“The first thing my mom taught me as a young girl living in North Korea was don’t even whisper, because birds and mice could hear me,” Yeonmi Park told the audience that had come to hear her speak in Queens, New York.
“This is what dictators do: They plant a spike everywhere, a distrust between people, a distrust between family, even. The teachers tell their children,” she went on, “‘If your parents say one wrong thing, come to tell the teacher.’”