The Second Escape: What North Korean Refugees Face After They Cross Into China

These people who say, oh I could get you over the border, I could help you, I could help you find a job in China, you could send money back to your family. It sounds so good, right? Especially if you're desperate and starving. But once you cross, there is a world of pain that awaits. According to my sources in China, it is legal to murder a North Korean. There's no ticket, there's no fine, there's no slap on the wrist. You could just murder someone and suffer no consequences. Most Americans know North Korea is a humanitarian crisis. But few know what actually happens to the people who manage to escape. Today we're joined by Dan Chung, co-founder and executive director of Crossing Borders, an organization that has spent over two decades working directly with North Korean refugees in China and South Korea. In this episode, we'll explore what really happened to the estimated 300,000 mostly women who have fled North Korea, the psychological and spiritual toll refugees carry long after they cross the border, and why the regime has not yet fallen. This is Bay Area Innovators, and I'm your host, Steve Espas. Dan, welcome to Bay Area Innovators. Thank you for having me, Steve. Great to have you here from Chicago. You've been involved with Crossing Borders for over 20 years. Please tell us how did you get involved with this organization and what was your motivation for wanting to help North Korean refugees? My friend from college, Mike Kim, who is the founder of our organization, he took a trip to Northeast China in 2001, July of 2001. He just followed this pastor around. He was curious to see what his work was like. We were right out of college. We had both attended the University of Illinois. During Mike's trip, he met a few North Korean refugees. He didn't know what was happening in North Korea at the time, nor did I. There was a famine that stretched from about 1995 to 1998, where up to 3 million people out of North Korea's 21 million people perished from starvation or disease. He met these people. He heard their stories. He met this one girl who he said was 14 years old, but because of the effects of starvation, she looked like she was seven. This shocked me, as well as a lot of the other stories where women were coming out of North Korea and being sold in China. We were completely shocked. He came back and told me about these things. We just couldn't stop thinking and talking about these stories. How many refugees, how many people escaped North Korea? What do the statistics have for those numbers? Statistics in this situation are very hard to come by because China does not publish the statistics. They don't acknowledge the existence of these refugees, nor do they give them any rights. There have been estimates of up to 300,000 North Koreans who have escaped into China or through China. We know for sure that today there are about 34,000 North Koreans who have made it through China in South Korea. That we know for sure. I think the number in China is much larger than that. Can you walk us through what happens when someone in North Korea decides that they want to escape? What do they do? How do they start the journey, which obviously is a dangerous one? Yes, it's very dangerous. The first thing is, I would say that it's much easier for women to escape North Korea. The men are usually caught in the military, even at work. If they, let's say, are a coal miner in North Korea, which is a big industry there, they are required to report to work even when they're sick. The government keeps roll call on each of the men and their location. The men are very closely watched, usually. It's usually the women who escape North Korea. When I told you about the famine that happened in the 1990s, most of that happened on the north side of North Korea. If you picture the Korean Peninsula, North Korea is on the top half, South Korea is on the bottom half. On the upper, let's say, third of North Korea, North Korea's land is where North Korea puts their outcasts, I would say. They have this class system called Songbun. Even though communism is supposed to be this equalizing force for a culture, from the very beginning, North Korea made sure that there was a very distinct class system. There are the core members who are allowed to go to Pyongyang, their capital city. The worse you are, according to the government, the further you are away from Pyongyang, which is close to the border of South Korea. During the famine, the least amount of food was distributed to the north because it was hardest to ship the food there, number one. And number two, that's where the social outcasts were, and there was less motivation for them to send the food. If you have millions of starving people that are next to the Chinese border, and there are rumors that there's food across the border, then you walk to the border and you see if you could cross. Because of the trafficking industry that happened in China, and it exists today, there is great financial motivation as well to bring women from North Korea over. According to my sources in China, it is legal to murder a North Korean. There's no ticket, there's no fine, there's no slap on the wrist. You could just murder someone and suffer no consequences. Because of that, there are these women crossing. Now, China also has a gender disparity that happened due to the one-child policy. The one-child policy left the country with about 30 to 35 million more men than women. If you just let people have babies, the natural ratio is there's slightly more women than men. But in Chinese culture, wealth is passed down from generation to generation through males. It is also more advantageous to have men working on a farm rather than a girl. If you could only have one child, a lot of families decided to make that one child a man or a boy. Because of the gender disparity, women are very valuable in that country. There are