Transcript for Charles Ryu | Confessions of a North Korean Escape Artist Part One (Episode 84)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFillippo. Today, we're talking with Charles Ryu. This is an incredible story. He escaped by himself from North Korea twice. And this is a show I thought would take an hour, ended up going for three, which is why it's a two part episode. Those of you who don't know much about North Korea, this is a place where you can get sent to a labor camp for folding and newspaper incorrectly or for watching a movie that wasn't made by the government. I mean, they can execute you for this stuff. Charles is a great storyteller and what strikes me here is how he stayed strong through this whole ordeal. He didn't give into resentment, nor did he give up in a situation that would have pretty much given anyone a license to do that.

[00:00:41] The story of Charles escape is absolutely incredible. There's so much in here that's both shocking, inspiring, even emotional that I really think you'll enjoy hearing this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it. And by the way, if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships using systems and tiny habits, check out our Six-Minute Networking course, which is free over at jordanharbinger.com/course. It's minutes a day, and trust me, this is one of the highest leverage activities you can have in your life. And don't forget, we have worksheets for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of all the key takeaways here from Charles. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com/podcast. All right, here's Charles Ryu.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:23] So you just had a very American experience.

Charles Ryu: [00:01:26] Yeah, I did. I met Shaq. It’s a surprise. I've never expected to meet a really, really famous celebrity basketball player, but it's been a really good experience. I couldn't close my gels like. You know what I'm saying?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:43] Did you know who Shaq was when you were in North Korea?

Charles Ryu: [00:01:45] I didn't know who Shaq was when I was in North Korea, but I knew who was James Bond.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:01:52] Really?

Charles Ryu: [00:01:52] When I was in North Korea, I was like a huge fan of Hollywood films, like 007, action movies. Actually I watched Will Smith, the Bad Boys I, when I was in North Korea.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:06] Really? Is that popular North Korea, Bad Boys?

Charles Ryu: [00:02:08] That is super popular, among millennials, among this fellow North Koreans friends that I had, yeah. It's really popular.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:18] And you just became an American citizen?

Charles Ryu: [00:02:19] Yeah, yeah I just did, became citizen like a couple of days ago.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:02:23] Wow!

Charles Ryu: [00:02:23] I got my like a certificate, and it feels great. Now I'm a fellow American citizen.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:02:30] That's crazy. Congratulations, first of all.

Charles Ryu: [00:02:32] Thank you.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:02:33] Coming from North Korea, being in America, being an American citizen, does it feel different?

Charles Ryu: [00:02:36] I've been hiding before I come to United States, I was living under the shadow when for a while. So I'm having my own identity and that's defined as something like, “Oh his like, oh he's American.” He's North Korean. I really want to tap that privilege. Now I got my citizenship finally. I feel like a lot responsible in away, because like now I got to pay tax.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:02] Now you can cheat and avoid taxes like every other American. Now you have to -- and you can't just slide by. You've got to figure out creative ways to not pay taxes.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:03:12] Well, to understand what that means. I think we have to go back a little bit to understand.

Charles Ryu: [00:03:17] Yeah, yeah. I mean first of all, thank you so much for having me here today.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:20] Sure. Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:03:20] Where were you born?

Charles Ryu: [00:03:22] I was born in North Korea in October 1st, 1994, under Chinese father and the North Korean mother.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:29] Wait, I'm already kidding. How did that happen? Why did the Chinese guy comes from? I mean from China but more explicitly how.

Charles Ryu: [00:03:36] So my grandfather was a Chinese soldier, between North and South, when there was a war. All right, so my grandfather came out to the North Korea to fight off, I guess Americans, and then he never returned to China after the war.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:03:52] So he came for the -- what we call the Korean War.

Charles Ryu: [00:03:54] Korean War, that’s right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:55] Came to the war, stayed for the women, I don’t know [indiscernible] [00:03:58]

Charles Ryu: [00:03:58] Yeah, stayed for the women. How romantic? But one thing that I'm sure it was like, my grandfather didn't speak any Korean. My grandmother didn't speak any Chinese, but somehow they manage to live.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:10] I know how that works, right Jen? Just kidding!

Charles Ryu: [00:04:14] And then my grandfather stayed after the war and then Kim Jong Un give out special privilege to Chinese soldiers that didn't live to China and like saying, “Okay, so once you are going to be here, we're going to give you everything. Privileged to stay here, or whenever we want to go back, we can just leave.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:04:34] As a reward for fighting.

Charles Ryu: [00:04:35] Right, right, right. And then my grandfather stayed and then he had my father, and then my father was a Chinese. He wasn't a Chinese at first. So he was multi-Korean until he turned 30 or something. He got his passport much later. At the time, when my father met my mother, he already had a family.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:53] In China? Or no, I’m sorry, in North Korea [indiscernible] [00:04:56] grandfather.

Charles Ryu: [00:04:54] In North Korea. He had a passport at the time when he met my mother. He was already married, he had a four kids.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:02] Oh wow!

Charles Ryu: [00:05:03] Yeah. And then basically I was just born out of wedlock.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:07] Got it.

Charles Ryu: [00:05:08] And then when I turned five, my father abandoned me and my mom, and he left to China bringing all his kids except me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:17] Oh, man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:05:17] Were you aware of everything that was going on back then?

Charles Ryu: [00:05:20] I had no idea.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:05:21] You just knew that he left.

Charles Ryu: [00:05:22] Yeah, I just knew that like, “Oh, he's going to return someday.” And when I was like seven, I remember my mom telling me like, “Okay, you don't tell anybody, your dad is Chinese.” If anybody asked, tell them your dad passed away with a car accident, in the car accident. I was like, “Okay, I'm okay. I don't know anything.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:43] Did you have a car?

Charles Ryu: [00:05:44] We didn't have any cars, but just the car accident, because North Korea, you rarely find cars.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:51] So it seems like a bad excuse if there's not that many cars.

Charles Ryu: [00:05:53] Yeah, right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:54] How many car accident is there.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:05:55] I guess you say that and people don't ask questions, but what was the idea behind that? Why did she want you to lie?

Charles Ryu: [00:06:00] Because she didn’t want it, people asking questions. The reason behind that is that at the time, my father was still living with my family. He divorced his wife because of my mom and they're still living together, and that when I was five, he borrowed bunch of money from the neighbors using our name and he bought opioid, and then it's like he's idea, I said, “Okay, so opioid in North Korea is really cheap because we grow them. But in China it's illegal but expensive because nobody has it. So the idea behind it was I can just do just once, if I sell it in China, make money, it's going to be rich.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:37] Pay the neighbors back.

Charles Ryu: [00:06:38] Yeah, pay the neighbors back. So he went to China, my mom told me before she died. Oh yeah, my father was like, “Oh, I'll be back in like the next six months.” And then he left after six months, we didn't hear anything back from my father. And then debt collectors started come to our house.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:53] Oh man!

Charles Ryu: [00:06:54] Yeah. And then beating the crap out of my mom.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:56] Oh, so this is like black market?

Charles Ryu: [00:06:58] Yeah, black market.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:06:59] This a big deal, loan shark.

Charles Ryu: [00:07:00] Yeah, it’s really big deal, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:07:02] What is the North Korean debt collector like? Who was that?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:05] Like a mafia guy kind of?

Charles Ryu: [00:07:07] No, it's not mafia guys. It's just a neighbors, neighbors like debt collectors means like neighbors, like husband, right? They're like wife’s husbands, husbands always come, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:07:19] So it's the people he borrowed money from.

Charles Ryu: [00:07:21] Yeah. So they kept our house, they start taking our things, such like dishes, clothing, and cooking pot, rice pot, and at the end, they took our house.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:33] They just kicked you guys out.

