Koreana Autumn 1990 (English)

A quarterly on Korean culture

A Miracle At Chamshil? Korea Soars To Sports Stardom

Editor's Note

Interview With Minister Of Sports Chung Dong-sung 2 Yesterday's Korea Called Them "Flowers Of Youth" Lee )in-soo 7 I7 Pal-Pal ('88) Revisited: A Postmortem Of Seoul Olympics Chang )u-ho Sport For All Movement Kim Min-soo 24 Honeymoon: Between Sports And Businesses Oh Do-kwang 28 33 Korea's "Secret" Base For Sports Koh Too-hyon How Korea Kowtowed To Western Sports Koak Hyung-kie 45 Professional Sports In Korea Cho Dong-pyo 49 57 Sports Nationalism In Korea Lee Bang-won Physical Education In Korea Kang Sin-bok 63 World's Longest Sports Talks Lee Tae-young 68 Talks Also Continue on Political Front Madame Yuk Yong-su Kim Seong-jin

75 77

80 Review/Art Panmunjom and Brandenburg Oh Kwang-su Review/Dance Red and Green Light Rhie Sang-il 83 Review/Music Chung Myung-whun's Homecoming Han Sang-woo 86 Han Sang-chul 89 Review/Theater Russians Bring Down the House Review/Cinema A Saga of Partisan Fighters Lee Seung-ku 92 Tidings from International Cultural Society of Korea:

95

Excellence is Our Style At the office, or

I

At Hotel Lotte

There's one Common link.

More and more businessmen choose our New Wing for its uncompromising luxury and executive services.

Here, they enjoy rooms that are the biggest on average in town, generously sized desks and quick access to a fax, copier and typewriter.

From express check-in at our Hospitality Lounge, friendly assistance and a smile are never far away.

Count on more pluses like unsurpassed downtown location that adjoins the Lotte Department Store and Asia's largest Duty Free Shop.

Enjoy the efficiency and comforts of your home office by staying with the best in Seoul.

Stay with Hotel Lotte.

We are here to help you get down to business.

Member in Seoul, Korea

@1\,~~~~· ~ • 1484 modern rooms & suites • 22 restaurants & bars • Asia's most luxurious health club • Department store & duty free shop

Head Office: C.P.O. Box 3500 Seoul, Korea. Phone: (02) 771-10, Tlx: LOTTEHO K23533/4, Fax: SEOUL 752-3758, Cable: HOTELOTTE Overseas Office: New York: (201) 944-1117 Toll Free 800-22-LOTTE, L.A.: (213) 540-7010 Toll Free 800-24-LOTTE, London: (01) 323-3712/4.

Tokyo: (03) 564-1462, Osaka: (06) 263-1071/2

Editor's Note

KOREANA Vol. 4 No.3 1990 KOREANA is published quarterly by INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL SOCIETY OF KOREA 526, 5-ga, Namdaemunno, Chung-gu, Seoul KOREANA was registered as a quarterly magazine with the Ministry of Information, Republic of Korea, on August 8, 1987.

Registration No. Ba-1 03 3 ©I nternational Cultural Society of Korea 1990 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without tlie prior permission of t{te International Cultural Society of Korea.

PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Kim Seong-jin EDITORIAL BOARD: Choe Chungho, Hahn Man-young, Rhee Sang-woo. Yoo Young-ik EDITOR IN CHIEF: S. Chang MANAGING EDITOR: Lee Kyong-hee ART DIRECTOR: Kim Shi-joong ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Song Jung-sok (text) Cho Sang-in (design) CIRCULATiON: Overseas/C.P.O. Box 2147. Seoul. Korea Tel: (02) 753-6464 Fax: (02) 757-2049 Domestic/C.P.O. Box 7852, Seoul. Korea Tel: (02) 274-5443, 269-2209 U.S. Subscriber Service: KOREANA P.O. Box 312 Hartsdale, New York I 0530 Tel: (91 4) 472-4587 Fax: (914) 472-1195 Advertising inquires should be addressed to: AD Seoul. RM 601, Lions Bldg., 5D-2ga, Chungmuro, Chung-gu, Seoul. Korea Tel: (02) 274-8336 Fax: (02) 274-8337 LAYOUT: Yong Ahn Graphics TYPESETTING: World Compugraphic PRINTING: Dong-a Publishing & Printing Co. (Kim Hyun-shik) Printed in Korea. September I 5, 1990 Price per copy: US$5 (W3,500)

A MIRACLE AT CHAMSHIL?

Korea Soars To Sports Stardom ou call the emergence of sou~ Korea as an economic power a Miracle on the Han (River)? One writer has dreamed up a term for the ·spectacular rise of the same country in the 1986 Asian Games and the I 988 Summer Olympic Games: a "Miracle at Chamshil." On the fringes of Seoul and hard by the Han, Chamshil is where the Olympic Stadium is Sohn Kee·chung, Korea's superstar located.

In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, The term might be apt. copped his country's first gold medal.

Coming from almost nowhere at all , south Korean athletes all at once soared to a prominence that left officials around the world stunned. In terms of gold medals garnered. Korea in the Asian Games placed second (93 vs. China's 94) and in the Olympics fourth.

How did they manage to pull off such Herculean feats?

Some specialists have tried to come up with an answer · through an analysis of Henri Bergson's elan vital, ~hile others have even attempted to explain it by means of a maxim attributed to that old soldier, Ferdinand Foch: "Victoire c'est Ia volonte."

In time for the Beijing Asian Games of this fall, this issue of KOREAN A makes a fresh go at it by assembling answers from Korean experts themselves. The outcome of the meets in the Chinese capital might or might not underline the soundness of their absorbing arguments.

Y

This Is the ancient Greek helmet received by Korean mara· thon star Sohn Kee-chung. ·S ohn became his country's first gold medalist In Berlin back In 1936. The helmet, which was part of his Olympian trophy, reached him In Seoul from Germany half a century later. The helmet has In· spired the symbol mark design for sports stories In this Issue.

Koreana Interview

0: WHY SHOULD GOVERNMENT TAKE CHARGE OF SPORTS? A: Because Sports Represent Vital National Interests Chung Dong-sung

Minister of Sports

Having studied physical education at colleges both in Korea and the U.S., the handsome man with a sportsman's build certainly knows sports. But that might be only part of his qualiffcation for heading the Ministry of Sports. What's about as important for his ;ob would be the accumulation of political savvy that has become his as a result of his service with the National Assembly as a hard-nosed member through four terms. Relaxed and good-humored, Chung Dong-sung, 51, recently squeezed a full hour from his tight schedule to grant KOREANA an interview and to drive home his point: a direct government participation in sports is a must for the excellent reason that sports represent nothing less than vital national interests.

Koreana:

Mr. Minister, my first question is simple. Should government take charge of matters like sports as you do in south Korea? If so, why so?

Minister Chung: Governments anywhere you go around the world have a dual role to play.

On the one hand, government would have to be restrictive in enforcing law to maintain soda! order. On the other, government would be socially committed to work hard with the people to improve their health, their welfare and their environment.

The main job for my ministry is not so complicated. My ministry is dedicated to the philosophy that in the sound body resides the sound mind.

We do everything possible to improve the health of the nation by the exceedingly effective means of sports. The ultimate aim of course is to help make ours a happy welfare society.

One thing must never be forgotten. It is that when the degree of sophistication climbs in any country, the opportunity dwindles for its people to undergo enough physical exercise. The outcome is damaging in terms of physical and mental health.

In the wake of our spectacular economic development this fact along with the mounting pressure to get set for the Seoul Olympics, made itself felt. So much so that this ministry came into being eight years ago.

Though my ministry played a crucial part in making the Seoul Olympics a success, it now is assuming an added task. First it called itself the Ministry of Sports. Now it is the Ministry of Sports and Youth.

There is nothing singular about the fact that we take charge of sports.

Witness the case of the U.S. Its government attaches such an importance

2

INTERVIEW

Minister of Sports Chung Dong-sung

to sports that in I 956 a special commission on sports and physical educa~ tion was created, and this commission still continues today to report directly to the White House.

Including Canada and Belgium, there are 3 I countries with a ministry established solely to take charge of sports. Twenty~one countries includ~ ing France and Hungary have a ministry in charge of sports and youth affairs. More than 20 countries run a ministry to take care of sports, youth -aflci cultural affairs. In Japan, a large section of the Ministry of Education shoulders the same job but spends far more money than my ministry as a whole does.

My ministry represents a lot of business. too. It has been responsible for heavy investments for the construction of all major sports facilities around the country. A great deal of money is also spent to improve the environment for sports and physical education. We assist big and small enterprises where employee sports activities are concerned. We even grant them tax incentives. Then we provide sports stars and personages with financial aid.

Annually my ministry spends an equivalent of $30 million for the con~ struction of sports facilities. My ministry has built I 04 stadiums and 9 I full~le indoor gymnasiums for 27 I cities and counties across south Korea.

We believe that thus far we have filled 50 percent of the physical needs

CHUNG DONG-SUNG

3

of the nation on sports. In three years. our continued investment would raise the level to 80 percent.

Let me also talk of the role my ministry has been playing in promoting international exchange. An instance in point of course is the I 988 Seoul Olympics. A record number of countries- I 60. to be precise - took part in the Games. The theme of the occasion was "Beyond the Barriers." We take pride in the fact that in the case of many countries the participation in the Seoul Games meant the overcoming of ideological and political barriers.

We flatter ourselves in believing that the occasion was part of what in the end triggered this drastic change in Eastern Europe. I came to be convinced of this as a result of my trip through five East European countries last May. Indeed sports in some cases take precedence over international politics. Or I should say that sports pave the way for the development of international relations. I'm sure that in not such a remote future we would be signing sports compacts with countries with which normal diplomatic relations are yet to be opened - like China and north Korea.

Finally I'm reminded of the World Ethnic Korean Sports Festival staged here in Seoul last year. Nothing like this has ever before happened anywhere in the world. Of the five million ethnic Koreans living overseas. more than I .400 athletes took part in it. For them it was a great occasion to deepen their national identity. For ~sit meant another leap forward in enhancing national harmony.

K: Do sports and politics mix? What role can sports play in advancing national interests?

C: Sports. as you know. recognize no social or dass distinctions. Sports instead always have

a unifying influence over people. Then sports are indispensable for healthy life. And then we have to note that as the income level of a country rises. the amount of leisure time is bound to increase for its people. What to do? We have to see to it that the people take advantage of the increase not by pursuing decadent pleasures but by engaging in constructive activities - like sports.

At this juncture. our country finds itself in another critical stage. I say this because there is a second leap-forward in the making in Korea's economic. political and social fields.

In other words. we're becoming a more and more affluent society. What we need now is something that I would call a "good leisure" culture to make it all a well-balanced development.

Leisure of course is an important element in life. Once we failed to pay it enoagh attention. It's a different story after the Seoul Olympics. People are far more interested in sports than ever. A recent poll conducted around the country indicates that as much as 48 percent of our population is practicing sports on a regular basis.

This is gratifying because of many reasons. One of them is that sports. when practiced by so many of the population. effectively help reduce social strains and stresses. In fact. sports. when properly practiced on a mass scale. can be a good driving force for national development.

Some people say there's nothing that's not political under the sun. The relationship between politics and sports is close indeed. All sports must be played in strict accordance with set rules. It should be the same story with politics. Those who know sports are apt to understand politics. Those who know politics should understand sports too.

I studied physical education at universities and have served for four terms as a member

4

INTERVIEW

of the National Assembly - and I know how sports and politics mix. Both must be democratic.

Born in I 939, I never attended school while our country was under Japanese rule (The Japanese empire and its rule over Korea collapsed in I 945). I belong to what people referred to as the hangul (Korean alphabet) generation. (Up till then school education in Korea was conducted in Japanese - Ed.) As a young man I was chairman of the Korean Students Association. That I may be allowed to say, gave me a deep insight into youth affairs.

Then I plunged into politics by serving in turn with National Assembly standing committees on home affairs, transportation and communications, and commerce and industry. The experience has left me deeply convinced of the necessity for political personages to dedicate themselves to the spirit of service and sacrifice for the people.

And here I am, administering sports and youth affairs at the same time and doing so against the background of my political experiences. Perhaps I myself amount to an answer to your question. Sports indeed mix with politics.

K: I remember how south Korea all but outdistanced Japan and garnered nearly as many

gold medals as China (93 vs. 94) in the stunning upset of the I 986 Asian Games in Seoul.

What role did your government play in helping to pull off this stunning upset?

GOVERNMENT ROLE C: Indeed the role played by the government was massive and comprehensive. So much so that it would be hard indeed to itemize the efforts. On a national scale, the government extended financial help in scouting promising athletes. Similarly these selected athletes were trained in the scientifically finest ways possible.

It is essentially the same story with the Olympics. In I 98 I , the vote was cast for Seoul to host the I 988 Olympics. The next year this ministry was established. Then we went all out on a nationwide scouting drive. In it no less than 6.2 million youngsters were put through athletic aptitude tests. Out of the colossal tests 4,300 youths were picked as highly promising materials.

Now they were given intensive training under the supervision of the Korea Sports Science Institute. The training program was conducted all the way from the level of elementary school. Then the finest of therri. were sent overseas for more scientific trai~ing. The government program handsomely paid off. Of the 33 medals Korea won in the Games, as many as I 6 were copped by these talented boys and girls to come out of the government program.

The program took all of six years. The result amply justifies the government efforts.

With the Beijing Asian Games, it's been exactly the same story.

K: What is the size of your ministry's budget and how many people do you have on your

staff? What is the focus of your efforts now? And what is your biggest headache as the sports czar of south Korea?

C: The headache? Certainly it's about whether or not we retain our second place in the Asian Games as we did in Seoul four years ago.

We have now 22 5 staffers for the ministry. The focus of our efforts has four aspects.

CHUNG DONG-SUNG

5

First. we are supporting what we call a Sport for All Movement (turn to page 24 of this issue for an article: Sport for All Movement). Second. we must train our athletes scientifically. Third. we have to promote international exchanges through sports. Finally. we are seeing to it that our youths develop themselves mentally and physically in the right direction.

Including subsidies to local governments worth $180 million. the ministry's budget for this fiscal year is $2 50 million. Approximately 80 percent of it goes to promote the Sport for All Movement. Among other main items. I 0 percent of the budget is given to the job of elevating our athletes' international competitiveness.

In addition we have special funds available to the tune of $700 million. Our aim right now is to elevate the sum to an equivalent of $1 billion - in cash.

Ever since taking over this ministry, I have come to formulate four mottoes: I) sports must be taken up by all. 2) all must switch therefore from just watching to participating in sports. 3) international exchanges in sports in the end will help reunification of Korea . and 4) youths must develop themselves in the right direction. These too would be the focus of my ministry's efforts.

Precisely for this reason we have given full support to the World Jamboree held in Korea this summer with participation by 20.000 scouts from overseas and 12,000 from around our country.

K: The ancient Greeks and Romans did so much to develop a sound body in the interest of developing a sound mind. In yesterday's Korea. the dominant Confucian influence seems to have caused the ruling class to frown upon physical exercises all the time. Instead. the fondest posture struck among members of the ruling class seems to have been one of a bookish scholar or an elegant intellectual. Are sports really compatible with the cultural tradition of Korea?

C: Our ancestors were an equestrian people originating from the steppes of Siberia. Indeed the aristocratic literati in ancient Korea might have given the wrong impression that there was no emphasis placed on the importance of physical culture. The fact of the matter is. we have through all of our history passionately loved sports. Consider what one of our greatest Confucian scholars. Toegye. had to say a long, long time ago: "First. a sound body must be developed, and then a sound mind." The people in Korea down the ages have lived up to his advice. This fact is behind what you see today: a golden era of sports ¡ in our country.Ž

6

INTERVIEW

YESTERDAY'S KOREA CALLED THEM "FLOWERS OF YOUTH" In Korea Sports Are As Old

As Humanity Lee }in-soo ports are a product of man's recreational instinct. It has not been long since the term sports appeared in Korea; the word made its debut in Korean vocabulary only in this century. But the concept of sports might well date all the way back to the beginning of human history.

Sports evolve with time and take on different meanings in different times. The most recent definition of sports is that they are'organized games that require exhibitions of physical prowess, or plays in which victory and defeat are determined by one or more factors such as athletic technique, strategy and fortuity.

This definition of modern sport might be applicable, if with some reservation, to the sports of ancient Korea, for indeed there thrived a number of sports quite unique to the Korean people. Ancient Korean sports were closely related to religion or folk games that involved a great number of participants, as exemplified by sokchon (stone fight), cha;onnori (chariot battle) and kossaum (loop fight) . Some sports, such as kyokku (ancient form of soccer) and archery, became class-oriented and were for long categorized as gentlemen's sports.

Since the history of Korean sports is too extensive to be dealt with in a limited space, this article concentrates on a few traditional folk games and combat sports.

A historic review of Korean traditional sports can be approached in a number of ways.

One way is to excerpt and analyze relevant passages from historical documents. Another is to gather traditional forms of games at the grassroots. Yet another approach is to try to establish Korean sports in the stream of the world sports history by stretching, as suggested before, the western concepts of sports of recent development to the traditional folk games. Considerable progress has been made with the first two approaches, the former by historians and the latter by ethnic and folk scholars. But little has been done in the way of the third approach, in fact much less than would be expected for a country that catapulted to the rank of the world's sports powers through the I 988 Seoul Olympics. This study thus proposes to review Korean sports in terms of general sports history.

