It was my first summer vacation after I entered my university, and I wanted to spend my vacation well. So I planned that I would have a part-time job, study English hard, and go to the sea with my friends. But I didn't do even one of those things in the summer vacation. One day, I was spending my time doing nothing. I was watching TV while lying on the sofa changing channels with the TV remote control, when I saw a woman on a talk show.
　　　 I found out that her name was Kim Tae-yon, and she had succeeded in the computer business in the U.S. She looked like she was 30 years old, but she was in her 50s. Her face was pretty with big eyes and a big mouth, and she had whiteskin. She was splendid. She wore heavy make up, she wore a miniskirt and high-heeled shoes, and she had decked herself out with jewelry. She didn't look natural but artificial. I usually didn't like people who were superficial, but I liked her. It was her stature that surprised me most. She was only about 150 cm tall.
　　　 After I saw her on TV, I immediately bought her book that she had written about her life. The title of her book was Grand Master. She was born in the country on one January first in the 1940s, and she grew up being treated harshly by her grandfather because he thought that a daughter born on the first day of the new year was an evil omen. Also, whenever her father drank alcohol, he hit her. But she had confidence in herself because she learned taekwondo from her uncle, and she did everything actively. After she graduated from high school, she went to the U.S. with her family because her father went bankrupt. When she moved there for the first time, nobody paid attention to her. So she made herself known to people by visiting her neighbors from door to door. She started to teach taekwondo in a high school after she persuaded the principal to allow her to teach it to students. Also, she studied in a community college in the evening. She established an academy where she taught taekwondo with the money which she made by doing chores like washing dishes.
　　　 In addition, there were a lot of students who were involved in violence, sex, and drugs at her academy. She gave them love, and she praised the students for their courage though they did something small. In the meantime, she got married to an American man, but she was not happy and divorced soon. Nevertheless, she was not frustrated, and she adopted eight youths who went to her academy as her sons and daughters. Her five sons and three daughters were orphans and homeless. So she proposed that they could live in her house. Also, she started a computer business with her sons and daughters, and her company came to be included among the one hundred most promising enterprises in the U.S. Her company's name was Lighthouse, and the specialty of her company was clean-room monitoring systems
　　　 Kim Tae-yon is a proud Korean who made the American Dream come true. I hoped to be similar to her, so I tried to follow her example. Of course, she had a lot of influence on me. First, she made me think more positively. No matter how much difficulty she had in doing something, she had thought positively, saying to herself, "I can do it." Second, her example encouraged me to learn taekwondo. I told my father that I wanted to learn taekwondo, and he tried to persuade me to learn the art of fencing, because it is hard for women to learn taekwondo. But I decided to learn it because I wanted to be like Kim Tae-yon. Third, she helped me to have an unbiased view. I thought short people had a lot of disadvantages. For example, especially in the case of women, appearance, including stature, is important when they are employed.
　　　 Also, in my case, when I tried to do something, I sometimes heard the words, "You can't do it because you're too short." When I heard such words, I lost confidence in myself. But after seeing her, I didn't think that way anymore. Instead, I said to myself, "I will become a person who is small but big." And through her, I realized short people could succeed in their life and short people could even be powerful leaders like Napoleon, Park Jung-hee and Deng Xiao Ping in China. Also, I thought that women who wore heavy make up and dressed up might be foolish, but after seeing her, I thought that most women like that could do their best in all respects, because they look clean, and they look so perfect that they don't shed a drop of blood, despite being pierced by a needle. In conclusion, I spent my summer vacation doing nothing, but I found out about a small but big woman, and I learned a lot of positive things from her. I thought negatively that I was too short, so I couldn't a lot of things. But after I saw a woman who was shorter than me succeeded and did most things she wanted, I have a hope that I can do everything that I want. Also, I learned to develop mind and body equally is important.