2002 World Cup

Korean Adventure (July 5, 2002 Chautauqua)

World Cup Fever
I have never been a real big soccer fan, but it is hard to ignore over 5 million people in the streets. The Korean people are going mad for their team in this round of the World Cup. Korea is hosting the games, along with Japan, where the final will be played June 30th. Unfortunately, the Korean team lost to the Germans, and will not play for the top spot.


That does not matter too much to their fans, who, in the beginning, would have been content just to see them enter the second round. Korea and Japan were entered into competition because they were the hosts, otherwise they would not have qualified. I remember in my first year here, another teacher was trying to get tickets. He was hoping to get into the Korea-U.S.A. match. He did not hold out much hope for the Korean team to do well.
At that time, they were in disarray and not ranked any more than 40th in the world. They have improved greatly since then, and the credit is given to their Dutch coach, Guus Hiddink. This man is now worshipped in this country. There has been talk of erecting statues to him, and awarding him honourary citizenship.


In World Cup play before this tournament, Korea had yet to post a victory. The greatest success was achieved by a North Korean team, which reached the semi-finals in 1966. During the first round of 2002, Korea won twice, and tied one game (with the U.S.). They were the leaders in their division, and advanced to the next round.
This is when the fan support really took off. There were huge-screen TVs set up in front of city halls and in local parks. Hundreds of thousands of fans gathered to cheer the team on. They chose red as their team colour, which is kind of ironic in an anti-communist country like this one. I have become accustomed to seeing a "sea of red" overflowing the streets of major South Korean cities. The games (edited) have even been replayed in the North.

The scene in front of Seoul City Hall.

Korea's second round opponents were the Portuguese, and most of the Korean people I talked to did not give them much chance. When they won, it unleashed celebrations of the type I have not seen outside of the times a Calgary team has won a national championship, or the times an Edmonton team has won anything.
There were parades of fans down the streets, racing around in cars, flag waving, and constant chants of "Daehan Mingguk!" (Republic of Korea) or "Oh Pilseung Korea!" (Korea Is Sure To Win!). The celebrations have escalated each time Korea has won, building to ever greater heights of joyous expectations that are more than adequately fulfilled.

I really like the way she wears that shirt.

One thing that has not been present is the "hooliganism" that has accompanied most of the celebrations I have heard about. The Koreans have been remarkably restrained in this area. I was in downtown Taegu on June 22nd, after they defeated Spain. There were crowds celebrating everywhere, and they were more than happy to have us join in.

Daegu Stadium.

It has been a real Cinderella story, and the people here are not even too disappointed now that the coach has turned back into a pumpkin. They are just real happy that their team has done so well, coming up from obscurity to challenge and defeat some of the top teams in the world. Their enthusiasm and support of the sport has eclipsed that of Japan somewhat. Whether they win or lose in the third place game, they will never forget the wild ride of 2002.
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The games were replayed endlessly on some Korean sports channels. The part I liked best showed two of the Korean commentaters calling the game in the stands among the audience. When the Koreans scored the game-winning goal, they both broke down crying.
One of my students gave me a 10,000won bill with Hiddink's face superimposed over that of King Sejong. I liked the idea so much I copied my own face onto a bill, made many copies, and used that funny money whenever we played games.

Shopping In Korea

Korean Adventure (June 21, 2002 Chautauqua)

Shopping in Korea can be an interesting experience. There are many modern western-style supermarkets, including Wal-Mart, Costco, and Homeplus. It is a great temptation to stick to these convenient mega-stores. They carry most of the goods we are used to, and the prices are fairly reasonable. There are subtle differences, though.