Charles Ryu: [00:07:34] Yeah. Like “Get the hell out of here.” And then we lost everything. And then we went to my grandmother's house when I was seven, and that's when my mom told me. So if anybody asks, tell them your dad died in the car accident. And then, I seriously I grew up without -- I have no memories of my dad, because I was so a young, don't know, five years old. I don't remember anything about my father and because over the time, I keep hearing my dad, his dad, I barely heard of him. And then I was living with my grandmother from age seven to 11. And my mommy's always traveling around the world, around the country to find my dad because “He's out there somewhere, I know it.”

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:08:20] Was your grandmother in the same city?

Charles Ryu: [00:08:21] Yeah. Same city as my father did.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:08:23] So within the same city, you moved to your grandmother's house, but your mom started going around the country. Is that doable? Can people move around the country just to look for somebody?

Charles Ryu: [00:08:31] Actually you can't do that because you have to have documents.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:08:36] Like a special pass?

Charles Ryu: [00:08:37] Yes, special pass, but the year only 2000s, that was kind of easier because a lot of people like that was after Great Famine, approximately 300,000 to 1 million people were starved to death in North Korea. But during that time like the traveling is kind of a lot easier than nowadays.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:08:56] Interesting.

Charles Ryu: [00:08:57] Yeah. Nowadays, you have to have a travel documents, but I'm not saying that it was really easy. You can just get on a train, it's not like that, but you still have to get travel documents, passport, not a passport but like--

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:09:09] Like a visa or something.

Charles Ryu: [00:09:10] Yeah, visa right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:11] To move around, so you need documents to move around but it was easier back then because--

Charles Ryu: [00:09:15] Yeah, easier back then to get.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:16] Because a million people around, million people starve there. The people who are enforcing movements were busy with other things.

Charles Ryu: [00:09:22] Right, right, right. Exactly.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:09:23] Wow! Okay. So she's off.

Charles Ryu: [00:09:25] Yeah, she's off. I don't know where she's at. And then I'm going to school in North Korea. I only enrolled in elementary school when I was eight. And I remember going to school with different pair of shoes, one side on a winter shoes, one side on a summer like a rain boots.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:43] Wait, so you had one different shoe on each foot?

Charles Ryu: [00:09:46] Yeah. Because I was so poor. I got nothing. And then I'm going to school, I'm learning about Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Un’s history, math, North Korean language, and arts, music, PE. And then my mom comes back when I was nine years old.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:10:05] So she's been gone for two years.

Charles Ryu: [00:10:06] Yeah. She's been gone for two years, but she comes back completely vegetable, she's paralyzed.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:12] Oh, she can't walk or anything?

Charles Ryu: [00:10:13] I mean, she could walk, but she was barely alive.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:17] Why?

Charles Ryu: [00:10:18] I don't, I don't know, because she’s been starving, stressed.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:10:21] She's a different person.

Charles Ryu: [00:10:22] Yeah, she was a completely different person. And then she had a heart trouble, so she couldn't breathe that well. She comes back when I was nine.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:10:30] Do you remember that day?

Charles Ryu: [00:10:31] I do. I do.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:10:33] What was that like?

Charles Ryu: [00:10:35] I went to school and I came back and I saw a pair of shoes that was ladies, and my grandmother has like some shoes too, but it's not that fancy looking, but I saw fancy looking shoes in the doormat and almost like, “Oh, I wonder if it's my mom, you know.” And then I stepped into the door and my mom is lying down on the ground, almost like dying. And I couldn't talk to her because she couldn't speak or hear or see. So like completely paralyzed.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:12] Oh wow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:11:13] Wow.

Charles Ryu: [00:11:13] Yeah. And then we had to move her to hospital, so we went to hospital. But in North Korea, the hospital and everything is like it's free. That's how the government.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:11:24] The government.

Charles Ryu: [00:11:24] Yeah, the government runs, because it's a socialism. The method, the function itself is free. But actually when you want it to get it, you have to pay for everything.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:37] So you kind of have to bride people to give you things that you need. Is that what you mean?

Charles Ryu: [00:11:40] Yeah. You kind of bribe out and bribing, and you have to buy your own medication and bring it to the hospital so that the doctors can inject it them. Because not crystal pouring that they don't have any medical, they don't really have getting medical like--

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:11:55] Care.

Charles Ryu: [00:11:55] Yeah, medical care.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:11:55] So it's not really free.

Charles Ryu: [00:11:57] It's not really free. Yeah, you have to pay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:11:59] Okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:11:59] Yeah. And so my mother's side grandparents, they were really, really rich. So they used to be a famous -- my grandfather was a musicians.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:12:09] A magician?

Charles Ryu: [00:12:10] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:10] Really?

Charles Ryu: [00:12:11] Not magic magician. Musician.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:14] Musician. Oh, I was like, “Wow, they have magic in North Korea.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:12:15] Wow! The story just gets better and better. But musician’s also pretty, okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:12:18] Yeah. So he used to play really famous band in North Korea, in Pyongyang for the government.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:12:25] He played for the government.

Charles Ryu: [00:12:26] Yeah, for the government.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:12:27] That’s actually a really privileged position, right?

Charles Ryu: [00:12:28] Yeah. And my mom was actually born in Pyongyang.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:12:31] Okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:12:32] Yeah. And then my entire family lived in Pyongyang, governments provides everything for them.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:12:37] That must mean that your mom's family was connected.

Charles Ryu: [00:12:40] Connected, what connected?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:12:41] To the government.

Charles Ryu: [00:12:41] Yeah. And then my grandmother, I think maybe, I think the way that I can speak English so well, I mean catch something well is because I think I got my grandmother spring, because she spoke three languages. So she spoke Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. So she's a trilingual, I think she spoke Russian too, but I can't remember.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:02] Interesting.

Charles Ryu: [00:13:03] But anyway, so my grandmother has some money and we used all onto saving my mom, and then about a year she was doing much better. She could walk, she could talk, she could eat, and then she could talk to me like, “Oh I missed you.” And then my grandmother ran out of money, so she can't put her in the hospital anymore, so we have to take her back home. That was when I was 10, I completely dropped out of school because I need to nurse my mom. Because she cannot move that well, so I need to give her a bath, I need to clean her, I need to take out poop and pee, I have to bring food inside, so I was with her 24 hours.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:46] And you're 10 years old at this point?

Charles Ryu: [00:13:47] I was 10 years old, yeah, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:47] Geez.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:13:48] You're taking care of your mom and your family now doesn't have money?

Charles Ryu: [00:13:53] We don't have any money and there is no way that we are going to survive this winter. So when I was 10, my mom gets out of the hospital because we don't have any money to treat her. And then we come back home, she seems to be doing really fine. But one day she collapsed, she just really collapsed on the floor, and then she's paralyzed again, and the she was doing wake up unconsciously, and then she was scream, “Ah! Ah! Because I think she had a tumor in her head or something.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:27] Oh maybe.

Charles Ryu: [00:14:29] Yeah. And then she was screaming at night, because her head really hurts, and then more so about a year I had to still take care of her at home, and I need to clean her.

I tried to feed her, I tried to do any, like everything but last about a month, she couldn't eat, she couldn't even feel anything. She’s just lying down there, and then eventually 2011 May, she passed away. May 5th, she passed away, without living any last words, and no, so before she died, somewhere around when she was conscious, she told me like “Charles, if I had a whole lamb, I think I'm going to be doing just fine.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:16] If I had a whole lamb, I would be just fine.

Charles Ryu: [00:15:18] Yeah, if I ate.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:19] A whole lamb.

Charles Ryu: [00:15:20] Yeah, a whole lamb, I'll be just fine as you are. I mean it's like she's starving. She's really hungry. That's the last thing that I remember about my mom.

