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Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 17th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2014> Happy Lee Hee-Ah, South Korea—The Four-Fingered Piano Angel
 [Overcome disability and play the everlasting music of life.]

I have never complained, though I am different from others. I believe that as long as I am positive toward life, I can find happiness. As long as I am happy, all the criticism and negativity from others won’t do me any harm.
—Lee Hee-Ah
 
Spreading the music of love all over the world
From the stage came the lively melody of Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu, in which expressed the love and courage of the pianist that was keenly felt by the audience. With the support and love of her mother, Lee Hee-Ah overcomes her disability and learns to play many famous piano pieces. She has become the four-fingered piano angel and brings the music of love all over the world. 

If you close your eyes and listen to her music, you won’t be able to guess that it is played by a disabled girl who has no feet and shanks, and only two fingers on each hand. Lee Hee-Ah was born in Seoul on July 9, 1985. She wants to make the most of what she has, and this determination has made a difference to her life.
 
Four can be better than ten—a miracle
Lee Hee-Ah was born with serious deformity. She has only two fingers on each hand, no shanks and no feet. She is only 103 centimeters tall, and suffers from intellectual and learning disability.

Accompanied by her mother all the time, Lee Hee-Ah played the piano 10 hours a day as a kind of rehabilitation. She tried hard and never gave up. After countless hours of practice, her skills improved by leaps and bounds. The music played with her four fingers was so touching that she was awarded many prizes, the most remarkable being the one awarded by the president of South Korea. At the same time, she graduated from college as the best student of the year. 
 
Learning to play Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu 
Among all the pieces that Lee Hee-Ah learned to play, none of them was easy for her. To learn a piece of music, she had to memorize every note, exerting ten times more effort than others. 

It took her five years and six months to learn Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu. She practiced and practiced, using her four fingers like ten. Lee Hee-Ah loves Chopin, and all the romantic things in the world. Besides playing the piano, she also sings beautifully.
 
Sending love together with Richard Clayderman
To raise money for the service fund for the disabled, Lee has taken part in charity performances in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Her endeavor has touched the Canadian piano prince Richard Clayderman. They later performed together, sending love to millions of people.

Lee Hee-Ah also recorded the pieces she played during her charity performances, including Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu in C Sharp Minor, Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, Schubert’s Serenade, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, Martini’s Plaisir d'amour. She sold the albums to help the disabled and the disadvantaged. 
 
Music is the best makeup
In 2003, Lee’s father, who became disabled due to an accident at work, passed away from cancer. She then lived with her mother. With the love and care of her mother, Lee’s mental development did not seem to be hampered by her innate disability.

Lee Hee-Ah is an outgoing and optimistic girl. Her English name is Happy. She smiles all day. She loves music as much as she enjoys life. 

She thought of giving up, but music gave her consolation, self-esteem, and courage. Every day, Lee Hee-Ah overcomes her disability with music. She is also grateful that she is able to use her music talent to share her many feelings with others. “Music is the best makeup,” is a motto of hers. She is optimistic toward life, and her greatest wish is to bring hope to those who suffer from illnesses by playing the piano, and ask the majority of people to cherish every moment of their lives.
 
Overcome disability and play the everlasting music of life
Happy Lee Hee-Ah has transformed her disability into love. She overcomes all the difficulties and creates the miracle which proves that a person with four fingers can also make beautiful music. She has taken part in many charity performances with the piano prince Richard Clayderman, sending the music of love all over the world.
 
Mother’s Love
When Lee Hee-Ah was born in 1985, she weighed no more than 2.5 kilograms. She had no feet and no shanks. She could not open her both hands and her fingers were deformed. What’s worse, her brain was slightly damaged. As her mother, Woo Kap-Sun was heartbroken, but she still believed that Lee Hee-Ah was the gift given by God, and would do her best to raise her up. 

