My mum was sold for $65 and I was sold for $260 - at the age of

Host: The night was heavy with snow and silence. The wind moved through the bare branches like a whisper that didn’t want to be heard. A single train station light flickered over an empty platform, its glow falling across frozen tracks that stretched toward an unseen horizon. The air carried that cold, metallic scent of steel, frost, and grief — the kind that clings to memory more than skin.

Host: Jack stood by the railing, his coat buttoned high, his breath rising in pale ghosts. Jeeny sat on a wooden bench nearby, gloved hands wrapped around a cup of tea gone cold. The train behind them sat still, its windows dark — an unmoving witness.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Park Yeon-mi once said, ‘My mum was sold for $65 and I was sold for $260 — at the age of 13.’”
(She looks out over the tracks.) “I don’t think there are words heavy enough to hold that.”

Jack: (after a long silence) “No. Some truths don’t need translation. They just burn.”

Jeeny: “It’s not just a story, Jack. It’s the weight of a system that decided what a life was worth — and found it could be bought.”

Jack: (softly) “That’s the part that haunts me. Not the number — the transaction. The idea that freedom can have a price tag. That a child can become a currency.”

Host: The wind howled briefly, lifting snow from the ground and spinning it in small whirlwinds — like the world was trying to erase its own footprints.

Jeeny: “You know, when I first read her words, I couldn’t breathe. Not because I didn’t believe them — but because I did. Because history keeps repeating itself in different clothes.”

Jack: “Slavery just changed its marketing.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We call it trafficking now. We call it survival. We call it silence.”

Host: She stared at the frozen horizon. Somewhere far away, a faint light moved across the tracks — distant, ghostlike, the promise of something that might never arrive.

Jeeny: “Park wasn’t just sold once, Jack. She was resold, repackaged, reinvented for other people’s profit. And yet — she found her voice. That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. How do you come back from that and still speak?”

Jack: (his voice low, rough) “Because silence is what they count on. Every system built on suffering survives through quiet.”

Jeeny: “So she became noise.”

Jack: “No. She became truth. And truth makes its own sound — slow, steady, unstoppable.”

Host: The station clock ticked faintly above them. Each second fell like a footstep toward morning.

Jeeny: “She said when she escaped to China, she thought she was walking into freedom. Instead, she was sold again. Imagine that — to run from tyranny and find yourself in another cage.”

Jack: “Freedom’s geography doesn’t matter if you’re still inside someone else’s ownership.”

Jeeny: “And she was thirteen. Thirteen, Jack.”

Jack: (quietly) “I know. That’s what kills me. At thirteen, most kids are learning to dream. She was learning to survive being property.”

Host: The wind softened, but the silence that followed was heavier — the kind that doesn’t wait for comfort.

Jeeny: “You think the world listens to people like her?”

Jack: “Only long enough to applaud their courage — then it scrolls away.”

Jeeny: “Because trauma makes us uncomfortable.”

Jack: “Because responsibility does.”

Host: The sound of a train whistle echoed in the distance — faint, hollow, almost mournful. The kind of sound that feels older than time itself.

Jeeny: “She said once that she used to envy birds because they could fly over borders. Isn’t that the saddest wish — to be something small enough to escape?”

Jack: (after a long pause) “Maybe that’s not sadness. Maybe that’s clarity — seeing freedom stripped of politics, just as wings.”

Jeeny: “You think she’s healed?”

Jack: “No one heals from being sold. You just learn how to turn pain into purpose.”

Jeeny: “And she did.”

Jack: “Yeah. She turned her past into a warning. And her warning into a mirror.”

Host: He looked at her, his gray eyes reflecting the pale light of the station. The snow clung to his coat like dust from a different century.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny… I think old wounds like hers don’t close. They stay open so we remember where empathy belongs.”

Jeeny: (softly) “That’s what survival really is — carrying the wound as proof that you refused to disappear.”

Host: The wind shifted again, pushing the snow across the platform in ripples. The first train lights appeared in the distance now — faint, trembling.

Jeeny: “She was thirteen, Jack. Sold for $260. Her mother for $65. And yet — she still says she believes in humanity.”

Jack: (quietly) “That’s not belief. That’s defiance.”

Jeeny: “The kind that keeps history from winning.”

Host: The train grew closer, the sound deepening, filling the air with vibration — a slow crescendo of movement and meaning.

Jack: “You know what’s remarkable? She doesn’t just tell her story to be pitied. She tells it to warn us. To remind us that civilization isn’t progress — it’s maintenance. If we stop caring, it breaks down.”

Jeeny: “And the moment we stop listening, the world goes dark again.”

Jack: “Exactly. Her story’s not just a record of the past — it’s a diagnosis of the present.”

Host: The train finally arrived, slowing with a long metallic groan. Steam rose from its wheels, curling into the night. The doors opened with a soft hiss — an invitation and a reckoning.

Jeeny: (whispering) “You think there’s redemption for a world that puts a price on innocence?”

Jack: “Only if we stop pretending it’s someone else’s problem.”

Host: The two stood for a long moment before boarding, the cold air sharp in their lungs. The train lights painted their faces — two silhouettes against the backdrop of an endless, unfinished story.

Host: And as they stepped inside, Park Yeon-mi’s words echoed like an unhealed scar across time — not as history, but as a heartbeat:

that old evils still walk in modern clothes;
that slavery has not vanished, only rebranded;
and that the worth of a human being
can never be measured in currency,
only in courage.

Host: The train began to move, its rhythm steady, almost like breathing. Outside, the snow fell heavier — each flake landing like a quiet promise:
that memory will not fade,
that truth will not sell itself cheap,
and that some stories —
the hardest, the truest —
must be carried,
not just told.