Sports (and Extra-Curricular Activities)

It's about time I write about a very important part of any culture, Korean included: sports. 
The number one sport in Korea is soccer.  And as a pretty big soccer fan, this suits me fine.  It might have been the 2002 World Cup that was hosted by Korea and Japan, but whatever it is, soccer plays a pretty important role in the national pride and culture of Koreans.  The members of the Korean National team are quite highly regarded in their country in comparison to Canada where most people couldn't name a single player on the Canadian National team (I can maybe name 4).  Also, at least 70% of the broadcast time of two sports channels on T.V. are dedicated to soccer: mostly to the English Premier League, but also to the German Bundesliga and the Scottish Premier League.  Well actually, most of this time is spent playing and replaying and replaying the games of only a couple of the teams in these leagues - the teams that have Korean players on them.  Ask any Korean soccer fan who their favourite English Premier League team is and they'll say Manchester United (because Park Ji Sung plays for them) and Bolton Wanderers (because Lee Chung Yong plays for them). 
But soccer is a big part of Korean's every day life as well (at least if you're male).  Most of my male students have weekly soccer practices and games.  And at school, during every break, there are boys playing soccer either inside or outside.  Some of my kindergarten boys are especially fanatical about it - to the point of planning the teams for each game and then arguing later about how the teams weren't fair.  One student, Brian, sometimes has difficulty paying attention in class because he day dreams and I'm positive he's thinking about soccer.  Each week he asks me if we can play soccer in gym class.
Moreover, Futsal, the version of soccer that is played on a smaller field, is played all over the place in Korea by men of all ages.

Second in importance among sports in Korea is baseball.  I think I've mentioned in an earlier post how past Korean baseball victories over Japan are replayed over and over on T.V.  Well outside of these games and the televised Korean baseball league games, I certainly don't see as much baseball as I do soccer.  My kindergarten students have much more skill in kicking a soccer ball than throwing or catching a baseball (which is what we've been practicing in gym class lately - much to the chagrin of little Brian).  This isn't to say that it's not important though.  I recently met a Korean guy who didn't like soccer (which was shocking to me) but played baseball pretty regularly.

In third place I'm going to put Speed Skating.  If you had watched the winter olympics you might have noticed that this is the only event that Koreans really do well in.  And when I've been to the ice rink, half of the ice is devoted to little speed skating toddlers.

Honerable mentions go to figure skating, basketball, volleyball, ping-pong, and golf.  Basketball and golf especially are growing in popularity in Korea.  There's even a whole T.V. channel dedicated to women's golf.  Also, one of the new buildings built near our school is a ping-pong building, with five or six tables and usually some pretty intense looking Korean ping-pong players inside.

You'll notice that hockey isn't on this list.  That doesn't mean it's nonexistent though.  I have a chubby Grade 2 student who plays goalie for a local team.  And I've seen kids getting ready for hockey practice at the arena.  Also, I've even seen a hockey game that had made it to television worthyness.  Korea beat China pretty badly, which is a good sign, and there were maybe 25 people in the stands.  So it's there.

I should also mention Korea's national sport: TaeKwonDo.  It's a sport that I don't know the first thing about, but that is very popular in Korea.  On top of soccer, many of my students, girls included, also have TaeKwonDo practices.  But I think it's safe to say that, in Korea, it's not as gamorous as the other sports.  It might be somewhat like Sumo for the Japanese - it's very important to the culture, but it's not as noticable.  But I'm just guessing, I don't really know.

Finally, in the extra-curricular catagory, music plays a very important part in Korean culture.  Most of my students, on top of soccer and TaeKwonDo (Korean kids work hard) also take some type of music lesson - usually piano, but also some string instruments (or sometimes both).  I've never heard one of my students play a musical instrument before, but I'm pretty sure they're amazing, I'd love to see it sometime.  And this attention to music has produced another very important part of Korean culture: Kpop (look it up).

Thanks for reading.
Michael