Pride and Prejudice...Olympic-style...

If you’ve been paying attention to the Olympics at all, and you’ve been watching figure skating, you probably don’t need to be told who Kim Yun-a is. But if you are a foreigner living in Korea and you don’t have cable at home, you probably don’t need to be told who she is either. It’s impossible to exist in Korea right now and avoid the ubiquitous presence of Yun-a. She appears to be the spokesperson for everything that is sold in Korea…Nike, Samsung, a particular brand of rameon noodles, etc. The other day, I purchased a jug of milk with Yun-a on the carton, and I must admit that it was tastier than regular milk. She is the face of the Olympic games here…she gets at least 10 times more exposure than any of Korea’s other notable winter game athletes. When I get onto a Korean search engine, I am greeted with Yun-a’s lovely, smiling face. When I walk into any of my twelve classrooms, it has become an expectation that a Yun-a related comment will invariably be made. Even though I didn’t see any of her performances live, they replay them so often that I can watch them more or less whenever I feel like it. She is to Korea in 2010 what Michael Phelps was to America in 2008. I am quite happy that she won, if for no other reason than because there was an unreasonable amount of pressure on her to bring home the gold to her native soil. If she had merely won silver, I fear that yesterday would have been declared a national day of mourning in Korea…


You can even wear Yun-a on your feet in Korea. The socks say "Figure Queen Yun-a," aka "p'i-gyeo kkwin yun-a"...It only took me ten minutes to translate them. Yay me!




That being said, there is something slightly disconcerting about being an expatriate watching the Olympic Games in a different country. More specifically, there is something utterly disturbing about being an American watching the Olympic Games in a different country. While I do, in fact, love my country, there is a lot of baggage that comes along with the title of being an American. I could take this topic in a number of different directions, but I think I’ll stick with sports. When it comes to the Olympics, it’s us against the world. Nobody likes to see Americans win except Americans…it doesn’t matter who the athlete is, and it doesn’t matter what the sport is…people don’t like us. It doesn’t help our vulnerable situation when a number of athletes get busted for steroid use. Then the perception becomes that Americans are greedy, dirty cheaters who are hell bent on world domination (this perception can be extended to include more topics than just sports, but perhaps I’ll get into that at a later date). My point is that when someone like Apollo Anton Ohno wins a few too many medals, the contempt that people feel for Ohno inexplicably gets transferred to me, as if I am to be held personally accountable for the success of an athlete that I have nothing in common with except our nationality. Admittedly, a majority of the “contempt” that people have for American athletes and the people who love them is not meant to be taken seriously, in the same way that Vikings fans give a lot of shit to Packers fans. But occasionally, in the same way that a bitter Cheesehead might occasionally feel the need to beat the crap out of an unsuspecting Vike, I get the feeling that some people would genuinely like to beat the shit out of me for quietly supporting Team America. And that is really unnerving…

Last night, I went out to dinner with my Canadian friend Diana. We started talking about the Olympics, and she posed this query to me (I’m paraphrasing here): Why do people feel pride in the achievements of athletes just because those athletes happen to share their country of origin? Are those people successful because they are Canadian or American or Korean? No. They are successful because they are incredibly talented. It’s sort of a ridiculous and irrational phenomenon if you think about it. Before I get bombarded with rampant cries of anti-patriotism, I should clarify that I too, at times, feel bizarrely proud of my country when one person who happened to be born in said country achieves something spectacular. I’ll use the example of Michael Phelps. I don’t know anything about swimming. I don’t especially enjoy swimming. I took swimming lessons for long enough to learn how to stay afloat. I don’t think swimming is a particularly exciting sport to watch. I watch it once every four years during the Olympics. So why is it that, like most Americans, I followed Michael Phelps’ remarkable gold medal quest with rather excessive zeal? Why is it that when he stood at the podium accepting his 8th gold medal, a warm tear rolled down my cheek? Why did I feel pride that someone else excelled at a sport that I don’t even enjoy? Why does anyone?



Furthermore, why do regular people hate some sports superstars for being so athletically gifted that they cannot be competed against, even by the world’s greatest athletes? Why do people get pleasure out of watching greatness fall? I suspect that if, for whatever reason, Apollo Anton Ohno would be stripped of his medals, there would be a boisterous celebration throughout Korea. Why? Why do people feel happy and/or amused when a prodigy like Tiger Woods commits adultery and gets the back window of his vehicle smashed in by his wife with a golf club? Why do people feel pleased that his endorsements begin to drop him from their advertisements, one by one? Why do we, who have nothing to do with the situation, feel a curious sense of smug satisfaction when the personal weaknesses and imperfections of someone who was previously considered to be the epitome of greatness are exposed to the general public? Is it because it makes us feel better about our own self-imposed mediocrity? How insecure must we be to get happiness out of someone else’s failure?