Kevin at IA cites a Chosun Ilbo report that should get you angry:
At the men’s volleyball competition Wednesday between the United States and North Korea at the Universiade games in Daegu, the Americans were booed upon entering the court. They say it went on for quite some time, stopping only after the announcer asked for restraint.
Reports are that the crowd numbered around 4,000, and that many in attendance were part of the university student movement. When you consider how American athletes have not been given that kind of treatment in other Universiade competitions one can assume that the behavior was instigated by such students; but more importantly, it was an example of the confused state our society is in these days.
It’s not as if the Americans committed some terrible, insolent incident that would put the reception they got into context; and still, here in Korea, they get publicly heckled like that, and in front of the Northerners. According to one journalist present, some children waving American flags were made to cry when confronted by one adult, who asked, “Where do you think you are, carrying those things around like that?”
I looked around the Korean-language sports pages, and I couldn’t find any reference to either the booing or the incident involving the kids with the American flags. However, all the reports I did see on the game (and those reports were surprisingly few and short, perhaps because the Norks had their asses handed to them 3-0) did say that the crowd was overwhelmingly pro-North. The Korean-language Daily Sports (owned by the Joongang Ilbo) put the crowd at 5000 - including 1000 red T-shirted members of the “Arirang Cheering Squad,” composed mostly of university students (read: Hanchongnyon) and “workers.” Throughout the game, the fans cheered “We are one!”, “Let us unite the Fatherland by ourselves!”, “Be strong, Korean athletes!” (according to the OhMyNews report, the fans also made flashcards that read, “The Paedal-minjok (an old name for the Korean “race”) stretches from Mt. Halla-san [in South Korea] to Mt. Paekdu-san [in North Korea] - I kinda liked that one).
But lest Minister of Culture and Tourism Lee Ch’ang-dong worry, none of those chants are political in any way 
The American coach, coincidentally, was pleasant enough about it, as he is quoted in the Daily Sports as saying, “Partisan crowds are common in the United States, too.”
Kevin in IA writes, succinctly, “Pull. The. Fucking. Troops. Now.” I know it’s only a sports event, and there was a heavy police presence in front of the stadium to ensure that no one desecrated the flags of either nation, but still - you have the government telling completely legal organizations not to use these games for political purposes (which was ironic enough), but at the same time allowing students belonging to a clearly illegal organization (even if I disagree with that designation) to attend a match not only to shout highly charged political slogans in support of a clique of genocidal Stalinists, but also to root against your most important ally. That is, as Kevin writes, completely fuct.
UPDATE: Brian at Cathartidae calls for an American boycott of future Korean-hosted sports, and includes a photo from last year’s World Cup to help you understand why. Personally, I think a boycott is a little extreme, but there’s quite a lot of bullshit that goes on during times like this and it needs to be rectified.
3 Comments
Okay, I confess to being one of the people who translates Chosun Ilbo editorials (don’t tell anyone!).
It’s very true that you don’t find much about US athletes being heckled at that particular match, either in Korean or international news reports, and for that matter YOU DON’T EVEN FIND SUCH A REPORT IN THE CHOSUN!! What does that say?
It’s not uncommon for Chosun editorials to carry news that isn’t carried elsewhere in the paper. Probably an editorial writer heard something (that wasn’t entirely without basis) and thought he’d take another opprotunity to make the president look bad. One has to assume that things are being exaggerated out of proportion when it isn’t being talked about elsewhere, not even elsewhere in same publication. Chosun editorials are important and influential as well as real editorials (as opposed to Herald, Times, and even watered down Joooooooongang English ones), but should be read remembering that there might be hidden motives involved.
See this Reuters pic people holding American flags at the very same volleball match. I’m sure someone booed some Americans, but Chosun would have you believe that such a scene (below) didn’t happen.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/ne.....52spo.html
The Korea blogger you quote is barking at parked cars. Any white American twentysomething kexpat can do that. You can do so much better as a Marmot. Chase the issues down the street and around the corner and tell us what you find!
Now I was careful to check up on the Chosun piece, and I did say that no other paper made mention of the incident. That’s not to say it didn’t happen - it probably did (although the thing with the kid is probably laying it on a bit thick) - but nobody else mentioned it.
