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N. Korea defector Joseph Kim shares story at LA event

June 22, 2015
Joseph Kim speaks at the Millennium Biltmore hotel in Downtown Los Angeles Thursday. (Yonhap)

Joseph Kim speaks at the Millennium Biltmore hotel in Downtown Los Angeles Thursday. (Yonhap)

Joseph Kim, a 25-year-old North Korean defector who is now a college student in the U.S., gave a special talk inside Downtown Los Angeles’ Millennium Biltmore hotel last Thursday night.

The event was organized by the Korea Foundation and the Asia Society.

He said during his speech that he realized at age 6 that his parents could no longer provide food for their children. He said that, at the time, he blamed his parents, not the North Korean system.

A few years later, when he saw millions dying of famine but the state pouring astronomical amounts of money into a memorial for Kim Il-sung, seeds of resentment toward Kim Jong-il took hold, he said.

Kim was born in North Hamgyong Province in 1990. He became homeless and orphaned at age 12 after his father died of starvation from the famine and after his mother and sister fled to China.

In 2006, he, too, left North Korea for China. As a political refugee, he arrived in the U.S. in 2007.

Kim’s story garnered widespread attention through his TED talk in 2013. The video has been seen more than 1.4 million times.

He penned a book, “Under the Same Sky: From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America,” earlier this year.

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