Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Lee's on First

... and second and is about to step into the batter's box.

Last Monday night or Tuesday morning, which seems like a decade ago, brought the conclusion of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) championship with Korea and Japan. Though prior, in the semi-final the U.S lost to Japan which would have set up the perfect confluence of culture in my current state. Bollocks. Roy Olswalt owes me a night in Korea full of Soju and Karaoke, which would have surely transpired should there have been a Korea-US final. Anyway, there was much made by ESPN of the fan fare that Korea and Japan were supposedly exposing with their attention to the WBC. I was somewhat skeptical. Maybe its because I dont watch Korean T.V., dont speak the language, or work with people that give a chopstick about sports but I thought the whole "Korea is dancing in the streets," was overplayed. At 10 AM, game time, I made my way around Ochang. No bars were open early. No signs. Everything looked as if it was the same boring morning. So, I ventured to the gym. They at least have TVs on the treadmills and hoped, maybe, someone was watching. Out of the 15 treadmills only 2 had the game on including mine. "This country is a joke," I thought, though only the opening ceremonies were transpiring. The other treadmills occupied by the pink shirts (at my gym, members can opt to wear supplied uniform T-shirts and shorts. Pink for women, blue for men, of course) had on some lame Korean show with people sitting around talking and quirky graphics on the screen- there are many of them. But then the game started.

By the third inning every occupied treadmill had the game on. Maybe a sign of the culture, "If they got it I should too," or "The neighbor kid is going to after school schools till 10 PM? So should mine!" I digress. As the game grew longer the more I saw or heard of the national spirit. Most surprisingly was that the local elementary school let their students watch the game for two hours during the day. On Naver, Korea's Google, a picture of a player was imposed over the Naver logo, front page newspapers splashed about the game though modestly, and even the eye glasses store had the game on. Of which is across the street from my school so I began scheming about how I could sneak out during my 'planning time' and make a new friend as we do not get Television stations on the one TV in the school, flat screen of course. However to my surprise the teachers and secretary were following the game online. Awesome. Finally Im starting to see what the fuss was about.

Two highlights stand out in the game for me. The first came when B Lee hit an RBI single scoring Jo Lee from second base and T Lee advanced from first to second on the hit. Horray for homogeneity! The second was when at one point H Soo Kim was at bat and T Kyun Kim was on deck. I made some stupid observation about the Kims and my co-worker turns to me and wittly replies, "And you are watching the game with Kimmy!" She took Kimmy as her English name to make a simple transition from her Korean last name of, yeah, Kim. Ironically too, my director's last name is Kim. Oh the irony. As it turned out I was the only teacher wearing bright red Koran flare but that did not mean other teachers weren't chomping at the bit when Korea was down 3- 2 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and rejoicing when Korea's 2 changed to a 3 on the screen. Finally, some excitement in the school.

My co-workers may not care about baseball, or anything round that moves, but they at least restored my confidence in the country for a couple of innings.

Next post - I decode that Tupac is still alive and in the Final Four.

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