From NK to LA

Written in February 2015 - edited in 2026

By: Sherry Ziman Yang

The usual characters on Sunset Boulevard appeared at night in lights against a backdrop of TV, film, and fashion billboards; Cabo Cantina, Tower Bar, and the Original Barney’s Beanery. It was a little past 8pm on a Wednesday night and the traffic left me plenty of time to gaze down at my phone. Headlights crowded against one another on the narrow road that wound from downtown into the hills of Los Angeles. The city sprawled around its geologic formations like a cotton fabric, stretched thin over hilltops, bunched tight Downtown, and spooled in ribbons along the shores of Malibu to Long Beach.

That night I went to a show at the Comedy Store in Hollywood headlined by Bobby Lee of MADTV and Harold and Kumar. The venue’s rich red hallways were lit with yellow lights. Small frames of past performers in black and white covered the walls.

The event of the night a fundraiser was for Liberty in North Korea (LINK), an organization founded in 2004 that has saved over 320 refugees from North Korea. Ben Heish and comedian Vargus Mason created the event. Ben described how the event couldn’t have been possible without comedian Vargus Mason, who brought in talent and audience alike. About 130 guests attended.

That night, comedian Helen Hong appeared out of my Laugh Factory YouTube playlist, walked onstage and welcomed the audience. She said since this was Hollywood she would tell us about a role she just got cast in — “Golden Restaurant Lady” — breaking the ice by recreating the experience of auditioning in absurdly broken English.

Other comedians who took the stage included: Eliot Chang, Vargus Mason, Paul “Pk” Kim of Kollaboration and LINK, Tom Papa, Chris D’Elia of Undateable, and Steve Trevino.

The night’s theme focused on identity, the “white voice” in the Asian body, self-expression, marriage, sex, and social status. The bits traversed the narrative of Asian Americans in Los Angeles, bleeding into the rhetoric of human experience, sinking into the narrative of North Korean refugees fighting for their own identity.

NK In the media

During the intermission, LINK discussed the roads refugees took to escape North Korea (as shared here by Human Rights Watch). LINK’s North Korean refugees traveled across a modern day Underground Railroad, one spanning across Eastern and Southeastern Asia. Refugees could possibly have traveled through Changchung, Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, Hainoi and further into the south. Those stories transported me from the lights in the Hollywood hills, out to the dark Pacific waters hitting Santa Monica pier, over the endless black 6,284 miles to Beijing in the East. I learned that refugees found in the Chinese capital were often sent back to North Korea.

LINK Rescues Team Manager Sarah Palmer was in attendance that night. I spoke with her after the show.  Sarah studied international relations at USD. Her own narrative led her to LINK. She spent time in high school and college tutoring refugees who had come to California. These days, Sarah oversees student activity groups and fundraising at LINK, helping change the narrative of North Korea.

Sarah believes that anytime there is news, it can renew the conversation about North Korea and “that’s positive”.

I recall the media I’ve seen — such as Margarat Cho performing an impression of a North Korean guard at the Golden Globes. I recall the “Hermit Kingdom” documentary by VICE which brought the Harlem Globetrotters to North Korea, creating headlines for a moment before quickly being overshadowed by supposed The Interview-induced Sony security breaches.  

There are some truths about The Interview, Sarah said, “In The Interview at the end a woman from North Korea had the opportunity to leave but she stayed.”  

In the media we read about nuclear strikes and U.N. sanctions but we don’t hear stories of escape. Sarah said her eyes were opened when she heard these stories. In the summer of 2010 she decided to join LINK and has met several North Korean refugees. Sarah said of one refugee named Joseph, “His dad died of starvation, his mom and sister weren’t around, he was a street kid and worked in the coal mines.” She also described a woman named Joo Ri who tried to escape North Korea six times, and spent four years in labor camps before she was connected with LINK and able to leave the country.

She talked about Danny’s Story, which has been made into a LINK documentary. Danny was one of the first refugees to escape through the organization. One winter as a teen, he ran across the frozen Tumen River that separates China from North Korea. Years later, miraculously, he walked through Irvine, California, LA Dodgers baseball cap on his head, ready to meet his mom for the first time in years at the LAX airport.  

“We don’t reveal [exact] names of cities we go through. We have a network of partners throughout Southeast Asia.” Sarah explained that the network was established even before LINK formed. LINK’s goal is to raise funds to help another 200 refugees this year. Some of them are then able to study abroad in the US for up to six months to find jobs and scholarships. She said a donation of $500 could transport one refugee approximately 3,000 miles.

The narratives we create for ourselves

I asked Ben, why comedy for liberation awareness? He said he always grew up with comedy. “It was a way to express myself [through a character] when I didn’t want to express [what I was feeling]. Comedy reveals the ridiculous nature of life.”

Humor is also a way of telling stories that makes them empowering, and Ben wanted the audience to feel that. There are so many messages Ben wanted the event to send, about being real, being happy, and taking responsibility for your path in life. “Many people traditionally take the medical route in Asian American culture. If you love it, that’s great and you should pursue it. But I want to let others know that there are Asians who [are pursuing other interests] and doing what they love, because you should be happy with whatever path you are on, and be true to yourself. Don’t be cynical, don’t blame your parents, you commit to the choices you make. There is one person responsible.”

Ben, born to Taiwanese parents, grew up in Los Angeles. He said it’s a unique place for Asian Americans. “I’ve traveled to a good amount of different counties but SoCal is unique, for example in Garden Grove and Westminster immigrants from Vietnam during the 60’s war reside. Arcadia and Monterey Park have food that brings everyone together.”

The narrative brought to stage was of the Asian American voice in Los Angeles, and much more. In America, Ben said, there are “opportunities for everyone to be an entrepreneur”. There are opportunities for us to create the lives that we want, refugee and resident alike. We create the narratives we tell ourselves, sometimes we might just need a reminder that it’s possible.