Some Stuff that Made Me Smile...

The blog's been ranty and gripey lately, and one of my big upcoming posts will be similar... but in order to enjoy life, I encourage anybody who asks to pay attention to the things that made them smile, and talk about them, and draw attention to them - write them down in a notebook, or take pictures of them, or whatever it takes.

So here are some of the things that have made me smile lately:

Including:

the wacky statues near deoksu palace, which, no matter how low you squat, look like you're looking down at them from above. Korean conscripts shoveling snow. Dumb people who don't know how to drive in snow. A bucket of eels. Light shows by Seoul Square, and the cool film ads that play outside the car on the subway between Gwanghwamun Station and Jongno 3-ga station, and the tea blossom that opens. Oh yeah: and tickling Chris in South Korea.
Music from The Eels.

Got a Beef with Immigration?

According to this blurb in the Korea Herald, the Prime Minister's office has opened a suggestion box for the month of March.

Are there rules or regulations that are gumming up your groove, in areas like "immigration, personal identification, status change, economic activities or daily lives of non-Koreans, foreign spouses of Koreans or overseas Koreans"? Can you think of regulations or systems that are discriminatory?

Drop a line to sangsan@pmo.go.kr or send a fax to (02) 2100-2323 sometime this month, and if they like your ideas, you might even win some gift certificates.

Tell your friends. Tell all your friends.

Life as a Banana

Interesting article at London Korea Links about the lives of adult Korean adoptees.

Go read.

Enough with the Sports Victimhood Already

Had a conversation with Girlfriendoseyo about bad sportsmanship on the third last day of the Olympics: she mentioned how the Russian team officials were so disappointed at their poor showing these Olympics that team officials and government members left before the games were done, and even the president is calling for heads to roll. Figure saking silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko bitched about not winning gold rather than giving credit to Evan Lysacek. I came back with my memory of the 2002 winter games, when team Russia was so dissatisfied with their bronze medal finish in hockey that they didn't even show up for the medal ceremony. No class.

Then I mentioned the death threats against Jim Hewish, the referee who disqualified the Korean skater and gave Apolo Ohno the gold in 2002, and this year called back the Korean women's team speed skating gold medal for crowding a Chinese skater. (It's interesting that the hate this time is for the referee instead of for the Chinese skaters... but something I've noticed recently is that Korea will get all noisy and outraged in hate for America or Japan, but Korea doesn't mess with China. When the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay ended with the embarrassment of Seoul being unable to control the crowd of Chinese boosters, who violently quelled any protests around city hall, and darn near mauled a fella in the Soul Plaza Hotel lobby, the Chinese students arrested weren't even deported, and the whole thing disappeared from the media in two days, unlike the trumped up story against US Beef, which was a pure fiction, but sparked street protests for months, to say nothing of all of 2002 except the World Cup.)

So Jim Hewish had to be put under police protection in Vancouver. Brian cited a comment at Marmot, that these netizen outbursts can, and WILL undermine Korean attempts to host huge events like Olympics and World Cups - is the IOC really going to hold a Winter Games in a country where they might be unable to guarantee the safety of referees or players, if a call or a close game goes against Korea? Do they want to risk 200, or 1000 of THOSE kinds of people waiting outside the venue every time the hated ref of the day comes and goes?

In Korea's defense, Girlfriendoseyo said that she read that Jim Hewish had a history of other calls against Korea, and that he'd been suspended for two years for one such call (possibly the one in favor of Ohno?)... but I, with my extensive research skills (googling "Jim Hewish Suspended") haven't been able to find any confirmation of this from news sites. And yeah, the 3000 meter thing sucked. Sure.

But one commenter I read pointed out: Korea's own bad sportsmanship may well have caused Jim Hewish to make more calls against Korea. You see, Kushibo explains:

South Korea's hardcore netizenry may be entirely to blame for this one. The call was one that, according to the link The Marmot provided, could have gone either way, but the orgy of hate unleashed by the hardcore super comment tribe and their hacker buddies in 2002 forced his hand in Vancouver: Were Mr Hewish to have sided with the ROK team this time, he would have left himself open to accusations of caving in against his judgement.

