Kim Yuna was a surprise for everyone. Figure skating was never of much interest to us until she came along.
I stand corrected on the ice rinks.
If ice skating lessons are a current trend with Korean kids, it’s news to me. But I don’t have any kids, so I suppose it’s possible that I’m just out of the loop.
something i forgot to add, i asked a cousin of mine that is an immigrant from Korea and not second generation like me and he said short track is like hockey in Canada. I’m not sure how much he knows about Hockey in Canadian culture but I guess it should be apparent since that’s the most prominent sport here. He said the guy that screwed up the medal sweep for Korea is gonna get hell from Korean media when he goes back home. Again, can’t be too sure about short track but with media saying it’s like that and my cousin agreeing to that general statement I would have to say it’s all in the training/breeding of kids in that sports culture. That’s what really matters with sports, you start with grassroots levels, get the interest early and nurture that skill, then it becomes a phenomena.
But Korea doesn’t have a huge sports culture. We’re only interested in it when it’s on an international stage. I know Seoul got a lot of press for going absolutely batshit with its crowds when we were holding the World Cup but soccer games held outside of such an international event are usually pretty empty of spectators. Plus once kids enter middle school, they are dissuaded from pursuing anything outside their academic studies (unless they have the rare parents that encourage their kids otherwise, or they are absolutely brilliant in another area as well as not being academically inclined).
I’d say they’re about average in sports culture. Just like how Canada is. We don’t push kids to be superstar hockey players generally. It’s just something you do when growing up. I remember my parents not exactly pushing me to play sports but I played soccer house leagues when i was a kid, played basketball starting from junior high through to high school, as well as volleyball and soccer. You play sports because you like it, it’s kinda fun, the team atmosphere, etc. They have soccer and baseball leagues don’t they? Canada has soccer, basketball, hockey, baseball and american football. How many of the fans actually played the sport is the real question in US and Canada. I’ve never been to Korea in the past 20 years so I can’t really say what they have there but having a pro league is enough to have some sort of sports culture that’s not negligible.
Sorry for the hijack, but my point is that kids in Korea DON’T play sports on average once they’re past elementary school, outside of PE class. And our sports culture is nothing like football or baseball in the US, for example. We have a less than lively sports culture for the most part, compared to a lot of Western countries. Not non-existent, but smaller than the Western average. THAT’S why it always surprises me when we do so well in the Olympics.
It’s actually been brought up as an issue in the media that Korea makes a huge deal about international competition but doesn’t really invest much money or attention on the national level.
I live here and was brought up here, for what it’s worth.
Anyway. Carry on.
I don’t want to sound sexist, but girls generally don’t go into sports in the Korean culture in general.
So are you sure that the boys aren’t being pushed to some extent to pursue those goals? I know that not all of the kids that went to elementary school with played house league soccer. The ones that I hung out with did, and we didn’t act differently with others. I didn’t take up hockey because my older brother was signed up for it and didn’t go and my dad thought I’d waste money not going either. The point being, the ones that did play hung out with people that did, and perhaps you weren’t part of that crowd and don’t know that it exists to some extent.
What about this. Is there a sports section in the Korean daily newspapers? Do guys look that up first thing like what I generally do here in Canada? If they do I think there’s a sports culture, it’s just that you’re not part of it or privy to it. And again, sounding sexist girls generally do not care about sports, so it might be from your perspective that you don’t see it.
Addition: I know some guys that don’t follow or care about sports either. If you asked them if there is a sports culture they wouldn’t really give a good answer. They could say there is one with all the media attention or they could probably say no, because they weren’t part of it and they wouldn’t know the true nature of its existence from grassroots levels and what not.
Dude. I didn’t say there wasn’t a sports culture, I’m just saying it’s a lot smaller than that of the US. And I grew up half my life in the US too, so I have some basis for comparison.
I think you need to experience the Korean education system in order to understand where I’m coming from. Academic competition is fierce, and kids are under pressure starting their first year of middle school. There ARE kids who do participate in sports after school but it’s not common, outside of a half-hour of impromptu soccer the boys might play before evening study hall. Any school in Seoul that tried to encourage after school sports would have the parents on their back in no time. It’s just not done, unless you are especially good at that sport or you go to a physical education school. (If you ARE good, you’re probably at a PE school anyway.)
I honestly don’t know why you are so insistent on this point. You said so yourself that you haven’t been to Korea in 20 years, and that you are a second generation Korean American. Why do you think you would be more informed about Korean culture than someone who’s lived here, been educated here, and works here?
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Who decided to spell 연아 as “Yu-Na”? Every English-language announcer and reporter in North America is mispronouncing her name because of that weird spelling. There’s no “u” sound in her name, it’s a schwa in the first syllable. Rhymes with bun and fun.
It should either be spelled with a standard transliteration “Yeona”, so that people who know Korean get it right. Or, it should be spelled in a way that gives native English-speakers a chance to get it right, “Yunna”.
MOD note: Under the circs (I did not see Ellen’s prior admonition nor China Guy’s apology, I have rescinded the warning.