2002 World Cup

This will be just a perspective piece, but feel free to make comments if you would like.

I was in middle school in 2002, interested in soccer (watching, not playing) but really NOT interested in watching the soccer games on television. My appa (dad) would tell us to come and watch, but I didn't feel like watching the first game. (Luckily, my appa recorded it.) I liked soccer, a lot of my guy friends played it and so I watched games in person to support them, but I never had gotten into the World Cup before. However, after we (aka South Korean football team) won, my appa told us to watch the game, ect, and during the second game of groups, we started watching the games. During this time period, my family and I sometimes watched sports together, tennis or figure skating.  In any case, we started watching the World Cup together, and it brought our family closer together. Korea was winning game after game and it brought us together at random hours (because of the 13 hour time difference) to make sure we watched the games from start to finish.

Not only did it bring our family together, it brought a sense of pride. I lived in a primarily all-white neighborhood, so (in short version) I spent most of my mid-elementary school childhood till middle school trying to hide the fact that I was Asian (more specifically Korean). This didn't completely remove my feeling of double displacement and feeling of being an outsider in America (but I digress), but it made me think about my connection to Korea and the pride that I felt for the country and the team itself. It brought a sense of pride for the Korean community, of course, if you watch any video on youtube, you can see the insane amounts of people cheering on the streets. But it also brought, I would say, the Korean American community closer to South Korea (in my case, it would be referring to the 1.5 and second generation). Because it was on a international sports stage, and because it was held in South Korea (and Japan) and also because they were the underdogs, and of course the whole rooting-for-the-underdog mentality.

I'll just say a couple things regarding thing before this post gets too long. For me personally, the 2002 World Cup actually got me more interested in Korea again. I remember watching the soccer game with tension and cheering like crazy during the golden goals and penalty shootouts, ect. Also, that summer we happened to go to Korea for the first time since perhaps when I was in kindergarten. The World Cup fever was infectious. Literally all over the streets. If you were in the bathroom and you wanted to see if someone was in the stall, you would knock in the chant rhythm. We bought a lot of newspapers back then (not that my command of Korean was strong but because of the soccer players on the newspapers). My sister loved one player, I loved Lee Young Pyo. He was rarely on covers of newspapers because he wasn't the star, but once I bought a newspaper with him on it and held it so preciously that a Korean ahjumma (middle-aged woman) asked me if I was selling it.
It brought my family together and even now, it still does. For the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, my family and I gathered in our living room wearing our red shirts to support the Korean team. My halmuni (grandmother) had actually visited before the World Cup began in 2006, and we asked her to bring us back shirts so that we could have proper attire to watch the games. Also, my sister took her senior pictures that summer of 2004, and she wore attire from the Korea team as one of her senior portraits.

Now, this is not only a time for me and my family to get together, but also a time for the Korean American community to come together. More specifically, without making generalizations, (like with Kim Yuna) I saw facebook statuses of my Korean American friends change, friends got together with friends, families got together and had parties to watch the games together. There were restaurants and bars and other places holding it so that Korean Americans could gather. There were discussions going on about it with all generations at my church. Though on a more extravagant scale in Korea, it definitely made an effect on the Korean American community as well. For me personally, it brought this weird feeling of Korean national pride when I felt slightly disconnected from Korea. What did this mean for my identity as a Korean American?

So what does this mean? Perhaps nothing. When I went to Korea this past fall (and also 2009 summer) I got the chance to go to several events. Abaseball game, a national football (soccer) game, and finally a tournament against rival schools Korea U and Yonsei U. The cheering culture in Korea, is insanely awesome. To be honest, I've never been to a Phillies game but I was told by my friend that you could go "read a book" there because it's relaxing. Definitely not the case for Korean baseball (or more specifically, the Lotte Giants of Busan). You are cheering, wearing plastic bags on your head, spirit is high to cheer on the team. Same goes for the Korea U-Yonsei U games. It was hours upon hours of cheering (on your feet in the hot humid weather) for (in my case) Korea U. And it is a HUGE festival for those two schools, the biggest event in the fall semester. You are on your feet the whole time cheering. Perhaps this cheering culture was strongly influenced by the 2002 world cup, or perhaps the 2002 world cup was just a way for people to cheer on a national stage the way they had been cheering all along. Maybe for me it just brought out my competitive side, some of my friends didn't like the Korea U-Yonsei U games, they thought it was boring. Others loved it, including myself, I found it invigorating. I enjoyed going to cheering orientation too, ...which was when we weren't cheering for anything just practicing but the atmosphere is definitely still there.

Just a different perspective from a student who was in middle school in America. Also, what were the political implications for the World Cup? What came after...  the Winter Olympics. the 2002 Apollo Ohno incident. If you read about it, perhaps you might think Koreans were too emotional. But it isn't that simple.  Also, the 2002 Army incident. The rise of anti-Americanism. Implications that Apollo Ohno was half-Japanese. perhaps that is a later post, but anti-Americanism was a huge movement on the rise even before the World Cup. The World Cup was not only a soccer game, a tournament for sports fans, but it brought the nation together and even brought the Korean American community together.