The newly constructed (ca. 2008) Busan Fish Market

There is an entire aisle devoted to seaweed. It is dried and compressed into sheets of various sizes, from postage stamp to full human length. Koreans mainly use it to make "kimbap", which is like sushi. You lay out some seaweed, cover it with rice, and then various fillings like meat, fish, or vegetables. You then roll it up into a cylinder, approximately 12"long and 1" in diameter. Slice into pieces, and that is a meal. I enjoy having kimbap for lunch every once in a while. The price is more reasonable than the usual hamburger and fries, and it is filling, too.
There are also differences in the kinds of vegetables that are available. Koreans' favorite accompaniment to any (and every) meal is kimchi. It's a spicy cabbage. I’ve seen it made from a variety of vegetables, but the cabbage is my favorite. There is usually an island in the produce section where they make and display the various kimchis.

There is a lot of fresh fish available; any kind you could imagine, and some you could not. Squid and octopus are big sellers, and they are usually displayed live (in tanks) so you can be sure it's fresh.

Yes, the department stores are convenient, and have just about everything you could want, but the real "Korean Experience" demands that you go out and shop at the open air markets that are in every corner of the city. Some of them specialize in dry goods, furniture, food, what have you. There are some very good deals to be had, if you know where to look. A person can spend a whole day just wandering around, seeing the many sights and sounds. Buying something becomes a secondary consideration.


There are some interesting corners that some people might want to avoid. Really fresh meat and poultry in the form of caged ducks, chickens, and rabbits should not be confused with pet stores. I remember walking around the Chil-sung market (in Daegu) with my friends last summer. We rounded a corner deep inside the market, far from the main thoroughfare. There, laid out for display was a freshly slaughtered dog. How fresh do you ask? The muscles were still twitching.

Yes, the Koreans do eat dog. Some of the people I have talked to do not see anything wrong with it, and are nonplussed by some western reactions. There was even some talk of setting up dog-meat booths at the World Cup venues in order to introduce foreigners to this local delicacy. One foreigner, a teacher I believe, wrote a letter to the Korea Herald, denouncing this intention in a near-hysterical rage. I have not heard if the booths were set up. Maybe more PR-conscious heads intervened.

These open-air markets have been a staple of the Korean life-style for hundreds of years. Many of the structures look as if they have been there that long. People continue to flock to them, just as many go to the more modern establishments. This combination of the old and the new, makes for a fascinating experience for the traveller willing to explore beyond the beaten path.

What the ... peacemongering?!?!?

A friend sent me a link to a Korea Times article today entitled "FIFA praises Korea's efforts toward world peace." My first impulse was to just ignore the article. It is a Korea Times article which probably means it is either fantasy or garbage. Or both. Then, considering how many train wreck articles come out of the rag known as the Korea Times, curiosity got the better of me and I peeked at the article.

The first thing that struck me is that the article is written by an intern. They actually have interns? They "train" people on how to report? Or, since we are talking about the Korea Times how to report badly.

Then I forced myself to read the article. Considering how often the Korea Times, let alone other Korean so-called media outlets, have fabricated interview responses I found myself wondering if the comments associate with FIFA Chief delegate Harold Mayne-Nicholls were accurate let alone true.

According to the article;

FIFA delegation for the bid to host the World Cup in 2022 Sunday praised South Korea’s efforts to contribute to the world peace by holding the tournament.

Chief delegate Harold Mayne-Nicholls emphasized the most notable fact he discovered regarding the nation’s effort to host the football gala is based on world peace.

“I confirmed that Seoul’s endeavor is to deliver what today’s world needs most ― ’peace for men,’” the Chilean head said.

What the kimchi?!? Seriously?!? Korea's effort to host the World Cup is based on world peace? The MOST notable fact? Korean please! As with ANY country hoping to host the World Cup the effort is based on two things ... money and prestige. To try and seriously link it to a desire for world peace is disingenuous.

Considering the extent of prostitution in Korea one has to wonder if Mayne-Nicholls really didn't say "What today's world needs most is a piece for men." and the intern just twisted it around to make it look good.

Does the World Cup REALLY promote World Peace? Can any sport really promote peace? Especially when you take into account the hard feelings that exist anytime one side wins and another loses. I'm guilty of that myself, I still have bad feeling about the Argentine National team, especially Maradonna, because of the whole "Hand of God" bullshit. FIFA should worry more about fixing the glaring problems with officiating rather than worrying about being a source of world peace.

