Practice flying at the lowest point

Be brave to start, you can find the way to success.

I was born in Japan. After the liberation of the motherland in 1945, my parents took me and my brothers and sisters to a temporary passenger ship returning home.

After returning home, our family can simply describe it as "a poor one." I am often driven home because I can't afford the tuition. By the time I was in the fifth grade, I was already a veteran of the business, selling matches, selling sushi, selling rice cakes, and doing everything.

When I was about to graduate from Pohang High School, my family’s situation was even harder. There is no money at home for me to continue to attend high school, but my class teacher does not want to give up on me. She gave me an idea: Pohang Commercial High School has a night school, you can work at home during the day and go to school at night. After discussing with her mother, she reluctantly agreed that I would continue to go to school.

After going to high school, I started to trade with the seasons: selling maltose in the spring, popsicles in the summer, and popcorn in the winter. Regardless of the rain on a sunny day, I always wear the same school uniform, because the clothes that lead to the door are like this. There are always many female school students coming and going on the street where I am doing business. My dilapidated school uniforms, dirty faces, and stupid heads have become the objects of their teasing.

In the third year of high school, the mother made an important decision: moving to Seoul to take care of her second brother. My sister and I only stayed in Pohang for the time being because of high school. In order to raise the living expenses in Seoul, the parents sold the house and the tools for sale, and only prepared a small room for me and my sister. When we both read books, we still have to find ways to support ourselves. In December 1959, my sister and I finally set foot on the train to Seoul.

Parents rented a small room in the shanty town of Itaewon and sold vegetables to the market every day. I didn't have the money to do business at that time, but it was rare to be free. I used to take the tram, sit from the departure station to the terminal station, and then sit from the terminal station to the departure station. Unconsciously, I will go to the university streets of Dong Chongdong, Anyandong and Xincun.

One day, I suddenly had a strange thought: "Would you like to take a college exam, if you take it, don't you even retreat in college?"

Inspired by this Don Quixote-style idea, I applied to the Korea University Business School. Later, I actually took it, my college dream was realized, and I became a college student. I haven't been happy for a long time, I was splashed with cold water on the head. Others told me that at least one semester can be considered as a college retreat. It is not acceptable to register.

This is bad, where do I go to find someone to learn? Just when I wanted to give up, people in the Itaewon market helped me arrange a job: clean up the garbage in the early morning. As long as you are willing to work hard, paying tuition is no problem. So, every day, when I didn't light up, I started to get busy. Originally, I only intended to earn enough tuition for the first semester. I didn't expect to rely on this hard-working job. I successfully went to the third year of college.

One day, when I told a few fellow villagers, I wanted to participate in the election of the president of the Business School Student Union. They couldn't believe their ears: "What? Your kid is not drunk? What nonsense?"

I know very well that I want to seize this opportunity to change my embarrassing personality. I want to shape myself into a positive person and move towards a broader world at an early date. In this campaign, I was elected with a slight advantage of 40 votes! I became the president of the student union!

This is how my life turns.