This story will inspire you... to realize how anyone can overcome adversity!
What do you do when you’re born with two digits on each hand and your
legs are amputated at the knees when you’re three? Well, if you’re Hee
Ah Lee, you become a concert pianist. She is quite a pro at it now, and
you’ll love hearing her play... watch this video below:
Hee Ah Lee was born with sever physical deformities. She only had two
fingers on each hand. And her legs ended at her knees. Her doctors
didn’t expect her to live.
But she did live. At the age of six she started to play piano. At the
time, her four fingers were very weak. She couldn’t even hold a pencil.
Her mother hoped playing piano would strengthen her grip.
It worked. But more than that, Lee found a calling. She now tours the
world, playing for stunned audiences. She plays pieces that would be
difficult for able-bodied pianists.
The videos are real and Hee Ah Lee is Authentic. It is the story of a
mother and a daughter who have overcome odds from the very beginning.
Lee’s mother became unexpectedly pregnant while married to a disabled
man. Doctors told her that because of a medication she had been taking
her child would not be normal. She elected to continue with the
pregnancy and in 1985 in Seoul, South Korea, little Hee Ah Lee was born
with only two fingers on each hand, disfigurement of her legs, and
slight brain injury. The hospital told Sun that she could not care for
the child at home and relatives wanted her to place the child for
adoption in a foreign country. Sun thought her baby was beautiful,
however, and was determined that she would live a successful life.
When Lee was a pre-schooler her mother decided that she wanted her
daughter to take piano lessons and for two reasons. One was that she
felt it would help her strengthen her hands so she could hold a pencil.
The other was that she felt that if she could master the piano, she
could master anything. For six months piano schools turned them down
then the one teacher who did accept the task got discouraged and wanted
to quit. It became a three-month contest of wills between mother and
daughter that led to a confrontation in which Sun actually threw her
daughter on the floor in frustration. She said Lee got back up on the
piano bench and for the first time played the children’s song she had
been trying to learn. That was the turning point and one year later Lee
won the grand prize in a piano concert for Kindergartners. It was at
age 7 that Lee won Korea’s 19th National Handicap Conquest Contest and
was presented with her award by the President of Korea.
Today Lee is 22, has won numerous awards, and is a widely traveled
concert pianist with more than 200 appearances. Her first album titled
“Hee-ah, a Pianist with Four Fingers” was to be released in June, 2008.
Lee gives tribute to her mother for challenging her to master the
piano and said that although her training was difficult, “as time went
by, the piano became my source of inspiration and my best friend.”
A man sat at a metro station
in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January
morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that
time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went
through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three
minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician
playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then
hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist
received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and
without stopping, and continued to walk.
A few minutes later,
someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at
his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother
tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist.
Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk,
turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other
children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed
for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their
normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took
over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any
recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua
Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just
played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth
$3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro
station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social
experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The
outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do
we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the
talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best
musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many
other things are we missing?
into that gentle night.
