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Se-jin suddenly falls. The 10-year old rolls over hard, but Yang Jung-sook (30), his mother, plays it cool. "Look, the pavement was broken,¡± she says. Her son is running on artificial legs which, she reminds him, are made from the stuff they use to make airplanes, and they¡¯re as hardy as you¡¯d expect. "Wow! My legs are invincible!" Se-jin says, stands up and runs again. "I think he should learn how not to be surprised when he falls,¡± she sighs. ¡°He¡¯ll face so much trouble¡¦" Se-jin's legs rattle as he moves.
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Kim Se-jin, after finishing the 3.8-km course at the Sydney Marathon on artificial legs, waves the Korean national flag with his mother Yang Jung-sook in Sydney on Sunday./Courtesy of the Purme Foundation
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He has already completed a 3.8-km race. Sponsored by the Purme Foundation and S-Oil, he participated in the Sydney Marathon in Sydney on Sunday. Six other disabled marathoners from Korea also took part in the competition, including Bae Hyung-jin (22), the inspiration for the movie "Malaton," and Cha Seung-woo (44), a visually impaired runner. Se-jin's left leg ends around the middle of the calf and his right leg ends at the thigh. He finished the 3.8-km ¡°family run¡± course from the Harbour Bridge to the Opera House in about 50 minutes.
Se-jin is also a national swimmer for Korea in the Paralympics. Last May, he won the silver medal at the IPC Swimming World Championships. In 2005, he climbed the 3,870-m Rockies with artificial legs. Walking with artificial legs is as arduous as walking with a 20-kg burden for an adult man.
With the starting signal, Se-jin was off to a strong start. Arriving at the middle of the bridge, a man pushing an elderly woman approached him. "My mother is blind,¡± he said. ¡°Hearing about a boy running with artificial legs, she wanted to meet him." Se-jin grabbed the old woman's hands and said, "My name is Se-jin. Please be healthy, grandmother." The old woman said with laugh, "I¡¯m very glad to meet such a brave boy."
Se-jin was adopted when he was two; his adopted mother found him when she was volunteering at a childcare center. "When I first met Se-jin, I felt as if someone was saying to me, 'Congratulations, you are pregnant.'" Herself once an apparatus gymnast, she became paralyzed from the waist down in an accident when she was 17. But after four year's rehab, she was completely cured.
She decided to seek ways to help Se-jin walk. Doctors said it was impossible, but she didn't believe them. She put baby shoes around Se-jin's limbs and told him every day, "Se-jin, you may wear this shoes some day. You may walk some day."
It took a great deal of sweat and tears. When he first got artificial legs at the age of four, he just seemed to practice how to fall for a month. Whenever his mother heard people say, "Would you drive him so hard if he were your son by blood?" she had to hold back tears. Until Se-jin became to be able to walk, he went on his knees together with his mother. Then, after a month, he got the knack of standing up by himself.
The parents of children who went to the same school with Se-jin forced him to change schools, saying their children imitated his walk. Se-jin changed kindergartens 13 times, and elementary schools five times. But the ill treatment only made Se-jin and his mother stronger. When they went to a restaurant, a customer complained of "losing his appetite": his mother carried him on her back and left the restaurant on her knees, saying, "My son is being expelled for having no legs, so I can¡¯t walk out of here on foot."
Near the finish line in Sydney, people cheer Se-jin. His mother asks him why so many people seem happy for him. "Maybe because I show them everything is possible by working hard," he ventures. Still, when he takes off his artificial legs after the race, his stumps are badly swollen.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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