The Nueva School Diversity Committee & Koreans at Nueva invited you to

Escaping North Korea

Mike Kim is an author, consultant, NGO founder, and North Korea specialist based in Los Angeles. He is the author of the Wall Street Journal featured book, Escaping North Korea, a current events memoir about his experiences at the China-North Korea border helping North Koreans escape the regime. On New Year's Day 2003, Mike gave up his financial planning business in Chicago, Illinois and left for China on a one-way ticket carrying little more than two duffle bags. While living near the North Korean border, he operated undercover as a student of North Korean taekwondo, training and competing under two famous North Korean masters from Pyongyang—eventually receiving a second-degree blackbelt.

During his time in China, he learned of the hundreds of thousands of North Koreans fleeing to China through a 6,000-mile modern-day underground railroad, which runs from Pyongyang to Bangkok, in search of food and freedom. He had a legal name change prior to moving to China and upon arrival conducted all North Korean operations while using an alias. He has successfully led sex trafficking victims to safety in Southeast Asia using drug trafficking routes in the region and has had many harrowing experiences, which includes interrogation, house arrest, and being held at gunpoint.