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Korea, World Cup 2002: by Jim Marquez |
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Sitting with a half million of the locals on the streets in downtown Seoul, watching their lads go at it against Poland on giant screen TVs mounted to the sides of buildings -- watching them win, then feeling the place explode into chaotic, heart-on-your-freaking-sleeve-joy. A man offered me his wife to kiss and take photos with. I partook. Another man offered me his girlfriend. Same. Young teenage girls grabbed us for kisses and hugs and more pictures and gave us flags, beers, bottles of cheap wine, and as far as I could see we were the only two Americans in the crowd. The earth simply opened up and regurgitated several levels of the Inferno. Then, later, we watched as these people went about on their own accord and picked up every scrap of trash they had dropped off the street -- cans, McDonald’s wrappings, clothing, whatever. They cleaned up after themselves without complaint -- about as good and clean as they could get it until the trucks came and finished up the job. Then, later, drunker, chatting it up with an effete Englishman on a street corner (local teenagers nearby inducing one of their buddies to vomit as he was slung over another’s back), and stunned me with the remark that he actually conned his way into a match for free down south in Bussan. A young Korean kept us in booze for two more hours there as he pushed into our hands litter-sized bottles of “OB” beer just because we were foreigners who seemed to be enjoying his country… |
 Game time -- don't forget your film! |
This is Korea…Visiting a “traditional” “working” “folk village” in the hills outside of Gyeongu, a two-mile walk back to the bus stop, which itself was in the middle of a lonely stretch of highway. No stop, just stand right there and the bus should stop to take you back to town. Anyway, it’s ninety bloody degrees, the humidity is off the charts, we’re trekking back to the highway, and along the road comes this minivan, local behind the wheel. He pulls to a dusty stop, swings open the door and yells, “You need ride?” We jump in without hesitation, sit in back with the man’s children, letting us near his kids, hung over, reeking of the night before’s debauchery. Man, that’s trust! We rode to the bus stop cheering on Korea Team fighting… This is Korea… Riding on the late night train from Jeonju to Daejon, standing between cars, packed that night, others on the cheap hiding in the toilets, under the seats, hoping the conductor doesn’t catch up to them, chatting it up with an older English dude whose been all over the planet “just to see some good football”, and he’s praising the hell out of our U.S team, saying the lads back at home are really impressed by our play and me feeling so damn vindicated, realizing the trip wasn’t total lunacy, knowing that yes, we are witnessing a major part of history here… This is Korea… In a rush, trying to book the fastest train back to Seoul from wherever the hell we were at, and getting three different answers from three different clerks behind the counter at a train station, each standing no more than five feet from each other… |
 Entertaining the fans! |
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Telling the taxi drivers, in their own language and showing them on a map written in Korean and still they have no clue as to what the hell you’re talking about…but the upside to that is that a ride across town will cost you no more than nine bucks. In Japan it was just past the $18 mark, not even half way to our destination, when we decided to jump out at the next red light and hightail down one of the cleanest alleys I’ve ever had run down, in, through, along… This is Korea… Actually staying in those “love motels" with free porn, free booze, AC, and a mini-fridge. What more could a man possibly want? And because in one of them, the Mamasan was so tickled to have legitimate guests that stayed longer than two hours, she did our laundry every day for free, offered lifts to the train station, gave us enough toilet paper and tooth brushes to last until my next Euro trip, and even offered to mail our postcards. In the end, after we quietly checked out, she came scampering down the street to hug me, kiss me on the cheek, and say in the best English she could muster, “My heart sad you go.” This is Korea… Screw what everybody else says, including every damn Aussie and Canadian we came across who said we, the U.S. team, were merely “lucky”. We kicked Portugal’s ass all over the pitch, we hung tough to a draw with South Korea in their home stadium, and we thoroughly humiliated Mexico. Yeah, we got thumped by Poland, and even though Germany won, they sure as shit didn’t beat us… |
 Even Elvis was there! |
