'Keep your life rolling'
.jpg?w=728)
Lee Hyun-a
By Park Si-soo
Bringing retirees back to work is one of the primary goals of President Park Geun-hye, who is a firm believer of the adage, “A job is the best form of welfare.”
In this vein, the government is pressing the public and private sectors to rehire experienced retirees, including women who quit their job for childcare.
Yet this policy seems unlikely to benefit skilled housewives who have no working experiences but want to become economically productive.
If so, how will their skills be used? Lee Hyun-a may have an answer.
‘Do what you can do well’
Lee seemed to be full of confidence. Styled with a figure-hugging ivory shirt and faded jeans, she was sitting upright with legs crossed at a coffee shop in Yeoksam, Seoul, while gazing out through a glass wall.
Her clear eyes, flawless facial skin and, above all, coke bottle-shaped body line well demonstrated her physical healthiness.
By appearance, it’s not an exaggeration to assume she is in her late 30s or early 40s.
Let’s check her profile to avoid being fooled further by her “misleading” visage: Lee turned 51, a mother of two adult sons, aged 29 and 21.
She is a professional bodybuilder who won several domestic competitions. She is now pushing herself into painful muscle-building exercises to snatch a ticket for an international competition in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, in June.
“I climb a small mountain behind my house for nearly 40 minutes every morning and spend two or three hours doing various muscle-making exercises at a gym in the afternoon,” Lee told The Korea Times recently. “I should reduce my in-body fat below 10 percent before the contest. Now it’s 14 percent.”
Her self-made lunch was something special which she said is helpful in accelerating fat burning and defining muscles: seven pieces of sweet potato, two pieces of steamed chicken breast, a handful of chopped radish marinated in vinegar and a bottle of vitamin-rich water.
“Young bodybuilders used to intake chemical supplements to make muscles easily. But I don’t like that way,” she said. “I just do within my capacity.”
Lee has several jobs: fitness trainer, lecturer (on health care) and sometimes modeling. Contrary to convention, she secured these jobs at the prime of her adult age.
She married shortly after graduating from high school and then committed herself to taking care of her husband until 2006 when she felt the need to reinvent her life.
“Then I had turned 44. As my children became adults, I began to feel lonely,” she recalled. “So I decided to pursue a dream I had when I was young, which was modeling. The first thing I did was enrolling a gym to lose weight and shape up my body beautifully. It was very exciting from the beginning so I did exercises more and harder.”
Lee made the first visible achievement only in two years: winning a regional competition hosted by the Seoul Mayor.
“I exercised a lot prior to the contest. Nevertheless, the result was something I didn’t expect. Then I realized that this is what I can do well,” she said. “I believe that everybody has a talent that is superior to anybody else. If you don’t have expertise to work with, what about, first of all, searching yourself deeply to find your given talent?”
She went on, “If you are good at house cleaning, draw up a business plan to make money with it. If you are interested in cooking or sewing, explore ways to do business with it. Look at Martha Stewart,” referring to an American billionaire who started her business using skills she learned while carrying out domestic activities.
'Job makes family happier’
A job’s function is not just making money, she noted.
“We are all vulnerable to stress. When I was a full-time housewife, there was no proper way for me to vent it out. It frequently led to emotional clashes with my spouse or kids. In addition, I felt increasingly alienated and received less respect from family members,” she said. “But all of these changed after I landed a job.”
She conceded that there would be few full-time housewives with young children who are able to start working without family opposition because in Korea doing childcare and household chores have long been considered one of the primary and inalienable duties of married women.
“It may be tough to overcome the opposition. But if you’re determined (to have a career), push it forward,” she said. “There is nothing you can get for free. If you succumb to the family pressure, it would be better for you to spend the rest of your life just carrying out domestic affairs because there are much bigger and stronger challenges at work. Nevertheless I would like to suggest that you GET OVER IT!”
Currently, Lee is a senior at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, majoring in sport sciences. She plans to keep studying after graduation to earn a master’s degree in the same field.
Asked about her ultimate dream, she simply answered with a chuckle, “I want to become a fashion model.”