Monday, June 19, 2006

Worldcup Nationalism, er, Fever

Kristofer mentioned the other day, "Damn, the Koreans are the loudest fans!"

That was in reference to the World Cup games. If you've been watching any maybe you noticed the the red T-shirts, cymbol-like instruments, and constant cheer of "Dae~~ Han Min Kook!!" clap-clap, clap-clap, clap (always only 5 claps). A few songs are usually thrown in, too.

Today some of my co-teachers asked what I thought about the over one million people gathering in front of City Hall in Seoul (the picture beside) as well as the other additional 6 million Korean fans across the globe. I haven't actually thought about it too much. Said it was interesting, and perhaps borderline scary.
Man with a "sogo" (hand held drum)

Not actually scary, just...perhaps borderline. I mostly see it as the school spirit our colleges would love for us to have, but it's completely different because this is motivated by nationalism.

Ok, well, I don't think the gatherings mean Korea is on the verge of blind, fanatic, devotion worthy of backing any dictator...unless that dictator would turn out to be Park Ji Sung. That's not to be worried about since he'll be returning back to Manchester when this business is over. Besides, until last night when he tied --and saved every Korean fans' heart from cardiac arrest-- the score with France, Koreans were beginning to forget their golden, "Three-lunged" boy. Anyway, the million people gatherings of devils in short skirts and red painted families have become a tourist attraction for 3,000 (or some large number beginning with 3, I can to higher numbers in Korean) tourists from South East Asia.

Waiting for the City Hall party to begin

Still, I doubt there is a World Cup movement like this in any other country or for any other team, and that is because of the nationalism feeding and binding the Korean fan base.

I attribute it to the (fairly) homogenous culture. Before I came, I didn't think I would be saying that, but it's partly true. Please show me another country in which all its people speak the same language and dialect, minus some minor differences in accents and slang; share the same cultural/indigenous music; and know the same historical songs which are adapted for chanting and cheers. The pop culture is also uniform throughout this small country (which is about 2/3 the size of New York State).

Go Red Devils


My co-teacher also wanted me to keep in mind that Korea is not used to such large-scale, world-wide success and luck. For Koreans, their name is doing doing its job: Dae Han Min Kook translates into "Big Country of Han People". Or as my co-teacher extrapolated for me, it's a small country with a big name so that it may be a Big Country. Doing so well in the world's sport is a manifestation of Korea's somang --hope.

**pictures taken from Han Kyeo Rae newspaper online from their "World Cup Cafe"

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