[non-BYJ] the world's still beautiful
noticed a new blog link on flowerbossa's blog. it says Never Forget You. naturally i got curious and clicked. it brought me to rememberLSH.almost immediately i thought of that story of that brave young man who taught us that the world's still beautiful. guess most of us would have heard about the LSH scholarship and its origins by now, huh? but regardless, i still want to give an account of the story and all that jazz. so again, this is not quite BYJ-related stuff, do feel free to skip the rest of this blog post.
i first heard of this LSH story from the Blue Sky Jooney BSJ site. yea, that's the one satovic is active in. you do know that BSJ has organized quite a number of charity events, right? yea, they would mostly do screenings or charity sales in tokyo, kyoto and osaka. i think in particular they're most active on valentine's day and also wuri yong joon's birthday. which is quite a nice interval, allowing the BSJ team to organize an event every six months or so. anyway, other than the time they donated for the disaster victims, especially for the niigata earthquake sufferers, LSH Scholarship is the other main cause the BSJ team has taken up.
and i thought it's a wonderful place to start doing good. why? coz first of all, it's kindda a japanese-korean cause, and how more appropriate can it get for this group of japanese ladies who love a korean man? and secondly, it's about education, always signifying hope for the future. i just like the positivity of it all. and thirdly, it's an excellent cause to help for it promotes and facilitates better understanding between the two cultures between japan and korea. what politics may not be able to achieve, perhaps nearer the ground and nearer the heartbeat of the common folks, we can bring two cultures closer. great cause to help, i personally believe so.
now let's share abit about the story.
lee soo hyun was a young man from pusan on korea's south coast. he had studied all his life in korea, and had also served the army. he was an intelligent and active young man, with a seemingly bright and happy future ahead of him. together with his father, the two dreamt of doing trading business between korea and japan, hoping to bridge the japan-korea divide at the grassroots level.
in january 2000, lee left korea to go to japan. the aim was to study and master the japanese language in japan for some 15 months or so, then return to pursue an economics degree in Korea University. that was the plan.
he was already there for a year when the unfortunate accident happened. all this while he had been studying japanese at Akamonkai language school and he was also doing some part-time work to supplement his living expenses.
on the evening of 26 january 2001, a seemingly normal friday, he knocked off from work at an internet cafe and headed for shin okubo train station to go home. incidentally, the shin okubo area is also where tokyo's little korean town is.
at about 7:15pm, the station was abuzz with activities. the evening rush hour crowd was out there in full force. a japanese man sakamoto who was drunk suddenly fell onto the tracks. lee and another bystander, japanese photographer from an advertising agency, shiro sekine, reacted immediately. the two men who did not know each other broke past the rush hour crowd and leapt onto the tracks to rescue the drunken man who had fallen.
but the rescue effort was in vain. the train had come upon them and it simply could not stop in time. all three men were crushed.
i had done a bit of reading and can imagine the aftermath rippling across the two nations from this accident. especially in japan, the outpouring of sympathy in the japanese media for a foreigner, especially a korean, was rather unusual. no, don't get me wrong, i'm just saying given the long history of complications, it's quite surprising the amount of attention and the level of sympathy for this accident.
it was front-page news in japan the very next day. most bannering headlines of mourning praising the heroic act. amongst some of these headlines were: "A sense of justice fallen on the tracks," "An act of courage turns into tragedy", "Two who risked their lives". i guess you can say these serve as fair indicators of the depth of emotion that had gripped japan at that time.
in fact, it was so big a story then that even the then prime minister of japan mori attended lee's funeral service. click here to read more about what he had to say.
lee was all of 26 years old. and lee was supposed to return to his home country that march, yes just two more months.
and... the even sadder thing i've read was how he had just called his girlfriend some 30 minutes before the accident. he had told her the train's coming, and he'd be home soon.
so sad. as i was writing that last paragraph, i actually had goosebumps on my arms. it's just so so so sad.
that was in january 2001, five and a half years ago. and every year since then, a simple ceremony would be held in tokyo on 26th january for people to remember LSH.
here are some pictures from some of the remembrance ceremonies, taken from the official LSH scholarship site.
2002.01.26
2003.01.26
2004.01.26
2005.01.26
2006.01.26
a year later, this news broke. yea, lee's parents announced the start of the LSH scholarship, with lee's parents chipping in with 100 million yen to start the 300 million yen scholarship fund. i can't be sure, but i believe the japanese media and/or public started donation drives after lee's heroic death, and the money went to lee's parents. so quite possibly, they wanted to donate the money they had received to help others. now it's not that they haven't been transparent enough with the information, it's just that a lot of the information are in japanese, so i can't be sure of the mechanics of the scholarship.
anyhow, if you want to read more about the LSH scholarship, click here and here.
there are also pictures of the scholarship award ceremonies on both the LSH and BSJ websites. this one's from 2004. the top picture shows lee's parents and the bottom picture is a group picture from the LSH scholarship award ceremony that year. fyi, the ceremonies usually take place in the months of october or november every year.
