Jessica's cultural icon

Like many other countries, Korea has some cultural icons, which have influenced people in a variety of ways and in many fields. Korea is a very small country and most people did not know anything about Korea even few years ago. However, there were several Korean, who let the world know about Korea. Kim Yu-na, who I am going to talk about, is one of them.

In the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic, all Korean were extremely excited the day when the final figure skating game was on. Everybody in Korea gathered in front of TV even stopped working and watched the game with breathless interest since Yu-na was going to challenge the champion and also the world record. When Yu-na finally got the gold medal, everyone went wild that day. Even she broke the world record, so she was the first female skater to surpass the 200-point mark ever since the ISU judging system has made. Also, this medal meant a lot to Korean people since Yu-na is the first Korea figure stake medalist in history. No one cared about this field because we thought that the figure skating is just not ours, but Yu-na changed our stereotype. So now, Yu-na is one of the most highly recognized athletes and media figures in Korea.

However, her life as a figure skater was not easy from the first even though she had a natural gift. Yu-na began skating at the age of 7 and her trainer noticed her talent so she recommended her mother make her keep doing skating. And Yu-na started showing her instinct for figure skating ,at 12 Yu-na won the senior title at the South Korean figure skating championships, becoming the youngest skater ever win that title. However, her parents did not have enough money to support her since the tuition fee and all equipments and clothes for skating were too expensive for them to afford. So, they tried to convince Yu-na to quit skating but they could not do that because Yu-na was full of passion about skating. If Yu-na gives up her dream at that time, present Yu-na could not have been existed.

Since Yu-na became famous, her agency produced the ice show. Ice All Stars,2009, which took place in Seoul on August, 2009, Michelle Kwan, who is Yu-na's idol and the most decorated figure skater in the U.S history, joined the ice show. Also, Yu-na took a role as an ambassador for the 2010-2012 Visit Korea Year and international UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Furthermore, Yu-na has been rated as one of the world's most influential people in 2010 by TIME. After the 2010 Winter Olympic, all press from all over the world exalted Yu-na's playing by releasing the articles about her even Hilary Clinton praised Yu-na's performance with a letter.

She also has appeared on multiple commercials in Korea even sings in some commercials and most companies earned plenty of money from advertising their products with her. For example, Samsung Electronics has sold over one million cell phone devices in a record seven months. So, Yu-na made a lot of money but she did not use all that money just for herself. Yu-na has donated more than 1.7millon dollars in last 3 years to support young figure skaters and patients suffering rare diseases and children in need. Because of this donation Yu-na has nicknamed as “queen Yu-na".

For all these reasons, Yu-na became the most highly recognized figures in Korea. She showed us the huge effort, passion, confidence, possibility and personal appeals. Although, Yu-na is just 20years old, she is very brave and audacious. A lot of young people admire Yu-na, I also think that she is fully qualified to be a cultural icon of Korea. Yu-na moved people's heart by playing perfect performance, not only Korean but also all people of the world. Everyone was touched because they could see the effort and hardship which Yu-na has been training, not just because of the glamorous of the shell.