these women crossing over who have no human rights. That's where the human trafficking has begun. When you get to the border in North Korea, when a woman walks to the border of China, a lot of people are encountered by these people who say, I could get you over the border. I could help you. I could help you find a job in China. You could send money back to your family. It sounds so good, especially if you're desperate and starving. There is an industry that reaches into North Korea deceiving these women, saying that they would help. Once they cross into China, these people have to bribe the guards at the border. They make sure these women cross safely. But once you cross, there is a world of pain that awaits. Many women have told me that immediately after they cross the border, they're taken to a house. They are prepped for sale. They're given food just so that they could look healthy so that men could come in and purchase them. They've described these homes to me many, many times. It seems like some kind of zoo or a pet store, even, where these women are put on display. Men come in and choose. A lot of the times, the people who are selling them tell these women to lie about their age so that they could command a higher price for the sale. It also works by market forces. If the supply of women happens to be low during that time, the price for a woman will then go up in price. It's very disgusting to think that a human life could have a dollar value attached to them, but that's exactly what has happened to many of these women. And so almost immediately, these women are taken across the border, sold, and live lives that are very, very difficult in China. So they don't really have to prepare much as far as crossing the border. They just walk towards the border, and then there's going to be these people there waiting and help them to cross over. Now, as far as the women being sold as sex slaves or whatever, in your knowledge, is this sanctioned by the Chinese government? Does the Chinese government know? Or is it like a black market that happens? Or is it unknown? That's a difficult question for me to know, but I would think that they, by now, know about the situation. Because China right now, today, knows where all of these refugees are. They have cameras everywhere tracking every person that lives in that country. These women have had conversations with the police about their status. So I assume that the Chinese government knows about the situation. And the reason why the Chinese government cannot deport all of these women, because there's so many of them, that a mass deportation of these women would cause social unrest. China has a population problem. They have a rapidly declining population. And so these women are very beneficial also to them, because they are the mothers to new babies, which China is desperate to keep going, their population. I think they do know about them. I'm pretty sure I know, at least on the local level, that they definitely know about them. And what is the policy of the Chinese government as far as these refugees? What do they do with them if they find them? Can you ask for asylum, for example? If you're a Korean, North Korean, can you ask for asylum in China? There has been a zero-tolerance policy. Now, this has sort of changed over time. So let me talk about in 2003 when crossing borders started. There was a zero-tolerance policy. So if a North Korean was found out by any local authority, they would immediately be deported back to North Korea. This is what North Korea, their close ally, wants. They want to make it as difficult as possible for these women to escape. So these women and men are sent in North Korea to a prison camp that has been compared to Nazi German concentration camps, where they're systematically tortured, starved, and murdered as well. Not all of them are killed, but it is very common that these women would die in these camps, or these North Koreans would die in these camps. And so, by law, China is a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, which states that if a refugee comes in, and if you deport them back into their country, it's called refoulement, and their lives are in danger. If you deport them back to their country, then signatories to this convention said they wouldn't do that, that that is, by international law, illegal. That seems to be pretty much ignored by China. And so, very early on, China took a zero-tolerance stance towards North Korea. They would round them up. Historically, over the last 23 years that I've been paying close attention, China has also had times where they would announce on the radio, hey, if you turn in a North Korean refugee, you would get this amount of money. And so, they have made it very uncomfortable over the history of this North Korean refugee crisis, as I call it. Today, like I said, there are benefits that China has seen in keeping these women in their country. And so, I would say that they are kind of softening in many regions. It's very regional. Some regions handle it differently. But I would say, from the people that I talk to on the ground, and people that I talk to who are doing this type of work, North Korean refugee type of work in China, they tell me the same, that China is softening their stance. They are monitoring these women very closely, but they are softening because they know where all of them are. Now, most of the refugees seem like they escaped north through China. Tell us why they don't try other routes. And obviously, there's a border between North Korea and South Korea. I understand it's very militarized, but talk to us about that. But also, there's a border with Russia, and there's also waterways. How difficult it is to take those routes for the refugees? Yeah, so to the south is the demilitarized zone, where there are many landmines, and it is very militarized. Both North and South Korea are watching that border with all kinds of technology. Just a month ago, I