FC Seoul & Vuvuzellas

This past Saturday night I went with some friends from my Taekwon-Do gym to watch a soccer match – us cheering for FC Seoul. This was the first time for me to attend a soccer match. The closest I came to soccer was when we sometimes played it in school during the Physical Education class or when rural kids played it on makeshift dirt soccer fields around the farm where I grew up. Since I’m not much of a fan of sports involving balls, the only time I watch any ball related sports is when a big event happens like during the recent FIFA World Cup, and even then I only watched very selectively, never caring to stay up to watch the games that occurred at the dead of night.

So what is soccer in Korea like? Well, while Taekwon-Do is officially the national sport in Korea, the sports with the greatest fan bases are baseball and soccer. If I remember correctly, I was told that the Seoul World Cup Stadium can seat 30 000 76 000 people. The stadium was half full on Saturday, definitely over 10 000 21 000 people, mostly packed with home supporters from Seoul. One could tell that people generally took it quite seriously – fan songs were known by heart by most of the spectators and a general spirit of serious fun pervaded the stadium. My friend Chanyang mentioned that if he were to have grown up in a country like England he would definitely have been a football hooligan.

Chanyang was actually the reason for my soccer outing. He is leaving for the United States tomorrow (Tuesday) to continue his graduate studies. As a last farewell he invited his friends to enjoy with him one of his other (non-martial arts) passions, namely soccer.

An alarming thing about Saturday night’s soccer outing was the number of vuvuzellas! These South African blow horns were practically given away and now even I own one. Of all the cultural assets to have come out of South Africa and permeate the world, how regrettable that it should be vuvuzellas. It was nonetheless ironically satisfying to see something South African so widely accepted in my host country. Before the World Cup very few Koreans knew anything about South Africa apart from Nelson Mandela; some didn’t even know who Mandela is. The World Cup has changed that and even exported some cultural heritage – unfortunately vuvuzellas are not the most culturally rich of an export item, nor does South Africa benefit much from it apart from its iconic association. The real – financial – beneficiary is China, whom is the main producer of these plastic instruments of cacophonic pollution.