Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Sajeonogi (This is Korean)



Korea is unlike the United States...no surprise there. We pride ourselves on our resiliency, our stick-to-it-iveness and our ability to rise to any challenge. We proved it through several world wars, putting a man on the moon and surviving, among other things, the Great Depression. However, I'm not sure we could best Cha Sa-Soon of Sinchon village in South Korea. He willingness to keep trying despite incredibly insurmountable odds puts most of us to shame, and when I first read about her story, I thought she would never come to such a positive end. In an era when a .300 batting average is a lock for the baseball Hall of Fame, this woman actually failed at something 959 times (at $5 per attempt) and kept coming back each time. What was so important for this 69-year-old woman in a remote South Korean village?
A driver's license.
Barely able to read, having entered elementary school as a teenager but unable to finish, Sa-soon worked all her life raising children and vegetables, the latter of which she sold at a public market. She loved school but could not attend enough to learn to read effectively, making the written portion of the driving test an obstacle worthy of Hercules but more likely one for Sisyphus. once she decided that this was a goal, beginning in April of 2005, Sa-soon took a bus to the testing place once a day, five days a week, failing the written portion each time. Paying five dollars per attempt added up over time, but she would not quit. Finally, the instructors volunteered to tutor her so she could read and understand all the questions instead of just memorizing the questions and answers (an oft-employed strategy for ALL students who read poorly). Eventually, she slowed don to the point of taking the written test only twice a week, finally passing it with a score of 60% on her 960th try. She passed the driving portion on her fourth try and was rewarded with a great deal of fame throughout all of South Korea, a place that values dogged determination above all. She became synonymous with the Korean expression "Sajeonogi" which translates to "get knocked down four times, rising five."(though somehow, it seems as if one would really only have to get up four times...maybe it's the translation)
The Hyundai corporation sprung for a new $16,800 vehicle, and all's well that ends well.
Such determination would be almost unheard of in this country, but what else would one expect from a woman who's name in Korean means "vehicle"?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home