least in his own mind) can't beat a team. An eye injury ended my pro career before it began, to this day I still have floaters in my eyes because of the injury. I started wearing glasses, but the problem never went away. On t...
Read more

Park Jin welcoming remarks to FSI (and Casey Lartigue)

  National Assembly member Park Jin makes the welcoming remarks at FSI's conference featuring North Korean diplomats. Park Jin | Greeting message to FSI and Casey Lartigue mention - YouTube
Read more

Mentoring while Black (Korea Times 2/16/2023)

  Mentoring while Black by Casey Lartigue Jr. February 16, 2023 www.patreon.com/caseylartigue
Read more

Chang Ha-Joon's foolish consistency (Korea Times, January 1, 2013)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. Is the sky blue? Is the ocean water? If you suspect those are trick questions, you are right. The sky isn’t always blue ― it is reddish at sunset, dark at midnight, gray on an overcast day. The ocean isn’t water ― there’s also fish, plant life, submarines, dissolved minerals, surfboards, sunken ships, even people swimming in it sometimes. As Hoover Institution scholar Thomas Sowell wrote in his 1996 book ``The Vision of the Anointed,” people who use “all-or-nothing” reasoning can deny a statement because it is not 100 percent true in every circumstance. Such word games might be fun for college students or debaters, but there are some distinguished people who are respected for making such childish arguments about serious issues. In his book ``23 Things They Don’t Tell you About Capitalism,” Cambridge University economist Chang Ha-Joon argues that 1) “[T]here is really no such thing as a free market” and 2) “The free market doesn’t exis...
Read more