BSJ has done much to help them. from what i can gather from the BSJ site, they've made at least two donations to LSH scholarship. here are the receipts issued to them, and also a a certificate of appreciation for BSJ.
although i kept saying BSJ, the truth is they didn't even make the donation in their club's name. instead, the money was donated in the name of 'The People Who Love Bae Yong Joon'. very nice and quite selfless huh? i mean, there are fanclubs and there are fanclubs. i mean, they could have jolly well donated in the name of BSJ, and thereby increasing their own profile. but they chose not to. personally, i think that's quite big of them.
the LSH effects do not stop just here. even books have been written about the story. here's a look. and once again, picture lifted from BSJ site. sorry, i didn't ask for permission to use the pictures, i hope they don't mind.
and now... a movie's coming out about the story. this one's a japanese-korean collaboration. the director junji hanadou is a japanese and the cast mainly korean. if you read japanese, you can check out the director's blog here. otherwise, our dear flowerbossa is in the midst of translating parts of the blog into english.
you can click here to read more. there's an official site for the movie Never Forget You, and it's here. in case you can't read japanese and just want to look the pictures taken off the set and also some stills from the scenes already completed, you can click here.
here's a picture of the korean actor lee tae sung who's playing the role of lee hyun soo in the movie Never Forget You.
and here're a couple of pictures from the movie's press conference held in january this year.
i'm not sure when the movie will be completed, but from the pictures i've seen on its official site, seems like they've made much progress. the korean leg of the shooting is completed already, even the parts about him in the army, in school and all that. and i'm also not sure if the movie will be released outside of japan and korea. i sure hope so. coz even though we're not japanese or korean, but the theme and morale of the story are universal. anyhow, i do hope i get to see it.
anyhow, i've been to shin okubo twice and the most recent visit was in april this year. i took these pictures when i was there. yea, this is where the accident happened.
there's actually a plaque at the shin okubo station put up in remembrance of the two heroes. here's a picture lifted from the BSJ site.
and now... you must be wondering if my super-long story is ending soon... well, almost. just one more bit of detail. in an almost eerily strange but somewhat beautiful freak of a chance, something similar happened at the very same place.
yes, in may this year, a korean student saved a drunken japanese woman who had fallen off onto the tracks. it was at the same train station where the lee accident happened some years ago. here's a picture of this young korean hero. his name is shin hyun-gu.
when interviewed, shin had said, "I didn’t feel the weight when I was lifting her (the Japanese student) up to the platform... I think the deceased Lee Soo-hyun gave me strength ... I feel strangely connected to him."
and oh btw, he too went to Akamonkai language school, the same one as lee. spooky no? but in the nice-spooky way, i suppose. click here to read more about this news.
okay, now we're finally at the last bit of my story this afternoon. i would like to applaud BSJ for their loving act of contributing in the name of 'The People Who Love Bae Yong Joon'.
and if you want to find out more about BSJ's upcoming charity event for wuri yong joon's birthday this month, click here for flowerbossa's translation of the news.
i would also like to thank flowerbossa for her effort to bring the story of the movie to us. and this time's for real, lastly, i want to thank all wuri yong joon and our sisters for reminding me the world's still beautiful.
have a beautiful weekend.
p.s. sorry, i can't say much about it here. but i wish wish wish gosireh and yong joon lots of luck.
posted by bb @ 8/05/2006 03:55:00 PM
13 Comments:
My dear bb,
I am speechless...
All I can say, is thank you for doing this.
AND, as usual, I learned something new from your posting!
The team is working hard to finish shooing this month, and will have its first screening at the Pusan International Film Festival in October.
The official release date is:
January 26, 2007.
The day we all came to learn of a beautiful young man called Lee Soo Hyun.
Thank you again.