was on the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone, and there are all kinds of technology scanning this area for intruders or refugees. South Korea is looking for refugees as well. I don't know if you saw, but I think in 2018 or 2019, there was a very dramatic escape that a North Korean soldier made where he ran across the demilitarized zone. North Korean soldiers were shooting at him, and he somehow survived, and he is now in South Korea. Incidentally, they did medical tests on him after he escaped. North Korea wants to send their strongest-looking soldiers to the border to intimidate South Korea and the world. What they found with this man, he was very malnourished. He had parasites in his digestive system. He was very unhealthy. This is the best that North Korea sent to the border, from my understanding. It's very, very difficult. A few people have escaped via North Korea. I know someone else who did so as well, another man. That is the riskiest but most immediate escape. Highest risk, highest reward, I would say. There's also the waterways. If you are a good swimmer or if you have some means like a boat or something like that, you can take a chance to go out to sea to try to escape. In 2011, nine North Koreans ended up in Japan and sought asylum in Japan. I believe they were fishermen. There are ways to do that. But again, because it is so militarized between North and South Korea, it is very difficult to swim or take a boat. Another thing that I've learned over the years is that most North Koreans don't know how to swim for some reason. It's very difficult for someone to go into choppy ocean waters to try to escape without a boat. North Korea also has a shared border with Russia. It is a very, very small border. For some reason, escape is very difficult that way. I know that North Korea sends its citizens as lumber workers in Russia. They do that, and many men particularly escape through Russia because they are sent there to chop down trees. Now, in Russia, when they're sent to do that labor, they are paid very, very little, and most of that money then goes to the North Korean government. It's like the worst temp agency you've ever seen. They're contracted out, and North Korea just keeps most of the money. Russia pays them in Russia's money or U.S. dollars, and these people, the laborers, are paid in North Korean money, which is virtually worthless at this moment. The incentives are not there for any other type of escape. One more thing. The border with China now, today as it stands, is virtually closed. It is very, very difficult to escape North Korea in the means that I've described because there are barbed wire fences everywhere. There are soldiers with the right incentives who will shoot and kill someone who has escaped. It is very, very rare to see a North Korean, to meet a North Korean who has escaped after 2020. Now, you wrote a book, A Heart's Freedom. Part of what you talk about is about the second escape. Tell us about that. The first escape is getting out of North Korea and most likely into China, but then the second escape is getting out of China. How do the refugees, what happens with them, how do they get around that? Again, there is pre-2020 and post-2020. After China has installed those cameras, you could imagine how difficult it is now where they could track everyone. Even today, many North Koreans say, not only to me and my organization, to other organizations, that they are required to take a selfie every day with their husband and send it to the police as a means of population control. They cannot run far when the police realize that they haven't sent that picture in. But let's talk about before today. There has been a network of for-profit brokers who have assisted North Koreans out of China. It still operates today, but on a much smaller scale and for a much greater cost. These brokers know where to avoid the cameras. They have safe houses along the way where they can sleep the night or sleep during the day. And resume their journey. They also have contacts along the border. Now, you have to get to Thailand today. People have escaped in other ways, but the majority of people have to make it to Thailand. And if you look at the border of China and Thailand, you'll see that they don't actually meet physically. That there is a strip of land, Laos and Vietnam, that separates Thailand from China. After making the perilous journey through China, you have to then run through very rugged jungle terrain, about 100 miles, to get to Thailand. There are people in Laos and Vietnam who know these routes very well because they are drug trafficking routes. And on the side, they will help these refugees. I've talked to many women who've made this journey. One woman told me that this is the first time she ever prayed because she was so scared. They were about to cross a bridge into one of these countries. And she just prayed that God, whoever's out there, would protect her. And these brokers who help these women are out for maximum profit. And so this same woman, I call her Brenda in my book, she reported that her boat was stuck along the way. Her boat was stuck. They had to go through rivers in Vietnam, I believe. And their boat got stuck and they had to sleep on the beach for one night, a group of about 10 to 15 of these women. And in the middle of the night, these brokers went and tried to dig through their pockets to find money, more money, for themselves because they are in it for maximum profit. These women still have no rights until they reach Thailand. So they could do whatever they want to these women. And a lot has happened. I've heard many reports of sexual assault by these brokers who do this work because there's nothing these women could do. They have no human rights. So once you cross Laos and Vietnam, you make it to Thailand. And they tell these women, you have to get arrested in Thailand. Somehow get arrested. And that is when the process begins