Jason DeFillippo: [00:15:32] You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Charles Ryu. We'll be back right after this.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:57] So how did you decide to escape? Because I can imagine that, I mean, this is the place where if you share a foreign movie with your friend, you get executed, or you get punished. So this isn't a life decision, and I'm wondering how you went from being 10 years old to, you know, you're here in the United States. Obviously a lot of things happen. I mean, you're growing up with your grandma. Did she raise you?

Charles Ryu: [00:18:18] No, I mean like, I went to school, but when I was 11, she couldn't take care of me anymore. When I was 11 my mom passed away, but she's old grandma, she was already 78, almost 80 years old. She couldn't take care of him anymore. So she sent me to my aunt's house, and I was living there about a year. And then I wrote a letter to my father every single day saying like, “Hey father, because my aunt apparently knows where he is at.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:46] Oh!

Charles Ryu: [00:18:46] In China. So what happened was my father was in China selling drugs and he sold successfully, but she got backstabbed. So somebody told on him and then he got caught and he’s doing in prison for four years in China.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:01] In China.

Charles Ryu: [00:19:01] Yeah, in China.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:03] But your Aunt knew that?

Charles Ryu: [00:19:04] Yeah, I mean--

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:04] And she didn't tell your mom.

Charles Ryu: [00:19:06] She didn't tell my mom.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:07] Do you know why?

Charles Ryu: [00:19:07] I don't know why.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:08] Okay. And is this your mom's sister?

Charles Ryu: [00:19:09] Yeah, it's my mom's oldest sister.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:12] Geez.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:13] Wow.

Charles Ryu: [00:19:13] Yeah. And then when I got to my Aunt's house, she has forcing me to write a letter to my father every single day for 12 months. And then eventually my father wrote a letter back to me saying nothing critical, nothing much. So he was just saying thank you so much. But my aunt switched the letter saying if he comes to China, I’ll help you.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:35] Did she change the letter?

Charles Ryu: [00:19:36] Yeah. Change the letter.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:37] How -- she physically change it?

Charles Ryu: [00:19:38] Yeah, she wrote it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:39] She forged it.

Charles Ryu: [00:19:39] Yeah, she forged it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:40] Oh that‘s pretty smart I think.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:42] Oh my God.

Charles Ryu: [00:19:42] And then she put it back into the envelope and brought it to the government.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:45] Woah, that is some Ninja stuff.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:47] That's a gutsy move.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:50] In North Korea, she forged -- okay, so she changed your father's letter to me that look like he was inviting you.

Charles Ryu: [00:19:54] Yeah, inviting.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:55] So the North Korean government would give you a visa?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:58] Did it work?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:19:59] It worked, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:00] No kidding.

Charles Ryu: [00:20:00] Now, she needed money to travel, because she has everything to get a passport.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:20:07] Is your aunt hoping that all of you guys go to China?

Charles Ryu: [00:20:10] Just her.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:20:11] Just her.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:12] Geez.

Charles Ryu: [00:20:12] Yeah, just her.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:20:12] She was going to leave you behind.

Charles Ryu: [00:20:13] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:14] Some desperate shit here.

Charles Ryu: [00:20:15] Yeah, because my grandmother had a lot of friends in China, so she's not going to China to look for my father but she's going to look for her mother's friends in China, because my grandmother worked for a government. She is a translator between North Korean government and Chinese government, and then she was going to China to find them, not my father, but she just needed a bridge connection. So I was the connection, which is my father is in China, but now she doesn't have any money to go to China. So she writes a blackmail letter to my father saying, “If you don't send me this much money, I'm going to kill your child, sell him to the black market as a meat, or I'm going to send him to orphanage, bam. And my father sees it, “What the heck?”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:58] Oh man! He didn't care before.

Charles Ryu: [00:21:00] He didn't care before but he's like, I'm alive, but now my life is in threat and he knows that, because I send in my photos every single month to my father.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:10] You’re writing him for a year you said?

Charles Ryu: [00:21:11] Yeah. Well about a year, 12 months.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:12] About a year. So now he's sort of connected again.

Charles Ryu: [00:21:16] Yeah, connected again about what I'm doing, how I'm doing.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:19] Do you know where he was at this time?

Charles Ryu: [00:21:21] He’s in China.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:22] So how close to the border is he?

Charles Ryu: [00:21:24] He’s really close.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:25] Very close to the border.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:26] Yeah. He's living in the border.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:27] And where is your city? You're living in with your Aunt?

Charles Ryu: [00:21:30] It's right next to Pyongyang.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:31] It's next to Pyongyang. So that's not close to the border.

Charles Ryu: [00:21:34] It's really, really far.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:34] It's far.

Charles Ryu: [00:21:35] It’s really far. Two days train trip.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:38] Got it.

Charles Ryu: [00:21:38] Yeah. And then my father says that and like “Oh, my son is in risk. I need to save him.” So he sends two step-brothers who are like 20 years older than me. They were living in North Korea, I didn't know.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:21:50] This is his other family.

Charles Ryu: [00:21:52] Yeah, his older family. So he sends the step-brother to rescue me from my Aunt’s house. When I was 13 he comes, he picks me up from my Aunt’s house.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:22:00] Your step-brother?

Charles Ryu: [00:22:01] Yeah, my step-brother, and he brings me to his house, and a year later when I was 14 I didn't, so like that time, before I escaped to China, that time I was watching because my step-brother was Chinese, and he was bringing a lot of foreign medias from China to North Korea.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:22:19] He was coming back and forth?

Charles Ryu: [00:22:20] Yeah. He was going back and forth.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:21] Because he has passport.

Charles Ryu: [00:22:21] He has a passport.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:22:22] So he can move around as much.

Charles Ryu: [00:22:24] Yeah. Whenever he wants.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:22:25] Got it.

Charles Ryu: [00:22:26] Just to have money.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:22:27] So you lived with them for a year?

Charles Ryu: [00:22:28] For a year, yeah. And then that time, I watched foreign medias, and James Bond, 007, Bad Boys I, Salt Korean dramas, having all of those like a freedom thoughts.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:44] Yeah, freedom thoughts.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:22:45] Yeah, freedom thoughts.

Charles Ryu: [00:22:46] Yeah, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [0:22:46] Is this the first time you've seen foreign movies?

Charles Ryu: [00:22:48] Yeah, that's actually the first time me watching, I mean I watched a lot of Soviet union movies, some propaganda movies. Chinese [indiscernible] [00:22:56].

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:57] Yeah, but like Will Smith is a million times cooler than?

Charles Ryu: [00:23:01] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:02] What’s the name of the?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:23:02] So this is new for you?

Charles Ryu: [00:23:03] Yeah. This is like completely new for me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:23:05] What was that like?

Charles Ryu: [00:23:06] At first I didn't believe, “Is this true?” I'm going like, “Wait, all right, how is this possible? If it's not a setup, all I've learned about Americans are with long nose, long chins, hairy face, it looks like a wolf, trying to invade North Korea all the time.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:23:27] Because that was what you were taught in school.

Charles Ryu: [00:23:29] That was what I was taught in school. But watching the foreign media, there's so cool, stopping the back guys, getting the money, getting paid, I'm like, “Wait, what?” That was mind blowing, I wanted to be there. I want to experienced that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:23:47] So what goes through your mind when you see that? Is there a period where you think somebody lied to me, or did you think that the movie was lying?

Charles Ryu: [00:23:55] At the moment I thought movies was lie.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:23:57] You though that movie was a lie.

Charles Ryu: [00:23:58] At the moment.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:58] It's a movie set.

Charles Ryu: [00:23:59] Yeah, it’s a movie set.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:59] With a fake everything.

Charles Ryu: [00:24:00] Yeah, yeah. It’s a movie set. But when I was 14 I got my first opportunity to escape North Korea and go to China to my father, because my father wanted to see me. So my brother buys a broker in North Korea, and then the broker buys the guard, the [indiscernible] [00:24:18] the guard.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:19] He’s like a people smugglers.