S

ANCIENT SPORTS Two most ancient sources that provide information on the prototypes of Korean sports are Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms) and Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), both compiled during the Koryo period (918-1392).

Born in 194 5, Lee Jin-soo graduated from the Department of Physical Education, Seoul National University, in 1967 and received an M.A. in 1975. He received an M.A. in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1986 from Tsukuba University in Japan with dissertations on the physical education of Hwarang of Shilla. He is currently an associate professor at the College of Physical Education, Han yang University. His publications indude The Philosophy of Physical Education and Sports. ~ LEE JIN¡SOO

7

Entries in these early history books describe martial arts including swordsmanship, archery, and spearmanship as well as boat racing, horsemanship and acrobatic horseriding, and chukkuk, a competition that might be considered the prototype of mod~ern soccer. They also refer to annual hunting contests held during the Koguryo period (37 B.C.-A.D. 668) and to hwarang, or flowers of youth. of Shilla (57B.C.-A.D. 935). or groups of youths who disciplined themselves in, among other things, dancing and singing, traveling and playing chukkuk.

Not all of the ancient sports are mentioned in Samguk sagi or Samguk yusa. Sokchon , the stone fight. is described in Sui-shu, a chronology documented in China, in its chapter on Koguryo. Beside these literary sources, archaeological materials provide notably graphic information on the ancient tradition.

Hunting scene In the mural of Yaksu-rl Tomb from Kim Kl-ung's Ancient Tombs wltft Wall Paintings In Korean Peninsula.

This hunting scene, which depicts men chasing wild animals such as boars, tigers and deer, gives a fairly good idea about one.of the favorite sports of the spirited Koguryo men. Another mural. found in the burial chamber of Anak No. I Tomb in Hwanghae-do Province, illustrates a falconry scene. Literary evidence shows that falconry thrived in Koguryo from its early days and that the falcons from Koguryo made their ways to the court of Tang China.

The record that it was a Paekche falconer who first taught Japanese the art of falconry also indicates that this sport was quite popular in ancient Korea.

Folk games, on the other hand, usually lack in documentation or literary evidence. There are some cursory references to sokchon and chukkuk in historical writings but none with detailed description on their rules and formation . Information on them can best be gathered from oral tradition and what has been passed down as part of folk festivities.

Many of the traditional folk games are marked with fierceness and exhibit intense competitiveness, sokchon, chukkuk, chajonnori and kossaum being the most typical of such sports.

FOLK GAMES Dr. Horace N. Allen, American missionary-cum-diplomat who came to Korean in 1884, describes sokchon games he witnessed as follows in his book, Things Korean (Royal Asiatic Society, 1894): ".... Execution is done with these stones, in the throwing of which the natives are very skillful. As one side overpowers the other and puts it to flight a mad noisy battle takes place, which causes the thousands of spectators, who cover the adjoining hillsides, to surge in panic 8

YESTERDAY'S KOREA CALLED THEM "FLOWERS OF YOUTH"

as they flee from the rain of missiles sent by the victorious and pursuing side.

"In a real good fight of this character there are usually a few fatalities and many serious wounds. One man came to me in the early days, after one of these fights, with both tables of the frontal bone broken and the brain quite visible underneath. The lads who play at this game do not resort to these extreme measures. Military men who have witnessed these contests seem to think that people who go to such extremes in their sports should make good soldiers."

The stone fights as viewed by the American were characterized by the following features: a. Recreational plays. b. Games for determining the winner. c. Exhibition of physical prowess and skill in throwing stones.

These elements are quite reminiscent of modern sports. Another element that should not be overlooked here is the presence of spectators. Allen reports that there were thousands of spectators who "cover the adjoining hillsides," a statement that testifies to the nature of sokcflon as a spectator sport. Some westerners who observed sokcflon firsthand referred to it as "a stone fight" defining it as an "extraordinary form of amusement."

The origin of sokcflon dates back to ancient Koguryo where it was a major national event attended by the king. The fight took place at the beginning of each year by the Taedonggang River and was participated in by a great number of people. At the end of the game the king stepped into the water, fully clothed, and parted the people into two groups again.

Each side hurled stones and water to the other with a great deal of shouting, chasing and fleeing in turn. This they repeated several times before the day came to a close. It was a sport that exemplified the courageous spirit of the militant Koguryo people.

During the Koryo period, sokcflon was widely held throughout the country around Tano, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Poet Yi Saek (1328-96) of Koryo writes: "The stone fight unfolds with such a terrifying vehemence that one gets a chill in the heart even to watch it from a safe, high lookout." The game was so violent in fact that King Chungmok-wang issued a decree to ban it in 1345.

Sokcflon nevertheless continued to prosper throughout the Chason period (1392-191 0).

King Taejong (r. 140 1-18) encouraged the game praising that it was "not a play but a training in martial arts." If one remembers that an important factor that contributed to the development of modern sports was the positive support and sponsorship of the upper class, it can be safely assumed that support from the royal families and aristocrats were behind the sokcflon tradition enjoying popularity for such a long period of time.

There are various theories as to the origin of sokcflon. Some scholars explain that it was a natural development from the everyday habit of primitive men who had to do much hunting, while others see it as one of the ancient programs for combat training. Korean stone fight differs from that of Japan in that it was a game for adults, a special form of martial arts that was unabashedly enjoyed by many high-ranking public figures: a minister of engineering during the reign of King Taejong in fact was the representative of them. according to the Annals of tfre Dynasty of Chason. There is also a record of a massive sokcflon game held in front of King Sejong to initiate new recruits of sokcflon players. The game was positively regarded as a means to enhance a person's accomplishment in martial arts. Stone-throwing squads were formally organized in the army during the Three Kingdoms period and also during the Koryo period. It is also recorded that Japanese marauders were expelled by stone fighters during the Chason period.

Another explanation as to how the sokcflon originated is that it stemmed from an agrarian LEE JIN-SOO

9

ritual to predict the harvest of the year. If it had been started by primitive men in an effort to acquire food and protect themselves. stone throwing began to lose its practicality as they settled in the agrarian culture around the lOth century B.C. and gradually developed into a ceremonial event of a ¡ farming community.

A prevailing form of Korean sports since the introduction of agriculture is the tug-of-war.

Cfra;onnori and kossaum to be considered here are two of its variations. both closely related to the folk belief of foretelling the crop of the coming year.

CHARIOT BATTLE Cfra;onnori. or the chariot battle. is held on the I 4th and I 5th days of the first lunar month.

Since it is participated in by a great number of people and the whole townspeople throng to cheer for their respective teams. it always takes place in an open field or dry river bed.

Any men physically fit for the game are eligible to participate.

Cfra;onnori involves two teams. each equipped with a wood-and-rope "chariot" (cfza). The younger and stronger of the team members are chosen as "vanguards" and are lined up - hundreds of them - at the forefront of the chariot. which is carried by the bearers on their shoulders. The team maneuvers with agility at the commands of their leader who rides high on the chariot. the vanguards with their arms akimbo pushing the way with their shoulders against the opponents. The rule of the game is that whichever team whose chariot tip first touches the ground is declared the loser. Thus players strive not to go under the other's chariot and exert to hoist their chariot above the other's. When the game is over. the winners throw their straw sandals high into the sky and revel in the heady excitement of victory by pillaging the seat of the opponent leaders into tatters.

Kossaum came into the international limelight when it was staged at the opening ceremony of the I 988 Seoul Olympics. A compound word of ko (loop) and ssaum (battle or fight). kossaum is a two-team contest played with basically the same spirit and rules as cfra;onnori.

The "fight" begins around the first full moon of the year and would go on for more than ten days until the winner is determined. The teams are formed according to the location of their villages. Each team tries to make their loop bigger than the other's so that they can get more people to uphold it. The object is to push the loop of the opponent down to the ground. As the two contesting teams clash head on with each other. the loops soar high above the pushers and the commander of each team. perched atop the loop. wrestles with each other to throw the other off his loop. While the fight goes on. the exuberant nongak. or the farmers' band music. blares to heighten the spirit of the fighters. and the spectators. about as frenzied as the players by this time. burst forward to join in the fight. Kossaum in short is a very masculine and fiercely competitive game.

Where does this intense drive to win spring from? In all probability it might stem from the firm belief among members of the agrarian community that the outcome of these games is directly related to the harvest. People believed that the village that triumphed in one of these popular contests of physical exertion would enjoy a bumper crop. The year's crop is of course the prime concern of the farmers any time and it is quite understandable that they were fiercely determined to win.

On the other hand. something quite similar to today's soccer was extremely popular during the Three Kingdoms period. Both Samguk sagi and Samguk yusa contain an episode of Kim Yu-shin. a great warrior who was instrumental in Shilla's unification of Korean Peninsula in the seventh century, playing cfrukkuk with Kim Chun-chu. who later became King Taejong

10

YESTERDAY'S KOREA CALLED THEM "FLOWERS OF YOUTH"

Muyol-wang.

Chukkuk was introduced to Korea via China and then to Japan from Korea. Mari or kemari. the Japanese name for chukkuk, obviously originated from mori (head) in Korean. There is no way to ascertain the exact manner in which chukkuk was played in ancient Korea, but historical documents indicate that it did not require a special ground. but it was played on any vacant lot in the village.

PLUMED BALL Since Korea was heavily influenced by Tang China at the time. it is assumed that chukkuk too was played in accordance with rules that prevailed in China. The illustration here provides some idea of the chukkuk game as played in Tang China.

Cliukkuk Court during T'ang Dynasty.

From Wu Wen¡chung's Selections of Historical Literatures and Illustrations of Pliysical Activities In Clihrese Culture.

The chukkuk game using two goal posts as in this illustration appeared in the early seventh century in Tang and faded away toward the end of Sung Dynasty in the early 12th century with the emergence of one goal post chukkuk. The new version, as shown in the next illustration, continued to thrive in China until the early 20th century. The style of the goal post in the illustration is. incidentally, very similar to that featured in pogurak. a traditional dance repertory that used to be staged at court banquets during the Choson period.

Cliukkuk Court in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.

From Wu Wen-chung's Selections

of Historical Literatures and Illustrations of Pliyslcal Activities In Clilnese Culture.

In Korea, in the meantime, chukkuk continued to enjoy popularity throughout the Koryo and Choson periods. The ball used was called kigu, animal bladders filled with air and sheathed with leather. In Tongguk seshigi (Annals of Korea), compiled in the late 19th century, is this mention: "Chukkuk is enjoyed by adults and children alike. The ball is about the size of a large cannon ball and is adorned with pheasant plumes. Two persons stand facing each LEE JIN-SOO

II

other and kick the ball. The one who keeps the ball in the air the longest without dropping it to the ground is the best player."

The cannon ball of the time. as confirmed by the one kept in the collection of the Military Academy. was about the size of a modern soccer ball. Because the ball was plumed. the play was sometimes called chukchigu. meaning "to kick a plumed ball." The plumed ball eventually developed into the shuttlecock that children today play kicking with the side of their insteps.

It is believed that chukkuk was played in Korea with no limits on the number of players or facilities. The ball took different shapes and sizes with the change of time until it was finally reduced to a children's plaything. Although it underwent a great deal of change in style. the basic rule that required constant kicking to keep the ball from landing remains unchanged to this day.

The tradition of chukkuk is relatively well preserved in Japan. owing much to the hereditary lemoto System. Its rules do not differ basically from those of the Korean shuttlecock. a fact which indicates that chukkuk was transmitted to Japan after it had been somewhat Koreanized.

The long tradition of chukkuk playing made itself felt when the modern soccer was introduced to Korea. In the early days. soccer was not subject to strict rules as required for today's games. The players were attired in the traditional everyday garb of loose hanbok and vests. and their hair was bound in topknots and headbands. There existed no limits on the number of players as long as both sides had the same number of players. which usually ran up to fifteen or sixteen. Neither were there any goal posts; the ball was kicked up the approximate height of the goalkeeper or thereabouts.

The game could go on for any length of time until one team declared to have lost. When neither had made goal points. the team with less penalty points was declared the victor.

Players who could send the ball flying up high were considered to be most skilled. They usually played on a vacant lot in temple sanctuary or empty rice field after harvest.

Soccer became extremely popular in the early 20th century and even under the colonial rule of Japan. or all the more because of it. for Koreans saw soccer as a source of national pride when Korean teams defeated the Japanese.

COMBAT SPORTS Among the better known of traditional individual sports in Korea are ssirum. the Korean answer to the Western wrestling. and subak. the prototype of Ulekwondo. The oldest form of ssirum we can see comes from the mural in the Kakchochong Tomb dated to the 5th-6th century Koguryo. Located in Tungkou. in the section of China once known as Manchuria. this ancient tomb has a large painting of a ssirum scene on the east wall of the burial chamber. the illustration of which is presented here. (on facing page) The painting shows two men. clad in loincloths. grappling each other. Their hands are gripping each other's loincloth and their feet are firmly planted in the ground. 0ne of them is eyeing downward with his shoulders taut with tensed muscles. while the other's face is turned up. his mouth slightly agape as if he is short of breath.

Contrasting to the athletic pose of these two virile men. a patriarch with flowing white beard watches them leaning on his cane. It appears the old man is refereeing the match.

The Annals of Korea has this to say: "Young people play ssirum on Mt. Namsan or behind the Shinmumun Gate of Mt. Pugaksan. The rule is for two men to sit on their knees face 12

YESTERDAY'S KOREA CALLED THEM "FLOWERS OF YOUTH"

From Kim Kl-ung's Ancle11t Tombs wltfr Wall Paintings In tfre Korean Penilrsula

to face. knees touching each other's. Each grabs the other by the belt with his right hand and the thigh with his left hand. They push themselves up together to the standing position and grapple until one forces the other down to defeat. Ssirum involves a number of techniques such as hooking in the leg, hooking out the leg. and lifting. Chinese call it Koryogi; or the Koryo sport. " This description of ssirum from the I 9th century evokes almost an identical impression as we get from the 5th-6th century Koguryo tomb painting. demonstrating that the ancient sport was passed down without much alteration in its style for over a thousand years.

The prototype of subak can be found in the painting of another Koguryo tomb dating from the sixth century. Named Muyongchong (Tomb of Dancers). this tomb is also located in Tungkou. northeastern China (Manchuria), and is representative of tombs built in the middle period of Koguryo. (see detail of the wall painting below.)

In one of the paintings that adorn the walls of its main chamber are depicted two men clad in loincloths only and poised like contemporary ssirum players. Judging from their mustache, they seem to be in their mid-thirties. The arms and legs of both fighters are depicted quite corpulently, apparently to emphasize their excellent muscular development. The

~

---- "'\-!

___/

From the "Tomb of Dancers" (See above).

LEE JIN-SOO

13

right man is airborne, having just launched into an attack motion, upon which the man on the left has taken a defensive position with his left knee inflected and the left arm stretched forward.

While most of the scholars are of the opinion that this painting represents the archetype of taekwondo. some express doubt for, what with the loincloths and the poses of the fighters, it could also be interpreted as a warming-up for ssirum. It is different from ssirum, however, in that the two contestants are positioned apart from each other instead of grappling together.

Then again, it cannot be positively declared that there existed in the sixth-century Korea two distinctly separate sports of ssirum, where throwing down the opponent makes one.win, and something like today's taekwondo, which prescribes striking and kicking with hand and foot.

From the 12th century the word subak. which means "striking with hands," began to appear in historical documents. Koryosa (History of Koryo) records that a king himself played the obyong subak hui, which apparently was a one-against-five free style match, and that a soldier named Yi Ui-min (?-1196) was promoted to a high position for his excellence in subak. Tu Kyong-sung (? - 1197) who rose to a government ministership was also an invincible champion in the sport.

It is not possible to tell how subak or obyong subak hui matches were actually executed , for the History of Koryo does not give any detailed information. The nearest clue is the account that a military general named Yi So-ung fled because he could not defeat even one opponent in the match. The obyong subak hui is thus assumed to have been a one-against-five match, probably one military against five civilians.

In the 15th century or in the early Chason period, subak was chosen as a requisite in the military recruit examination and spread throughout the country as a popular national sport.

With the beginning of the 20th century there emerged a kick game called takkyon. Says the writer of the Haedong chukchi: "In the ancient tradition is a kicking sport in which one throws the opponent down to the ground using his feet only. An unskilled fighter kicks his opponent at the leg, a better skilled one at the shoulders. and the best skilled at the topknot. " It is believed that taekwondo. the national sport that prevails in Korea today, was separated from ssirum in the course of repeated divergence and development of these ancient combat sports. and was systematized in the 20th century.

The account of a combative match between Kim Yo-chun, a Korean Hercules of the 17th century, and the Chinese muscleman U Kuo deserves quoting: "Upon reviewing his opponent, Kim at a first glance saw that U's weakness was in his oversized nose. He aimed his fist at the nose. and U shied his face away to avoid the blow. Never a man to lose the chance.

Kim grabbed the other's waist and hurled him down on the ground."

This episode indicates that ssirum and subak were not totally separated from each other until as recently as the mid-17th century. There is no doubt however, that courage was nurtured among yesterday's combat sports.

HWARANG Hwarang, the flowers of youth, was an institution of young elites that prospered in Shilla from around the sixth century to the I Oth century. Sometimes called pungryudo, pungwoldo and kuksondo , the youths of this noble band were educated to become leaders of their society through vigorous training in martial arts, self-discipline and studies in social norms and manners. They purported to cultivate an ethos that served the need of their nation by honoring tradition and nurturing the spirit of cooperation, fidelity and courage.