for them to actually receive human rights. Wow. They cannot go straight to get asylum to whatever immigration office or whatever. I am not familiar with the details of why they are told this. But for some reason, they say the quickest route is for them to get arrested. Can you tell us a bit about your motivation? Why is this important to you to do this work? Number one, I'm a Christian, and I believe that all people have a God-given worth because we are made in the image of God. And so I believe very, very strongly that people mean something, not only intrinsically, obviously, you see in China, these women are valuable, but much more than that, because they are given an infinite value by God. So I care very much about that. Number two, I'm a Korean American, and I was born in Seoul. I moved to America. I was lucky enough to move to America when I was three months old. And I identify very deeply with these women, not because I understand what it's like in North Korea. As a Korean person, I know that if the Korean War was any different, if the Korean War happened to end in a place where the city of Seoul, my birthplace, was part of North Korea, then I would have very likely become a North Korean as well and suffered greatly, just like these women. And so it is very, very close to my heart because of my ethnicity. And thirdly, when we moved to America, my family, we moved to Chicago. My uncle was our pastor. I grew up in a very small Korean church, and he was a man of very few words. I didn't know really anything about his life because he didn't talk to me. I was very scared of him. But I realized after he died, his kids told me, my cousins told me, that he is also a North Korean refugee. During the Korean War, he escaped the communist regime. He was trained as a pastor in North Korea. And after World War II, America and Russia divided up the Korean peninsula because they didn't want to fight anymore. And once the communists came in, they started killing and trying to exterminate Christians and especially pastors. And as he was trained as a pastor in Pyongyang, he escaped that regime to freedom in South Korea. So I was actually very close to the North Korean refugee situation my whole life. And that's why it matters to me so much. How do you think the North Korean regime continues to survive? And I mean, both politically and economically, with everything that's happening, all the sanctions and everything that's going on with them. So today, the country does very well because it sends weapons and people to Ukraine to help the Russians. And so that has benefited Kim Jong-un, especially. But even you could see, they say, a lot more construction in North Korea's capital city, Pyongyang, because of the influx of money that comes in from Russia today. But over these past 20 years, for most of them, North Korea stayed afloat by China. For most of before the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China represented 70% of North Korea's economy. So traditionally, North Korea has been supported by outside forces. They have never been able to stay afloat themselves. And in fact, the reason why North Korea slipped into a famine was because the USSR dissolved in the early 90s. And because of that, it started this chaotic process where North Korea couldn't produce or import enough food for themselves. So over the years, different communist regimes or different friends have found it beneficial to keep the regime afloat. And that is how they are able to do that. Now, if you ask how they're able to keep their people from revolt, that's a different question. North Korea keeps a very tight watch of its people. You cannot go from one city to another unless you check with the city that you're leaving and the city that you're going to. They also read every letter that is sent from person to person. They listen in on every phone call. And now, increasingly, because of cell phones and the internet, they have tight control over those networks as well. Take, for example, the Arab Spring, which happened in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Those revolts were able to happen because people say they were the Facebook revolution, right? People were able to communicate very efficiently and quickly over Facebook to stage protests and then to organize all that. Well, you cannot do that in a country where you're being watched constantly. Your neighbors are watching you for things that you are saying, listening in at your window. The North Korean government trains their children from a very, very early age to listen to their parents and turn them in if they ever hear their parents say such and such thing. And so it is very, very difficult for the people of North Korea to rise up against its own government because there's such tight control in that country. Would you say there's any sympathy of North Korea's ideology in South Korea? These days, we live in a world where communism is romanticized in so many ways. So do you see any of that in South Korea? I'm not sure. I'm not an expert on South Korean politics, but I will say that just from people that I talk to, I spend a lot of time in South Korea, that there is a growing rise of socialist interest by voters and especially among the youth. Would you understand why that happens? Obviously, knowing what the results of the North Korean regime are, why would people romanticize or want that kind of system? Well, I think you have to look at, again, I'm not an expert in this, but just talking about what I know, you have to look at South Korea's economy. South Korea's economy is very, very challenging and difficult. I write about it in my book. First of all, it is very top-heavy. Though the income is very, very high for a developed nation in South Korea, that is true. But the living expenses are also very, very high because of many reasons. The income inequality… South Korea, for a long time, their economy was driven by Samsung. Samsung represented a