Love,
flowerbossa
*applause applause*
well done BSJ ! well done flowerbossa ! well done bb !
thank u for bringing us again tis wonderful piece of 'life story'.
like u i was having goosebumps reading the part about the 2nd rescue. few months ago there was another rescue of tis kind but tis happened in Seoul. cant remember which station it was but if im not mistaken it was the purple line. a young child has fallen onto the track n came a college student to her rescue. the act was caught on video. it was almost like a lightning. it was totally amazing how he rushed from the platform n jumped down to the track grab the gal n somehow with one giant step he leaped up to the narrow path that separates both tracks (know what i mean?)
it really makes u think how these ppl can actually risk their lives for others. or were they even thinking of themselves then?
yeah~ thank god for ppl like these the world is still a beautiful place. and we human still do have a heart~
Wow, thank you for the wonderful story. Yes, people like this make this world a better place to live. I am glad that there has been a memorial service every year to remember LSH and the Japanese man. I hope the people of both Japan and Korea never forget these two men who gave their lives for others regardless of nationalities and politics.
hey flowerbossa,
it's okay, i thoroughly enjoyed reading the stories and news. haha, only thing is i had to read alot of them with the online translator! hope i've got most, if not all, of the facts right :p
oh, 26th jan 2007? yea, can't pick a more appropriate date than that, i guess. and here's wishing them good response and good reviews at PIFF in oct!
thanks for taking the time to read thru the bloody long-winded post :p
yea, yokee, quite admirable really... these people...
i would imagine somehow there's this selfless streak in them that made them just leap to their feet to reach out and help whoever... i suppose they didn't even spare a moment to think or consider or hesitate...
you know if it's not one of those dual track thingy, it can be terribly difficult to climb back up onto the platform once on the tracks.
in lee soo hyun's case... it's really really sad that none of them survived. that said and done, i also think the japanese photographer sekine was just as heroic. it's just that his deed was probably overshadowed by the fact that lee was a korean saving a japanese. there's really no difference in their selflessness. so, kudos to all.
and as much as i hate to say this... but i too think we adults ought to be responsible for our own actions. if we drink, don't drive. and if we drink to this extent that we would fall onto tracks, then maybe we should have taken a cab or gotten a friend to help or something. one shouldn't risk one's own life, and also others'.
hey addicted,
back so soon? and hey, thanks for reading that post through, i know it's long. yea, both men should be remembered and honored :)
bb thanks for sharing this. been reading tidbits of this story but didn't really know the whole thing until i read your blog.
many thanks again!
hey liezle,
actually me too... :p
haha, didn't know much except probably the same bits you knew. flowerbossa's translation of the director's blog got me curious... so i started reading, and then viola! the blog post!
sob sob bb, you want to make my eyes all swollen in this beautiful Saturday afternoon?
It's so sad to read about a young man with a bright future and his life just ended so abruptly. I heard so many times when these survived heros are interviewed after the incidents, they all claimed that they didn't give it a second thought before committing their heroic acts. That's their natural reaction and they didn't think of it as heroic at all. I think these are the people who are raised to be generous, kind and helpful whenever, wherever they can. Thank God there are still parents who bring up their children teaching them to think of others instead of themselves first.
The same goes for BSJ, satovic, flowerbossa, bb, other translators and administrators of the BYJ sites. Without your selfless and tireless effort, we will not be able to read so quick and so much about our prince. Thanks.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need o cut up 2 slices of cucumber and patch them over my eyes. Can't be looking like a panda for the party tonight!
OK,now you have done it! Got me in major tears. That is okay! But this story is so sad and yet beautiful. This is what the world is all about, helping our neighbors! Thinking of others before ourselves. It's hard sometimes to believe there is still good out there but these kinds of human acts prove otherwise. These two certainly were special angels and I am thankful this story is reaching all over the world.
Let's hope we all learn to be more responsible with our actions. Our lives affects everyone around us.
Anxious to see the movie!
Thank you for sharing!
hey jaime,
thanks for taking the time to read this. and yea, thank god there're still people like that around to remind us that the world's still beautiful.
quite sad that it sometimes takes a sad story like this to jolt our system. btw, read this kindda cruel article on the second rescue case. not singling out the japanese, i just wanna say that in quite many so-called modern societies, that is the case too.
hey mrs a,
thank you too for reading the story. and yea, at the end of the day, we should be responsible for our own actions.
i understand that there're quite a few burning debates when the first rescue case happened. some questioned why one had to risk one's life for someone who didn't take responsibility for his own drunken action. and some asked is it really right to risk one's own life to help someone, knowing that if one dies from it, one's family would be left in a lurch....
hard questions with no easy answers, i guess.
well, I think that debate is silly. The people involved did what they felt they had to do. I don't believe they gave it a second thought. They were special kind and loving people - we need to learn from them. I would hope I would do the same but until you are in that predicament who honestly knows. No one can say what is right or wrong for that person. Each of us falter and do stupid stuff at times and I believe each of us should be there to help those in need wherever, whenever we can. May sound corny but what I believe that in my heart and how I was taught.
bb-don't matter what you write I will read it! It is a ME Task, something I do for myself! :)
stay cool! Hubby taking me out for a steak dinner since working 7 longs days a week lately and then gonna come home crash and watch some WS. MMM...WHAT A GREAT WAY TO END THE DAY SEEING HS SMILE!
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