The light in my grandmother’s eyes

Kim Ireh

The author is a student at Chadwick International in Songdo, Incheon.  

My grandmother’s eyes look normal apart from an eyelid that sags sometimes, covering her prosthetic right eye. You’d have to look closely to see it was blind.

 “Whenever I walked through a new place, my biggest fear would be the groups of boys,” my grandma told me. “They were always the ones who glared at me and laughed at me.”

My grandma’s childhood home was right behind a beautiful lake in Cheongju. She described the thatched houses and the big orphanage in town, along with a shelter for those who fled from the North. Back then, all the children in town played together outside. Whenever my grandma was on her way home from school or delivering food to her friend, she encountered groups of boys who called her “Ekku.” This was a name used for people who were “not right.”

My grandma loved reading books like Anne of Green Gables (1908) and Heidi (1880), set in distant places like a Canadian island and the Swiss Alps. The books allowed her to travel far away from her reality in Cheongju. She loved learning in school and always wanted to become someone great, like the teachers she admired. But when my grandma first applied to become a teacher, she failed the physical test. Her vision wasn’t good enough.

“My hardest time was when I was refused that first step into society,” she said.

A few years later, she applied again. This time the nurse didn’t require her to take the physical test but simply asked my grandma to rate her own eyesight. My grandma told her she could see fine in both eyes. She lied. Although her dream of becoming a teacher came true, she felt guilt, regret and overwhelming sadness due to the lie she told. She read the Bible over and over and kept lingering on verses that talked about how lying is a sin. After three years, she quit her job. The guilt was too much.

“I pleaded with the Lord to take my ailment away from me,” she said. “But he replied, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ ”

A few years later, my grandma was given an opportunity to become a teacher once more. She took the same test but received a waiver for the physical portion. She told me how thankful she was that the education system had improved. The new policies made it possible for those who had partial blindness to become a teacher.

As I listened to her story, I was at a loss for words over how much she had endured in her life. Then I remembered the time I was forced to sit in a wheelchair due to my injured leg. I remembered the feeling of bumpy, uneven roads and mismatched bricks and the electric scooters zooming past me on either side, making me feel like the wheelchair would tip over and everyone would trample me. People looked at me with surprise and pity, and some even whispered and pointed at me. I realized that even though our treatment of disabled people has improved since my grandmother’s childhood, there is still much work to be done.  

No matter how hard the government tries to create an inclusive city, it can’t happen without the citizens participating. However, I realized that the majority of people, including myself, don’t know where and how to start taking action. This led me and my friend to develop a web game called “Mayor for a Day,” where players become a mayor and renovate cities to increase disability inclusivity and the overall inclusivity rate. Players can improve infrastructure by adding low-floor buses, convenient ramps, and more elevators in subway stations. Players can also launch education campaigns to raise awareness of the obstacles faced by people like my grandmother.

Your first step in taking action doesn’t have to be grand. It could start with watching a documentary, reading an article or playing a video game. But as society’s view towards disabled people changes, the country will change.