Lee still could not talk when she was 18 months old. Not until she turned two could she sit, and she finally learned to walk on her knees at five. But both her hands were still so weak that she was not able to live on her own at all. To strengthen Lee’s hands, her mother sent her to learn the piano. Lee’s mother was very strict, and asked her to practice the piano 10 hours a day. It was after half a year that Lee Hee-Ah successfully played a proper note on the piano. She was very grateful for her mother. “Had it not been for her, I could not have come  this far,” she said.
 
Writing her own songs and stories
When Lee Hee-Ah was five, her mother found that she had some difficulties with numbers. She could not even understand why one plus one equals two. But by coincidence, the mother found that her daughter was sensitive to music and could memorize every song she heard. She then sent Hee-Ah to learn to play the piano.

Things were very tough at first. Some skills were already quite hard for common people, and Lee had to do them with only four fingers. The tedious practices and the way people stared at her as if she were an alien made her feel stressed and uneasy. There were a time when she could not breathe normally at the sight of her piano tutor, and fainted as soon as she touched the piano.

As Lee Hee-Ah said, that was the most difficult time in her life. But with her mother’s love and her passion for piano, she never gave up. She wrote her own children’s book to tell the young readers about her love for piano, her prospects for life, and her will to overcome suffering.
 
Practice makes perfect
Many may think that only gifted people can learn music well, but Lee Hee-Ah has proved them wrong. Lee says that it is extremely hard to play the melody smoothly with her four fingers, so she has to practice 10 hours a day to meet the demand of her tutor.

Lee’s brain injuries also make it hard for her to follow the tempo of the music. Today she still cannot read sheet music. She has learned to play all pieces by memorizing the pitch and the tempo.

Now Lee Hee-ya travels all over the world for tour recitals. She plays classical masterpieces with the utmost musicality. Her music is very touching. Besides, it is also enjoyable to watch her fingers moving fast on the keyboard beautifully.
 
Reunion with Shao Xiao-Ling
In 2006, Lee Hee-ya performed together with Shao Xiao-Ling, wife of Taichung City mayor. Unfortunately, Shao was seriously injured in a car crash in November, with her left arm amputated. When Lee came to Taiwan in 2009 for another charity performance, the first thing she did after she got off the plane was to visit her. Shao had not fully recovered and could not speak clearly. But as soon as Lee Hee-Ah began to play the piano, the atmosphere suddenly became light and warm. Once again, the two women with great courage and perseverance have shared their lives through music. Although both had faced with great difficulties in life, they have overcome them and moved on to living a better life.
 
A Letter from Lee Hee-Ah--I Want to Share My Happiness with Everyone
I played the piano for the first time when I was five. My mom was very strict on me at that time and sometimes scolded me. But she always answered my questions patiently after I finished practicing the piano. Although my dad is already in the heaven, I remember that he always chatted with me with a smile on his face, just like my friend. Thanks to my parents, many friends of mine compliment me on my wonderful speaking skills.

I am very short, so I like the children who are as small as me. Although sometimes they play tricks on me as if I were their toy, as long as I am willing to get along with them, we can become very good friends. People have been very nice to me since I was little. I want to thank the priest and the director of the hospital. They let me follow my mom to work at the hospital, so I have been practicing the piano for 10 years in the hospital. 

I also want to thank my piano tutor, Ms. Cho. She helps me overcome my disability and set specific learning goals step by step for me to follow. I want to thank Ms. Kim, the most beautiful and elegant teacher, who teaches me to express my own feelings and turn the dull piano sound to touching melodies. When I was practicing the piano in the U.S., Ms. Lee taught me to look into the future through music. And thanks to Ms. Han who has forsaken the world now, I can discover my passion for music deep within myself.

Last but not least, I want to thank Jesus who is with me all the time.

The love from people around us makes me determined, determined to become a person like Helen Keller. I want to share the love I have received with those who are disabled and those who are in difficulties. For me, the music I play is valuable only when I play it for the purpose of helping others, or it will be valueless. I do not play the piano for competing with others but for giving back what I have received from others. And the reason I live is to bring happiness to others.

Lastly, I want to thank the Chou, Ta-Kuan Foundation in Taiwan for awarding this medal to me and all the warriors who fight for their lives.

Sincerely,
Lee Hee-Ah