Charles Ryu: [00:24:20] Yeah, people smuggler.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:24:21] And the plan is for your father to get you to China?

Charles Ryu: [00:24:25] Yeah, plan is to get me to China.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:24:27] Because the letter that your Aunt sent him, right?

Charles Ryu: [00:24:30] Yeah, but I mean that's why my step-brother came in and he saved me from my Aunt’s house and he took care of me. But my father wants to see me now, when I was 14.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:24:38] So whose idea was it to escape?

Charles Ryu: [00:24:40] My father's idea. Now, so I went to China. So my step-brother buys broker and then the broker buys the security guard, and they're like, “Okay, what time? What day? What time?” Like small kids kind of go to China and he's going to come back with money, so don't shoot him. And then I went to river pretending I'm taking a shower.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:05] You went into the river, just pretend that you’re going for a swim.

Charles Ryu: [00:25:07] Yeah, yeah, so going for a swim.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:09] This is the river on the border?

Charles Ryu: [00:25:10] Yeah, it’s --

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:11] Is it the Yalu?

Charles Ryu: [00:25:12] Yeah, it’s the Yalu river.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:13] Okay, so you're far, but you have to take a train to get there.

Charles Ryu: [00:25:15] Yeah, I take a train for two days.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:17] Is that hard to take a train?

Charles Ryu: [00:25:18] No, I mean my brother bought tickets and everything.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:22] Okay, so you guys can move somewhat freely to the border?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:25] Is this the summertime? Because I would imagine even in the winter. Like “I'm just going for a swim.”

Charles Ryu: [00:25:29] Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:29] Right. What are you talking about, it’s 20 below?

Charles Ryu: [00:25:31] Yeah, it was 2008 June going down the river, I was like, “I'm doing that, I'm bleeding. I'm like, ha, ha, ha. I'm just going to go to swim over here,” and I was taking a bath.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:44] Was this the plan?

Charles Ryu: [00:25:45] It was the plan.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:46] They told you to this? Are you alone?

Charles Ryu: [00:25:47] Yes, I was alone, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:49] How did you know where to go?

Charles Ryu: [00:25:50] Because the broker told me a couple of days net bands. “Okay, So go that way.” That's the shallow--

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:57] He gave you direction.

Charles Ryu: [00:25:57] Yeah, he gave me directions.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:25:58] He's like a coyote.

Charles Ryu: [00:25:59] Yeah, yeah, he's in a way, yeah. He's like a cayote, yeah. And then I crossed the river and then like, “Okay, so some guy with the hat, white hat and blue shirt and the jeans and what kind of shoes, that's your father. Go find him.”

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:26:14] So your dad was supposed to meet you?

Charles Ryu: [00:26:15] Yeah, so my dad was in the other side of the China with a taxi cab. So as soon as I crossed the river, I saw my dad and I got into a taxi cab, and we drove shaped hotel. I slept one night and then the next day, we took like 12 hours bus to a little bit inside of China.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:26:31] The first night. You're in the hotel?

Charles Ryu: [00:26:33] Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:26:33] You're in China. You've never been outside of?

Charles Ryu: [00:26:35] I've never been outside of China.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:26:36] What was that like?

Charles Ryu: [00:26:38] To be honest, I'm just lying down in a hotel, hotel room.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:26:41] You didn’t feel that?

Charles Ryu: [00:26:42] It didn't feel like, “Where am I?”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:44] But were you like “What the hell, Dad? Is this some bullshit? I've been stuck in this hell hole for a decade and a half.”

Charles Ryu: [00:26:51] But as a child, you never met your father, but you don't feel like that's your father, it's like a stranger, strangers.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:27:00] Was it awkward?

Charles Ryu: [00:27:01] It was kind of awkward, but he was really good to me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:27:04] He was nice.

Charles Ryu: [00:27:04] Yeah. He was really, really nice. He's trying to give me anything, and the first time in a farmer's market in China. I see a banana and I was like, “Oh yeah, I've seen one of those in the cartoons in North Korea. I picked that up, I bite it off.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:22] With the peel?

Charles Ryu: [00:27:22] I just tried it with a peel on. And my dad is laughing his ass off, like “You shouldn't supposed to eat like this. You peel it off.” And I was like, “I was tasting, it so bitter.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:34] Yeah, it’s not good with peel on.

Charles Ryu: [00:27:36] Why is people eating banana? It's like, “I don't understand.” But that was first like a stupid thing that I ever did.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:44] I could see you'd be like, “Oh man! Oh man, these things are overrated.” Who’s idea is this thing?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:27:49] It looks so much better in the cartoon.

Charles Ryu: [00:27:50] Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:27:50] The next day. You guys go out?

Charles Ryu: [00:27:52] Yeah. So the next day, we arrived at my father's place, 12 hours away. I got to my dad's place and then I feel like I was a child again, because a lot of times I had to grow up a lot faster than any other kids because of I had to be the man, I have to be -- I had to grow up to nurse my mom and live on my own, live in the street for a while.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:21] So you were homeless for a while?

Charles Ryu: [00:28:22] I was homeless. Because like when I was living with my Aunt, my Aunts and my Uncle, they fought a lot, every single night.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:30] Well, she sounds like a horrible person. She blackmailed your dad, threaten to kill you. So yeah, no kidding that she didn't get along with her husband either.

Charles Ryu: [00:28:38] So the argument that ended me kicked out from the house, half the year I was sleeping on a street.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:28:48] What is that like? I know we're moving backwards, but this is important.

Charles Ryu: [00:28:51] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:52] Put a pin in being in China with your dad and going back to being homeless in North Korea.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:28:56] Can you tell us about that?

Charles Ryu: [00:28:57] Yeah. Being a homeless in North Korea, it's not easy, it’s life or death, even though you have a candy in your mouth, but somebody come punch me in the cheek and just take it. You have something.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:29:12] You have something.

Charles Ryu: [00:29:13] You have to spend it or you have to eat it as soon as possible. Otherwise, they're going to come in and take it away.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:29:18] And take it. And you were what 12, 13?

Charles Ryu: [00:29:20] Yeah, I was 12.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:29:23] 12 and a half. Wow.

Charles Ryu: [00:29:24] It's always like a fight. It's like a war, you have to be prepared to throw a punch every single day because there's always a guy trying to come to me and I try to take the things away from me. Either I don't have anything, or they just want to come to you and just they're going to beat the shit out of me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:29:42] Where are you living on the streets?

Charles Ryu: [00:29:45] Yeah, on the street, like a train station, a point nearby boiler.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:49] Oh, near the boiler to stay warm.

Charles Ryu: [00:29:50] Yeah. To stay warm because it's also winter.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:29:52] It was winter. Oh my God, that's rough. Korean winters are no joke.

Charles Ryu: [00:29:56] Yeah. If you pee, it's going to froze from the bottom. If you spit out the saliva, it’s kind of--

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:04] Freezes mid air.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:05] Geez.

Charles Ryu: [00:30:08] It’s that cold, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:09] Is this common, homelessness in North Korea?

Charles Ryu: [00:30:11] Yeah. It's a lot common.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:13] So there are a lot of other people in this area that are homeless.

Charles Ryu: [00:30:15] Yeah, right. It's really competitive.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:17] So it's other people without homes as you put it, doing battle with to stay alive. Okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:30:23] Let's go back to China.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:24] Go back to China.

Charles Ryu: [00:30:25] Go back to China.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:25] You've already been through all this stuff as well.

Charles Ryu: [00:30:27] Yeah, I've been through all this stuff.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:29] So was it a relief then to be in China?

Charles Ryu: [00:30:30] Yeah, it was so much relief because I feel like I can have my future. I can have my dream, and my dream promised the hope and hope promised tomorrow.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:42] What was your dream at that point?

Charles Ryu: [00:30:43] Just living my life normal.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:45] To have a normal life.