14

YESTERDAY'S KOREA CALLED THEM "FLOWERS OF YOUTH"

Koreans call this ethos the frwarang spirit. It has been honored throughout the history and is upheld today in the form of the Military Academy. Hwarang is also favored as the name of national sports teams. Mihina. a renowned frwarang scholar in Japan. describes the frwarang band as a kind of fraternity group of young men who enjoyed dancing. singing and playing.

As there is a passage in Samguk sagi that they "encouraged youths to play in groups so they could observe and select good ones for public posts." frwarang band might as well be explained as a sporting group.

The youths were engaged in many kinds of sports including martial arts, hunting, traveling or pilgrimage to be more accurate. dancing and singing, and cfrukkuk. Strongly marked with patriotism and martial spirit. they were trained in horsemanship. archery. swords and spearmanship. In time of war they fought at the front line.

Pilgrimage to sacred mountains was the most important physical exercise for frwarang to discipline themselves. As the ancient Shilla men worshiped heaven and mountains among other things, the pilgrimage took route across the country to scenic sites that had religious significance. They traveled to coastal areas such as Sasonbong Peak of Chongsokchong. Kumrangul Cave in Tongju. Kyongpodae. Hansongjong. Wolsongjong and Samilpo of Kosong as well as the inland mountains of Odaesan and Kumgangsan.

Pilgrimage of frwarang was in many ways similar to the Wandervogel. a youth movement that originated in Germany. Pilgrimage in a group awakens the innate sense of virtue and solidarity among the young men and heightens their communal spirit and love for humanity. The experience matures their mind and inspires them with a desire to better themselves and their world so that. when they return to their home country, they exert to introduce and transplant the virtuous things and thoughts of other people and other countries they had come to know in the course of their travel.

The pilgrimage of frwarang was at the same time an educational excursion to learn about the lives and conditions of both their people and their foes. a military parade to uplift the patriotic spirit of their countrymen and an exercise to enhance their minds and bodies.

There were two types of hunting in ancient Korea . each marked with distinctly different nature from the other. One was the hunting undertaken with a political or military purpose and initiated by the king. The other was the hunting undertaken as a sport. A glimpse of frwarang engaged in hunting is provided by a tile in the Kyongju National Museum. Unearthed in 1934 in Kyongju. this Shilla-period tile carries an illustration of a group of frwarang, mounted on horses. chasing and shooting arrows in the same fashion as the Koguryo hunters depicted in the tomb murals.

A report in Samguk yusa about Kuchamgong, a frwarang. and his mentor Monk Hyesuk reveals that the purpose of hunting was not in slaying the animals but in instilling compassion for the slayed in the mind of the slayer. Through the lessons of hunting the monk guided his frwarang disciples to appreciate the preciousness of all the living creatures and to honor lives. their own and others' . It was an example of sport used as a means of enhancing character cultivation. A gentleman's way was not in the enjoyment of hunting itself but in feeling remorse for the loss of life he had caused.

It is easily imagined. however. that many of the frwarang, young blooded as they were. often tended to forget the educational value of hunting and steeped in the blind enjoyment of the game. Hence the injunction of the monk which the writer of Samguk yusa thought it necessary to pass on to posterity.

Cfrukkuk was another popular sport that frwarang enjoyed. According to Ssu-ma Chien's History, a renowned Han Chinese general encouraged his soldiers to play cfrukkuk to develop

LEE JIN¡SOO

I5

their physical prowess and also for recreational purpose. This entry indicates that chukkuk was closely related to military training programs.

Though we cannot be quite certain when chukkuk first appeared in Korea. the general belief is that it was introduced around the first century via L<rlang. one of the Han Chinese commanderies in northern Korea. By the 6th-7th century it seems to have developed into a sport very much loved by young people and hwarang especially. Kim Yu-shin. whose sister's betrothal to Kim Chun-chu. the future King Taejong Muyol-wang, began with a chukkuk game between the two friends. was an ex-hwarang himself. As chukkuk had much to do with training in martial arts. it was only natural that the paramilitary corps of hwarang were steeped in this sport.

While many sports historians testify to the high standards of sports as part of rituals developed in the ancient time. as can be gathered from fragments of information found in ancient India. Assyria. Persia. Egypt. China. Japan and other ancient countries. there are not all that many people who would acknowledge that sports were used as an educational means in the ancient time. The prevailing opinion is that sports were at best a functional training and were part of daily labor. combative exertion or casual recreation that had little to do with educational purpose.

CHALLENGE It is a challenging task to present the long and extensive history of Korean traditional sports in a nutshell. Countless are traditional games that can be classified as sports in modern concepts. nolttwigi (Korean equivalent of seesaw). kite flying. changgi (chess). paduk (go). and kyokku being only a few of their examples.

This report has concentrated on several representative sports that thrived until recently and thus have relatively great availability of information needed to trace back their prototypes.

Sports that developed from ancient religious rituals. like sokchon. cha;onnori and kossaum . involved a great number of participants and were enormously popular. They underline the sense of valor and fierce competitiveness of Korean men.

Chukkuk. the prototype of modern soccer. was transmitted to Korea from China and was passed on to Japan in a Koreanized form . It is believed to have been included in the educational program of hwarang because of its value for martial training. Reduced to shuttlecock kicking in the recent years. chukkuk nevertheless paved the way for the arrival of modern soccer in Korea and contributed to its rapid development.

Ssirum and Ulekwondo. or their prototypes. existed in the ancient Korea in a form without much distinction from each other. both being combat sports aiming at felling the opponent. and subak. the skill of fist fighting, was derived from them in the 12th century. It was then developed into U!kkyon. which was subak skill plus foot attack. in the late I 5th century during the Chosen period. And Ulkkyon was the prototype of modern U!ekwondo.

In his preface to the History of Korean Physical Education published in 1959. Dr. Na Hyon-song writes: "Let it never be forgotten that we can reach the international standard in sports only when we succeed in thoroughly ingraining and assimilating modern sports of the advanced countries into our own sports tradition and inherent philosophy." Dr. Na's admonition remains much valid in 1990 as efforts are being made to locate Korean sports in the international sphere by scrutinizing the prototypes of various Korean traditional sports. ÂŽ

(The text of this article was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREAN A. This is a translation.)

16

YESTERDAY'S KOREA CALLED THEM "FLOWERS OF YOUTH"

PAL-PAL ('88) REVISITED

A Postmortem Of Seoul Olympics Chang

Ju~ho

haos? To the casual observer an Olympiad certainly looks like a chaos. Everywhere there are people and people - athletes and officials coming to and from events. media personnel swarming around each competition. and thousands upon thousands of spectators. A closer study, though, would show that this chaos is actually an illusion. The athletes, officials and media people know perfectly what they are doing. The same must be said of the spectators. They are thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. Out of the swirling mass of activities a well-organized and rigidly-structured composition makes itself at once felt and visible.

The complexities and difficulties in planning, organizing and running such a large event are enormous. Years of meticulous and painstaking preparations are required for successful Olympics. Let us consider a hypothetical example to help put things in perspective. Imagine, if you will, that instead of the yearly World Series, every several years the top twenty-five teams in American baseball gathered in one location for a tournament These top twentyfive teams would play through a double-elimination tournament to determine the three best teams. What sort of difficulties would face a city to host such an event?

Well, first. where are all of these games going to be held? Twenty-five teams in a doubl~ elimination tournament over a two-week period- that is. three to four games a day. This will require two. possibly three full-sized ball parks. preferably not too far apart. Perhaps the host city will have to build one of these stadiums or possibly refurbish existing facilities.

Next. where will all of these people stay? The number of people in twenty-five baseball teams - and please do not forget those many staff members and officials - is not small.

All of these people will have to be fed and housed during their two-week stay. And none of the housing accommodations can be too far from any of the ball parks.

Where will the athletes practice? On their off-days and off-hours the teams will want to practice. And this requires yet more facilities. Further, how will the athletes and officials travel to and from their games and practices? The host city will need to provide all necessary guides and, transportation.

C

TECHNOLOGY Given the nature of the event. the media will certainly have a large presence. Some space at all these facilities must be allocated for the many broadcasters and reporters. In addition all these people will need guides. Telecasting necessitates quite a bit of technology as well.

The game sites will have to be capable of accommodating various television and radio crews

Dr. Chang Ju-ho. professor at College of Sports Science, Kyunghee University, concurrently serves as president of the Korean Olympic Academy and vice-president of the International Council for Health. Physical Education and Recreation (ICHPER). He was formerly deputy secretary general of the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOOC). Born in 1937, Chang graduated from Seoul National University's Graduate School for Public Administration. completed a doctorate course at Springffeld College in Springffeld. Mass., in 1973. and obtained his doctorate in public administration from Dankook University in Seoul in 1982.

CHANG JU¡HO

17

with necessary equipment.

Communications are obviously important. The organizers must have an efficient means of communication among various venues, training and housing sites and also with the transportation services.

It already sounds bewilderingly complex. Yet through all this we have ignored one very important factor: the spectators. For this sort of tournament spectators would come from all over the country. Probably local hotels would be inadequate to handle the huge influx of tourists. Still, there must be enough accommodations for them. If new accommodations are built in expectation, how will they be used after the tournament?

And how will the presence of so many spectators affect the local transportation picture?

Consider the effect that one major league baseball game has on local automobile traffic.

Consider too its effect on public transportation. Now expand that picture to cover three to four games per day for two straight weeks.

Think of the impact that all these visitors will have on local businesses. Tourism is a lucrative business but it is as labor-intensive as it is service-oriented. Local restaurants, shops, and tourist sites will be swamped.

These have been just some of the more obvious considerations in running an event of this magnitude. All manner of sticky details and problems would arise from the planning stage and right through the two-week period and after.

A successful tournament requires a meticulous planning. And minor crises, unexpectedly occurring during the games. must be managed swiftly and expertly. And finally, we have not even mentioned financing. The money to support such an undertaking must come from somewhere.

Now for the last bit of our hypothetical tournament let us throw in a couple of complications. Suppose our twenty-five teams do not come frotn the United States but rather from twenty-five different countries. Of these twenty-five teams, twenty are from non-English speaking countries. Translators for each team must be found and translators for various officials are clearly necessary as well. Food then becomes a problem as the athletes' meals must be prepared in more ways than one. And again, let us not forget the spectators. Our masses of tourists will also need extra assistance to overcome language difficulties.

Finally, at an international event the possibility of political or terrorist problems becomes a major concern. Security is crucial to prevent any potential terrorists from exploiting the tournament in the interest of championing their causes. The athletes. their accommodations, the game and training sites, the entire tournament must be guarded at all times.

Our imaginary tournament is clearly a large and complex undertaking. Careful planning and organization are obviously crucial for such an event or it would collapse under its own weight. Now consider that what we have described here is equal to but a fraction of what we went through for the Seoul Olympics.

4.8 MILLION ADMISSIONS A total of 160 countries participated in the Seoul Games, sending, all told, more than 13,000 athletes and officials. Twenty-three official sports were presented with a total of 237 events, roughly 10,000 matches. As many as 237 gold medals were awarded over the course of 16 days. Thirty-four competition venues were used, of which twelve had to be constructed specially for the Olympics. Seventy-two training sites were used alongside those for actual competition. Media participation, as one would expect, was colossal in scale. Exactly 127

18

PAL-PAL {'88) REVISITED

Opening ceremonies of the Seoul Olympic Games.

broadcasting companies from 65 countries recorded and relayed the Games to the rest of the world. More than I. 500 publications worldwide sent their representatives for the coverage to Seoul. The Main Press Center was daily used by more than 5,000 reporters.

And again, let us not forget the visitors. or the spectators. More than 200.000 people came to Seoul from around the world to watch the Olympics. When all was done this constituted 4.8 million admissions.

In retrospect. we might be allowed to say that the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOOC) dealt with all of these problems successfully. The games ran smoothly with a minimum of difficulties. How this was accomplished is a complex story in itself.

The decision to award the 1988 Summer Games to Seoul was made in 1981. Preparations were begun in earnest almost immediately. The first order of business was to learn what was to be faced and. as soon as it was formed. the SLOOC embarked on its intensive information-gathering activities.

A variety of resources were tapped. both written and human. Representatives were sent to past Olympic sites to study previous hosts' solutions to expected problems. Experts and officials from the International Olympic Committee and past Olympic organizing committees were invited to speak and share their wisdom. The eventual result of this was an enumeration of every step. every task which could be anticipated. This plan was used to guide and structure all future preparations and activities.

PHASE & ACTS

5

Now the SLOOC set for itself five principal objectives deemed necessary for the Olympics to be a success. These may be summarized with the acronym PHASE. These are: "P" stands for participation. The previous two Olympics had been marred by boycotts.

For a successful Games. participation by as many countries as possible was deemed essential.

CHANG JU¡HO

19

"H" represents harmony. The Olympics have become an international symbol for peace

and cooperation. Clearly the games needed to be completed in a harmonious atmosphere.

"A" is for achievement. in the sense of athletic excellence. The SLOOC hoped to provide an atmosphere conducive to outstanding athletic performance. Audience expectations at Olympics can only be met if the competition is fierce and world records are broken.

"S" means security and service. both key to any international event. There was considera~ ble. and justifiable concern over security after the 1972 tragedy in Munich.

Finally. "E" denotes economy and efficiency.

With these goals in mind. the SLOOC carefully detailed the necessary projects to set up and run the Games. These are summarized by the acronym ACTS 5 â&#x20AC;˘ where each letter represents one of the five most important projects for running and preparing for the Seoul Games. These were:

A: Airport reception. An efficient reception was planned for all of the 13.000 athletes and officials. 14,000 media representativ~s. and some 200.000 visitors.

Accreditation. It was estimated that the identity of 140,000 people had to be checked upon and verified. and privileges coordinated.

Accommodation. As mentioned earlier. the problems in accommodating athletes. officials. and tourists were immense. Part of the solution found here was to build complexes of apart~ ments to house athletes and officials. After the games these were sold to citizens of Seoul.

Art Program. Artists from more than 80 countries presented their works at the arts fes~ tival. More than 500 cultural events staged during the Olympics fell under this section of the planning.

Accounting. The Seoul Olympics were staged with a budget totaling 3.1 billion US dollars.

The fund was raised from a wide variety of sources.

C: Ceremonies. Extravaganza in the opening and closing ceremonies has become part of the Olympic tradition. The Seoul ceremonies were. we are certain. among the best ever.

The Olympic ViUage in Seoul, including service facilities in the foreground .

20

PAL-PAL ('88) REVISITED

Conferences. Over 50 conferences related to the Olympics were held during the course of the Games.

Competition. Of course. the competitions are central to the Olympics. The SLOOC listed athletic achievements at the top of its list of priorities. Special attention was paid to scheduling and running all of the I 0.000 events impeccably. Every possible effort was made to free athletes from unnecessary strains and enable them to concentrate themselves on competition.

Coverage by media. To accommodate numerous media representatives. two centers were constructed - the Main Press Center and the International Broadcasting Center.

Communication. Efficient communication is essential for a do as hectic and as large as the Olympics. There is no doubt that an exceptionally efficient system is required for coordination among so many different competition sites. housing accommodations. training sites. etc. Complicating communications were many different languages spoken by athletes. officials. and spectators. Translators were needed on a regular basis. frequently more than one for a given task. As Korean is not a widely spoken language worldwide. the language problem was even more complicated. More than 500 Koreans living abroad were mobilized to help solve this problem.

T: Torch Relay. The torch relay is one of the oldest Olympic traditions and is an essential part of each Games. The Olympic flame arrived aboard a chartered plane from Greece and was carried through 61 dties and towns by some 21.000 runners. Torch runners were recruited from all of the International Olympic Committee member countries.

Transportation. For official Games personnel only. some 2,500 automobiles were needed.

Traffic. The SLOOC realized early on that Seoul's traffic systems meant a potential disaster. If the Olympics caused constant traffic jams. the entire city would come to a standstill. and then the Games along with it. Careful measures were taken to help control the traffic and do away with this possible disaster. Many people were happily surprised to see the traffic during the Olympics move much more smoothly than before or after the Games.

Tourism. As mentioned above. some 200.000 tourists visited Korea during the Olympics.

This represented both an economic opportunity and a need for the SLOOC to work harder.

Tourist sites throughout Korea. particularly those in the Seoul area. had to be prepared for a record-breaking business. On the other hand. the SLOOC had to see to it that these visitors would have a perfect time both at the competition venues and away from them.

Technology. The SLOOC planned for the acquisition and use of state-of-the-art computer systems. telecommunications systems. and other technology. In addition. the SIOOC had to plan to accommodate the variety of technologies brought over by various broadcasting networks from around the world.

S: Security. As we have already discussed. it was mandatory to protect the Games from terrorists. Security. therefore. was one of the most important goals set forth by the SLOOC. Seating. About 50 percent of the 4.8 million admission tickets were allocated for distribution outside of Korea. Once the tickets had been distributed. devising methods for handling so many spectators came next in the order of our business.

Shopping. In conjunction with tourism. specific projects were set up to help foreigners find places to shop.

CHANG JU¡HO

21

Service. We simply had to provide a helpful and congenial atmosphere for both competitors and spectators. Friendly and helpful service was the key element here.

Scholastics. Various academic conferences were held to mark the Olympics.

CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS In retrospect. the Seoul Olympics could safely be regarded as a success. But this is a vague statement about a very complex occasion. What criteria does one use to judge such a multilayered event? How does one judge Olympics? Well, before all else, let us study it in terms of the goals set by the SLOOC: PHASE. P (participation): a record number of 160 countries participated. the second highest having been 140 in Los Angeles. H (harmony) is much harder to judge. But. by all accounts. the sense of camaraderie was high. A (achievement): 33 world records and 227 Olympic records were set. These figures in fact spell a new record in the modern Olympic history.

