在半岛形势如此紧张的情况下，真不想凑热闹。不过，孩子们不管那么多，这周被推荐的TED演讲是My escape from North Korea（出逃朝鲜）。我不是很推荐大家看，首先话题太敏感，也太压抑，我更想让孩子们多看些正能量的东西。从语言学习角度来说，演讲人的英文发音不标准，也没有运用什么演讲技巧。而且不知为什么，我不太相信这是一个完全真实的故事。如果能带着全家人从朝鲜出逃到中国，然后横穿大陆远到越南，最终达到韩国，再最终站在TED论坛上用英文演讲，朝鲜能让这样的事情发生也不简单呀！不管怎么说，看看孩子们是如何评论的吧。（全部为原文，没有做任何改动）

1.      This ted talk really affected me. It is about a girl who born in North Korea. Her family was not poor and she never experienced hunger. She always thought that she was living in the best country in the world and she felt proud. But one day her mother received a letter from a friend. They said they hadn’t eaten for a long time and they were going to die. She was extremely surprised about that. Soon she knew what happened. She wanted to go to China because it was just on the other side of a river in front of her home. She was lucky that the police in China hadn’t let her went back to North Korea. So she lived in China for a while. Finally, with many people’s help, she and her family rested in South Korea. This talk showed me another side for a same thing. This happened in Korea but we just knew how Chinesethought. After the talk, I also knew what Koreans thought.

2.      Well, after watching this TED talk from a Korean girl, I must say that it’s amazing. She fled to China and then South Korea. It’s very dangerous and absolutely difficult during her tour. She was very lucky because the Chinese police didn’t find out she’s a Korean girl and didn’t send her into a jail. After hiding her identity for 10 hears, the speaker decided to go to South Korea, but life in South Korea was more challenging and tougher than she thought. When in Laos, she tried her best to get her family to freedom and she did it in the end. A woman can have such incredible willpower is uncommon. Obviously there were many times she nearly failed but she overcame all difficulty at last. She’s a normal woman who did an unusual deed bravely. I reckon that through her experiences I can see people’s talent.

3.      I had to acknowledge that I don’t like this talk at all. I’ve recently watched Argo, a film about six Americans escaping from Iran after the Islamic revolution. Then right before watching this ted talk, I reviewed Scott’s recommendation last week – a tremendously humourous stand-up comedy show with a political topic. Hannah’s recommended talk seemed a combination of the two things mentioned above, but neither did it inherit Argo’s tension nor did it contain Maz Jobrani’s qualified presentation – or perhaps comedy – techniques. On the other hand, the monotonous voice of Hyeonseo Lee made me feel sleepy and dreadful. But I still acknowledge that this talk may be another way to denounce, or create propaganda, for rational changes to the mysterious North Korea.

4.      I almost cried when watching this. I couldn’t believe that you need to go to prison just because you were from another country. And I have never ever in my life thought most people are selfish. You see beggars on the street but you just turn away as if nothing had happened, you could never feel their sorrow and pain, because you are wealthy, you have a bed to sleep in, but all they have is a dirty pavement. Hyeonseo Lee and her family where like these beggars, although they had money. I was horrified and impressed of how Hyeonseo helped her family out of the cold grasps of death, how she gave up everything to free them all of the tortures of the enemies of their country.

5.      This weekend, I watched a TED talk called: Hyeonseo Lee: My escape from North Korea. It’s about a girl called Hyeonseo Lee, who was born in North Korean. In the mid-1990s, a huge famine hit North Korea, and few people survived. Lee has been separated from her family and she escaped to China. But Chinese police caught the North Korean refugees and repatriated them back to their country. So Lee escaped to South Korea. But soon she was told that her family was going to be forcibly removed to a desolate location in the countryside. So Lee brought her family to South Asia. She bribed the border guards in Laos in order to get into Laos, but soon her family was arrested and jailed because of her guilt. She tried hard to get her family out, but she failed. And a man helped her, because she is a North Korean. Lee was so moved and she wanted to help to give the North Koreans a chance to prosper with international support. I think Lee had a hard live once. In my opinion, most of the things people doing now are for continuing their life, and to make a better life on top of that. And when they can’t continue their life because of some special reasons like disasters, people will to anything to change this terrible situation, even if they are going to do something illegal. Lee has done so to save her and her family’s life, and there may be many “Lee”s in the nowadays world owing to some “disasters” in their country or their life. I think we should comprehend these people and help them as much as we can. This is a good way to decrease many of the illegal things in our life.

6.      Well, this ted talk mainly talks about mainly talk about how a homeless, poor North-Korean girl escaped to China, South-Korea. After listening to one sentence: I’ve been so lucky, receiving so much help and inspiration in my life. I was shocked and astonished by the positive thinking this girl has when the situation becomes so serious. I begin to realize that we were so lucky, we never experienced hunger, we never experienced losing homeless, we never experienced losing family members, but after not having a toy we want, after wounded, we cried and tell that to our parents. How about that girl, did she have parents to tell? No, she did not, she just struggled to live and earn money by herself. In my opinion, we should be like that girl, being tough and positive. 

7.      My escape from North Korea talks about how Hyeonseo Lee went to China and South Korea to save her life. She has to learn Chinese and English so that she can save her family. She felt proud of her country when she was young but when she grows up she knows how dangerous her country is. She had to spend a lot of money to save her parents. Fortunately a good man helps her. After watching this talk, I think so many people think money is the most important thing but I do not think so. In fact some people are poor so they need help. We should help them instead of getting money from them.