screening humanity

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There's a Korean show called "Screening Humanity" about poor people. Or, perhaps I should say disadvantaged; usually the individuals that are featured live in very poor rural areas of Korea and struggle through various ordeals like poverty. The show focuses on their struggles, their dreams; entirely documentary-like with a narrator with a soft, female voice.

I usually hate watching it. It's the American in me--I don't want to feel so like shit when I watch it. It's heartbreaking, but not in the sense of a good movie like The Reader, that says to you, "Here, here's a piece of humanity that you should be aware about." This show gives viewers the emotions that you get after watching some hour long infomercial about poor people in Africa, except it doesn't ask you to donate money. It makes you feel over privileged if you know what I mean, and I'm not exceptionally fortunate either so it's not a pleasant feeling...

I feel like I'm not articulating this very well.

Regardless, my father was watching it tonight and this time the show was focusing on a ten year old boy names Giseok Kim. It caught my intention because he plays the piano. Brilliantly. Beautifully. He lives in an incredibly run down house with his grandfather as his mother left when he was one and his grandmother and father passed away. When I heard him describe his "philosophy" about playing, I wanted to cry: the interviewer asked him how he plays sad pieces, and he was trying to explain how he puts certain emphasis on the ivory keys for certain moments of a song...
He's ten years old, for Christ's sake.
He started playing when he was seven after his grandfather sent him to a piano, wanting his grandson to learn something. Giseok doesn't go to school. His piano tutor acts like a mother to him, cooking dinner when Giseok stays late at the tutoring center practicing, buying math and reading workbooks for him so he can get some semblance of a basic education...
He practices on his own, and even though he's only been playing for three years, he plays better than my mother does, which is saying a lot. When my mother saw him play, she said "That's what you call genius. That's what you call blessed." I couldn't say anything really. It makes me wonder whether or not kids like him can get someone to fund his education after appearing on shows like that. He deserves so much more, not because of his natural talent, but because he really works harder than most adults.
At one point during the episode, Giseok went sledding with some other kids and time came to go to his piano lesson. The narrator commented that he looked a little sad because he had to leave before everyone else, but when asked if he wanted to forgo the lesson, he said, "No, I should go. I have to go." I wish I had that sort of discipline and passion for something in my life.
Watching the episode also made me really admire the people in Giseok's life too. His grandfather, who drives him to his piano tutor's everyday on his little run down vespa, who can't read or write but tells Giseok gently to study at the other side of the room because the light is brighter there, who acts as Giseok's little cooking assistant because he can't cook much and Giseok makes most of the food, standing on tiptoes to scramble eggs on the stove. At his piano teacher's there's a poster a window with a list of students who have won competitions and the like. Giseok's name is first, and his grandfather stands in front of the window and looks at it everyday after dropping his grandfather off, proud and joyful. Whenever Giseok gives him a back massage, he smiles and comments later that if it wasn't for his grandson, he would have died already because it's such a joy raising him. The grandfather exercises every morning to the sound of his grandson practicing, walking on a second-hand treadmill without exerting himself too much because he had heart surgery last year...
And then there's his piano teacher who clips Giseok's nails for him and tells him that he needs to be more nutritious in his eating habits because his nails will get brittle. Giseok's never been to the movie theater, so she watched a video with him on a little TV in a separate room; the movie was about a little boy who wants to be a pianist, but is poor like Giseok and ends up watching his grandmother die of cancer and has to live with his grandfather... He was so happy when he recognized a song in the movie because he had played it before. He said, "You taught me that one too." They had a tissue box between them and were silent with tears by the end of film. When Giseok didn't bring his math homework that his piano tutor assigned, she raised her voice a little and said, "I didn't want to yell... but he needs someone to discipline him if he wants to grow up to become a great person. There's no one else." And she looked as if she was on the verge of tears, too...
And then there's Giseok himself, who practices on his own, studies on his own, cooks on his own, but never seems lonely. He says he wants to go to Harvard and study in the piano department there. He says it with such conviction. "I want to go to Harvard. I have to go to Harvard. I'm going to go to Harvard."






It's uplifting to day the least. It makes me want to work hard, so to speak.
As Giseok's piano teacher said, "You have to keep working hard because there's always someone out there who's working just as hard or harder; don't give up."