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‘I have little, but I have never tried to live the lifestyles of people up there.’
October 31, 2009
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But to Lee Choon-ja, a tteokbokki vendor in Ulsan, the 163 million won in her bank account is the fruit of 19 years of tough decisions. Lee saved a part of each day’s earnings every single day. Those trials earned the 58-year-old won a national award during the celebration of National Savings Day, which fell on Tuesday, for savings and social consciousness. Lee, born in 1951 to a poor family, managed to go to elementary school only with the support of her elder sisters and brothers, just as Korea was emerging from the horrors of war. Girls in poor rural areas back then were usually raised to help out with household chores or on the farm instead of being sent to school. After graduating from grade school, Lee worked on her parents’ farm until she got married in 1976. Poverty still dogged her everyday life even after her marriage to a man who was then working at Hyundai Heavy Industries. She delivered bottles of milk every morning, peddled books and sold food on the street to make ends meet and send her two sons to school. In 1991, she managed open a small street stall of her own, where she sold tteokbokki, broiled slices of rice cake in spicy broth with meat and seasonings, a popular snack sold on nearly every corner of Korean cities. After starting her business, Lee was finally able to save money instead of spending all of her paychecks immediately on food and her children’s tuition. Lee opened a bank account at a nearby credit union, a favorite among poor street merchants. The merchants are usually too busy during the day to visit bank branches, so the clerks at the union usually visited their shops every day, collecting the day’s savings and putting the money in the merchants’ accounts later. “That way, I made a deposit every single day,” Lee said. Each day’s savings reflect Lee’s business fortunes, with deposits fluctuating between 5,000 won to several tens of thousands of won. That way, Lee managed to save a total of 162,790,000 won over the past 19 years - enough to buy a small house and send her sons to college. Today one is an X-ray technician, the other a factory worker at Samsung Electronics. “I have little, but I have never tried to live the lifestyles of people up there and have tried to live within my means,” she said. Lee often gives free noodles to elderly people in her area, which was part of why she received the award. By Park Hyun-young [hawon@joongang.co.kr] |
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