After finishing the article the title of it struck me as extremely disingenuous. Which isn't surprising considering the rag it appears in. The gyst of the article was about the FIFA delegation coming to inspect the football facilities currently available in Korea and to point out where improvements are needed for a proper World Cup bid. Something the world peace rhetoric seems to try and gloss over and distract you from.

Argentina 4 South Korea 1

The way the 1st half ended Arg 2 SK 1, it looked like Korea MIGHT have a chance. They didn`t. They were destroyed 4-1.

The game has two thoughts running through my head.

First, how long until the death and bomb threats and internet attacks start. With the sub-question will they be against Argentinians, the officials (and their countries), Park Chu-Young, the vuvuzelas (or however those horns are spelled) and South Africa, or some combination of the four? If past World Cup experience bears out they will at least be going after Argentina in some way.

Second, how hard are the nutizens going to come down on Park Chu-Young for scoring the won goal putting Argentina up 1-0.

It is kind of sad when you have such low expectations of people. Low expectations that are based on the reality of the depths of stupidity that are reached because many Koreans are poor losers.

South Korea 2 Greece 0

South Korea had a great game! They shut out Greece while scoring 2 goals. From some of the scoring chances they had it could have been 5-0. Greece only had one really good chance on goal.

Lee Jung-Soo scored the first goal for South Korea 7 minutes into the game. Park Ji-Sung scored at rghe 52nd minute with a brillaint solo effort.

South Korea is the first team to win a game in this World Cup. Greece has still NEVER scored a World Cup goal.

Oh pilsung Korea!

Year 1 - World Cup 2002 memories

I was fortunate enough to be in Korea while the World Cup was here. I have watched every World Cup as far back as I can remember. I never thought I would be able to watch a game in person. As the email I posted showed I wasn't disappointed.

I know when most foreigners talk about World Cup 2002 and Korea they aren't favourable towards Korea. Me? Well, I had a great time. I enjoyed watching Korea play and the festivities around it. I REALLY enjoyed the festivities. :)

My co-workers and I watched every game from Korea vs Portugal on at the same samkyubsal restaurant. They had a projection screen. The place was PACKED. It was just fun. We met some nice people and shared a lot of soju with strangers.

Yes, there were some lousy calls but they weren't all in favour of Korea. (I wanted Korea to go as far as possible because it meant the partying would continue.) The Italians particularly irked me. The BS with Ahn JangHwan. The whining because Totti, who was notorious for diving, getting red carded for ... diving. They were acting as immaturely as Koreans often do when something goes against them.

Fondest memories?

The live game in Ulsan of course.

The chick who snogged me after Korea beat Spain. Everyone was celebrating. Strangers shaking hands and some hugging. This cute chick hugs me and starts kissing me. And it wasn't a little peck on the cheek. It startled me at first. We exchanged phone numbers and made plans for a date. (Of course it turned out she just wanted to practice her Englishee. She wanted her boyfriend to join too, he was the guy who shook my hand and thanked me for cheering for Korea after I finished kissing her. Strangee.)

A guy sporting wood riding on the roof of a truck. Cars were all over the place after the games. Lots of Korean flags flying out windows. One pick-up truck was meandering down the street with a guy getting his groove on. Matt noticed the guy either had a hard on or stuffed his pants. Matt noticed stuff like that.

The family that ran the mart in my apartment building. They were such nice people. Still are. I go there from time to time. The mother was always slipping us vitamin drinks in the morning. Or some bacchus for energy. After a hard night of partying that was always welcome. For the Korea-Spain game we painted our faces up. The grand kids were at the store so we did them too. Soon we had strangers asking to be painted.

The partying. It was just pure good fun. I can't recall any mooks ruining things. There were mooks, you can't avoid them here, but they were low key.