Charles Ryu: [00:30:46] Yeah. Have a normal life.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:47] Anywhere?

Charles Ryu: [00:30:47] Anywhere.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:30:48] But North Korea.

Charles Ryu: [00:30:49] Just not North Korea, because I'm going to PC bar and it's like an arcade. I’m going to arcade.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:56] PC bar?

Charles Ryu: [00:30:56] Yeah, PC bar. I go there, I play computer, and I play arcade, Street Fighter, King Fighter, all those kinds of stuff the older kids do, playing arcade. So I was living the dream in China. I was also happy, because I don't have to beg for a place to sleep overnight, or I don't have to beg for a food from the strangers on the street. I was living my life and freedom for a moment, but unfortunately Chinese government didn't recognize North Koreans as refugees, and they captured me. The Chinese citizen reporting me to the government.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:31:35] Somebody in your neighborhood?

Charles Ryu: [00:31:36] Yeah, somebody in my neighborhood.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:31:37] How did they find out?

Charles Ryu: [00:31:38] Because they have been keeping eye on new arrivals. And then they see a kid, small kid dark, because skinny, Chinese kid are fat, they're super pale because they've been eating really well. But I'm really dark, short, and they could tell by my eyes, swollen like, I tries to try to steal something, always alert because Chinese kids, they don't do that. Yeah, I stood all like pretty strong.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:32:05] So the neighbor, other people in the neighborhood picked up on that?

Charles Ryu: [00:32:08] Yeah. They picked up on it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:32:09] And they call the police.

Charles Ryu: [00:32:10] Yeah, call the police.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:32:11] Oh my God. Yeah.

Charles Ryu: [00:32:12] And then nine months later in 2009 January, police come to our house with a gun, out with a pistol that's I think eight or nine of them. And then when I looked down, there's a black horse just surrounded the apartment, that was scary. These guys, they just barges into a room having a gun in their hand and looking on the rooms. And then they handcuffed me and then they took me into the jail.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:32:45] How old were you?

Charles Ryu: [00:32:46] I was 15.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:32:47] Was your dad there?

Charles Ryu: [00:32:48] My dad was there, but he couldn't do anything because he has no way of proving that I'm his son.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:54] Oh man.

Charles Ryu: [00:32:56] Yeah. And I remember that day, I lost all hope. No, I was in the back of the Chinese police truck chains like a couple of other North Koreans. In Chinese jail, I mean the Chinese jail right now with couple of other North Koreans, and the living situations, the people, how they fed us. It's they've fed us with the food from leftovers, leftover food from the guards. And then finally, it's a deporting day. So I was in the Chinese jail for like two weeks. And then it's the day that finally we're getting deported to North Korea. And we turned a corner and I could see the North Korean border in the distance and I was so scared and afraid that I might be in big trouble as soon as I stepped back into North Korea. I mean I knew that I'm going to not be in big trouble and then the truck roll at stop at the border and the guards were screaming at me to get off the truck. And I was so scared, they were treating us like an animal. And so I got on to another jeep with a couple of other North Koreans and then we got transported, sorry.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:23] It’s okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:34:24] Transported. Yeah, transported. It's like interrogation. First, interrogation port. And then I got the first interrogation port because there was so many people, so many North Korean defectors that are in the jail, they have no place to put us in. So I had to stand right in front of the sail in 2009, January. And then you have to know, if you get caught in China, if you get caught near by the border, it's fine. So after the interrogation, or if you're trying to go to China for just looking for the food in a border, that's fine. Like, “Oh yeah, just go to the labor camp, labor camp for four years, and you're fine.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:15] I wouldn't throw that in the fine column, four years of labor camp.

Charles Ryu: [00:35:20] I mean, yeah, that's the punishment. They don't kill you, but just like basically a death sentence, because it's really hard to survive labor camp for four years, but if you get cut deeper inside of China, which is Mongolia, just around really South of China, that's a red flag, which means you're moving towards somewhere which is going to South Korea, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:35:45] So it's worse.

Charles Ryu: [00:35:46] It’s worse.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:35:47] Now, you were 12 hours away from the border?

Charles Ryu: [00:35:49] But I was still within the safe range.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:35:51] You were still in the -- got it.

Charles Ryu: [00:35:54] Safe region. And then I was standing right in front of the sail and this one lady, she bites off her vein and she bleed to death.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:04] She bit her?

Charles Ryu: [00:36:04] Yeah. She bit her, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:05] Wrist open.

Charles Ryu: [00:36:06] Yeah, she bit her wrist wide open. Because she got caught in Mongolia and the government knows that she's trying to defect to South Korea. So they wouldn't let her go. I heard stories about her, from the fellow prisoners. She was there for a long time and she was getting interrogated every single day for a couple of hours. They wouldn't let her sleep, they wouldn't let her eat, and then the office got cleared out. So in the jail, there is no room in the jail, so they couldn't put us in the jail. So they put me in a separate office. So this is a [[indiscernible] [00:36:45]. [indiscernible][00:36:45] stands for secret police in North Korea.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:49] Oh, secret police.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:36:50] it’s like a secret police.

Charles Ryu: [00:36:50] Secret police.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:36:51] Do you even know where that was?

Charles Ryu: [00:36:53] Yeah, it's an Namyang. It's right across the border.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:36:57] It’s near the border, there's like a special place.

Charles Ryu: [00:36:59] Yes, special place. Interrogation port. And then I'm sitting in the office and across the room, I hear a scream, and guys like, “Oh my God, my legs are broken.” “Oh, please forgive me. My legs are broken, my ribs are broken. I'm bleeding to death.” I'm like hearing all the screams, and I'm like terrified. Like that's going to be me, they're going to kill me. But luckily I was only 15, I didn't get beaten.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:37:32] Beaten.

Charles Ryu: [00:37:32] Yeah, beaten that bad. They slap me, kicked me in a stomach for a couple of times.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:37:40] What are they trying to do? Are they trying to punish you?

Charles Ryu: [00:37:42] No.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:37:43] Are they trying to get information from you.

Charles Ryu: [00:37:44] They try to get information from me.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:37:46] What sort of stuff do they want to know?

Charles Ryu: [00:37:47] They ask about everything. Like everything, literally everything. What did you do in China? What did you eat? What did you feel? What did you see?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:37:57] What did you feel?

Charles Ryu: [00:37:58] Yeah, what did you feel in China?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:37:59] What does that mean?

Charles Ryu: [00:38:00] Okay, so you've seen a couple of social medias, how did you feel about that? You've seen people talking about Kim Jong Un, how do you feel about that? You've seen a lot of cars, you've seen a lot of a building's, a lot of tall buildings. How do you feel about that?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:38:15] What are they trying to suss out in those questions?

Charles Ryu: [00:38:18] It's like I learned that Kim Jong Un is bad, that's the things that they want to get.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:38:23] Because if you say that, then they're going to punish you more.

Charles Ryu: [00:38:26] They're going to kill us, yeah. If you say that they're going to -- there is no way out, if you say that. But I have to say like, I know what to say. I know because things that I've seen in China, but I couldn't say.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:38:38] You knew how to lie.

Charles Ryu: [00:38:39] Yeah, I know how to lie.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:40] So what do you say? Like, “Oh, I saw capitalism and how it ruins people.” What did you say?

Charles Ryu: [00:38:44] No, I mean yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:38:46] The Bad Boys ll was not as good Bad Boys l.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:49] I’ve learned that Will Smith is awesome but not as awesome as Kim Jong Un.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:38:52] Those so good movies.

Charles Ryu: [00:38:53] He’s the bad ass.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:55] He should be in Bad Boys III.

Charles Ryu: [00:38:56] Yeah, yeah. So I mean I was a child. So they didn't really asked me that question a lot, like multiple times. They just like let’s get it over with?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:39:08] They were trying to get it over with. And you’re 15, right?

