I lived near the border with China, and one night, I simply left home and walked across the iced-over river that separated the two countries. I was fortunate that my family had close relationships with some of the border guards, so I was able to cross without incident.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Relationship Home Family

My favourite Korean food is delicious black five-layered pork belly, cooked over a charcoal grill. And Jeju chocolate, in citrus fruits and green tea flavour, which is famous throughout Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Food Famous Which

My favourite place in South Korea is Jeju Island: it's a tropical paradise with sandy beaches, turquoise waters, and the magnificent Geomunoreum lava tube system of underground caves.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Wit Waters Water

Breathing in South Korea, even though the life here is not easy, makes me so happy. I feel that sitting in a coffee shop, having a cup of tea, and looking out of the window at the blue sky - this is happiness. Truly happiness.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Life Happiness Window

North Korea is not the dictator's country; it's 25 million citizens' country, and they are suffering under the dictator. North Koreans are really nice, kind, pure people. I hate the dictator and the regime, but I love my home country.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Love Home Zen

In communism, we never had any freedom - of movement, of speech, of press. We didn't even make own decisions for our lives, our future. We were human robots.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Men Future Freedom

North Korean defectors can usually tell when other defectors are lying about their past.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Yin Usual Us

I defected to South Korea in search of freedom of speech and movement. I had longed to put my feet on this soil, even in my dreams.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Men Freedom Dreams

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Verse Universe UN

Many people - when they think about North Korea and the dictatorship, or the military or nuclear weapons, nuclear missiles, those things - tend to forget ordinary citizens are living there.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Zen Weapons Weapon

We considered the Dear Leader our god. That's huge. He's more than our parents. I thought all of the world respected Kim Il Sung. That's why we were bowing to their pictures.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Respect God World

When I was growing up, my mum was doing illegal smuggling with China. Sometimes she would see a fortune teller for advice. One time I went with her: 'In your future, you'll be living in foreign country and eating the foreign country rice,' she said.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Time Legal Future

It was very shocking for me to read newspapers that openly criticised the government in South Korea. That is impossible in North Korea and almost impossible in China. I was really impressed, and I became addicted to reading the news and watching the media so I could learn about the world. North Koreans would be stunned if they experienced this.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Men Government Experience

There are people who are destined to embrace endless pain and suffering, and there are people who desire to dream. Everybody dreams, of course. But does anybody desperately want to dream more than the people of North Korea?

Lee Hyeon-seo

Dreams Who Want

On a bus ride through China, my family and I had talked for hours before a police officer boarded to conduct an inspection. My mother and brother couldn't speak Chinese, so they pretended to be deaf and mute, and none of the Chinese passengers said anything, sparing us.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Family Us Through

I don't think the North Korean leadership is interested in a genuine deal to end their WMD programs or their stranglehold on the North Korean people.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Leadership Think Thin

Hyeon means sunshine. Seo means good fortune. I chose it so that I would live my life in light and warmth and not return to the shadow.

Lee Hyeon-seo

War Life Good

Because North Korea was so totally cut off, we didn't hear anything of the outside world. We had only one TV channel, which showed only propaganda, and we believed everything.

Lee Hyeon-seo

World Which Wed

When I explain to people what was the situation in North Korea, they think, how can such a country exist? They know North Korea is bad in some vague way, not clearly. But when we explain it, they then wonder how can a whole country be modern-day slaves?

Lee Hyeon-seo

Wonder Won Whole

Freedom means everything to me. It is the most essential right that every person deserves. Most people take it for granted, but not North Koreans.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Freedom Very Thing

We were taught North Korea is a heaven. They told us how people in western countries die in hospital or have no money to study in school.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Money Western West

I did my best to hide by changing my name many times. But I was captured by the Chinese police. But because my Chinese was so good, they thought I was Chinese and released me. That was a miracle.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Due to hate, fear, and oppression, the North Koreans cannot help themselves.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Even after arriving in South Korea, it's dangerous. As a North Korean defector, I need to be careful from the spies to protect my relatives inside North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Certainly in North Korea, man is always superior to woman. Even the government treats women horribly. What is the slogan? Woman is a flower.