Regardless, what you still have is Lee Ch’ang-dong shooting off his mouth about evil right-wingers using these games for political purposes, and meanwhile you got 1,200 activists shouting very political slogans (and I’m sure you’ll agree that ??째??? ??쩌?징짹??쩌??? ?징째??짯??? ?????쩌 is more than slightly political) during the middle of match! And yes, there were American flags there (none of them burning), but the crowd was clearly partisan - almost every report I saw (including OhMyNews) made it seem like a North Korean home game. The Joongang put the total number of American supporters at 100, while OhMyNews had it at 60 (flags and all).
And while you’re quite correct that the Chosun should be read remembering that “hidden motives” may be present (and sometimes, they aren’t so hidden), the same goes for almost every Korean daily - regardless of political orientation. I guess the same can also be said for Western papers as well, although Korean papers appear to play rather loose and fast with things like fact-checking. But heck, you’re the one who was part of the Foreign Press Club, and I’m just a punk kid with a computer, so I defer to you on this topic.
BTW, I’m just curious - do you feel like you have to take a shower after translating those Chosun editorials? And why is it that they insist on translating only like 1/10 of the paper?
Your ability to read is minimal: I never said there was false information. Despite the miles of bad things I could say about the Chosun, I wish it the best and that is part of why I care to criticize it, which I have always done, especially to higher-ups in the overall organization there. But what the Chosun is especially good at is telling no lies without telling the whole truth. It has that down to an art form. (Of course all newspapers have their motives, but with the Chosun it reaches a level I would not have thought possible before I saw the dynamics in person.)
I could’ve guessed for myself that at such an event some unpleasentries of some shape or form would’ve been directed towards the Americans. That’s a no brainer, and getting upset about it is behavior that’s just as predictable. The problem with that Chosun editorial is that it would have you believe the heckling dominated the whole mood there, which simply can’t be the case because the foreign wires would’ve been all over the story.
I think that there is oh so much to be personally upset about as an American that one must be careful to choose things that really are serious issues, or risk spending oneself “barking at parked cars” while the real ones fly by. I, too, caught myself getting a little upset while translating that editorial, so shocked that the regular more childish expressions of anti-Americanism could’ve gotten that out of hand there in Daegu, so called around the Chosun to have someone tell me more of what happened. No one had heard anything. Not the politics, society, or sports people, who instead wanted to know more from me since I see editorials before they do. Eventually I just said “here we go again,” rolled my eyes and went home, yelling instead at the cars who showed no respect as I sped along on my bicycle. (You won’t believe this, but the next day I asked a reporter I met on the elevator what he had heard, he told me he doesn’t read the editorials because he doesn’t want to have his sentence style ruined!)
Please note again that I am not saying the editorial writer made everything up. All Chosun, Ohmynews, Han’gyeorye stories have some element of truth to them, even the ones that are misleading, even when seemingly by intention. In answer to the Marmot’s question to me, no I don’t feel like I have to take a shower after translating those things, but I do notice that if I’m having a busy week and read only what I translate, on the weekend when I watch the news, it’s hard to believe we’re talking about the same country. So I have to work hard to keep a balanced perspective.
To Kevin: sorry for my offensive commentary. And yes, I guess I was barking at a dog barking at parked cars. Pathetic, I know. The reason it bothers me, though, is that it becomes just about all the barking the rest of the world hears about Korea, and I think Korea gets an unfair share of unbalanced criticism, uprooted from context and over-chewed. It’s not unlike the dog meat thing. Lots of cultures eat dog, and in the movie The Patriot, the character played by Mel Gibson says something like “a dog makes a mighty fine meal.” But for some messed up reason it is almost exclusively Korea that gets attacked for the habit. One of the reasons, I think, is that Korea does such a bad job, sometimes embarassing job, of asserting itself globally, and the low standard for English language commentary about Korea is one result. You have widely respected “Korea expert” Michael Breen, who certainly has helpful things to say from time to time, but who also cannot speak or even read Korean like we would expect anyone considered an expert at interpreting China, France, Japan, or most other countries around, and subsequently many of the things he says are simultaneously not entirely untrue but far from an understanding deeper than anyone else could have from years of reading the “tourist newsletters” that are the Korea Herald and Times for 20+ years. The “experts” and commentators are not the ultimate problem, of course, the problem is Korea’s patience with them.
You’re right about my barking, though. Sorry and I meant no offense. I hadn’t seen your blog when I wrote, and will view from time to time.