Charles Ryu: [00:39:10] I was 15, I was like, “Oh yeah, I was just living with my dad.” “Oh, I don't know, I don't know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” and they’re like, “What do you mean you don't know?” And get up and punch me in the face for a couple of times, and then 20 days, I was in there.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:39:27] You're there for three weeks.

Charles Ryu: [00:39:28] Yeah, I was there for three weeks.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:39:29] They're questioning you for three weeks. Charles just have to ask you, you seem really brave, I guess is the word, and smart. Do you think you were always that way, or had you been through so much stuff already that you sort of knew how to handle a situation like that?

Charles Ryu: [00:39:49] I mean when it comes to your life or death, I think that's in people's instinct. First thing that they would do is trying to protect your life. Sometimes I heard people when they're in a dying situations, “Oh please kill me.” I don't think that that's something that they would say. They're like, “Oh please save me.” I don't know. I think maybe it's in my blood at all, but I believe that everyone could do it. It's written in DNA, it's written in code, so like you can't escape that. But I think yeah, if it comes to life or death, you will do it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:40:24] So at that point you were just, you knew you wanted it to survive. So you were doing whatever you had.

Charles Ryu: [00:40:28] Yeah, whatever I have to do, right? Most of like 15 years old kids, American kids, I'm a sophomore in high school, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:36] Yeah.

Charles Ryu: [00:40:37] They go to sports practices, they're busy with like sports practices, and doing everything sophomore thingy.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:47] Yeah. The hardest thing in your life are wind sprints on the football team.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:40:51] And little acne or something. Some SATs.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:53] Some tests.

Charles Ryu: [00:40:54] Wi-Fi, my Wi-Fi is so slow.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:56] Oh, I cracked my phone screen.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:40:58] And you're in a secret police.

Charles Ryu: [00:41:00] I want to say in a labor camp. So right off the 20 days I got transported to reeducational detention center.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:09] Are they actually teaching you things there, or are they just punishing you there?

Charles Ryu: [00:41:13] They are brainwashing us. So what you do is you work there as long as they wants you to work there. And then at night, they'll force us to recite the rules of the camp. So at age of 15, I was in a detention center working like 18 hours. I don't know, 12, 16, 18, eating like 150 kernels of corn a day for nine months. I thought they're going to release me pretty soon because I was only 15, and that's what they told me to. I was told that I'll be there for only a couple of weeks because I was so young. I was only 15. I worked really hard for a couple of weeks because I didn't want it to get beaten again. And months passed and I was never released, and that detention center, I was only allowed to eat 150 kernels of corn a day. And I started to lose weight and I could see my rib cage, and I had to do whatever I have to do to survive. And one morning we were marching in our rows to work site, and on the side I saw dry vomit.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:37] Dry vomit?

Charles Ryu: [00:42:37] Dry vomit on the road, somebody, I don't know if somebody's sick or somebody drunk threw up. And then I saw a dry rice in the vomit, and I was so hungry that I got on my hands and knees and began picking the rice up with the dry vomit.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:52] So you pick the rice out of the dry vomit?

Charles Ryu: [00:42:54] Yeah, eat it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:56] Oh wow.

Charles Ryu: [00:42:57] It’s like a sand dirt. And I didn't stop eating the rice, by minute I send into the beating from the guard are too unbearable, and at night, the guards was storm into our cells and force us to recite the rules of the camp. And if you misquoted even one rule, there would forced to stand all night reciting the rules until work began next morning.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:20] Oh my God.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:43:21] My God. What are the rules of the camp?

Charles Ryu: [00:43:23] I will never talk about life outside of North Korea. I'll never talk about bad things about Kim Jong Un, what I see, how I feel. I would never talk about anything that I saw in China. I will just live my life like a bug.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:36] These are the rules of the camp?

Charles Ryu: [00:43:38] Yeah, you have to know these rules. You have to memorize those rules.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:43:42] How many are there?

Charles Ryu: [00:43:43] There's like a, I can't remember. There was like 40.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:43:47] So it's a list of 40 principles, right?

Charles Ryu: [00:43:49] Yeah, principles. There is a wall like that, it’s like a wall.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:43:53] A poster on the wall.

Charles Ryu: [00:43:53] Yeah, poster on the wall. That's like the size is twice as big as this room. And then there is like 20 people, 30 people laying in the floor.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:04] This room was like 10 by 15, and there's 20 people in there?

Charles Ryu: [00:44:08] Double as this size.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:08] Oh, double as a this size, okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:44:10] Double as this room.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:11] Still.

Charles Ryu: [00:44:11] Yeah. And we sit in a rows and then we face those the posts, and then we recite all, I'll never do this, I'll never do that, we'll never did this. I'll never talk about life outside of North Korea. I’ll be a good citizen. I'll never escape.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:44:30] Is this what they mean by reeducation?

Charles Ryu: [00:44:32] Yeah, reeducation.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:44:32] They're basically trying to train you.

Charles Ryu: [00:44:34] Training, trying to train us and trying to let us train to work us off.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:44:40] Right. And what's going through your mind while you're reciting those principles?

Charles Ryu: [00:44:43] I was starving.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:44:44] You were just trying again, trying to survive.

Charles Ryu: [00:44:46] Yeah, trying to survive.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:44:47] Was there any part of you that thought, maybe I'll actually follow these principles or in your mind you're like, “This is bullshit.”

Charles Ryu: [00:44:54] This is bullshit.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:44:55] You knew it was bullshit, even though you were hungry.

Charles Ryu: [00:44:56] I was so angry. I was like hangry.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:00] Hangry.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:45:01] It’s like a new level of angry, yeah.

Charles Ryu: [00:45:02] It's like “I'm going to get the hell out of here, and I'm going to escape again. I'm going to escape, I'll die trying again.”

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:45:11] Woah. Like in the camp thought?

Charles Ryu: [00:45:13] In the camp. Because we're working every single day for nine months. No rest from 7 a.m to whenever they says stop. It could be 1 a.m, it could be 12 a.m, it could be 11 p.m, no matter what. Eating 50 pieces of kernel per meal. So they have a job for counting those corns. And for nine months, nothing else.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:45:34] They have a job?

Charles Ryu: [00:45:36] Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:45:35] Somebody job is counting corns?

Charles Ryu: [00:45:37] Count this corns.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:45:38] That just pissed me off.

Charles Ryu: [00:45:39] Yeah. And then the guards, you're working in a field, whatever it is. You are building a concrete, we are building a building, we're farming, we are constructing, we are on a forest cutting down the tree. They tell us every day, you escaped again, we don't care, but don't get caught.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:59] Guards are telling you that? Don't get caught.

Charles Ryu: [00:46:01] Don’t get caught. If you get caught, you're going to die. This is what happens if you get caught. We can't stop you, it can prevent you from escaping it, but we can do these things to you once you get caught. And I'm listening that every day and the main principle is if you escape it, if you get caught, you're dead, basically you’re dead. Don't have that thought, that's what they're trying to tell us.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:46:24] But in your mind somehow that got translated as I'm going to do it anyway--

Charles Ryu: [00:46:30] I’m going to do it anyway, because--

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:46:32] Because this place is terrible.

Charles Ryu: [00:46:33] Yeah. I mean that's basically everyone's mind.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:46:36] Everybody in the camp felt that way?

Charles Ryu: [00:46:37] Yeah. Everybody felt in that way. Because there are say on a one on under weak guy. I was the youngest in the detention center. And there is another group weak, there's always a head and there's a tail. And I'll spin a tail, but the tail always telling me like, “You know, I'm going to get out of here, and I'm going to do it again? I'm going to do it again, I'm going to do it again.” And then a lot of people actually feel that way too. And then funny enough, I listen our international refugee camp in Southeast Asia, and then I met this dude from the detention center.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:16] You've ran into somebody while you were in detention center?

