Kim Gyuwon's Quiet Act of Care for a Wheelchair-Using Student Surfaces Years Later

Comedian Kim Gyuwon recently won Best New Male Variety Entertainer at the 5th Blue Dragon Series Awards, capping a swift rise through tvN's Comedy Big League and multiple seasons of Coupang Play's SNL Korea. The recognition has also brought older, quieter stories to the surface.

On the 7th, illustrator Kicny shared a reader submission on Instagram, drawn out as a comic strip. The person who wrote in was the mother of a boy born with a congenital muscular disease, who began using a wheelchair from the fourth grade onward. She described the anxiety of his first day arriving at school in the chair, and the uneven experience that followed: some of the social service workers assigned to assist him were willing, others were not, with at least one telling her flatly that the work was beyond what they were prepared to do. She recalled crying alone more than once.

When her son entered fifth grade, Kim Gyuwon was assigned to the school as part of his mandatory social service, an alternative to military service that places young men in public institutions such as schools, community centers, and welfare facilities. The mother said he listened to her son, made the boy laugh, and treated him warmly without making a show of it.

One incident in particular stayed with her. Her son had an accident at school, and when Kim called to let her know, she was too far away to come immediately. He told her not to worry and that he would handle it himself. By the time school ended, he had hand-washed the boy's underwear, dried it in the sun, folded it neatly, and placed it in a plastic bag to take home. When she apologized, he turned it around on himself, saying he was sorry for calling and making her anxious in the first place.

Before his service ended, Kim brought rice cakes to the school to share with the staff, and said goodbye to the boy in tears. He had promised to attend the boy's elementary school graduation, but his entire family contracted COVID-19 around that time and he could not come. He left flowers and a gift at their door instead.

The connection did not end there. When the mother later came across Kim on television and YouTube, she reached out again. He promised to attend the boy's middle school graduation, and kept that promise despite a busy broadcast schedule, showing up in person.

"Our family's number one among all celebrities, without exception," she wrote, thanking him for giving her son a memory worth holding onto.

Kim debuted in 2023 through tvN's Comedy Big League and joined SNL Korea from season five onward, building a following through recurring characters including one known as Gyukatsu. His Blue Dragon win last month marks the first major awards recognition of his career, arriving at a moment when a story like this one can find the audience it deserves.