Lee Hyeon-seo

North Korean defectors who speak out against the regime always feel nervous. We never know what the North Korean government is planning. It's really difficult for us to show our faces and speak out, but we feel obligated to do something to inform people about the ongoing tragedy inside North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

People who live in North Korea, they die for food, but living in the free world, the cat even eats expensive sushi.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Among the difficulties I encountered, economic problems were the worst. I found that financial hardships could limit one's ability to realize one's dream, no matter how desperate and earnest you are.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Many Chinese criticize me not only on Baidu but on Facebook. Some say, do you think Chinese authorities were stupid enough not to realize you were a North Korean defector? If they read my book, they'd understand. I did my best to escape. I think it's all a miracle. It's not because Chinese policemen were stupid enough to believe my fake story.

Lee Hyeon-seo

We refugees, we become always a punchbag. A political punchbag between China and South Korea and North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Some people criticize North Koreans and ask, 'Are they stupid? How can they believe those ridiculous things?' But I say, It doesn't matter if you're smart: if you were born in North Korea, you would be exactly like us. We don't know what freedom is. We have never enjoyed it.

Lee Hyeon-seo

When I was little, I thought my country was the best on the planet. And I grew up singing a song called 'Nothing To Envy.' And I was very proud. In school, we spent a lot of time studying the history of Kim Il-Sung, but we never learned much about the outside world, except that America, South Korea, Japan are the enemies.

Lee Hyeon-seo

My mom told me many times how I need to be careful living inside the regime. We didn't say 'the regime.' We didn't even say 'North Korea.'

Lee Hyeon-seo

China is a heaven compared to North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

I can't be sure of exactly when and how North Korea will change. But I do believe it will happen, hopefully in my mother's lifetime.

Lee Hyeon-seo

My family lived under communism their entire lives. When they arrived in South Korea, they didn't even know how to use the bank system and ATM or the subway, nothing.

Lee Hyeon-seo

The TED talk I gave, that gave me another character I didn't know about. I'm not saying the mind of a hero, but a kind of responsibility. Every word I'm speaking, it's not from myself. I'm speaking for and representing the people of communist North Korea.

Lee Hyeon-seo

The border crossing is the most dangerous moment for anyone attempting to escape. But my brother and mother had been waved off by every armed border guard along that stretch of the river.

Lee Hyeon-seo

I lived near the border with China, and one night, I simply left home and walked across the iced-over river that separated the two countries. I was fortunate that my family had close relationships with some of the border guards, so I was able to cross without incident.

Lee Hyeon-seo

I was growing up in Hyesan, right by the closest North Korea-China border. China was just across the river: you could see across. So I was curious. On the river, on both sides, you have houses, then mountains. I wanted to know what was on the other side of the Chinese mountains.

Lee Hyeon-seo

I just wanted to see China with my own eyes. I wanted to see whether North Korea was the best country in the world or China was the best. I grew up believing that China was much worse than North Kore, because that's what the regime told us.

Lee Hyeon-seo

North Koreans are tragically oppressed. Despite the risks to my personal safety, I feel a strong obligation to tell the world about the Orwellian nightmare that North Koreans face.

Lee Hyeon-seo

The moment I escaped to China, I didn't have any money; I only had one address in my hand of some long-distance Chinese relatives. I didn't know China was that big. I thought I can find their home very easily, and I would come back one week later. But then I found out the address was a 10-hour drive away.

Lee Hyeon-seo

We were all blocked from western media, outside information. We were captured in a virtual prison cell. People would disappear in the middle of the night - not every day, but sometimes. We hear about it, and we never knew what happened inside the prison camps. I learned about them after I escaped.

Lee Hyeon-seo

In North Korea, we learnt all Americans are the enemy; they are not human.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Staying in China provided me with the opportunity to adjust to life outside of North Korea and to gain a sense of perspective, most importantly, by learning that so much of what I had been taught about my country was a lie.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Like every country, North Korea has some very smart people. They could be contributing a lot more to science and other areas, but North Koreans are forced to spend so much time memorising the fake history of our dictators and other propaganda, so are at a huge disadvantage.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Here in South Korea, I'm continuing to learn English in order to boost my prospects. When North Korean defectors try to get a job to stabilize their lives, their lack of English is a handicap. It was the same story while I was living in China. It took an enormous amount of time and enthusiasm to learn Chinese.

Lee Hyeon-seo

A huge famine hit North Korea in the mid-1990s. Ultimately, more than a million North Koreans died during the famine, and many only survived by eating grass, bugs, and tree bark.

Lee Hyeon-seo

Even though some heartless North Korean, Korean-Chinese, and Chinese citizens have exploited vulnerable defectors for money, I witnessed many acts of kindness by the Chinese.

Lee Hyeon-seo

When I was 14, during Kim Il-sung's funeral, I wondered, 'How could a god die?'

Lee Hyeon-seo