Charles Ryu: [00:47:18] Yeah, I ran into someone because I remember that guy because he stole my shoes. Because I had up pretty good shoes when I got into the detention center.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:28] That’s unreal.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:47:29] Oh, form China.

Charles Ryu: [00:47:29] Yeah, from China, right

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:47:30] So he wanted your Chinese shoes.

Charles Ryu: [00:47:32] Yeah, so it was really new, and it was really comfortable, but that guy someone shoes, and he liked it. He's like, “Can I have the shoes?” I'm like, “No, you can't.” Like “What am I going to wear?” Like “You can't wear mine.” And his shoes was fell apart and I'll like, “No!” But he took it anyway. And then he told me his story much later on. Like, “Yeah, your shoes helped me a lot.” So while he was doing the interrogation, he stole a paper clip, and he swallowed it. And then he went to the bathroom and he pooped it out and then he kept it. He kept the paper clip. And then while his done working at the, I don't know, he's staying for like a year, in a detention center. While he was transferring to other facility, transferring to his hometown. He was handcuffed around the table in the train. And then while the police officer, there are police officer who is slow moving them, while they fell asleep, he took out the paperclip.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:35] And he picked his handcuffs?

Charles Ryu: [00:48:36] Yeah, he picked his handcuffs, then he escaped.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:39] Wow!

Charles Ryu: [00:48:40] He escaped, he escaped, and then he escaped to China again, and he worked in China about a year. And then at the same time, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm not going to spoil, anyway.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:48:52] Sre you going to come back to them?

Charles Ryu: [0:48:52] Yeah, I'm going to come back to that.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:48:53] You’re already like this is the best story. Incredible.

Charles Ryu: [00:48:56] Yeah. And then nine months later, I was finally released from labor camp, from the detention center because I have lost so much weight that I was less worker, I couldn't even lift my arm or even stand up. I was bone and skins.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:49:14] So there was no point.

Charles Ryu: [00:49:15] There's no point of keeping me. So one day, the head of the detention center comes out, and counting our heads. How many, and then he's screaming, yelling at this kids, this guards. “What the heck are you guys doing? Send them home! We don't need them!” And I'm like, “We don't need them to work for me. Why aren't you doing your job? You send those guys home, you send those guys to like whatever they belongs.” And then next day two police officer shows up and then they took me away.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:49:47] Wow. What job were you doing in the camp?

Charles Ryu: [00:49:49] I was doing everything. I was doing like literally everything that would do.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:49:52] What kind of work?

Charles Ryu: [00:49:54] It's everything. Literally everything.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:49:55] What does that mean?

Charles Ryu: [00:49:56] Like construction, building bricks, building concretes, farming.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:50:02] So your outside.

Charles Ryu: [00:50:03] Outside, we are always working outside of the camp. Let's say for example a training, you can't work, there's no work. Then you go, you're still working with in campus. So there is a bunch of sand bags.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:50:18] Sand bags.

Charles Ryu: [00:50:19] Yes, Sand bags and bricks. There's a pile of sand bags and then you move the sand bags point A to B in the morning, and in the afternoon, you move that back, sand bag from B to A.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:33] Oh, they're just having you do work even at worthless stuff just to keep you guys running around?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:50:37] How much of the work was meaningless? And how much was actually supposed to accomplish something?

Charles Ryu: [00:50:43] Like 99 percent of the work that we did was actually building, constructions, and farmings and--

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:50:51] Real stuff.

Charles Ryu: [00:50:51] Yeah, real stuff. And 1 percent was sometimes it's rains.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:50:55] I see, they just wanted to keep you busy, okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:50:57] Yeah, keep us busy, so that we don't think about escaping again, that's their method.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:01] There's 80 to 120,000 people in these labor camps.

Charles Ryu: [00:51:05] There's all different kinds of levels of labor camps. So the first level is reeducation training camp.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:51:12] Is that where you were in?

Charles Ryu: [00:51:13] No, I was in the detention center.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:51:16] So that's another level.

Charles Ryu: [00:51:16] That's another level. It’s a detention center for North Korean defectors. So where they get transferred to their hometown and they get judgement and then they go to reeducational labor camp, which is a four years. And then there is a reeducational and there is a work reeducational like a labor camp for six months or something, that's the lowest for six months. And then there is a four years of our reeducational camp. And there is a political labor camp, political labor camp is highest. You never get out of there. You born there, you die there. I wasn't there. I'm not from political labor camp, but I'm going to a North Korean defector reeducation or detention center. So I got out of there, and then I went back to my stepbrothers house. That was 2009, October. So I was in the detention center for nine months. And then I spend months trying to regain my strength.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:52:14] So you're about 16.

Charles Ryu: [00:52:16] I was around 16, yeah. But you have to know there's, I was born in 1994.

And then because Korean age in the United States, that's different, because they count it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:52:29] One year older?

Charles Ryu: [0:52:30] One year older. Like no when you're in their stomach, accounting from the stomach.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:52:34] Right.

Charles Ryu: [00:52:34] Right. So when you're born, it's already one year.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:37] Oh, okay.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:52:40] So you’re really 15.

Charles Ryu: [00:52:41] Yeah, I was still 15, actually when I got released. And then I spend months trying to regain my strength and after spending months trying to regain my strength and you have to find a job, without any money, it's impossible to support myself.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:52:58] Was your stepbrother welcoming?

Charles Ryu: [00:52:59] He was welcoming. I mean he was doing fine, but in 2010, there was a currency devaluation happening in North Korea. I'm not sure if you know, and it killed thousands of people.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:12] Because the money that they were saving and running for their businesses just became worthless.

Charles Ryu: [00:53:17] Exactly. A lot of our neighbors committed suicide because one day they had something, one day they don't have anything, and they have no hope of living. So my brother sold the business a kicked out, and then I had to support myself so I needed to find a job.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:53:33] Wait, so you're on your own again?

Charles Ryu: [00:53:35] I'm on my own.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:53:36] Do you have a place to live?

Charles Ryu: [00:53:37] I don't, but I found it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:53:38] Okay.

Charles Ryu: [00:53:39] Like where I'm from, the coal mine is really popular, and I had to lie my age to get in there. So like, “Oh, I'm 18,” I can work.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:49] I find it really ironic that they're concerned with child labor laws and literally no other aspect of it.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:53:56] And meanwhile, he just got out of a detention center slash labor camp.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:00] You're old enough to go to a labor camp and be basically work tortured, but you're too young to work in this coal mine.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:07] For a proper amount of time, yeah. But you've got this job.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:10] I got this job job.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:11] Did you just wander into a coal mine?

Charles Ryu: [00:54:12] Yeah, no. So I started working in a coal mine while I was paid only in rice. Six days a week, I would enter the coal then tunnels to mine. And most of the boys that work in the mine where my age will push a thousand pounds steel coal cart miles into the mine.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:33] You're pushing the mine cart?

Charles Ryu: [00:54:34] So mine coal cart. It's empty coal cart is already like a thousand pounds.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:39] A thousand pounds.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:40] A thousand pounds.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:40] Yeah. Because it's all metal.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:42] Right.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:42] Right. It's all metal.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:43] And you guys are pushing it into the mine.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:45] Yeah, into the minefield.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:46] So they're not mechanized.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:48] They're not mechanized.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:48] They’re like man power.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:50] Everything is manual because there is no power.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:52] And it's all young guys, 15, 14.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:54] Yeah, yeah. So the youngest I've seen is 12.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:54:58] 12 years old.

Charles Ryu: [00:54:58] And then the oldest I've seen is 80.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:01] 80 year old man?

Charles Ryu: [00:55:02] Yeah. 18 year old man.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:55:04] And they're paying you guys in rice?

Charles Ryu: [00:55:05] Yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:55:06] Is that common?