S (security and service): there were no significant security problems throughout the Games in Seoul. E (economy and efficiency): the SLOOC said that profits from the occasion stood at $490 .000,000, an amount even higher than that cleared by the Los Angeles Games. The Seoul Olympics were a definite success. judging from the criteria set forth by the SLOOC. Perhaps more important than the SLOOC's evaluation. though, is the opposite point of view. that of anyone but the organizers. Hopefully, in the eyes of everyone this Olympiad materialized all its potentials. The opportunity for profit. whether personal or national, fiscal or cultural. was good. Hopefully, all would agree that the greatest of gains chalked up by the Olympics consists of cultural exchanges accomplished on an international level.

The modern Olympiad with its lofty philosophy got going some I 00 years ago. Our world has since undergone drastic changes. Technology, with its great advancement in the areas of communication and transportation, has broadened the scope of the individual's experience.

With this development has come a concomitant growth of our vision and hope. The Olympics of today are judged with many of the same ideals as those earlier Games. But now

Seoul Olympics closing ceremonies.

22

PAL-PAL ('88) REVISITED

we apply these ideals in much broader strokes. Today we hope to see an athletic competition bring together peoples from around world. We hope to see the Olympics bridge the gaps between peoples. races. cultures. religions and politics. We hope the event will allow us to appreciate our neighbors rather than fear them.

This may seem like a lot to ask of an athletic competition. Indeed it is. But while expectations have been growing, the Olympics have been growing as well. The games. or the athletics. are the heart of the Olympics as they have always been. Over the years new sports have been added and each has brought a touch of its parent culture along. In the Seoul Olympics. baseball and taekwondo were both demonstration sports. And each came straight from the core of the culture that created it. Each of the newly introduced sports encourages athletes to participate in the culture of another country. Each of them enables spectators to gain an insight into another culture.

CULTURAL EXCHANGES Beyond the athletics, cultural exchanges on a sweeping scale marked the Seoul Games.

There took place a long list of cultural festivals in Seoul during the Games. just as important was a cultural give-and-take that took place between the visitors. from around the world and the Koreans themselves.

To begin with, Seoul must have looked overseas like an unlikely choice for an Olympic host city. When the Baden-Baden decision was made for Seoul to host the 1988 Games, memories were still fresh of the tragedies in Munich and of the mutual Olympic boycotts between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Among some of the observers abroad. misgivings were heightened by destabilizing political developments in south Korea itself. They began to ask themselves: how could a country divided against itself like Korea host the Games and promote international peace?

The answer was given by the people in south Korea. They let it be known to the world that they wanted their Games to be a great success. Accordingly they gave all manner of support for the preparations carried out by the SLOOC. Through the 16 days while the Games continued, the attention of the world was glued on this country. There were no mishaps in the Games. That was not all. Some 500 cultural events were given to show the world the glories of our country's cultural heritage. The World Peace Gate and the World Peace Plaza, monuments dedicated to the meanings of the Olympiad in Seoul. are among the lega· des of the 1988 Olympics.

Perhaps for the very reason that our anxieties were so great before the Games: the taste of the success seems all the more acceptable. The meaning of the success is that not even for a city located just 30 miles from a military demarcation line is such a success beyond its reach.

To quote the International Olympic Committee chairman juan Antonio Samaranch: "The Seoul Olympics mean a victory for Korea, a triumph of the Olympic Movement. and a promotion of world peace and harmony through the diligent partnership of the SLOOC and the International Olympic Committee. The Olympics are now back on the right track."®

(The original text for this article was written in English and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA.)

CHANG JU·HO

23

SPORT FOR ALL MOVEMENT It's Sports For Everybody In Korea Kim Min.-soo ports have had an unprecedented boom in south Korea ever since Seoul hosted two major events: the I 986 Asian Games and the I988 Olympic Games. In the process of getting set for these massive occasions. the city of Seoul and the Games' organizing committees invested hundreds of millions of dollars in getting a long list of facilities built for indoor and outdoor sports. All these have from the onset been designed for use for the Sport for All Movement.

First. it may be necessary to point out the fact that Sport for All is concerned with the role of sport in society. It relates to a comprehensive sports policy which attempts to extend the benefits of sports activities to all sections of the community, emphasizing the public health and the social. educational. and cultural development. It represents a policy for sports which. while placing its main emphasis on providing the best possible opportunities for the greatest number of people. sets out to stimulate participation at all levels of performance.

The process of industrialization, urbanization and modernization has of necessity caused all manner of environmental dislocations. This is true too with our society. Most people in our society have been plagued by many issues. They include spiritual issues such as the simplification of personality. emotional anxiety. loss of the feeling of solidarity as well as various physical issues such as old-age diseases. various malfunctions of civilization. the reduction of physical strength, and loss of health.

Sport for All is related both to the development of social well-being and Olympism as a major means of making the broad benefits of sport available to an ever wider range of people. Sport for All contributes to social well-being by helping to develop good character. the virtues of fair play, self-improvement. self-respect, and respect for others by directing energy toward productive goals like teamwork cooperation, sociability, fellowship, morality. and creativity. All of these positive characteristics produced by the good lessons learned from sport can be passed on from the individual to society in general.

According to a study completed on July 29. I 984 by the Seoul City Board of Education, children's physical fitness levels declined when compared with that of ten years before. The degree of decrease was both remarkable and shocking.

The study presented primary school children's physique and physical fitness test data collected over a ten-year period from I 97 4 to I 983 . The average height of fifth-grade boys increased 5.77cm during this period and the average weight 4.33kg. Among girls, the average height climbed 5.58cm and the average weight 3.27kg.

In the physical fitness tests of six items only sit-ups remained at the same level. while the data in all the rest of the categories registered significant decreases. Thus. although the physical measurements rose. the fitness levels had dropped because of the lack of enough

S

Kim Min-soo, born in I 944. obtained a master's degree in sports administration from Dongguk University in I 979. He continued his studies at University of Copenhagen at the invitation of the Danish ministry of foreign affairs in I 98 I. In I 988 he was a visiting scholar at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania.

He is currently executive director of the Sport for All Korea Association.

24

SPORTS FOR ALL MOVEMENT

exercise.

The Seoul City Board of Education Research Institute issued a report in October 1984 regarding a study of mental hygiene. Over the previous three years the incidence of students in primary, middle and high schools treated for psycho-neurosis jumped I. 5 times each year. The symptoms exhibited were serious and of a varied nature. In the meantime, the Korea Medical Association has issued a warning that the case number of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes among adults has also been on the rise. The main cause: the lack of exercise.

Indeed we had to do something about this all. In the end, the action initiate9. took the form of the Sport for All Movement The Ministry of Government Administration announced in March 1985 that a physical fitness and health center will be established every done of the major government buildings.

It said that these facilities will be made available for use by all officials and that a weekly sports day will be observed. This notable decision was made after a health examination of 673,999 government officials had disclosed that 15 percent of them had been afflicted by ailments requiring immediate treatments. As many as I 0 I ,618 officials showed a decline in their physical fitness.

These types of health problems are not limited to public officials. They are spread among various segments of our society. For this reason the Sport for All Movement is essential to the future health and well-being of the Korean people.

SPORTS PARKS As mentioned earlier, many outdoor sporting facilities h~ve been constructed for the Sport for All Movement. We may classify these facilities into fol..lr categories according to their locations and functions: parks in and around Seoul. school yards. Han River sports parks, and residential district parks.

I) Seoul Parks These are located mostly in and around Seoul's mountains and riverside areas. Such sports activities as mountaineering, camping, yachting, water-skiing and cross-country jogging are arranged for general citizens around the year. Among them: • The Turtle Marathon is a 4-kilometer walkathon program in which about 2,000 people - men and women, young and old - get together every Sunday.

• Riverside Jogging is held three or four times every year along an &kilometer course adjacent to the Han River in an effort to promote the health of the general populace.

About 3,000 people, including students and adults, participate in each race.

• The Han River Swimming Contest is a swimming competition taking place along a 3-kilometer-long course on the Han River held every summer, a contest in which more than 2,000 Seoul citizens have annually taken part. Television stations cover this swimming contest for Seoul citizens and simultaneously publicize water safety and give firstaid lessons.

• The Citizen's Hiking Contest is held three or four times a year along the prearranged courses throughout the country. More than 5,000 people, including many families, take part in this hiking program designed to increase the health of citizens.

KIM MIN·SOO

25

2) School Yards The Early Bird Sports Program is designed for all citiz~ns . but office workers are particularly enthusiastic about it. They usually play tennis. badminton. soccer. basketball and volleyball. and some also enjoy archery. cycling. jogging and swimming in early morning hours - from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. National sports organizations as well as regional sports clubs sponsor these programs. They also sponsor regular national and regional tournaments drawing some 1.800,000 participants nationwide each year.

3) Han River Sports Parks The City of Seoul recently constructed the Han River Sports Parks at ten different spots along the embankment of the Han River. Each park has good equipment for various sports. playgrounds for children. and grass and shade areas for rest. A variety of free sports lessons are given by athletes and coaches on a regular basis and many citizens take advantage of them.

The Seoul City is currently constructing boating courses equipped with over 500 rowing and pedaling boats available to people free of charge.

4) Residential District Parks The government has enacted the National Sports Promotion Law which requires all newly constructed apartment complexes to be equipped with sports facilities. parks. and open areas. One of the sports programs appropriate for these facilities may be the Meeting Point Jogging Program. whose concept was first introduced by the West German Sports Federa-

Seoul citizens practicing archery.

26

SPORTS FOR ALL MOVEMENT

tion in I 98 5. Many meeting points have been established in the residential district park areas throughout the city, and the program has been continuing to gain in popularity among residents.

Most of these programs are jointly sponsored by daily newspaper companies. radio and TV stations, and the Sport for All Korea Association. Approximately one million people participate in the Sport for All Movement programs staged in collaboration with organizations like the YMCA. YWCA and other youth agencies.

SOUND SPIRIT In connection with the Sport for All Movement. there has been a trend of late among residents in Seoul and other major cities to utilize community sports and health centers.

The Sport for All Community Center, located at Tunchon-dong. near the Olympic Park in eastern Seoul is a pioneering fadlity dedicated to increasing the physical strength and spiritual soundness through various sports programs and leisure time activities.

This overall physical education center. affiliated with the National Council of Sport for All in Korea. opened in I 984. In cooperation with the Korea Amateur Sports Association (KASA). the center carries out a variety of programs including sports teaching, health and physical fitness promotion. sports and fitness research and leadership training. and sound leisure activities. It is also actively engaged in encouraging sports at work places. organizing sports clubs among youth and children, as well as life-long education for residents of regional communities in non-sport topics such as electricity, carpentry, gardening, nutrition and prevention of disease.

The center. equipped with two swimming pools, one gymnasium, a track and various other sports facilities, as well as class rooms and a dormitory. provides space to learn sports and get together to experience healthy human relations.

The National Sports Promotion Law, enacted in I 962 and revised in I 982. requires business companies and public agencies employing 500 or more workers to establish athletic club activities. both indoors and outdoors. and the hiring of a sports leader. Business companies and public agencies with over I 00 employees are required to establish a physical education committee. The law also provides for physical activity days for government functionaries.

Cities are required to establish one park for every 500,000 of their population, and one park for each district. Cities with a population of I 00,000 must have at least one park. And then among cities with a population of less than I 00,000 the decision could be ¡made by themselves on whether or not to open a park.

Although Korea has limited space for sports facilities. especially in highly populated areas such as Seoul. one sees innovative, meaningful steps being taken to ensure that the people's health and fitness needs will not be ignored. Both the people and the government are trying to see to it that everyone has the opportunity to participate in recreational activities based upon the human desire to compete. Natural resources such as rivers. lakes, and mountains are also utilized to provide recreational facilities at minimal cost. These are the major ways in which Korea has managed to solve problems of limited natural resources in ways that encourage the participation by all segments of society in their healthy, productive leisure time utilization. ~

(The original text for this article was written in English and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA).

KIM MIN¡SOO

27

SWEET HONEYMOON CONTINUES Between Sports And Businesses Oh Do-kwang t is no state secret that athletic sports keep dose ties with businesses. Big sports events give excellent opportunities for advertising and publicity to businesses that sponsor them.

Many sports meets are held with a great deal of monetary help from businesses because of the opportunities they provide for product advertisement and company publicity.

And of course, sports are a big business. Today, a star athlete doing well in a businesssponsored sports event earns a large sum of money from it. This is no classified piece of intelligence either.

Sports meets and events of various kinds are steadily turning more and more elaborate all over the world. So ticket sales alone are not enough for covering all the expenses in holding them. They have to be financially assisted by corporations of one kind or another.

No such help was accepted at first. In fact, sports officials by and large zealously rejected such offers in the interest of protecting the "purity of amateurism." Some of these officials in fact regarded commercialism as a corrupting influence over amateur athletes.

This kind of more or less unpolluted state of affairs continued right up to the early 1970s.

Then amateurism was considered the basic philosophy of Modern Olympic Movement.

No more. After the mid-1970s the key philosophy was never the same. By the onset of the 1980s, that old purity was all but gone. A new era of "collaboration" between sports and businesses had opened.

That relationship hit one peak in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Indeed the occasion was the first games to be entirely held on a commercial basis in the history of Modern Olympiad.

I

ADULTERATED The spirit of fair play and amateurism are supposedly two pillars supporting the lofty Olympian philosophy. That spirit of fair play is supposed to be everything in all Olympic competitions. In the light of that spirit athletes are believed to be doing their very best. And again in the light of that spirit some coaches keep saying that you should be a fair loser rather than an unfair winner.

Yes, amateurism advocates insisted that sports amount to a fine way of building one's character. They persisted also in the belief that money was poison for athletes and that trophies should be everything as a sign of their excellence.

Some say that the amateurism came out of the gentlemanly tradition of British aristocrats.

It was supposed to reflect their aversion to compete with commoner populace. They haughtily rowed their boats up and down the Thames. Small wonder. They said sports should never

Oh Do-kwang, born in 1937, is a senior sports writer who currently serves as an editorial writer for Hankook Ilbo, a ma;or Seoul daily, and its sister paper, The Daily Sports. A graduate of Seoul National University's Department of Sociology, he began his ;ournalistic career in 1958. He was formerly an acting managing editor of The Daily Sports. He has covered a number of international sports events including the Olympics in Tokyo, Mexico City and Los Angeles, as well as the Asian Games in Bangkok, Tehran and New Delhi.

28

SWEET HONEYMOON CONTINUES

have anything to do with livelihood and they excluded ferrymen from their rowing competitions.

Still and all, the history of amateurism in Modern Olympics is not exactly old. It was introduced for the first time during the 1908 Games in London. Then the International Olympic Committee (IOC) adopted it as its basic philosophy. In the main it was enforced in the participants' eligibility regulations.

This means one dear-cut thing. Before the London Games, some medalists received money and made no bones about it. But not after the Games in the capital of the gentlemen.

Champions of amateurism were singular people. They branded professional sports as corrupt because money angles were big in them. Indeed they disdainfully ignored professional sports and declared too that amateurism was the noblest thing in sports.

One consequence was not surprising in the early days. Not even physical education teachers were regarded as amateurs. It was the same story with coaches of amateur teams. What about those working people who got paid for the hours or days they took off from their places of employment to undergo their training? No amateurs, or so said the old ruling.

Witness the controversial case of the semilegendary American Indian Jim Thorp. He copped a g6ld medal both in pentathlon and decathlon in the fifth Olympics in Stockholm. He was immediately disqualified when it was discovered that a year before the Olympics he was paid for having played in a ball game back his home town.

Do you remember how much Jim got paid for that? Sixty bucks - yes. $60 and not a cent more.

WEISMULLER Sports today are a fast-growing industry. On the other hand. some gentlemen of the Olympic movement still continue to battle for the cause of making amateurism as pure as possible. And what could be done? Not much. it seems. A skyrocketing number of supposedly amateur athletes matter of factly pocket monetary rewards from sponsoring corporate angels.

Indeed once the floodgate of commercialism is flung open. there seems to be nothing that could be done to stop its advance. On the strength of their fame as amateurs, many stars have turned pros of one kind or another.

You all remember the story of John Weismuller, the too-meter freestyle gold medalist in the Paris (1924) and Amsterdam (1928) Games. and his "rehabilitation" in Hollywood as Tarzan. You know also the case history of Sonja Henie and how she became 'The Queen on Ice." It is essentially the same story with boxers like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and among many others, George Foreman.

In fact, few sports writers nowadays would bother to criticize them for "double-crossing" the spirit of amateurism. So a good question to ask would be if amateurism is dead and gone forever.

Time and again did the IOC denounce the inroads of commercialism and insisted that to receive money from advertisers went counter to the growth of amateurism.

As a matter of fact, the use of star athletes for product advertisement came into big time only after World War II. It became a cause celebre in the 1960s. Avery Brundage, then IOC president. was adamant in attacking commercialism and championing the cause of amateurism in the Olympics.

Brundage assumed the position during the 15th Helsinki Olympics in I 952 and vacated it after the 20th Games in Munich in I 972. He was such a gladiator that in no time was OH DO¡KWANG

29

he given the nickname of Mr. Amateurism. His critics graced him with the moniker of an "anachronistic old bigot."

Brundage made himself audible to such a degree that many athletes and officials kowtowed in his presence. Behind his back, though, the illicit ties flourished. An amusing hideand-seek game continued.

