 |
| ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME BECAUSE I'M SMALL????? |
I will start with a story drawn from one of
my earliest recollections. I was drawing a boat and I needed more
colors in order to finish the painting. However, colored pencils which my
grandparents gave me for my birthday were at the top of a drawer as my
kindergarten teacher forbade me to use them because they were really expensive
ones. I reached out my hand but I was too small to grab them. I just gazed at
the top for a long time and decided to climb up. I fell and fell again, but I never
gave up and tried again. Then, my teacher recognized my fruitless attempts. She
carried me away from the drawers, and said a sentence I could never forget. “Your
small height does not match with your towering insanity. “ The words changed
into thorns and stung a small kid‘s fragile heart. That was the first time I
felt being small is deleterious, and since then I had an inferiority complex
about me being small.
Even
when I entered the Banwon elementary school, I was a subject of ridicule
because of my physical aspect. Continuous disdains made me diffident and became
too circumspect on all my actions. The school was not a place where I can meet
friends and be happy but a place I had to endure people laughing at me. I
pretended to be sick a lot and refused to go to school. I wanted help but I
felt abashed even to ask my parents for advice. One day, when my stress level
was at the peak, my classmates teased me as usual and I burst into tears. At
first, they were alarmed by the tears, but they recovered quickly and teased
about my crying. Teachers came, children scattered, but I still cried. Teachers
asked me why I was crying, I felt a temptation to tell the truth but a shame
repressed the temptation, and I told them I had a headache, and I needed rest.
I
returned to my home and kept crying. However, after two hours I was too
exhausted even to cry. Therefore, I lied down on a sofa and turned on a
television. A documentary film about one disabled man caught my eyes. His name
was Otodake hirotada a famous Japanese writer. He was born without any arms and
legs; He also endured nonstop derisions while he went to school. He explained
that it was the most difficult time of his life. I could easily sympathize with
his situation as I was in the same situation. However he proudly said he
overcame it and said a sentence I could never forget. “Why should we be ashamed
of our physical aspects? Those were given by the god and we can do nothing
about those. We should pity people who make fun of people, who cannot accept differences.”
After then, I told to myself “He overcame, why can’t I?”
 |
| AND WHO IS LAUGHING NOW????? |
Now,
the small kid rose above an inferiority complex and laughed away others’
criticisms and felt deep pity for them. Slowly, scars in his heart left by the
thorns cured.