He Escaped North Korea—Twice. Now He Warns People About Socialism.
"Just go to North Korea for 10 days and you'll know how bad it is," says Charles Ryu.
Bizarrely, 62 percent of young Americans hold a "favorable view" of socialism.
How can they be so ignorant?
Socialism has been tried by lots of countries. It's failed. It always fails.
China prospered somewhat only after they legalized some private enterprise.
Perhaps today's kids are ignorant because they're too young to remember the fall of the Soviet Union.
They should look at North Korea—the ultimate "socialist utopia."
I recently interviewed Charles Ryu, who escaped North Korea and made it to China.
"It felt like getting into a time machine and fast forwarding 50 years….24-hour running electricity.…All the food that I can eat.…It was life changing."
"We Americans think of China as a surveillance state," I point out. "They'll punish you if you say the wrong thing. But for you, it was freedom?"
"[The] Chinese government does watch your every move.…But in North Korea, it's 100 times worse."
He says North Koreans are so isolated that they believe even absurd propaganda. Ryu was taught that "[Dictator] Kim Jong Il…got mad when he learned what Japan had done to North Korea. He grabbed a calligraphy pen…and painted over Japan. As soon as he did, Japan started getting hurricanes and storms.…[We believed he was] some sort of God."
Ryu's time in China was short-lived. Someone told the Chinese officials that he was North Korean. China sent him back.
North Korea then punished him for escaping. "I was beaten…fed only 150 kernels of corn. One morning I was marching…I saw dry vomit on the road and was so hungry that I got on my hands and knees and began picking the rice out of the dry vomit. I didn't stop…until the beating from the guards was too unbearable."
Nine months later, he was freed from prison labor because "I lost so much weight that I was a worthless worker."
Eventually Ryu escaped again, sneaking past guards into the Yalu River.
"I carried a bucket pretending that I was getting water. As soon as nobody was looking, I quietly waded in. In the middle of the river, I slipped on a rock and I let out a gasp. A flood of light was on my back. The guard was screaming at me to turn back. He said that he would shoot me if I didn't turn back, but at that point, I knew I was dead either way…and I kept [pushing] ahead."
This time when he made it to China, Ryu avoided capture. He found a broker who secured him passage to Thailand where United Nations officials granted him political asylum. Then they sent him to safety in America.
Today, Ryu uses his experiences to try to educate Americans about North Korea and the dangers of socialism. On his YouTube channel he holds a sign that reads, "Ask a North Korean."
To Americans who praise socialism, Ryu says: "Just go to North Korea for 10 days and you'll know how bad it is.…You don't really know you have it good."
Ryu is only able to talk freely about his experiences in North Korea because he has no immediate family left there. Most North Koreans who escape the country cannot.
"If you talk bad about…the regime, that's the highest crime you can commit.…Your entire three generations of your family will be sent to political prison camp where you will never get out."
Ryu is thrilled to be in America. Here he was able to go to school, find a job that he enjoys, and marry.
"I feel like my life is complete now because all the choices that I can have.…I [can] travel anywhere I want…eat whatever I want…do whatever I want in America—a capitalist country. In North Korea, that's not possible."
I'm glad I live in America. I can freely criticize our government.
At least, so far.
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