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This is Korea… Absolutely mobbed, signing autographs at a museum for school kids in Gyeongu because they’ve never seen Americans in person before. Now I know what a movie star feels like. You can keep it... Posing for thousands of pictures at the stadiums, with, well, with everybody! Being pulled and prodded, interviewed by every media outlet you can think of, tossed about in the pre-game madness, messing with the bored and what turned out to be unwarranted army contingencies, and then to top it off having mothers throwing their babies-their babies for the love of God-into our arms and saying “Here! Take picture!” Christ, I could barely hold myself up, you know? This is Korea… Staggering around late one night in Daegu, trying to find my room then having a local, some nasty old drunk in his fifties, point and scream at me at the top of his lungs, “FUCK YOU YANKEE! GO HOME!” Then attempt to charge me but giving up after three steps… This is Korea…Asking for information from a World Cup booth in the outskirts of Daejon, in the costly strip club/love motel/businessman area of the city, and the lady I’m asking the info from is in her fifties, sober, and takes my hand unexpectedly, looks deep into my eyes and says, “Thank you to USA. Thank you to making us free!” This is Korea…Businessmen in full regalia, passed out on the sidewalks, unflatteringly sprawled, briefcase in one hand, mobile in the other, and an empty bottle of the local firewater at their feet. A cop’s reaction? Light up a smoke, step over them, and keep on truckin’… This is Korea…I admire any man, any American who made the trek out to Korea to follow our national team. Very few of us went in the first place; after all, it ain’t like it’s the most popular thing in the states (although I can’t imagine why; oh yeah right, no time for network commercials, that’s why), but after talking to a lot of these inebriated fools, I learned the following and must say this: I’m sorry, pal, but staying at a four star hotel in Seoul, never leaving the place without at least a dozen other Americans around you, taking a charter flight out to whatever city the team was playing in, then taking a limo bus out to the stadiums, then taking the same route back so you can hang out at an overpriced bar with other Americans and then be in bed before 11pm is not backpacking, and it certainly isn’t as one New Yorker said to me, “Oh yeah, we’re roughing it right along with you guys.” Yeah, right… This is Korea…Accidentally coming across one swanky hotel up in the hills above Daegu where all the press boys were bunkered down. Seeing their Olympic-sized pool with an Olympic-sized TV screen plastered on a wall and tables with complimentary pitchers of OB and cable hook ups for laptops…I doubt those lazy bastards ever left the hotel. Get smashed, watch the match on the big screen, and e-mail your day’s piece in from pool side, pretending you were actually in a stadium…Ok, I’m a hypocrite: how can I get that gig? This is Korea…At a more than tense DMZ passport check, hot, staring
at my watch, I glance out the window of our bus and see two U.S. Army
privates, laughing their asses off, with their extra long cop-flashlights
reenacting a light saber duel from the recently released “Star Wars”
film in front of dozens of stoic South Korean soldiers. One of them, an
officer, is looking at this waste of our military might and
“cooperation” and shaking his head in disbelief, probably thinking to
himself I know I can’t say anything, but my Buddha, not in front of
the civilians! This is Korea…Some locals will not only tell you where something is located, but will personally take you there. And I mean walk a mile out of their way in the opposite direction and even go so far as to help you conduct whatever transaction you may need and then make sure you get back to where you started from. Christ, talk about extending a helping hand. Genuinely sweet, something you’d never get in the states that at first I was so cynically suspicious of their generosity that all I was thinking was What the hell does he want for it? Well, bully on me, I quickly changed that tune… This is Korea…Getting ripped at many an establishment, but none more interesting than at the following: “The Doors”, “The Who”, “The Rolling Stones”, and “NASA”… This is Korea…Out of all the friends I have, the only one who e-mailed me on a consistent basis while I was over in the land- that-logic-forgot was my ex-girlfriend. Seven years split, she in her life, mine in mine, and the only sense of comfort I received was when I was able to get to an internet café-excuse me, I mean a PC Shop-down the street in the middle of the night. And there she was. Heady stuff after all this time. So many since her, so much since her, and yet, God help me, but, I still love that woman… This is Korea…The alcohol-fueled roar of our savagery at all the U.S. matches, our ominous and more than intimidating chanting, the tangled mass of sweaty, anticipating bodies, the cop who put his finger to this lips and actually shushed us while we howled in the beer lines, the total abandoning of senses, releasing them to pure, orgasmic nirvana as you and only a few hundred of your countrymen cheer on your national team in stadiums filled with everybody else praying you drop dead…Incredible… This is Korea…The smell of cooked dog on the street corners. Puppy-halves hanging in the butcher shop windows giving new meaning to the tunr "How Much is that Doggy in the Window?" This and so much more was Korea, World Cup 2002… |
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