Nella Fantasia

Choi Sung-Bong  on Korea's Got Talent

This video, one of  those I would normally ignore in Facebook despite the number of posts and re-posts on walls, is a must-watch. For some reason, also known as boredom, I decided to view it expecting another Rebecca Black-sort-of-video. Ooops, exactly the opposite. This person actually knows how to sing, and there was no ''rapper to make it a real song'' (as Conan O'brien said so in his Friday parody). I do not even understand Italian (he sang Nella Fantasia, which is by the way Italian) but right from that first note he hit, tears started rolling down my cheeks and it did until even after his song. 

His story and his deeply-rooted song are so powerful that I died almost instantly. With dying I mean shrinking, loathing myself and being ashamed. All my life (and I believe you would agree that you're guilty of the same thing) I have complained pretty much about little things—from breakfasts at home that I didn't like to restaurants that didn't serve good food, pillows that were too uncomfortable, homeworks, teachers who never got tired of explaining, waking up with less than 8 hours of sleep just to be in school, people who kept flooding my inbox with generic messages—name it! There was always something to complain about. And I went speechless after watching this. That was very insensitive of me! Sung-Bong lived like a ''day-fly''—no home, probably no food at times, no parents, no friends, no one to take care of him and be responsible for him. How lonely and hard can that be?!  

It's not like it was my first time to find out that such a situation existed. I am from the Philippines, and in Manila where I am currently staying,  I see children, elderly people and even able people everyday and everywhere living a life like what Sung-Bong had for a decade. So I have been aware since time immemorial of this gruesome reality. And plenty of times, I have also been inspired by stories of some who have made it successful despite all unimaginable and unfavorable circumstances. 

Sung-Bong's story is yet another wake-up call and a reminder of how blessed and fortunate we still are—that if he was able to put up with that kind of life for 10 years and still managed to be optimistic, to be full of dreams—then all the more that we are expected to value the kind of lives we have, our relationships with the people we love and who love us and to believe that our own dreams are achievable.