Ok, one incident with mooks does come to mind. You knew one would. As I said we went to most games at the same place. We pre-booked our table. If you didn't you wouldn't get one. We invited some friends to come as well. BumSuk brings a gaggle of Koreans. His sister, her fiance, some friends. All in all about 5-6 extra people. Friends of theirs come and go. They ALL left without leaving ANY money to pay. Hilda and I ended up with a bill of around 150,000 won. All of the bastards ate and drank ... and buggered off.

We told BumSuk that he could come next time but not to invite anyone else. The ricetard brings his sister and fiance again. Friends pop in again and they all manage to bugger off leaving a whole 20,000 won with BumSuk to pay for their share. Needless to say BumSuk was not invited anymore. (Ok, I didn't invite him anymore but Hilda stupidly still did. I made sure to keep a separate bill for myself.)

All in all I had a great time.

Year 1 - Denmark vs Uruguay

Howdy

What a weekend, take 2. The expanded version after some sleep. :)

Saturday night was FANTASTIC. There were some bumps in the road getting to the World Cup Game in Ulsan, but nothing that could detract from the experience.

Friday night I watched the France-Senegal game with friends outside White Market. It was a good time, and a good game. No one expected Senegal to upset France like that.

I got an early start to Ulsan Saturday. Well, early for a weekend, late considering what time I have to be up and about on weekdays. I left Chongju on the 10:00 A.M. bus. Overall the trip took about 4.5 hours, putting me in Ulsan at around 2:30. The trip was pretty good. Korean buses are a lot more comfortable than Canadian, and more efficient. We made one pit stop at a place called Chilgok, and to drop off passengers in Kyeoungju. Other than that it was straight through to Ulsan.

The countryside along the way was spectacular. I am still not used to the sight of so many mountains. We only passed through part of Kyeongju, but what a town. Everywhere you look is history. Kyeongju was the capital of the Silla kingdom for almost 1000 years, until 982 A.D. when the kingdom was conquered and the capital moved to the north. Its origins go back to around 57 B.C., around the time Julius Caesar was conquering Gaul. It survived a sacking by the Mongols in the 13th century, and Japanese in the 16th. Most of its artifacts survived the Japanese occupation of the early 20th century. Even considering what the Japanese stole, a wealth of historical treasures remain. I will definitely be going back there for a visit.

Ulsan has been a major harbour in Korea for over 1000 years. A legend from the Silla Kingdom said a man, believed to have been an Arab, arrived in Ulsan in 879 for trade and then settled to live among the people. Since the 60's the government has invested heavily in building up the infrastructure and industry base of Ulsan, turning it from a town into a modern city. Today Ulsan is one of the largest industrial cities in Korea. Most oil imports flow through the port. It has the biggest shipyard in the world, the area is also a home of many multinational petrochemical corporations as well as a center for the Korean shipbuilding industry. With a population of over 1,000,000 it is almost twice the size of Chongju.

The first thing I noticed when I got off the bus was the heat. It gets hot in Chongju, but I expected more of a breeze off the ocean here. There wasn't much of one. A wave of heat washed over me, and stayed with me the whole day. Patrick and his girlfriend were late getting to the bus station in Seoul and missed the bus. They didn't leave until noon, and their bus wasn't slated to arrive until after 5PM.

I went in search of a Yeogwan. After an hour of walking around in the heat I ended up back at the first Hotel I went to. Yeogwans are usually aorund 20-30,000 Won a night. For the World Cup they decided to jack their prices up to Hotel level. I couldn't find one that was below 50,000 Won a night. So I got us rooms at a hotel instead. The first thing I did upon entering my room was shower. I was a little ripe after walking around in the heat. ;)

Patrick and Chun Soon were SUPPOSED to have arrived at 3 PM. They missed the 10 AM bus, and the 11 AM. They never got out of Seoul until 12 Noon, and it takes around 5 hours to go from Seoul to Ulsan. So, I decided to head to the bus station before 5 and meet them. % PM rolls around, and no bus. 5:10, 5:20, FINALLY at 5:30 the bus rolled in. The game started at 6:00 and it was 30 minutes form the bus station to the stadium. Luckily, we found a cabbie that knew shortcuts and didn't know what a speedlimit was. ;)

We missed the opening kickoff but only by a couple of minutes. You could hear the roar of the crowd outside the stadium when the game started. The main thing slowing us down, other than the distance from the road to the entrance gate, was security. Security was tight, but fairly efficient.

