Korea.net on April 15 interviewed Roh Heeji, the nation's first hearing impaired news anchor, at the broadcast network KBS in Seoul's Yeongdeungpo-gu District ahead of Day of People with Disabilities on April 20. She acted more composed than expected, making her story all the more powerful and resilient. Rather than stop at being a national pioneer in her field, she repeatedly emphasized throughout the interview growth over comparison, acceptance over hiding and steady training over symbolism.
KBS news announcer Roh Heeji on April 15 poses for the camera at her KBS studio before her interview with Korea.net.
By Lee Jeongwoo
Photos = Lee Jeongwoo
"Comparing yourself with others is poisonous. Just compare yourself with your past self."
KBS news anchor Roh Heeji's wise words are more than just advice, they explain her arduous journey toward her profession.
Every day at noon, she hosts the lifestyle segment on KBS 1TV's "News 12." Having given presentations in front of people since childhood, she had long dreamed of becoming an announcer.
A congenital (Level 3) hearing impairment, however, saw the pursuit of her goal gradually fade given her struggles to listen and speak. Even today, she needs a hearing aid to clearly hear daily sounds.
Her disability took her life on a long and winding path. Majoring in media communication in college, she planned to enter advertising planning but faced another wall in a professional environment focused on collaboration. She was repeatedly rejected for jobs that she blamed on her disability, consequently leading to burnout after college.
While in the abyss of despair, she remembered her long-buried dream of becoming a news announcer.
"I thought it would be better to try and regret it instead of regret not trying," she said.
Roh Heeji on April 15 discusses the challenges she has faced in becoming a news announcer.
Driving her resolve was her younger sister, who is six years her junior and has the same hearing impediment. Roh didn't want her sister to go through the hurt and hesitation she experienced, and as someone who had walked that path, she wanted to become a more confident older sibling.
Roh said what changed her life was refraining from comparing herself with others. The experience of constant comparison with her peers while receiving speech therapy as a child suffocated her, she said.
What is more important is for one to be better than one's past self than to be ahead of others, she added.
"I believe that comparing yourself with other people is poisonous," she said. "You must compare yourself with whom you used to be. If your pronunciation is better today than yesterday, that's all that matters."
Roh Heeji practices her pronunciation while reading her script out loud before a live broadcast.
Roh's words reflect her rigorous daily routine. She reads out loud and records her script before going on air and listens to it repeatedly to fix her pronunciation, intonation and breathing given the limits to listening and reviewing her own pronunciation. She has some 8,000 voice memos saved on her smartphone, and continues to monitor and practice her vocals even after work.
Roh Heeji reviews her script before a live broadcast.
That is why news to Roh is more than reading sentences out loud; it involves precise understanding of an article and adjustment of facial expressions, eye contact and vocal tone to match the context. Her empathy grows deeper when she covers news on the socially vulnerable groups such as people with disabilities or children.
Roh Heeji hosts a live broadcast at KBS in Seoul's Yeongdeungpo-gu District.
"I want to be remembered as an empathetic anchor who can meticulously observe details that others might miss," she said.
She considers the title of "the nation's first hearing impaired anchor" not as a personal accomplishment but a name showing potential to others who might follow in her footsteps.
"Rather than seeing it as a personal achievement, I consider this title as showing the path for those who might follow in my footsteps to take on challenges a bit more easily," she said.
Roh urged social perceptions of disability to change, saying she hopes that disability is neither glorified nor seen as an object of pity but accepted as another way of life.
"I consider a disability just a unique trait and one of many ways of living," she said. "I hope that people don't hastily define limitations because of a disability."
Concluding the interview, she expressed the same message to Korea.net readers in saying that in this era when comparing oneself to others is easy, the standard for one's life must be oneself, not others.
Roh Heeji on April 15 poses for the camera. "I think of life as a one-way journey," she said. "You only live once, so you should compare yourself only to who you were in the past."
b1614409@korea.kr