It went bang, though, when Brundage disqualified Austrian skier Karl Schranz for receiving advertising fees during the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.

Schranz did not take it sitting down. Instead. he told the world that the ruling was unfair.

And he cited the fact that it cost a lot for a skier to excel. what with the purchase of highpriced gear and traveling expenses for training. He declared in the end that athletes from poor families just could not afford all these expenditures.

The fact is, there are more athletes from poor families than from rich families. Indeed who won that Brundage vs. Schranz battle remains unknown.

DEATH VERDICT The tradition of amateurism was doomed once Brundage was gone from his IOC job. Now Michael Killanin. an Irish aristocrat. took over the committee. Lord Killanin, as it turned out. was more flexible about amateurism than his predecessor. At the 197 4 IOC Session in Vienna. the Olympic Charter was revised to accommodate changing realities in the world of sports.

It took all of the 66 years for the 1908 Olympic rules to be rewritten.

The new rules okayed training costs, sports equipment purchase expenditures and. among other things, coaching fees. In addition. the revised rule said that athletes were allowed to advertise products on condition that sports federations to which they belonged managed their take from the sponsors.

Commercialism on the other hand was at last accepted publicly. Why? Partly because of the intense lobbying carried out by many sports federations and sports goods manufacturers.

Commercialism has since been gaining grounds steadily. Consider tennis. Now pro players can take part in the Olympic competitions. By the same token the doors remain wide open to pros in the Davis Cup and Wimbledon dos. Soccer and hockey followed suit.

An end to it all came at the Baden- Baden IOC Session in 1981 (an occasion that decided on giving the 1988 Games to Seoul) where a dedsion was made to allow athletes to appear in commercials at will. That spelled a virtual death verdict to amateurism as the Olympic philosophy.

HONEYMOON The Olympics and commercialism went in fact on a honeymoon in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The result was an astounding success. Until then the Games invariably lost money.

Many host city fathers found the losses a little too hard to swallow. The money matters forced some of the aspiring hosts to drop the idea altogether. Other city fathers were compelled to discard the rights to host the Games in the face of deafening outcries from a dtizenry fearful of a financial burden that might become theirs after the occasion.

Take for instance the Montreal Games in 1976. Earlier, Quebec forfeited the right to host the Games because of financial reasons. Montreal took it over only to face the greatest deficits in the history of the Games. After Montreal. most of the top cities in the West found it hard to be serious about hosting Olympic Games.

30

SWEET HONEYMOON CONTINUES

Peter Uberroth. as president of the LA. Olympic Games organizing committee. all but changed the picture. His penny-pinching committee did a Herculean job at cutting costs and making money. No Olympic village or press village for instance was built. Instead, dorms at U.C.L.A. and other colleges were used.

The committee even received donations from torch relay runners. earned handsomely by charging high fees to those businesses using Olympic symbols and emblems. Outcome: a cool $200 million chalked up as profits.

KOREANIZED Seoul did a lot of homework to learn lessons from Los Angeles. The name of the game for the Seoul Games was harmony. On the surface there seemed to be a recurrent conflict between commercialism and amateurism. Behind the scene. "coordination"

Official Soft Drink of the

1988 Seoul Olympic Games

was expertly practiced. Athletes for instance were not supposed to receive money for helping to sell products. In fact they did in many cases.

Notable in particular were the ties established between sports federations and chaebol.

Korean conglomerates. Heads of these mammoth business groups were asked to head various sports federations. Noblesse oblige. They accepted - and poured into "their" federations tons of money.

Practically all business groups voluntarily (or involuntarily) agreed to do their shares. They include: Hyundai group (autos and shipbuilding)-swimming and archery Samsung group (electronics. newspapers)-wrestling Daewoo group (textile. construction}-yachting Dong Ah group-table tennis Korea Life Insurance-soccer Kyungbang-basketball Hanil Synthetic Fiber-volleyball Coryo Synthetic Fiber-handball Korea Chemical-boxing Doosan group-judo Haitai group-field hockey Beside, other moneyed angels included Korea Electric Power Corp .. Pohang Iron and Steel Co., and Korea Telecommunication Authority.

Thanks to the corporate largesse, Korea ended up copping as many as I 2 gold medals in archery, table tennis, wrestling. judo. boxing. handball. weightlifting. field hockey and shooting.

OH DO-KWANG

31

The manners of corporate assistance varied from one group to another and from one company to another. Dong Ah and Samsung for instance went so far as building full-scale gymnasiums to help table tennis players and wrestlers, respectively. Most other corporate supporters gave just about as much pensions to medalists as the government did.

At first the general idea was to terminate this kind of business-sports federation ties after the Games. After the Seoul Olympics, though, the Seoul Olympic Sports Promotion Foundation was created to coordinate support from business to sports federations.

There are clear-cut differences in patterns of commercialism between the Los Angeles and Seoul Games. In L.A. there was no government participation. In SeouL government as well as businesses helped out. Again in the case of L.A. there was virtually no investment in building sports facilities. In the case of SeouL 70 percent of the facilities had to be constructed for the occasion.

As a matter of fact, Seoul made more money than Los Angeles. The net profits for the Seoul Games stood at a handsome $490 million.

The 1988 Games in many ways gave many experts food for thought about the future of Modern Olympic Movement. One striking fact was incontrovertible. South Korea was, still is, in a technical state of war with north Korea. Indeed south Korea was not a signatory to the I 9 53 armistice agreement that put an end to the shooting in the Korean war. Still and aiL the nation succeeded in staging the biggest sports show on earth - and even pocketed some profits, to boot.

The Seoul Games dramatically underlined another fact: sports and businesses can coexist and thrive together. Since way back in the 1970s when the nation's economy began growing by leaps and bounds, banking institutions and industrial behemoths in the country began forming their own teams to compete in such sports as basebalL basketball and volleyball.

Now these firms are forming teams in such exotic sports as handball and field hockey.

A sweet and long honeymoon still continues between businesses and sports in our country.

ÂŽ

(The original text for this article was written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation.)

Autumn Chon Bong-kun (1928 -)

I found a road going westward, There the naked sun supine was bleeding Dry blood that smelled of burning.

In the sky Nothing but The insects Burying there Bone-chilling cries.

32

SWEET HONEYMOON CONTINUES

KOREA'S "SECRET" BASE FOR SPORTS

Taenung Athletes Village Koh Too-hyon

Athlethes Village chief Kim Sung-jip

aenung Athletes Village. mecca of sports in Korea. has attracted attention from many experts around the World. Their interest in particular has turned keen after Korean athletes pulled off unexpected triumphs in the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympiad. both held in Seoul.

In the I Oth Asian Games Korea finished second only to China. earning 224 m~dals including 93 golds- against China's 94 gold medals. It was especially remarkable in that for once Korea all but outdistanced Japan. for long Korea's unbeatable rival. that won 58 gold medals.

T

Indeed mighty China did better than Korea in the number of gold medals copped -by one (!). But then in the overall numb_e r of medals garnered. Korea was ahead of China: 224 vs. 222 . Many Koreans will remember these scores. the victories having been something altogether new and accordingly dramatic to them.

In the 24th Olympiad. Korea placed fourth after the Soviet Union. East Germany and the United States. Korea earned 12 gold. I0 silver and II bronze medals. Korea's har: vest of a dozen gold medals is surprising when we think that Asia's giant China captured only five gold medals and that economic behemoth. Japan. but four.

It was in 1986 or shortly after Korea scored a remarkable achievement in the I Oth Asian Games that the world began to mount a sharp lookout on the Taenung Athletes Village. a training camp for national athletes on the fringes of Seoul. A Japanese sports writer called it "Korea's secret base for sports."

In 1988 when the 24th Olympic Games was hosted by Seoul. the Taenung Athletes Village emerged as one of the keys to solve the question: how many medals would the host Korea earn? As a matter of fact. there are no secrets about the "base." Nor is the history of it so short.

The Taenung Athletes Village was opened in June 1966. two years after the 18th Olympic Games in Tokyo. Of course few officials

Koh Too-hyon. 55. graduated from the Korea College of Marine Industry and ;oined the vernacular daily Seoul Shinmun as a sports reporter. He has spent nearly three decades at the daily except for a couple of years' reporting for Sunday Times (1963-65). He served as an assistant sports editor and later as the sports editor. Currently he is a commentator of The Sports Seoul, a daily affiliated with Seoul Shinmun. and a member of the policy advisory committee at the Ministry of Sports. He has authored Heroes in Sports.

A Half Century of Korea's Challenge to the Olympiad and Koh Too-hyon's Scorecard.

KOH TOO-HYON

33

Wrestlers training at Village gym.

34

KOREA'S "SECRET" BASE FOR SPORTS

Female gymnasts at work.

then imagined at that time that the village would play a key role in big international meets like Asiad or Olympiad.

What did force Korea, a poor nation with many other pressing projects. to earmark so much funds to open a costly training center?

To answer this question, we will have to look into the question of just what sports have historically meant to Korea .

In July I 920, ten years after the Japanese imperialist rule over Korea got going, the Choson Sports Association (predecessor of the Korea Amateur Sports Association) was founded by scores of people.

The promoters included Chang Tok-su, editor-in-chief of the vernacular daily DongA Ilbo; Ku Cha-ok, secretary-general of the Central Young Men's Christian Association: Kim Song-su, president of Dong-A Ilbo and later the vice president of the Republic of Korea; Paik Nak-joon, professor of Yonhi College (predecessor of Yonsei University) and later speaker of the Lower House of the National Assembly: and Choe Tu-son, principal of Chungang High School and later the prime minister of the Republic.

Only some I 0 of the 89 promoters, whose names are registered in documents that still

exist are sportsmen, while the rest are prominent figures in various fields. Why? The reason is not hard to discern. This sports association was not a mere grouping of sports fans. It was in fact a front for a fraternity of patriots.

PATRIOTIC FRONT Consider what Chon Yu-ryang, a patriarchal figure in Korea 's rugby circles, back those days told a group of Korean ruggers when they were about to play against a Japanese team. He said: "What you are about to do is not a sport but an independence movement. You must win -no matter what." Recalls one of these Korean boys, Kim Chong-yol, now president of the Korea Amateur Sports Association (KASA): "In the overall performance level, the Japanese team was superior to us. Nevertheless, we won."

In the I I th Olympic Games in Berlin in I 936, Korean marathon star Sohn Keechung won a gold medal and Nam Sungyang a bronze, greatly boosting the morale of the Korean people under colonial oppression.

KOH TOO¡HYON

35

The victories of Sohn and Nam were like a slap across the face of the Japanese who back those days kept talking of "taking care of those inferior KoJeans."

In The Nazi Olympics. Richard Mandell says it is noteworthy that Sohn and Nam tried to make foreign journalists at the award-giving ceremonies recognize them as Koreans, not Japanese.

Sohn's victory ignited a burning yearning for independence among Koreans. as DongA Ilbo carried a photo of the marathon star after erasing the Japanese national flag, the Rising Sun, from his uniform.

A Japanese journalist says in his book The Rising Sun and Marathon, that Sohn was not the first Korean whose photo was carried by Dong-A Ilbo after the flag was removed from it.

According to the writer, the newspaper carried a photo of Kim Un-bae, who finished sixth in the Los Angeles Olympics marathon race four years earlier. after removing the Japanese flag from his shirt.

Sun¡rlse joggers in the Village.

When Sohn won his medal in the Berlin Olympics, not only Dong-A but almost all other vernacular newspapers, including the Choson Chungang Ilf!o (founded in 1931). printed his photos without the Japanese national flag. A women's monthly, New Home, ran a photo that only showed Sohn's legs, apparently in an attempt to avoid showing the Japanese national flag printed on his shirt.

All this makes one thing clear. In Korea then sports meant something more than sports. Sports were the means of evening the score with the Japanese and even of adding fuel to the struggle for independence for Korea.

POLITICS A lonely athlete concentrates on building her arm muscles.

36

KOREA'S "SECRET" BASE FOR SPORTS

Following its liberation from the Japanese

Another aspiring medalist bound for Beijing.

rule in 1945. Korea went all out sending its delegations to the Olympics and all manner of sports competitions overseas to show that the nation was now independent.

What these athletes from Korea now witnessed was a Cold War structure of the world. For the Soviet Union and other coun· tries in the bloc. the obvious policy was to exploit sports or sports competitions in driv· ing home but one point: the superiority of their political system. Countries in both spheres of the globe have struggled hard to upgrade their political power in the interna· tiona! sports arena during the Cold War era.

Those who scored the most striking developments in this aspect have been East Germany. Cuba and the Republic of Korea.

It is interesting to note that East Germany and the ROK have grown to have powerful sports capability while suffering from nation· al division. East Germany has outstripped its western rival in sports while lagging behind it in economic development. The ROK on the other hand has done far better than north Korea in both sports and economy.

Park Chung-hee. Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo who in turn became the head of

state since 1961 have greatly contributed to the development of sports in Korea. They all had an accurate understanding of the im· portance of sports. obviously because of a great emphasis placed on sports at their alma mater: the Korea Military Academy.

The construction and expansion of the Taenung Athletes Village served as the backbone of their policy for promoting athletic sports. Min Kwan-shik. who headed the KASA from 1964 to 1971. also did a great deal towards the construction of the KASA headquarters building and the Taenung Ath· letes Village.

The training of athletes for long ·was left by and large in the hands of varsity coaches.

There existed no such things as sports clubs which are commonplace in the U.S. and European countries. Small wonder. A fastgrowing number of sports and political per· sonages began talking of the importance of creating a training center where top athletes of the country could live and undergo train· ing at the same time.

The KASA. an association of amateur sports organizations. which relies heavily on the state budget. completed the Taenung KOH TOO·HYON

37

A howling coach keeps sharp eyes open on his wrestling boys.

Athletes Village on the foot of Mt. Puram, in the northeastern part of SeouL in June 1966. The first group of athletes to train there consisted of members of the Korean team who took part in the fifth Asian Games in Bangkok in the winter of the same year.

The Taenung Athletes Village now is one of the finest sports training centers in the world. However, it was nothing so elaborate at the time of the opening. Only after undergoing several phases of expansion has it become what it is today. The village is comprised of 33 buildings whose combined floor space amounts to 18,780 pljong (61.974 square meters). standing on a site measuring, all told, 79,950 p1Jong (263,835 square meters).

Kim Sung-jip, head of the village, is the person who can best explain the background of the village from his own experience. Kim earned a bronze medal in the 14th Olympic Games in London in 1948 in the weightlifting competition. He thus became the first athlete to win an Olympic medal for Korea after liberation.

38

KOREA'S "SECRET" BASE FOR SPORTS

EMPTY STOMACH He vied in the middle weight division. In the I 5th Olympiad in Helsinki four years later, he again captured a bronze medaL setting a record as the first Korean winning medals in two consecutive Olympic Games.

While being active as an athlete during the nation's most turbulent period from the national liberation from Japanese rule and the Korean War, Kim experienced numerous difficulties in getting training. Let's hear what he has to say: "When we were active as athletes, we often had to undertake training with an empty stomach, as the nation was short of food.

We used to train in the backyard of the YMCA since there existed no proper place for the training. Our top athletes today are fortunate indeed in this regard. They can train in a world-class camp and eat rich foods as much as they like. Since the environment has been improved greatly, athletes should strive more energetically to attain their goals.

But they seem to be less determined to win than we were."

is a dormitory for foreign coaches, which can

Limbering up before a serious training session.

The village has seven dormitory buildings which can accommodate 479 men and 128 women in 228 rooms (with a combined floor space of 3, 751 pyong, or 12.378 square meters).

Two of these are exclusively for women.

They can house 124 athletes: 64 at Yonggwang-ui Chip (House of Glory) and 60 at Sungni-ui Chip (House of Victory). There also

house 2 5 men and four women in 2 5 rooms.

The village has 10 training edifices for 20 different kinds of sports.

The Kaeson Hall (3,052 square meters in floor space) is used for training judoists, boxers and gymnasts. The Sungni Hall (I ,9 57 square meters), opened in 1973, has volleyball and basketball courts. The oldest Yonsu Hall (742 .5 square meters). which was opened in 1968. is used for weightlifting and fencing. The Wolgye Hall (I ,920 square meters). another pride of the village officials, is equipped with a variety of weight training devices.

The KASA has been pursuing a "physical strength first. techniques next" policy in the belief that Koreans qm compete with world athletes only after building up their physical strength.

ICE RINK Koreans have earned increasing numbers of medals in such sports as judo. boxing and wrestling. These sports have been often called the Koreans' traditional fortes.

In the past. some sports instructors had

Track and field section of the well-equipped Village.

KOH TOO-HYON

39

Coach strikes a posture of dedication.

the wrong notion that weight training hardens the athletes' muscles. But now weight trainers and instructors work together to build up the athletes' physical potentials.

The multi-purpose gymnasium (1.629 square meters) is where handball. basketball and volleyball players are trained. Basketball and volleyball players can also train in Sungni Hall. Since the ball games are played by both men and women. there should be at least two gymnasia for the sports.

The ice skating rink (5.682 square meters) was opened in 1984 for ice hockey. figure skating and other sports on the ice. Originally. the hall was dedicated in 1970 as a swimming pool but was later converted into a skating rink.

It was a mistake on the part of the KASA to open the gigantic pool in Taenung for purposes other than the training of national swimmers. although the 50m x 50m pool. equipped with a diving board and spectator stand. was later used for international games including the Asian regional swimming competition for youths. Maintenance of the swimming pool was so costly that it had to be closed during the winter. whereas an indoor pool is basically for the cold sea-

40

KOREA'S "SECRET" BASE FOR SPORTS

son. In 1985. one year after the pool was reconstructed as an ice rink. a swimming pool (2.642 square meters) was built for the training of swimmers.