Our seats were fabulous. We were in the lower bowl, near the entrance, to the left of the net! We started off behind Uruguay, and finished behind Denmark when they switched ends. The only thing better would be to have been down with the players. The teams were evenly matched, and both sides made some great plays. We were cheering for Denmark, which made it even sweeter when they won.

We did have to laugh at some of the calls, or rather non-calls, one ref-linesman made. It is kind of funny that no matter what the sport some moron always manages to get a job as a ref. This guy gave new meaning to incompetent. Several plays happened in front of him that should have resulted in some form of penalty. Once, a Uruguayan player hammered a Dane in the face several times with his elbow while trying to get the ball right in front of the ref. He got the ball, and took off with it. When the Dane stared at the ref and asked why he didn't call it the guy just made a face and motioned for him to go away. (We had a great view of this happening.) And this twit of a ref gets to go to the World Cup and officiate? Reminds me of Andy Van Hellemond in the NHL.

During the half time we wandered around, looking at over priced souvenirs. I called mom and said hi, and told her where we were sitting. Then I called one of my sisters to say hi. The 2nd half started just after I got through so I had to rush off. When I sat down I realized that we were no longer behind the Uruguayan net, they changed sides at half time. So I called home and let mom know we were behind the Danish net now. Just as I hung up Uruguay scored. We got to see 2 of the 3 goals scored up close. Great game!

The Koreans organized people to cheer for both sides. It was a nice sight, or rather sound. The roar of the crowd was awesome! Fans were well behaved in the stadium. A yank cut in front of me while I was waiting to get drinks. He ended up turning around just as I was about to tap him on the shoulder. He asked if he cut in front, apologized and bought me a beer. :)

After the game we took a walk around, trying to find our way out. We did see one fight start, but it ended pretty quickly. One guy in Uruguayan colours, and another in Danish started going at it. Interestingly enough both had English accents. They saw some Korean police heading their way carrying these big ass night sticks, about 5' long, and decided to stop, and bug out. :))

Leaving the stadium took some doing. However, things were well organized, with free buses to take people all over town. However, the line ups were HUGE. We ended up looking for a cab, which was not easy. We ended up on the street with some Brits and others who were looking for a cab. The Brits had to get to their hotel and to the airport or miss their flight. Patrick's girlfriend played interpreter for them, and talked to the police. The police went WAY above and beyond to help out. They got the airport police to come in a van, pick up the Brit's, take them to their hotel, and then to the airport. We also got a lift to the hotel with them.

From there we decided it was time to have supper, and some soju. We decided to go for something traditional, sum kyub sal Plus soju of course. Unfortunately, for some bizarre reason, we could not find ANY restaurant in the downtown area that served what is a very basic Korean food. It was astounding! Lots of fish places, night clubs, and western style places. After an hour we gave up and went back to the area around our hotel. I had seen some places while walking around that afternoon.

We ended up at a traditional Soju bar. Then we settled down for supper and to watch the Germany - Saudi Arabia rout. I can't bring myself to call that massacre a game. We had a good time watching the game and drinking with the people at the bar. By the time the game was over, the day had taken its toll, as had the soju and beer, and it was time to sleep.

Sunday was another hot day. I spent some time looking around, nothing much to see in that part of Ulsan. There is a HUGE ferris wheel on top of the Lotte Department store, but we never went on it. I hopped on the 1 PM bus and was home in time to go out and watch the England - Sweden game. It was a great weekend.

Take care,

Flint

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This was my 1st ever live World Cup game. Hell my first live soccer game. It was great. I am glad I was here to see it.

I didn't have a TV or the World Cup coverage would have probably pissed me off with the focus pretty much being Korea and nothing else from the complaints I heard from friends.