huge part of their economy. That is diversifying and changing, but it still very much looks like an oligarchy to most people. The old complaints of a lot of communists and socialism is income redistribution. If you see that the divide between the rich and poor is so gigantic, people are turning to these ideas. I think a lot of people say, well, we could do it differently. We could do it better. I think that is sort of the sentiment. I don't have an opinion on that matter. I think the South Koreans should vote their conscience and vote what they want to do. But they do have an example of how things could go poorly in their neighbor to the north. Do you have any understanding or knowledge of who is actually in charge in North Korea? Of course, we know Kim Jong-un. There's so many documentaries that talk about his life and how he enjoys, how he went to school in Switzerland and how he eats cheese and all of this stuff. But who is really in charge, you think, in North Korea? I believe he's in charge. But he has a system around him that perpetuates all of the problems in North Korea. For example, during the famine, it is unclear. Kim Jong-il was the leader at the time of North Korea. It is unclear that he even knew about the famine. The people around him are driven by survival. If you disagree with one of these leaders, you could be sent and executed yourself. One of the major military leaders in North Korea was shot in public by an anti-aircraft gun in very spectacular fashion. You're always afraid in North Korea. The whole system is based on fear. Everyone around Kim Jong-un or anyone in leadership just tells people what they want to hear so that they themselves could survive. How in that system could any improvements be made for the people? It is very, very difficult to do so. Again, this is not my area of expertise, but I believe that Kim Jong-un is in power. But I'm not sure if he knows the full picture of the North Korean people. I grew up in Romania and I can sympathize with the North Korean. Obviously, it's probably a lot worse. But I think one thing that makes it more difficult is the isolation. Everything around North Korea is another repressive regime or militarized regime or whatever. Romania was the same. All the countries around at the time were communist. So if someone had to escape, they have to go to a whole other country to get to a free country. What would you say is the least understood in the U.S. about the crisis in North Korea? When you ask the average Westerner or American about North Korea, they will kind of laugh and say, Oh, Kim Jong-un, right? And they'll talk about his crazy hairstyle and that he's overweight and that he says things about himself. I think his father said that he invented the hamburger. I don't know why you would even be motivated to say that. There are all kinds of wild mythology around these leaders. And people look at that and sort of laugh. There was a movie, as we all know, about North Korea and it played on a lot of those tropes. But the closer I get to the country, and what my book is trying to do is to humanize the suffering. People generally know that people are suffering in North Korea, but they don't know the extent of it and they don't have very tangible examples of it. I think what is most understood is that just the human element of what this regime has done to its people, the very, very dire consequences that happens when a government goes in this direction. And so that is what my organization is trying to do. We're trying to raise awareness about the conditions there. And that's what my book is trying to do as well, to humanize this situation. Talk to us about the psychological trauma that these refugees go through. And you gave some examples earlier with these women. Maybe you can recall some of them. You know, for my book, I interviewed a woman. I call her Becky in my book. I met her at Crossing Borders. We run English classes for these refugees. I was there and I was teaching English for this one class and I met her afterwards. She told me that she was having a very difficult time in South Korea. She had made it there after the pandemic, so it was very, very recent for her. She told me that she couldn't sleep. Most people don't know, but North Korean refugees who've made it to South Korea, they have a very, very difficult time sleeping. And I believe it's because of the trauma that they have incurred in North Korea, in China, and escaping China. She told me that the only way she could sleep is to medicate herself and also by sleeping with her shoes next to her. She told me her story in China that she was sold to a man. After a year, she had a baby and everything was going okay. She didn't love this man, but it was better than North Korea. She told me that after a year, she realized that people in her neighborhood who would talk to her, she didn't understand Mandarin, but as she picked it up, she realized that they were making fun of her for being North Korean. She talked back to the wrong person in her village. He called the police and she was sent back to North Korea where she was horribly tortured and starved. She said that she was lucky because she only had to spend four months like that. Most people spend two years, but she said, I'm very, very lucky. It was only four months, but she was completely psychologically damaged after that. In China, the only way she could rest at all was to have her shoes next to her. It was very useful for her in China to do that. If the police came, she could put on her shoes and at least try to run away. She probably wouldn't get that far, but that was the thing that comforted her. Now, these adaptations that people make when they're in danger are very useful for them when they're in danger. There's another example that when you are trapped, let's say you're being assaulted, you're a woman, you're being assaulted repeatedly. After a while, if your body has nowhere to go, your mind will actually