The indoor stadium (I 0.082 square meters). opened in 1986. can be used for running. volleyball. basketball. handball. tennis and badminton even on rainy days.

However. it is used only for the warm-up of athletes during the winter because it cannot be heated.

The main gymnasium (3 .409 square meters). opened in 1978, is used for handball. volleyball and basketball. The auxiliary gymnasium. built in 1983. is for wrestling. fencing and gymnastics.

The village has several outdoor training facilities.

The I 5m x 400m ice rink. opened in 1971. is used for speed skating. The field track. refurbished in 1982 . is comprised of six 4QO-meter urethane courses and an artificial turf field. It is used for soccer and hockey training.

Solitary athlete in meditative mood.

Going through the exhausting ballet¡like training routine.

BRANCHES The tennis center consists of three chemical courts. refurbished in 1983. It is used for tennis and softball tennis. The archery range, opened in 1983. is I !Om x 45m wide. A cross-country course. 1,600m x 3m, was built in 1985. The Pilsung Hall urethane track. completed in 1978. has six 400-meter courses. The hall also has a tennis court whose ground is covered with artificial turf.

In addition to these facilities. there are 16 subsidiary buildings.

The Pilsung Hall. opened in 1979. houses a research center with a floor space of 4. 737 square meters. The Athletes Hall (2. 5 18 square meters). established in 1986, has a library. rest area. a music room. and a movie hall.

The village has two dining halls. both opened in 1978. The Kamnae Hall (762 square meters) can serve 200 people at a time. The other dining hall (2 ,322 square meters). located next to Pilsung Hall and Athletes Hall. can serve 160 people.

Among a dozen other buildings are a lodging facility for V!Ps. an electric maintenance

room and a boiler room.

The foregoing lists the village's major facilities. Beyond its fence are two branches: one in the lovely southern port city of Chinhae and the other in the hot spring resort of Onyang.

The Chinhae branch. dedicated in 1984, is comprised of a dormitory (with a floor space of I. 736 square meters) for 160 men and another (1 . 165 square meters) for 90 women. a multi-purpose gymnasium for handball. volleyball. basketball. badminton and weight training.

The branch also has six 40()-meter lawn tracks for running, soccer and hockey training, and a medical treatment room. a dining hall. and offices in its main buildings.

The swimming center (4,752 square meters) in Onyang, opened in 1986. is equipped with a I (}Jane pool. 25m x 50m x 1.8m, and a diving pool. 25mx 25m x5m . that can be used for all sorts of swimming competitions including water polo and synchronized swimming.

KOH TOO-HYON

41

Pride of the VIUage, the Indoor track and field gym, is among the finest in the world.

BOUND FOR BEIJING National athletes strive to improve their capabilities by utilizing all these fadlities in the Taenung Athletes Village. We can have a glimpse of the training at the village by looking into the lives of athletes preparing for the Beijing Asian Games in September.

Top athletes began training at the village even before a final list of partidpants in the Beijing Asiad was announced. Everywhere in the village you can see slogans designed to fan the athletes' fighting spirit. One of them had a long sentence: "The Greatest Happiness Of Life Is Accomplishing What People Say Is Impossible."

The athletes get up at 6 o'clock every morning, as the I 988 Olympic song. "Hand in Hand," is piped out of the powerful public address system. They now gather on the ground and limber up before running for about an hour, the distance ranging from 4 to I 0 kilometers.

After the morning exerdse. the athletes have their breakfast from 8:30 a.m. The menu is worked out by nutritionists every 42

KOREA'S "SECRET" BASE FOR SPORTS

month. The meals are designed to give 5.000 to 5.400 calories to each athlete a day.

In other words. an athlete takes almost double the caloric intake necessary for an ordinary adult. who needs 2.500 to 3.000 calories a day.

Breakfast and dinner feature traditional Korean food, while Western-style dishes are served for lunch.

For instance. steamed rice, broth. kimchi (pickled cabbage), fried shrimps, fish casserole. grilled beef. a glass of milk and fruits are served for breakfast.

Most athletes can take these dishes as much as they want. But those doing judo, wrestling, boxing and gymnastics should follow their coaches' instructions on what to eat and how much.

After breakfast. the athletes rest for a while before going into training from I 0:30 a.m. Lunch starts at noon and the afternoon training is conducted from 2:30 to 6 p.m.

During the free time after dinner. the athletes enjoy reading or electronic games, play billiards or table tennis. or watch movies.

The library with 5,000 books is the most popular place for athletes during the free time. The athletes borrow between 500 to 600 books from the library a month. Favorites are novels. books on sports-related subjects and foreign language drills. and magazines. in that order. The movie room usually shows films highlighting the unbending spirit of human beings. Among the favorites: David Lean's Bridge over the River Kwai.

The content of training differs from one sport to another. and the village authorities see to it that training schedules are kept and that the village regulations are observed.

For young athletes from provincial areas. the village has a school offering middle and high school courses. Those from Seoul commute to their respective schools from the village. They usually skip the morning exercises. Collegians in the village are also encouraged to attend the minimum requirements of classes and take tests. Athletes

belonging to industrial teams are recognized as fulfilling their regular on-the-job assignments.

Full-time instructors in the village are paid 800.000 won (about $I . I 40) in monthly salary. If the instructors concurrently teach company teams or at schools. they may keep their salaries from those teams or schools as well.

The village invites trainers not only from across the country but also from abroad to help promote the capabilities of athletes.

Foreign coaches have been invited in such sports as boxing. athletics. gymnastics. swimming, rowing and basketball.

Nelli Kim. a Soviet gymnast of Korean descent who won two gold medals in the I 976 Montreal Olympic Games. has been training women gymnasts for the Beijing Asian Games. Perestroika. the Soviet reform drive. has made it possible for Kim to train Koreans in Seoul.

Outside view of the VIUage"s "lndoor track and field gym.

KOH TOO¡HYON

43

A foreign coach (left) shows what to do in triple jump.

VILLAGE CHIEF Village chief Kim Sung-jip says he is particularly concerned with improving the athletes' physical conditions. Says he: "Physical power comes first. Skills and techniques next. I watch the general training for improving physical power of the athletes, and I can tell who in which sport will do well in competitions."

Training in the village has seven to eight phases annually, starting with a "colddefeating" course and ending with three phases for perfection. So when the athletes leave the village at the end of the training program, they are expected to be in the finest possible shape.

FOREIGN COACHES Foreign coaches are usually paid 3,000 dollars a month and are offered free lodging and board, plus interpreters.

Now that the village has become famous, many foreign athletes, coaches and officials all over the world apply for training there.

44

KOREA'S "SECRET" BASE FOR SPORTS

The village authorities positively consider such applications as long as the training of Korean athletes are not hampered. In most cases, though , foreign teams are advised to lodge outside the village.

The village, now ranked as one of the world 's best integrated training centers. is faced with three imminent tasks.

First it must be updated in training equipment. Also . it is vital for the village to develop new tools and equipment jointly with the Korea Sports Science Institute.

Second, the village should work out more effective means of training by bringing up excellent instructors.

Third, the village should collect, analyze and evaluate proper data on sports from abroad and accordingly improve its training programs. ÂŽ

â&#x20AC;˘ All photos in this article blj Kim Shi-;oong

(The original text for this article was written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use biJ KOREANA. This is a translation.)

QUEEN GOT FED UP WITH "FOOT PLAY ON ICE" How Korea Kowtowed To Western Sports Koak Hyung.-kie he king was there watching quizzically. So was the queen. But the dictates of eti· quette made it imperative for her to post herself to watch it from behind a curtain.

Sure enough. Confucianism back then was everything as the code of ethics. And it demanded that males and females be separated from age seven. The object of the in· tense royal study was a newfangled import from the west that their subjects. always apt at nomenclature. called a "foot play on ice" - ice skating.

Place: Seoul. Time: 1890. Indeed right in front of King Kojong and Queen Min. the U.S. Minister to Korea Horace N. Allen and his wife. holding hands with each other. happily went romping and frolicking on a frozen pond in the palace.

Were the royal couple delighted? History only records the reaction of the queen (who subsequently was assassinated by a band of Japanese thugs). The diplomatic foot play on ice proved too much to her sense of propriety. Her majesty in fact is said to have been downright offended. But precisely what the queen said is not preserved in the chronicles of her court.

The annals of modern sports in Korea are only a little over a century old. For the point of kickoff it might be a good idea to point to the Treaty of Friendship that Korea was compelled to sign with Japan in 1876.

The compact meant the first stage of processes that led to the opening of Korea to the rest of the world. Up till that year Korea. like Japan before then. was all but closed to for· eign powers.

Once the door was flung open. there was no stopping the tide of western culture. And that naturally included sports from the west with an overtone of individualism. Inevitably the influx clashed with the time-honored collective drive of building a "strong national power ...

Right through the five centuries of its life. the Choson Dynasty (1392-191 0) placed such an emphasis on Confucianism that one outcome was inescapable. Intellectual and literary activities flourished among aristocrats. Downplayed accordingly were the values of physical culture.

This in fact ran counter to the original psyche of the nation. whose ancestry must be traced to a dynamic and robust horse-riding people in the steppes of Siberia. Through much of Korea's history. martial sports like archery. horsemanship and a polo-like competition thrived.

But then for the duration of the Choson Dynasty. Confucianism played havoc with the in· digenous sports.

T

Born in Chongiu in I 946. Koak ma;ored in physical education at Seoul National University's College of Education. He did his graduate work at the same university in pedagogy and won his doctorate in I 989.

Since the early 1980s. he has taught physical culture at Tongdok Women's University. He co-authored The Athletic Korean and The Long-Term Plan for Sports Promotion. The evolution of modern physical education at school was the subiect of his doctoral dissertation.

KOAK HYUNG·KIE

45

Chinmyong Girl's High School volleyball team with a foreign coach (circa 1930) in Seoul.

Now with the opening of its ports to foreign commerce and the advent of modern education system. the picture began to change again. Ancient martial arts were formally incorporated into school curricula. On the other hand. western sports. introduced in the main by hard-working Christian missionaries. were accepted as part of what might be called extracurricular programs. The modernization of sports in Korea. centering on gymnastics under the Japanese influence. had begun.

The school system placed an equal accent on the three aspects of education: the moral. physical and intellectual developments. The emphasis placed on the physical culture turned heavy indeed after the signing of that fateful compact with Japan. And small wonder. The nation as a whole was apprehensive of what Japan might do next to endanger its sovereignty.

Indeed Japan "annexed." or placed Korea under colonial subjugation when the new century was only I0 years of age. To the suppressed people. sports now assumed an entirely new role: an outlet for venting the agony and anger against the Japanese. ¡ When for the first time a hermetically-sealed Korea woke up to the developments of the outside world. a fascinating mission left the country for Japan. This was in 1881. Known as a "gentlemen's embassy," it consisted of 62 learned members and spent more than 70 days traveling from one end of Nippon to the other.

In fact. this was a fact-finding mission and its representatives included Pak Chong-yang and Ohm Se-yong.

Sharp observations were made about educational. industrial and military conditions in a Japan in the throe of transition from feudalism to modem statehood. Once completed. the report by these gentlemen had a memorable impact on how to conduct education in Korea. Soon a number of scholars were sent abroad. this time to western countries. to know more about it In 1883 the collected pile of information bore fruit in the form of a modern school in the port city of Wonsan - the Wonsan Institute.

46

QUEEN GOT FED UP WITH "FOOT PLAY ON ICE"

MARTIAL ARTS This was in fact Korea's first modern school. a private institution designed to preserve the nation's heritage in education and at the same time to assimilate western methods of teaching. Yes. the traditional martial arts were not forgotten: they now were a solid part the curriculum.

It appears that when the school was opened. it had enrolled about 50 students in its liberal arts department and 200 in its martial arts department. These 200 boys were trained to become nothing less than warriors.

As a matter of fact. even the liberal arts students were required to read books on the arts of war. They were compelled too to take part in marksmanship exercises. Why? Obviously because marksmanship was regarded as something far more important than literature.

An unabashedly military feature of the school also is reflected in Pyo/gunkwan toshi;otmok (the catalogue for recruiting special military officers). It says that students applying to enter the martial arts department had to undergo three categories of archery test: yuyorx;hon (archery involving the use of arrows whose business end is shaped like a willow leaf), pyon;on (archery using small arrows) and kichu (equestrian archery) .

Archery. in the eyes of authorities back then. was nearly everything when it came to.martial arts. The record also indicates how archery was popular back those days in Korea.

With foreign commerce came foreign missionaries. They devoted much of their energy to education. As a result. mission schools were opened one after another: Paichai Hakdang (1885) . Underwood Hakdang (1886) and Ewha Hakdang (1886). They were in fact precursors to full-fledged modern halls of learning in Korea. On April 16. 1895. the Hansong Normal School. an altogether up-to-date institution for modern education. was inaugurated.

The Foreign Language School came into being in 1895. Not surprisingly. gymnastics was included in its curricula. Indeed the school earnestly conducted classes to teach apparatus gymnastics. And so went those tense days before Japan "annexed" Korea.

The fact all along is that Koreans instinctively and otherwise knew that western style sports ultimately had to be dedicated to enhancing peace. And where the Japanese were not involved, old records reflect how the Koreans had fun with getting to know western sports.

Korea's first track and field competitions took place in Samsonpyong. known today as Samsonkyo. a northeastern section of Seoul. on May 2. 1896. The Foreign Language School's teachers. like W.D. Hutchinson and T.E.Halifax. presided over the precedent-setting meets.

Even the most incorrigible conservatives among Confucian scholars seemed intrigued. They coined lovely names with Chinese ideograms for western sports. Short-distance dash involving children was referred to as yon;ahakbi. Literaily it means the gait of a young 'swallow learning how to fly. The medium-distance race? Chuangunsang (the formation flight of wild geese in autumn). Piosomrang (the quick leap of a fish over fast-flowing stream) denoted broad jump.

High jump on the other hand was taeobalho (big fish making a wild vault) and pole vault chongryongbonpung (the dragonfly fluttering in the air).

All these designations amount to a good reflection on how the imported sports fired the imagination of Koreans before the turn of the century.

On the question of precisely which year saw Korea holding the first game of football. expert views differ from one another. But the most popular theory holds that the year was 1890 when the Foreign Language School staffers had a demonstration of how to play it for their students.

The same year, some graduates of the school inaugurated the Korean Football Club. This KOAK HYUNG¡KIE

47

immediately attracted to its membership many government interpreters and young courtiers who had returned home from overseas studies.

The earliest extant account of a soccer match in Korea dates back to I 902. The description is sketchy. In it no number is given of participants. Nor are the measurements of the goal posts. Not even is the distance specified between the two goal posts. But it evidently proved exciting.

The account reads: "How long the match lasted nobody remembers. The goal posts were fashidned on the basis of the common gatekeepers' stature. The players' skills were something that left much room to be desired. But the milling crowd of spectators burst into a deafening applause each time a player kicked the ball sky-high .... " Baseball predictably was introduced by an American missionary. The year was 1905. Members of Seoul's YMCA were the first Koreans exposed to its magic. They clearly loved it and played an active part in establishing a number of teams in and out of the city.

HEROIC SCORE A memorable event happened at the dead of summer in 1909 when Korean youths studying in Tokyo, having returned home for the vacation, formed a baseball team of their own and beat a team of foreign missionaries in Seoul with a heroic score: 19 vs. 9. So elated were the people that the teams immediately had to go on a tour to play against each other in other major cities like Pyongyang. Indeed the Korean enthusiasm for baseball dates back to the match in which the local boys scored a crashing victory over the missionaries from abroad.

Then there was an American missionary in Korea by the name of P. Gillet. Clearly he was a confirmed sports buff. His name appears at a number of spots in Korea's earliest records of western sports. Having pioneered the ice skating craze, the same indefatigable missionary is believed to have introduced basketball to Korea in 1904.

This missionary seems to have been active in another field, too. As a matter of fact, he was deported from Korea by Japanese authorities for having allegedly been involved in an anti-Japanese, that is, independence, movement. With Gillet booted out of the country, the sport remained "dormant" until 1916 when another American sports buff, a Barnhart, arrived to take up his post as secretary- general of the Seoul YMCA. The completion of a new YMCA building made it possible to play it indoors, and the sport won a fast-rising number of converts among Koreans. A milestone was reached when an all-Korean team tied in a match an all-foreigner team. So delighted was the Korean public that the same two teams had to play against each other again four days later- to please thousands of Korean spectators.

The introduction of soft-ball and hard-ball tennis followed . Rugby came in 1923. Two years later was Korea 's first golf club founded in Seoul.

Those were gloomy colonial days for Korea. But western sports enabled the nation to produce many heroes. And those local stars were particularly adulated when they beat their Japanese rivals.

Consider the case of cyclist Ohm Bok-tong. He all but outclassed visiting Japanese champs in 191 3. In no time was Ohm a national hero. Yes, thanks to him, south Korea still today holds sway over cycling competitions throughout Asia. @ (The text of this article was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation.)

48

QUEEN GOT FED UP WITH "FOOT PLAY ON ICE"

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS IN KOREA What's Needed Tons Of Cash Cho Dong--pyo ooking back upon the sports history in Korea. we may safely assume that ssirum. or the Korean-style wrestling. is among the oldest professional sports in the country.

Ssirum matches once attracted big crowds in villages across the country. The prize for the winner often took the shape of a big ox. preferably about as robust as the excited recipient himself. Villagers would join in to sing and dance happily together in a post-game jubilee.

