Korea's 'Susan Boyle' Choi Sung-Bong's Overcomes Troubled Past
The 22-year-old manual worker barely makes enough to live on for a day.
Aug. 21, 2011, SEOUL, South Korea -- He sings of a fantasy where everyone lives in peace, honesty, free-spirit, and full of humanity.
That's something Choi Sung-Bong never imagined to have even existed before signing up for the "Korea's Got Talent" show hosted by TVN, an entertainment cable channel, in South Korea.
The 22-year-old manual worker has been living like a "dayfly," as he calls it, barely making a living enough for a day.
But his baritone challenge at the finals on Saturday pulling out a powerful rendition of "Nella Fantasia," marked him first runner up following Joo Min-Jung, an 18-year-old popping dancer by only 280 votes.
It was the same song he had stunned the world with in the pre-trials in June when he told the judges of his tragic childhood story.
The video instantly became an international sensation, attracting almost 12 million YouTube and Facebook fan page hits and has been dubbed a Korean version of Susan Boyle from "Britain's Got Talent."
Even world-class pop singers like Justin Bieber uploaded Choi's video on his Twitter and Facebook fanpage, with praises and support.
Bieber tweeted "This is awesome. NEVER SAY NEVER and good luck to this kid. great story. WATCH THIS."
"Frankly, I wanted to win. But what meant the most is that I felt love and genuine interest in me," said Choi, immediately after the show was over. "There are people out there who really care. I felt it. And I'm proud to have come this far."
An Uphill Battle
But Choi's life has been an uphill battle, a very steep one.
Choi was abandoned at an orphanage at age three.
To run away from frequent beatings there, he got on a bus when he turned 5-years-old and ended up in a red-light district full of nightclubs and bars in Daejeon, about 100 miles south of Seoul.
Choi sold gum and energy drinks with fake Viagra to make a living.
He slept crouched in public bathrooms to avoid frosty winters.
"If lucky and when I was in good terms with the gangsters, I got to sleep stretched on one of these staircases," he said as he pointed at cheap red-carpet covered stairs in an old rundown building. "But of course, that's after the club closes just before sunrise."
