Updated, 9:02 a.m.

Good morning on this mild Thursday.

In New York City, where you can experience the cultures of faraway countries simply by riding the subway, opportunities to interact with North Koreans are not so common.

Only 20 North Korean refugees have resettled in New York since 2001, according to the State Department, and some may now live elsewhere.

Among the few North Korean-born university students in the city are Yeonmi Park, 24, and Seongmin Lee, 30, who both moved here in 2015 to study at Columbia University. They lived in the same town in North Korea, Hyesan, but never met there, and left under very different circumstances.

Ms. Park defected in 2007, when she was 13, with her mother. She described North Korea as a “living hell” that she left because her family didn’t have enough food to eat.