Boxing is possibly the first western sport to gain commercial color in a Korea under Japanese rule in the early 20th century. Many young Koreans became. or dreamed of becoming, star boxers. Some actually succeeded in obtaining considerable reputation as professional pugilists.

More fortunate ones managed to fight in Japan and/or the U.S. Golfing came next. There is a record that a Korean golfer won a championship competition in Japan in the 1940s.

Baseball and soccer followed. but did so as recently as the 1980s. The government took the initiative in professionalizing them. Still the pro sports in this category even today are in an early stage of development in our country.

All these sports. except golfing that still remains confined to the relatively rich in Korea. have built a broad base of public support. thanks much to television. Even so. they invariably have all manner of problems to overcome before securing a firmer support from the populace and sufficient resources as pro sports in name and fact. What is needed above all else is what might be called a mature social atmosphere and a higher standard of living among the people - and tons of cash.

Basketball and volleyball. both of men and women. are semi-professional affairs in Korea.

Industrial teams compete with each other in national championships each year during the winter months - from November to February or March.

L

BASEBALL Pro ball games got going from 1982. attracting far more sports fans than ssirum or soccer. which was professionalized two years earlier. In its early stage, the professional baseball circles shrewdly took advantage of Korea's undying institution- regionalism. High school baseball teams were the sole suppliers of players for professional ball game. And each of the ball clubs made it a rule to scout around and hire only those grads of high schools in the neighborhood of its home ground.

Six teams thus organized in 1982 were: MBC Chongryong. Sammi Super Stars. OB Bears.

Haitai Tigers. Samsung Uons. and Lotte Giants. Invariably the club owners are top business groups in Korea.

Cho Dong-pyo. a well-known sports critic. was born in 192 5 and graduated from the Department of Economy and Commerce at Posong College, predecessor of Korea University. He began his ;ournalistic career in 195 5 as a sports writer for the Hankook Ilbo. He later served as sports editor of the Hankook Ilbo and an editorial writer of its sister paper. The Daily Sports. Currently he is a free-lance sports critic and auditor of the Seoul Olympic Sports Promotion Foundation.

CHO DONG-PYO

49

To begin with . Chongryong was based in Seoul; Super Stars in Inchon, the port city near Seoul; Bears in South and North Chungchong Provinces; Tigers in South and North Cholla Provinces; Lions in Taegu and North Kyongsang Province; and Giants in Pusan and South Kyongsang Province.

Once again, why did the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) adopt such a regionoriented recruiting system? To be able to answer the question you also have to know something about how high school ball games continue to elevate the blood pressure of millions around south Korea. So passionate are the armies aficionados that when high school national championships take place. it's almost as though those provinces represented by the participating teams are at war with each other.

Samsung Lions star Lee Chong¡du at work.

The Korean Baseball Organization, in launching pro ball game in the country, had decided to cash in on Korea's astonishingly strong brand of regional partisanship. Sure enough . it worked in mobilizing fans, and how.

During the last pennant race, 420 matches attracted, all told, 2,883,669 spectators to make an average stand at 6.866 admissions per game. The score is telling when compared with that of soccer (see below): 549.360 spectators attended 120 games to make it 4,578 admissions per game.

As the base of popular support solidified, OB Bears moved its home ground to the population center, Seoul. from the countryside while Bingure Eagles was newly inaugurated, representing South and North Chungchong Provinces with their wild local fans. And there are more shifts in the making. In 1991, the existing Haitai Tigers will be based in Kwangju, capital of South Cholla Province, yielding North Cholla Province to Sangbangul Raiders. a club that's soon to be born.

So you see the picture. Korea's original six pro clubs got going in I 982 and did so in the main on the strength of the country's red-hot brand of regionalism. One team has since been added, and another is upcoming next year.

Alas. money in the ball game has been a different matter. All existing clubs are experiencing difficulties. Each of the teams is supported by the front office, consisting of about 35 or 40 people. including the owner. president. general manager and working-level staff members. It has I 0 or more coaches under the manager; the principal and secondary teams have 2 5 players each.

The annual budget of each of the teams ranges from the low of about I billion won (about $I .428,000) to the high of 1.5 billion won (about $2, I 43.000). The income never seems to come up this high.

Consider the ticket sales score for last year: MBC Chongryong made about 968 million won (about $I ,380,000) and OB Bears 936 million won (about$ I .337,000) while Bingure Eagles. the runner-up in the Korean Series, could gain only 6I I million won (about $872.000).

50

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS IN KOREA

The main reason behind the deficits concerns not any shortage of spectator passion but the physical capacity of ball parks. That is. the existing stadiums. or their spectator capacities. are not big enough. Used presently are public stadiums. of which Seoul's Chamshil. next door to the Olympic Main Stadium. is the largest. with a seating capacity of 30,000.

In other cities like Inchon. Taejon and Kwangju. the capacity of the ball park stands at only about 12.000- hardly enough to satisfy the ardent zeal of local fans. The lack of appropriate stadiums in fact is the main bottleneck to a greater glory for professional baseball in Korea. The Korean Baseball Organization last year collected from the two TV networks in the country. KBS and MBC. 550 million won (about $785.000) for TV rights.

The income of players are. of course. different one from another. Ace Haitai Tigers pitcher Sun Dong-yo) for this season is paid 90 million won (about $I 28.500). the highest among 400 registered professional baseball players. Choi Dong-won. Samsung Lions top pitcher. rated the largest salary at 76.5 million won (about $109,200). Next to Choi was Kim Songhan. the key batter of Haitai Tigers; he is known to have earned 67 million won(about $95,700).

High. by the Korean standard. is what the trio rate. Not so is the pay for members of the farm teams- only about 3 million won (about $4.280). If a trainee in the secondary team can luckily be promoted to become a principal player. he is paid a total of 6. I million won (about $8.750) per annum. adding the principal team allowance.

As for a new member. no limitations exist for the contract money. But the annual salary can go up to I 2 million won (about $I 7 ,000) at most. Promising pitcher Park Dong-hi who joined Lotte Giants after graduating from Korea University this year is reported to be paid I 40 million won (about $200.000) as his contract fund while receiving I 2 million won (about $I 7. I 00) for his annual salary. thus boasting the best remuneration among the novices. The annual salary of a manager ranges from 45 million won (about $64.000) to 50 million won (about $7 I ,000). and he handles the team for two to three years.

Throughout the eight-year history of Korea's pro baseball. the best team is Haitai Tigers based in Cholla Provinces and Kwangju. The Tigers won the Korean series five times. This is a natural outcome of such favorable factors as stable pitchers. including Sun Dong-yol who receives the top salary. spectacular hitters Kim Song-han and Han Dae-hwa and the very positive support from their indefatigable fans.

SOCCER The first professional soccer team. Hallelujah. was born in I 980. two years ahead of the professional baseball in Korea. for the purpose of spreading Christianity. Yukong (Korea Oil Refinery Corp.) team appeared two years later. in December I 982. to bring a turning point for invigorating professional soccer. Soccer in Korea has been known for nearly I 00 years. Not surprisingly. the popular interest in it runs deep indeed. The number of teams rose to six by December I 983. as the largest of business groups in the country. like Daewoo. Hyundai and Lucky-Goldstar. launched their teams in a quick succession.

Yes. the initial expectations ran high for pro soccer. But expectations often are one thing and actualities another. Most of the teams keep themselves alive today only because of generous financial support from their parent business groups. One reason for this is the fact that the Hallelujah turned amateur in I 985. Another is that most of the top players have been picked to serve the national team for the I 986 Asian Games and I 988 Seoul Olympics. Beside. there are the World Cup battles.

This kind of schedule has given hardly enough time for top stars to play for their own

CHO DONG-PYO

51

teams. The professional soccer circle is a pool of top players. From it must come players for the national team for important events like the Asian Games. the Olympics and the World Cup competitions. Indeed once picked up to play on the national team. a star would have little time to play for his own team.

The question is how long he may be tied up with the national team. We know that it is a general practice among the soccer powers in Latin America and Europe that they organize and train their national team members for a considerably short period of time. The focus of interest among them is the World Cup games - not the Olympic Games. Not so is it in Korea. Here the World Cup is just as important as the Olympics and the Asian Gaines.

Of course, before these top occasions are regional preliminaries. And these require intensive group training for the national team players. the stars. over a long period of time.

And could the appeal of the pro teams be high without their stars? The answer is obvious. Local fans were bitterly critical of their favorite teams without the stars. Understandably there has been little one could do to coordinate the needs of doing well in big international events and those of promoting domestic popularity of professional soccer.

Take for example the 13th World Cup tournaments held early in 198 5. Korea lost out to Malaysia 1-Q even in a regional elimination match. Now the Korea Football Commission (KFC) went all out improving the national squad by reshuffling coaches and enlisting pros from local teams. Then came a long period of intensive training. Thus, thus alone, was it possible for the national team to qualify for the finals staged in Mexico in 1986. Before playing the main matches in June of that year. the national squad kept in shape by undergoing overseas training sessions that even extended to the 1985-1986 winter. On return home, these stars immediately plunged into domestic league games. Then again in September, they had to get together and take part in the Asian Games in Seoul. Indeed they copped top honors. Still and all, the national team did poorly in the Seoul Olympics two years later, though the host country could delegate a team without going through regional eliminations.

Why? Because there evidently was not enough time to reinforce the national team.

Regarding the World Cup Championship held this year in Italy, Korea organized the national team in late April to start a full-scale training. after passing the Asian-oceanian regional contest last November. That meant not enough training time for the final matches. Korea was humiliated in Italy by losing three games in the E Section. Local fans were furious. Thanks to the popular expression of criticism over the Korean performances in Italy. our officials were able to kick off a long period of intensive training for the top stars - this time in preparation for the Asian Games in Beijing.

One upshot of all this is plain: pro soccer has hardly climbed in popular appeat.

At present. six teams are registered with the Professional Soccer Commission of the KFC: Daewoo, Hyundai. Yukong (Korea Oil Refinery Corp.). Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO). Lucky-Goldstar Corp., and Ilhwa Corp.

The league season lasts from March to November. Each team competes with another in eight games. Total a year: 120 games. Staged without stars. the battles of the league have seldom been a sellout event. Last year. the league registered 549,360 admissions. Average crowd per game: 4.578- hardly enough to fill up those grandstands. Ticket sales stood at about 598 million won (about $854,000).

Indeed the pro teams, that annually cost about I. 5 billion (about $2.142 ,000) to I. 7 billion won (about $2.428,000) each. are suffering from serious deficits. So long as the present situation prevails, pro soccer is not going to become a money-making proposition. The best they could do would be to serve as only part of an advertising operation for their parent

52

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS IN KOREA

business groups.

Despite the gloomy financial situation. the teams have to pay their top stars well. When Choi Sun-ho. a striker of the national team. transferred to the present Lucky-Goldstar team from POSCO three years ago, the first company paid the second 2 50 million won (about US$357,000) and 100 million won (about US$I42.000) to Choi as the contract money. His annual salary for I 990 is 50 million won (about US$7 I .400). Besides Choi Sun-ho. those outstanding star players like Park Kyong-hun of POSCO. Lee Tai-ho and Kim Ju-song of Daewoo. and Ro Su-jin of Yukong receive 45 million won (about $64,200) for I 990 each.

Each professional outfit. excluding that of Ilhwa Corp. which was organized last year. has 40 to 50 members for the principal and secondary teams. The lowest annual salary for a principal team member is I 2 million won (about $I 7 ,000). and secondary team members get about 500,000 won (about $7 I 0) per month. Pays for managers vary. One of them. Park Chong-hwan. rates a great deal. In November I988, he picked up 100 million won (about $I 42 ,800) from Ilhwa Corp. as his contract money to serve for four years. in addition to 48 million won (about $68,500). his annual salary.

We may say that the Korean professional soccer is confronted with a critical situation.

But it should be proud of itself f<?r producing such a superstar as Cha Bum-keun.

Born in I953. Cha was selected as a member of the national team at age I8, when he was in third grade of Kyongsin High School in Seoul. With an ideal height of I 79cm and weight of 78kg. he can sprint I OOm in I I seconds flat. In the course of playing as an amateur athlete in college (Korea University). a private company (Seoul Credit Bank) and then the military (Air Force). he earned fame as Korea's top striker. Joining in the Bundesliga in I 979, he signed a contract with the Frankfurt in July of that year: an annual salary of 220,000 marks. His pay jumped to 400.000 marks when the time came for renewing his contract in October I 980.

Since then Cha exercised his excellent ability as a great striker until June I 983. During those months. he scored 46 goals in I 2 2 games. In July I 983. he moved to the Leverkusen receiving 526,000 marks for his annual salary, and was paid 500.000 marks when he left the team in June I 989.

The German soccer magazine. Kicker. chose Cha as a world-class player in its July I 986 issue. while the Abend Post selected him as the star of the year in its year-end special edition the same year. The press coverages were made in appreciation of his brilliant activities. placing fourth in goal getting through Bundesliga. He participated in 34 games to get I 7 goals during the I 985- I986 season. Throughout the period of I 0 years with Bundesliga, Cha took part in a total of 299 matches to score as many as 98 goals. earning an attectionate moniker. Chabum. Another nickname of his. Asian Tiger. scared the daylights out of his opponents.

SSIRUM Ssirum is a Korean-style wrestling in which two players fight on a round sand ground. seven meters in diameter. In this game. the two wrestlers play in such a way that they hold each other by a cotton cloth belt and battle to make any part of the opponent's body touch the ground first. using physical strength and various techniques. Some experts say that it is quite similar to the Alps wrestling in Switzerland. Ssirum is said to be no less than 1.500 years old. Its battle, experts say. can be won by harmonizing strength and technique.

The fighting technique is said to have as many as I04 variations.

CHO DONG-PYO

53

It has been played for centuries across the country on such festive occasions as Tano (the spring festival on May 5 in the lunar calendar) and Chusok (the full moon festival on August I 5 in the lunar calendar) with prizes of oxen. Now. this traditional game has been organized as a professional form of sport. Seven championships of divided weight levels and two combined championships with no weight limits annually take place.

These championships enjoy an extremely high popularity among the people. The wrestler's weight is divided into three categories. and champions are given titles after the names of renowned Korean mountains: Kumgang Changsa. or the Strongman of Mt. Kumâ&#x201A;Ź~r:.g, for the weight level lower than 80kg, Halla Changsa for the division between 80.1 kg and 95kg, and Paektu Changsa for levels over 95.1kg.

Ssirum champ Lee Man-gi shows his muscle power.

Aspiring ssirum wrestlers are innumerable.

But pros registered with the FolkSsirum Commission of Korea Ssirum Assodation number 65, including 22 each for the Kumgang and Halla divisions. and 21 in the Paektu division. All of them are on the payroll of five business groups (see below). Each year. they take part in seven weight division championships and two combined championships, earning much from prize money in addition to high salaries from their employers in recognition of the public relations roles played by them.

Prizes of the Grand Championship. the most prestigious of the nine competitions, stand at 10 million won (about $14,200) for the champion and 7 million won (about $10,000) for the runner-up. Offered in addition are 4 million won (about $5,700) for the third place and 2 million won (about $2.800) for the fourth place. Winners of weight-level championships are offered 2 million won (about $2,800) each.

At present the employers of ssirum pros are Lucky-Goldstar, Hyundai, Ilyang Pharmaceuti¡ cal Co., Samick Furniture Manufacturing Co. and Chohung Credit Depository.

Lee Man-gi, who was the grand champion up until the first part of last year, was paid the highest salary in the sport, 60 million won (about $85,700). by Hyundai. for this year, while Lee Bong-go) of Lucky-Goldstar. who retired last July. rated 3 5 million won (about $50,000).

The grand champion as of July 1990 is a 19-year-old star. Kang Ho-dong. A high school graduate, Kang joined Ilyang Pharmaceutical Co. last year to receive 50 million won (about $71.400) and 20 million won (about $28. 500) for his contract money and annual salary, respectively. He placed third in the 17th championships held last September and became the champion consecutively twice in the 18th and 19th games held last March and July. His annual salary for this year shot to 30 million won (about $42,800).

The annual salary for lesser wrestlers is about I 5 million won (about $21 ,000) whereas trainees receive about 3 to 4 million won (about $4,200 to $5.700).

54

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS IN KOREA

Each ssirum team is suffering from rising costs. The annual budget of about 400 million won (about $5 71.400) is the average. The championships are staged by the Folk Ssirum Commission of the Korean Ssirum Association. and its total annual income amounts to about 1 billion won (about $1.428.000). including 280 million won (about $400,000) from advertisement fees in the ground. 500 million won (about $714.200) from broadcasting rights. 140 million won (about $200.000) from admission ticket sales and other sources. Most of this revenue is allocated for prizes and covering the cost of staging matches and training aspiring pros.

BOXING A boxer named So Chung-kwon introduced Korean boxing abroad for the first time by placing sixth in the 1932 NBA bantamweight ranking in the U.S. His performances proved inspiring to many of junior aspirants back home. But up until 1945. the end of World War II and Japanese rule over Korea. their overseas activities were on the whole confined to Japan. China and the Philippines.

After the national independence in 1945 and the Korean War (1950- 1953). boxing inevitably declined in Korea. It began thriving again only in the early 1960s as stability was gradually restored in Korea .