The Joongang Daily has an editorial (HT Brian's twitter) about how bad calls are poor sportsmanship... which conveniently fails to mention that planting flags on pitching mounds and death threats are poor sportsmanship, too...
(source)

I don't really care to get into a back and forth about who's right and who's wrong, so all I want to say to Korean sports fans is this:

Folks, here's the thing. Sports Karma exists. The sporting gods, who determine who gets good luck and who gets bad luck, watch the behavior of athletes and fans, to decide who gets the lucky bounces, and who gets the bad calls.

Here's how sports Karma works - and I've seen this best by following Canadian hockey for quite a long time:

Basically: what goes around comes around. Send out bad sports Karma and it'll haunt you later. Send out good sports karma, and you'll benefit. Seriously.

Being a sore loser = bad sports karma - if you bitch and moan when bad things happen, more bad things will happen. Seriously. Russia's sore losership in the past is, in the Sports karma way of things, the direct cause of their poor showing in these Olympics.

Being an ungracious winner = bad sports karma - if players gloat when good things happen, bad things happen in the future. (cf: Flag planting, Korean audiences getting up and leaving after Kim Yuna skates instead of watching the whole show, gold medalists talking shit about runners-up)

And here's the big thing about sports Karma: if you remain competitive, keep trying, and respect the game and the other players, what goes around comes around. Seriously. In Canadian Hockey, a few bad referee calls have robbed Canada when they should have done better... but for every disallowed goal or bogus call that went against Canada, there's one that went our way, that benefited us, at some other time. If Canada lost this gold medal game because of a bad bounce, or an unlucky play, or a bit of bad refereeing at the wrong time, or if they just ran into a hot goalie, like they did in 2006, I'd be a bit upset, sure, but I'd also know that buddy, that doesn't change too much: Canada played hard, and next Olympics, they'd be in the mix again. Dear South Korean sports fans: it's the same for you! If you try your best, and lose with grace, that's good sports Karma, which improves your chances next time around. Losing a heartbreaker? That's good sports Karma, too, and it just makes it more satisfying when things finally DO go right (cf: 2004 Red Sox World Series). Getting the women's 3000 relay gold next Olympics will be way more satisfying if you win it back after being robbed this year, than it would have been if you'd just kept winning.

Korea's last two Olympics were, as far as I can tell, its best showings ever... so enjoy that, and be happy about it, support your athletes, learn to enjoy the awesomeness that is sporting excellence, no matter who's playing and winning, and seriously, back off with the victim thing - two Korea stories were in the nominations for the most controversial moments of the Olympics, and that's bad Karma - and go enjoy another Kim Yuna replay. The bad sports fan thing is tired, and it's building up bad sports karma which will hurt your teams and players in the future.

Thank you for listen my essay.

Rob

Olympic Wrap-up

The Olympics are finished, and even though I couldn't see any of them in person, living in Korea and all, it's been a pretty satisfying run.

Here are the three things I was rooting for during these olympics:

1. Canadian Men's Hockey gold.
2. Kim Yuna gold
3. (I'm a petty old codger, but...) Canada finishes ahead of Korea in the medal standings.

And squee with glee, dear readers: I got all three!

So Canada won 14 Gold medals (an Olympic record), including the one we would have traded the other 13 for: Men's Hockey Gold. Way to go, Canada. I watched the game on tape delay (it aired live here at 5am), and got to enjoy it. And holy crap, what a great game that was.

Sidney Crosby is officially Canada's new national hero, and Joannie Rochette is not far behind. Plus, he was assisted by Jerome Iginla, one of those prototypical Canadian hockey players who can throw his weight around, or dupe you with a swift move. Now if only Sidney were playing for a Canadian team, too, and Toronto didn't suck, everything would be right in the hockey world.

Kim Yuna has achieved goddess status in Korea -- seriously, she could run for president right now and win, she could read the phone book and people would watch the telecast, she could become a pitch lady for Toyota and they'd hit #1 here. You could make money selling empty jars of air labled "Yuna Farts" (I stole that joke... but girlfriendoseyo's friend's mother said almost the same thing - "I bet even her poo is pretty", which is about the equivalent of "she pisses perfume" I suppose.)

That's all for now.