go somewhere else away from the assaulting just so you don't go crazy. Your mind will go somewhere else. Many North Koreans say they have a problem staying focused and relating to other people. A lot of them, you'll see, they have a very muted affect. Their face is very neutral. They don't smile a lot. They don't show very much emotion. That's because they are still recessed in their minds. What we try to do as an organization in South Korea is to get them to therapy, get them to exercise to restore that connection between their mind and body, because many of them are still in that other place in order for them to feel safe. The trauma is massive. The South Korean government has pivoted a lot of their services to trauma care. Now that there aren't as many refugees coming into the country, these resources are starting to be used for trauma care. The South Korean government does so many things well. I think they will start doing a great job in trauma care very soon. Have you noticed or come across North Korea releasing spies on purpose or criminals, for that matter, to give a bad reputation, so then it would make it even harder for refugees to come out? Yeah. For example, North Korea said that during the famine, if you escaped to China, they will feed you bags of glass. It looks like food, but it's glass. All kinds of outlandish rumors like that to get them to not leave. In fact, during the famine, North Korea told its people that they lived in paradise on earth. Oh yeah, we know that it's hard for you, but everywhere else, it's much worse. So you want to stay here. For example, these are the things that North Korean government just tells their own people. But on top of that, yes, there are networks of spies in China to assassinate workers doing the work that I do. And in South Korea as well, there are spies there, supposedly, to cause trouble in networks of people who are helping these refugees. North Korea desperately wants to break down networks like crossing borders, as well as China. And they are very, very motivated because they don't want people to be helped at all. They want it to be as difficult as possible. Can you comment on the importance of faith in your work? How much is that driving your work and your motivation? It is the center of what we do as an organization. Our mission is to show the compassion of Christ to North Koreans and their children. We never force anyone to believe what we believe. We never say that if you don't believe in Jesus, then you won't get X, Y, and Z. You'll get whatever we offer, regardless of what you believe. But we do also share with them why. All the refugees ask, why are you doing this? Why are you helping me? In my country, no one helps anyone. Why are you helping me at such risk to yourself? And we just plainly tell them it's because of our faith. We believe that you are so valuable as a person, and we want to help you because God tells us that you are valuable and He loves you. So we love you too. That is our approach. That's always been our approach. These women and these men that we've helped, they're not always easy to help. These are very psychologically damaged people, and so they're not necessarily the easiest to help. They often lash out at us. They often threaten us with certain things. But we believe that constant, consistent love, and even despite what you tell me to my face, I'm going to still love you. And that is the love that we see modeled in the Bible through Jesus Christ. So yeah, our faith is center in what we do. But we also are never, ever pushy about it, because everyone has their own journey to the faith, and we don't want to force anyone to do that, to believe. So during the work, were you faced with any kind of threats or adversity or something that flatly went against what you were doing? Yes. One time I was in China. I was at the border with North Korea and China, and I was suddenly surrounded by Chinese soldiers. They asked me if I was a journalist. Now, North Korea, right over the border, did a nuclear test. That's where most of their tests were happening. I wasn't there because of that. I was there for other reasons in trying to help these people. But they asked me very clearly if I was a journalist, and I said no. They looked through all my things, and if they looked closely, they would have seen that I was who I was, someone who was helping North Koreans. And I could have been put into prison for a very long time. That was the biggest incident. There are always threats to our network where we have to be careful, where police will barge in at times during our worship services in China. That is sort of the nature of our work. So yes, I have been threatened with some jail time in China. Now, frankly, I don't know how long I would have been in China. I am a U.S. passport holder, and so that carried a lot of weight in China at the time. China didn't want to start a fight with the U.S. over someone like me. I'm not that important. I'm sure I would have been released after some time, but I was very scared during that incident. Dan, we thank you so much for your time. In conclusion, please tell us what is next for you. What are some of your goals? What lies in the future for your organization that you plan to accomplish? We want to continue our work and expand it. And so we are hoping that this book will get into many people's hands and that people will get excited about it, and hopefully donate to us or participate in some way to help us expand our reach to reach more people, both in South Korea and in China. We just want to continue to do what we do, but even more so. Dan, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your work. I'm sure people appreciate your work. Thank you and best of luck. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode and you know someone who should be on our show, please send us an email at sfbay.epochtimes.com. We would love to hear from you. Thank you and see you next week.