In order to graduate (Part 2)

Casey Lartigue Jr. and Eunmi Park

By Casey Lartigue Jr.

Yeonmi Park was already on the way to becoming a fluent English learner and public speaker when her sister Eunmi Park joined her at the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center (TNKR) in May 2014. I had heard about Eunmi so many times I felt I was meeting a mythical figure.

Eunmi started at the ABC level, but clearly she was not going to stay there. If she had fears or doubts about learning English, she only had to look at her sister freely conversing and giving speeches in English.

One night the three of us met, Yeonmi and I were discussing an upcoming podcast. Eunmi was memorizing English words. As I was always happy to do, I recorded Eunmi's vocabulary list and sentence patterns for her to study later. I was organizing an event at which Yeonmi would be one of the featured speakers. I forgot how it happened, but suddenly Eunmi was going to join as a speaker. We did not announce it publicly.

Eunmi gave a speech in Korean in July 2014, the first of two speeches she gave at events I organized. She had a great time, but a short time later she informed us that she was not interested in becoming a speaker. I never asked why and she did not seek my opinion, so that was the end of it.

Eunmi seemed delighted with the attention that Yeonmi was receiving, but she had already decided that she wanted to become a teacher. Yeonmi's star began rising even more, with book and even movie offers. Her 2014 speech at Dublin had gone viral. Even friends and relatives who barely paid attention to North Korea were asking me if I knew the little North Korean girl who had given that great speech. Some were incredulous when I said that I had been her mentor for almost a year and that if they had been paying attention to my Facebook page they would have already known about her.

Together at last, their paths diverged again, this time by choice, as Yeonmi moved to the U.S. and was later accepted into Columbia University as a student. It would have been easy for Eunmi to ride on Yeonmi's coattails, to release a book or engage in public speaking. There has been a lot of curiosity about her, and not just from Yeonmi's hundreds of thousands of SNS followers. Several reporters who have learned that Yeonmi has an older sister have contacted me asking about her, wondering if she would write a book, if I could arrange an interview with her.

It surprises some reporters that not every North Korean refugee seeks to become a speaker, activist, author, or tell their escape stories, and some only do so out of guilt or a sense of responsibility to North Koreans left behind. Some reporters have even complained about North Korean refugees who do not immediately open up about personal details of their lives. Some idiot analysts even talked about a "cottage industry" of North Korean activists, but the reality is there is more of a cottage industry of reporters and analysts talking about North Korea than there are of North Korean activists.

In order to graduate (Part 1)

2020-05-24 13:15 | Workable Words

I have seen this first-hand for the past seven years. More than 450 North Korean refugees have studied English 1:1 with tutors in my organization. Only about 60 North Korean refugees have joined our Track 2 public speaking project. Many joined only to participate in our English speech contest where their identities are protected, then they return to studying English anonymously with tutors. Eunmi never formally joined our public speaking program, although she did give that first speech in July 2014 and another one to U.S. soldiers in 2017.

It was clear that she was not going to become a public speaker, but as part of becoming a teacher, it could be fun for her to give a speech before a large audience. She had the talent and humor to become a speaker, but it was like a really tall guy saying he did not want to play basketball. Others may believe he should play because of his height, but he may not have the desire.

I was a mentor for Yeonmi, but I have been more of an uncle for Eunmi. I had the joy of tutoring Eunmi. The first time was when she showed up at our office, but there had been miscommunication with a tutor. Our organization expects refugees to come to class prepared with something they want to study. I started off by asking Eunmi, "What did you bring today to study with your tutor." Her response: "Airport English."

It took me a second to catch on that she wanted to focus on travel English. Well! It was a delightful class, as we covered travel vocabulary, role plays, troubleshooting ("Where's my bag?"). The first flight in her life had been when she was flown to freedom in South Korea. The second had been when she went to see Yeonmi in New York City.

A photo of me tutoring Eunmi is one of my favorites in TNKR. I was tutoring the mythical figure, the long-lost sister who had at last arrived in freedom.

Her English was improving, enough so that she could start to tease me in English. She came to class prepared. She never pretended to understand when she did not. When she did not understand, she would look at me, making it clear she did not understand what was being said. She was happy to keep repeating words and sentences, never tired of learning. She would give a big smile when she finished a task successfully. She would joke around before and after class, but during class, she was focused on learning. I remember taking a photo with her one day, she said I was too tall, so she stepped on my foot trying to make herself look taller and/or to make me look shorter.

In January 2017, she came to our office on her birthday; she brought us a cake to celebrate with her. She wanted to let us know how important TNKR was for her and her family. She thanked me for being such a positive force in Yeonmi's life. Eunmi was excited because she was getting closer to becoming a teacher.

Has Eunmi ever felt pressure to emulate her well-known sister? If she feels it, she has never shown it. And Yeonmi never seemed to expect her big sister to become a public figure. When they are together, they are always holding hands. They are the same way when they are with their mother. After their experiences in North Korea and China, including separation, they surely have a deep bond that few could ever understand.

Yeonmi recently posted a photo of her college diploma. It took her almost a decade, willing herself to become getting educated, getting a GED, studying at two universities in two countries, taking leaves of absence at both universities, publishing a book, getting married and having a baby along the way, but the beautiful bookworm had made it.

When Yeonmi told me a few months ago that she and her sister were graduating from college, I suggested that Yeonmi's diploma deserved to have its own book. Her memoir is titled "In Order to Live." The book about her diploma could be titled, "In Order to graduate."

When Yeonmi posted her diploma, she also talked about Eunmi graduating from college and posted photos of them together. Thirteen years ago, they were separated in the chaos of escaping from North Korea, seven years ago Yeonmi still was not sure she would ever see her sister again, then they were finally reunited in freedom. Now they are both college graduates, extremely proud of each other and the respective paths they have taken in life.

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