Charles Ryu: [00:55:07] That's really common, yeah. They don't pay us with like, but they provide housing, they provide meals, three meals a day. And then at the end of the month, they will pay us 30 kilograms of rice per month.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:21] So it's just slavery.

Charles Ryu: [00:55:23] Basically.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:55:23] It's like subsistence basically. They're just keeping you fed and housed.

Charles Ryu: [00:55:26] Yeah. Fed and housed, yeah.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:55:27] So you were in the coal mine for how long?

Charles Ryu: [00:55:29] Yeah, for about a year. And within that year, I have made a lot of friends. I was hanging out with them, having really good time, it's all my age. We were like at night, we'll go nuts, we would drank, we will party.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:50] Where'd you get alcohol?

Charles Ryu: [00:55:52] They feed us.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:55:54] They gave you alcohol.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:54] They gave you rice and they gave you booze.

Charles Ryu: [00:55:55] Because when you breathe coal in your lungs, the only thing that could wash away is alcohol.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:03] I'm not sure about the science on that, but I'm pretty sure that just getting you drunk so that you forget that you have coal dust in your lungs.

Charles Ryu: [00:56:08] Really?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:09] Yeah. I don't think because when you swallow things it doesn't go into your lungs.

Charles Ryu: [00:56:12] Well, when you breathe, right?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:56:14] Probably like a disinfectant though, maybe that's what they mean.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:17] I mean I'm pretty sure they're just getting you drunk so you don't complain about the fact that everybody's got [indiscernible] [00:56:22]

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:56:22] Either way. You guys didn’t mind.

Charles Ryu: [00:56:23] We didn't mind.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:24] Yeah, you’re 15.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:56:24] This is so wild. So this was not a bad period for you really. I mean I know it's not ideal, but like--

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:30] I feel like relatively this way better than getting tortured by guards at a camp.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:56:32] Relatively, I’m guessing this was a step up for it.

Charles Ryu: [00:56:36] Yeah. Just a step up for me, but I lost a lot of friends.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:56:39] You lost a lot them?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:40] You lost them?

Charles Ryu: [00:56:40] Because the coal mine accident and cave in and sometimes the coal cart will flip. And sometimes they would have landed on people, if you get out the coal mine, and then sometimes my rain boots, is leaking. So I can tell it a blood or it's a cold water because it's so sticky, it could be blood, you know what I mean? Because sometimes you'll land on people, you'll crush people, they're just people losing arms, legs because of the coal mine accidents. There's a coal cart, right? Imagine with a coal, it's five kilograms, thousand kilograms of coal, wet coal, and then plus thousands of steel coal cart. So it's kind of a 2,000 pound. Imagining that kind of like heavy weight is landing on people, it will just crush you.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:57:33] This was like a regular occurrence.

Charles Ryu: [00:57:35] It's not regular.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:57:36] But it happened.

Charles Ryu: [00:57:37] It happen often, [cavings] [00:57:39] are really often because a lot of people wants to make money, so they claim that they know how to set up the frame in the coal mine, but they really don't, they just want to get paid more. If you know how to do that, they'll pay you a little more.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:57:55] Right. They're trying to get out as much coal as possible, and then the safety. I'm assuming there are no like safety regulations.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:01] No.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:01] There's no such thing.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:02] Yeah, there's no such thing as a such. As long as you have a helmet, you have like flashlight and you have a rain boots, you have a glove, you're safe.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:10] That's the proper way.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:11] Go in!

Jordan Harbinger: [00:58:12] Wow!

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:12] So these guys, they're men, I'm assuming working this job.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:15] Yeah, they’re all men. No, no, I mean there's a women too.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:17] They’re women.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:18] A lot of women.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:19] Oh okay, so men and women, you guys are hanging out.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:21] We’re hanging out.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:22] After hours.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:22] After hours drinking.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:23] Drinking.

Charles Ryu: [00:58:24] And partying and watching movies and like.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:26] So you can watch movies at this point?

Charles Ryu: [00:58:28] Yeah. Yeah. It's illegally, but coal mine, it's the place where every criminal with a bright mind, people with like, “Oh phone a partying or they come in.” And then they bring South Korean dramas, they bring foreign movies.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:45] Wait, I'm sorry. Why does coal mining attract former criminals in North Korea?

Charles Ryu: [00:58:51] I mean young millennials, they do that a lot.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:58:54] They like that job?

Charles Ryu: [00:58:54] Yeah. They liked that job because they get paid. And they get paid rice and then they can sell that rice and then they can make money out of it. So for example, people without any family, it's really a good deal for them, because I have no family to protect. I have no family to pay. I get to eat three times a day. And I have a night off and then I get every single month, I get 30 kilograms rice. And in North Korea at the time, a per kilograms of rice was like 5,000 won. So imagining you're selling 30 kilograms of rice, and they're getting that as a cash.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:59:33] Is that what you did?

Charles Ryu: [00:59:34] That's what I did too.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [00:59:35] So you became an entrepreneur.

Charles Ryu: [00:59:36] Yeah. Entrepreneur, yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:37] So you're like arbitrage in your rice ration.

Charles Ryu: [00:59:41] Yeah. But at the same time, I had a lot of memories of China, being free , and watching all this people, injured, and people who didn't make it out, and I thought about it like, “Oh my God, that's going to be me one day at a time.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:57] Right, it’s only a matter of time.

Charles Ryu: [00:59:58] So sooner or later I'm going to be like that. And you know I knew how hard it is to escape North Korea without any money or food. And I knew that if I was caught, I could be killed this time because this is second time escaping, and also there isn't a mercy. But those kinds of risks overweight it working in the dark coal mine every day until it was my turn limp or die. So which one is worth it?

Gabriel Mizrahi: [01:00:22] Yeah. You're like, do I stay here and possibly die or grow old doing this crazy job or do I try to get free?

Charles Ryu: [01:00:28] Yeah, try to get free.

Gabriel Mizrahi: [01:00:28] So while you're working at the mine and selling the rice, take a little extra money in the back of your mind, you're already planning.

Charles Ryu: [01:00:33] Yeah, planning on escaping.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:37] So Jason, I know you weren't in the room for this one. What do you think so far?

Jason DeFillippo: [01:00:41] Oh my God. This is one of those stories that anytime I'm having a bad day, feeling sorry for myself, thinking things are just so terrible. I'm just going to go back and listen to this because it could be so much worse.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:52] Right, yeah. You've just finished part one here. Part two, there's more. There's plot twists galore. This is just an incredible story, and I'll tell you I had nightmares after doing this show, and so did Gabriel and so did Jen. We all had nightmares after this. It's just, it’s just nuts, and it gets even more intense in part two. Great big thank you to Charles. He is going to be back with us in a couple of days with part two. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people, manage my relationships with hundreds slash thousands of really busy people using systems and tiny habits, check out our Six-Minute Networking course which is free over at jordanharbinger.com/course. The problem with putting stuff like this off is that we're not able to make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking, and the number one mistake students and entrepreneurs make is postponing this type of stuff and not digging the well before they get thirsty and once you need that relationship, you are way too late. The drills are all designed to take a few minutes a day. It's the type of habit that we can ignore only at our own peril. This is the stuff I wish I knew a decade ago. It's not fluff, it's crucial, and it's an jordanharbinger.com/course.

[01:02:01] Speaking of relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Charles so far. I'm @jordanharbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, where I post videos and photos and fun stuff a lot these days. And don't forget, if you want to learn how to apply everything you heard here from Charles, make sure you go grab the worksheets also in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com/podcast.

[01:02:21] This episode was produced and edited by Jason DeFillippo. Show notes by Robert Fogarty. Special thanks to Gabriel Mizrahi for joining me on this one. Worksheets by Caleb Bacon. Booking back office and last minute miracles by Jen Harbinger. And I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful, which hopefully isn't every single episode. So please share the show with those you love and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.