And, at least until recently, a person could know a lot about Wanju without ever hearing of Cha Sa-soon, a 69-year-old woman who lives alone in the mountain-ringed village of Sinchon.
Now, however, Ms. Cha is an unlikely national celebrity.
This diminutive woman, now known nationwide as Grandma Cha Sa-soon, has achieved a record that causes people here to first shake their heads with astonishment and then smile: She failed her drivers test hundreds of times but never gave up. Finally, she got her license on her 960th try.
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Born to a peasant family with seven children but no land, Ms. Cha spent her childhood working in the fields and studying at an informal night school. It was not until she turned 15 that she joined a formal school as a fourth grader. But her schooling ended there a few years later.
Father had no land, and middle school was just a dream for me, she said.
Ms. Cha said she had always envied people who could drive, but it was not until she was in her 60s that she got around to trying for a license.
Here, if you miss the bus, you have to wait another two hours. Talk about frustration! said Ms. Cha, who had to transfer to a second bus to get to her driving test site and to yet another to reach her market stall.
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She could read and write words phonetically but she could not understand most of the terminology, such as regulations and emergency light, said Ms. Park, the teacher.
Choi Young-chul, an official at the regional driving license agency, said: What she was essentially doing while studying alone was memorizing as many questions with their answers as possible without always knowing what they were all about. Its not easy to pass the test that way.
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It was only last November, on her 950th try, that she achieved a passing grade of 60 out of 100. She then passed two driving skill and road tests, but only after failing each four times. For each of her 960 tests, she had to pay $5 in application fees.
I didnt mind, said Ms. Cha. To me, commuting every day to take the test was like going to school. I always missed school.
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On her wall where she hung black-and-white photographs of her and her late husband as a young couple and a watch that had stopped ticking, she also had posted a handwritten and misspelled sign that read, Never give up!
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