Then Korea's Orient WBA junior middleweight champ Kim Ki-su took the first world title by beating defending champion Nino Benbenuti of Italy in a bout held on June 2 5. 1966 at the Changchung Gymnasium in Seoul. Having defended his title twice. Kim lost it by decision to Italian challenger Sandro Mazinki in a match held in Milan in May 1968. Even though Kim retained his title for only 2 3 months. his success marked a turning point in boxing in Korea.

Korean interest in boxing, having dropped down to the rock bottom in the wake of Kim 's defeat. was revived in July I 97 4 when Hong Su-hwan won the WBA bantamweight championship by defeating Arnold Taylor by decision in a match held in South Africa. Hong lost his title in March 1975 only after one successful defense. But then there came Yu Je-du of WBA junior middleweight. who took the world title in Japan. For several years since then. a number of outstanding boxing stars (including Yom Dong-kyun. WBC super bantamweight; Hong Su-hwan. WBA junior featherweight; Kim Song-jun. WBC junior flyweight; Kim Sanghyon. WBC super lightweight; Park Chan-hi. WBC flyweight; and Kim Tai-sik of WBA flyweight) contributed towards promoting public interest in boxing by capturing (and then losing) world titles one after another.

Boxing thrived through the 1980s. In 1989. Korea had as many as six world champs: Yu Myong-wu. Kim Yong-kang, Mun Song-kil. Lee Yol-wu. Kim Bong-jun. and Paik In-chol.

Such a remarkable development was possible by positive support and encouragement of the government authorities and a keen TV coverage.

Professional boxing in Korea has become a profit¡making proposition - thanks to TV rights.

Then some promoters made a serious mistake. They made a bit of fortune by keeping the TV ratings high in the process of having their champs defend their crown gainst second-rate foreign challengers time and again on home ground.

There are four world title holders in Korea as of July 1990. They include Yu Myong-wu.

WBA junior flyweight (who has been keeping his champion belt since December 1985 succeeding in I 5 defending bouts): Mun Song-kil. WBC super flyweight. and Kim Bong-jun. WBA minimum weight.

CHO DONG¡PYO

55

The drop in the number of champs sharply reflects a decline in popular interest in Korea.

Those money-mad promoters are mainly to blame for this. Sure enough, TV in Korea now is far more interested in overseas big sports events than domestic pro boxing. Ignored by TV, many small boxing clubs have gone bankrupt. Indeed a number of boxers registered with the Korea Boxing Commission has plunged to about 500, only about half of what it was back in I 988.

It is known that the title money for Kim Ki-su was $50,000 when he successfully defended his title in December I 966. In I 990 Yu Myong-wu received $200,000 for his I 5th defense of his title while Mun Song-kil and Kim Bong-jun were paid US$ I 20,000 and US$ I 00,000 for the first and fourth defense of their titles, respectively.

GOLF As of I 990, there are I 53 members in the Professional Golf Association, established in I 968 by male pros. The most experienced of them is its advisor Yon Dok-chun. Born in I 9 I 6, he is a veteran; he won an open tournament held in I 94 I at Japan's Hodogaya Country Club.

For professional golfers, qualification is given when one passes the contests held biannually in three districts of the country. A total of elevent tournaments are held a year, including Maeil Kyungje (an economic daily newspaper) Open Golf Tournament with prize money of 2 I million won (about $300,000).

Ranks of players by the amount of prize money gained in I 989 are: I) Park Nam-sin, 56 million won (about $80,000). 2) Choi Sang-ho, 54,550,000 won (about $77,900). 3) Choi Yun-su, 50,580,000 won (about $72,250), 4) Kim Yong-iL 45,830,000 wn (about $65,470). and 5) Bong Tai-ha, 43,I90,000 won (about $61.700).

Established in I978, the Women's Professional Golf Association has 55 members as of I 990. The oldest among them is Kang Chun-ja who is 35 years old. The association recruits new members through biannual contests. There are annually nine tournaments, including the Seoul Women's Open Championships held in September every year.

Their prize money ranks in I 989 are as follows: I) Ko Wu-sun gained 2 7 million won (about $38,570) while 2) Kang Chun-ja, 3) Chung Kil-ja, 4) Ku Ok-hi. and 5) Sim Ui-myong received I4 ,260,000 won (about $20,370), I2,070,000 wn (about $I7,240). I2 million won (about $I7,I40). and I 1,270,000 won (about $I6,100). respectively. Among them, Ku Ok-hi, who is holding a foreign license and known internationally, has won two consecutive competitions.

Even though the position of professional golfers has considerably improved these days, the level of professional golf in Korea st;ill remains relatively low.ÂŽ

(The original text for this article was written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA This is a translation .)

56

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS IN KOREA

SPORTS NATIONAUSM IN KOREA Decline Has Set In After Seoul Games Lee

Bang~won

obody would deny that the Olympic Games could serve as a public relations tool par excellence for the participating nations.

Many experts, though, point out that the waves of nationalism for the first time hit the Modern Olympiad back in 1908 when London hosted the Fourth Summer Games.

Now all the participating teams came into the opening ceremonies led by the bearers of their national flags, though the order of march was alphabetical.

When it comes to the job of exploiting it in terms of public relations, nobody could have done it better than propaganda experts for Adolf Hitler. When the II th Games were held in Berlin, they turned the occasion into a gala show for demonstrating the might of Nazi Germany.

Olympic nationalism, or whatever you might like to call it took another turn when Helsinki hosted the I 5th Games. Then lo and behold, the Soviet Union, that had up till then regarded the Olympics as a decadent capitalist plaything, made its debut. And the delegation seemed dead set to show the world the glories of the Soviet Union's national power and the superiority of its system. That was in 1952.

The Soviets' arrival touched off a cold war in sports, a war into which many nations, whether they liked it or not found themselves involved.

Helsinki is a lovely city. But the Games it hosted caused another not-so-sportsmanlike practice: grade nations by the number of medals garnered by their athletes. Mass media immediately adopted the system, though this left many observers at once stunned and disgusted.

The practice, alas, continues even today, not only in the Olympics but also in many other big international sports festivals, including, unfortunately, the 40-year-old Asian Games.

Koreans first took part in the Olympic Games in the 1932 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

The pioneers were marathoners Kim Un-bae and Kwon Ta~ha.

A third Korean marathon star, Sohn Kee-chung, copped a gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Summer Games. But his country still was under colonial rule by Japan. And in the official book of records, the star was classified as a Japanese. In it his name was Kitei Son- that's the way the Japanese pronounce his name. Indeed Sohn had to don a shirt that carried a blazing Rising Sun, the Japanese national flag.

For once Koreans showed under their own national flag, Taegukki, during the 1948 London Olympics, that took place three years after Korea's liberation from the Japanese rule.

The flag elated the nation. The happy mood did not last long though. Two years later the Korean war broke out.

Sure enough, when the military seized power in a bloodless coup in 1961, a belief grew

N

Lee Bang-won, born in 1941, graduated from the Department of Diplomacy, Seoul National University, in 1965 . He ;oined the vernacular daily Shin-A Ilbo as a city reporter in June 1965 and in April 1969 moved to Kyung-hyang Daily News as a sports reporter. In July 1982, he became sports editor of Kyunghyang and in November 1986 an editorial writer of the daily. In March 1990, he became feature and supplements editor.

LEE BANG-WON

57

that the government had to be more keenly interested in sports. In I 962 the National Sports Promotion Law was enacted. That was a popular move. But the Jaw remained for long but a piece of paper. Why? Because the government had to go all out building economic power of the nation.

The situation gradually changed as Korea turned more and more affluent. Still and aiL government support was confined to developing star athletes through the good offices of the Korea Amateur Sports Association (KASA).

In this sense, June 30, I 966, might well be noted in any study of sports nationalism in Korea. That day a I 0-story building was opened in Mugyo-dong, in the heart of SeouL as the KASA Center - thanks entirely to financial supports from the government. In Taenung, in northwestern Seoul. the Taenung Athletes Village (turn to page 33 of this issue of KOREANA for a detailed story about this fascinating village) was similarly inaugurated.

Top-rated athletes were invited to enter the village. Meals served them at the mess hall were spectacular. But the village failed to live up to its initial expectations, mainly because the training routines it offered left much to be desired - not exactly scientific.

Another problem concerned scouting and recruiting. A great deal of need had been acutely felt of going all over the country to hunt for promising and talented youths. But then what government financial support given had to be spent nearly entirely on training established athletes.

Scouting is a costly business. But neither the KASA nor any of the sports federations had enough money to take it up. Until the mid~ 1970s. these federations depended on the pocket money of their presidents - in many cases politicians - and understandably suffered from a chronic shortage of funds.

That was not all. A tim~honored tendency in the country was to frown upon sports. Sports, many thought. should be left only for youngsters from poor families. Beside, many parents were convinced that if their children engaged in sports. their academic performances were bound to drop.

Then something altogether unexpected happened. In the 1966 world wrestling champi~ onships, Chang Chang~on copped the flyweight division title. Now in April 1973. the Korean table tennis team placed first in the Sarajevo world championships, thanks in the main to dramatic upsets pulled off by a female duo: Lee Elissa and Chong Hyon~uk.

Their victories and the overwhelming popular reaction to them did not escape the atten~ tion of some officials. The reason was not complicated. These officials all at once discovered that sports were a fine means of promoting patriotism from among the population.

Kim Taek~oo. who served as the KASA president from 1971 to 1978 though he always sought to return to politics, was one of the champions for the cause of promoting patriotism through sports. Thanks to this man. the National Sports Promotion Foundation was esta~ lished in I 972 . A pot of cash had finally been made available for top athletes in the form of a pension.

PENSION The pension system for sportsmen brought forth a turning point for sports nationalism in Korea. For better or worse, excellence in sports meant a lot of cash for athletes. Inevita~ bly the system led to extra~hard work in training among athletes and solidified their will to win. The outcome was telling. Koreans began copping honors right and left at interna~ tiona) meets.

58

SPORTS NATIONALISM IN KOREA

In the I 976 Montreal Olympics. Yang Chong-mo won the first gold for Korea in the featherweight division of freestyle wrestling. The women's volleyball team on the other hand earned a bronze. the first medal Korean athletes won in competitions involving the use of a ball.

In September I 977 in Berlin, the teen-aged Kim Chin-ho swept top honors in five events during the year's world archery championships. And she won herself an affectionate moniker: "The Queen of Archery."

Under the pension system, athletes who win honors in the Olympics or other important international meets rate pensions. This clearly runs counter to the classic ideal of amateurism.

But the idea proved highly acceptable to the public: you work hard at it. do well in international meets and you can enjoy something of Ia vie en rose.

Under the system, athletes are given points according to their performances. Ninety points are counted for an Olympic gold medal. and it means to the medalist the monthly payment of 600.000 won ($850)- the pension. Thirty points are given to a silver medal. which entails the monthly pension payment to the tune of 300,000 won ($426). A bronze similarly will earn an athlete 20 points and 200,000 won ($280).

Gold medals in world championships are treated as an equivalent of the Olympic silver medal in the pension system and are given 30 points each. Different sets of evaluation are applied to silver and bronze medals in international meets and the Asian Games.

When an athlete scores I 0 points in the pension system. I 00,000 won ($I 42) is given in the monthly payment. Each additional five points mean 50.000 won ($70) more. When an athlete scores more than 30 points. every additional I 0 points bring forth 50,000 won more.

At present. Kim Soo-nyung, who earned top honors in the single and group competitions

What price glory? East Germany's top swimmer Kristin Otto after winning another gold medal in the Seoul Games ..

LEE BANG-WON

59

of archery in the 1988 Olympics. rates the greatest amount of monthly pension - no less than 1.1 million won ($1.570).

Kim Chin-ho, the woman pioneer of Korean archery, did not win a gold medal in the Olympics. But because of her victories in several other international meets, she is getting I million won a month.

Currently a total of 253 athletes are sports pension recipients. They include 38 athletes who are paid 600,000 won ($857) or more. 47 who are given between 350,000 won ($500) and 500,000 won ($710). and 107 who are grouped as silver medalists in the pension system.

Among those paid 600,000 won ($857) or more are 12 members of the women's handball team that won a gold medal in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. seven archers who swept honors in the same Seoul Games. five wrestlers, four judoists. three boxers and three table tennis players.

The Seoul Olympic Sports Promotion Foundation (originally the National Sports Promotion Foundation). which came into being after the 24th Olympics in Seoul to carry out Olympicrelated projects, now pays as much as 83 million won ($118,570) a month to 253 "pensioners" in 22 sports.

It must be noted, though, there are growing demands that the pension system be revised for various reasons.

The sports pension system has dual purposes: rewarding athletes for their hard training and good performances and guaranteeing them a finandally stable life so that the "pensioners" could concentrate on training their juniors without worrying about the questions of livelihood.

One of the reasons behind the growing critidsm concerns the fact that the system has not specified duties for the pension recipients. Consider those who have turned pro and have no time for training their juniors. Under the system, even to them the pension payment must be continued. Indeed revisions are in the making at the offices of the Seoul Olympic Sports Promotion Foundation.

Also in the works is a plan for reducing the amount of pensions. There have been loud criticisms that the the gap between the sports and state pensions is too glaring for many people to stomach.

Of course, behind it all is the recent collapse of sports aristocracy in Eastern Europe and the decline of sports nationalism in the Communist bloc.

DECLINE In the wake of Soviet President Gorbachev's perestroika and the sweeping changes in the East European bloc. there is an obvious decline making itself felt in the nationalism in sports in various countries.

Korea's nationalism in sports, as a matter of fact, peaked during the seven years that saw President Chun Doo-hwan in the Blue House (February 1981-February 1988). the presidential mansion in Seoul.

His government found it rewarding to take advantage of sports in improving its image overseas and at home in enhancing harmony among the people. One outcome was that the republic under him even came to be called as a "sports republic." Two epochal developments in sports helped his government. One was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision to give the 1988 Summer Games to Seoul and the other the launching of professional sports in the country.

60

SPORTS NATIONALISM IN KOREA

Korea and much of the rest of the world were taken aback in September 1981 when the IOC Session decided upon awarding the 24th Olympic Games to Seoul. That meeting took place in Baden- Baden. Germany. So many observers then had taken it for granted that the vote would be cast in favor of Seoul's rival. the Japanese city of Nagoya. They were wrong.

If the IOC decision to allow Seoul to host the Games in 1988 played a dramatic role in enhancing Korea's image throughout the world . the start of pro baseball in the country did much towards diverting the public's interest from politics to sports.

Indeed pro ball game has succeeded in drawing huge crowds of spectators. It has contributed to diversifying the leisure¡ activities of Koreans across the country.

SLOOC The Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOOC) was inaugurated in November 1981 and the Ministry of Sports in March 1982. thus opening channels for government's financial and policy supports for sports activities.

For the Olympic preparations. massive investments were made by the government and the Seoul city administration through SLOOC. aside from administrative support rendered through the Ministry of Sports.

Government officials and sports leaders were keenly aware of one thing: building sports facilities is one thing and developing athletes another. But it was hard to raise funds for the development of athletes.

In the end. top leaders of business groups and conglomerates were asked to head sports associations and play for them as "angels."

In the mid-1980s. prominent businessmen became heads of soccer. basketball. volleyball. boxing. wrestling. judo and archery associations in a rapid succession.

These business leaders played a significant part in strengthening the competitiveness of Korean sports in international arena by repeatedly shelling out large sums of money for training athletes.

The business leaders poured tons of money into national teams in the form of training funds and "incentives." Not enough attention. though, was paid to the need of developing

The Baden-Baden decision to hold the 1988 Olympic Games In Seoul is accepted

by Korean delegates in 1981.

LEE BANG¡WON

61

future athletes. Certainly their "sports investment" was one of the reasons behind the fact that with 12 gold medals. south Korea placed fourth in the Seoul Olympics. next to the Soviet Union with 55 golds. East Germany with 37 golds and the U.S. with 36 golds.

With President Chun having stepped down in 1988, these businessmen have by and large left sports circles. And that has inevitably created a zone of vacuum in the domestic sports arena.

Many sports heroes who fanned national pride in the 1988 Games have since left the sports world. Few new stars have appeared. What confronts Korea in sports is this generational gap.

Korea's sports nationalism has in fact been fast withering away after reaching its apex during the 1988 Olympics. Now voices calling for investments in "sports for all" make themselves more and more audible.

FRAMEWORK After the 1988 Olympics. the Sports Ministry has shifted its policy emphasis on elite sports to building the basic framework for "Sports for All." On July I . 1989. Korea enacted a law to make sure that everybody could enjoy sports.

Under the law. all government-owned sports facilities were placed under the control of the Sports Ministry. Up till then various sports facilities were under the jurisdiction of various ministries in the government.

In Aprill989. the ministry expanded the National Sports Promotion Foundation. founded in 1972, and renamed it the Seoul Olympic Sports Promotion Foundation. entrusting it with the job of managing Olympic facilities and raising funds for the promotion of "Sports for All." Operating Olympic facilities and managing 335 . 1 billion ~ron ($ 478.7 million). the foundation plans to raise the fund to 500 billion won ($714.3 million) by 1994 to finance the Sports for All drive.

In July 1989. the ministry opened the Korea Sports Science Institute. The institute carries out studies on ways and means of improving Korean athletes. finding and supporting talented youths. handling sports science and health information.

This means that sports administration is now centered on contributing to public health and on strengthening the solidarity of the entire people.

A great change is afoot. Once the ministry concentrated on the Olympic affairs. No more.

Sports for every Korean is its main business. It even is taking charge of the growing youi:h problems. That is to say, in Korea also that old sports nationalism is ready to fade away gradually.ÂŽ

(The text of this article was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREAN A. This is a translation.)

62

SPORTS NATIONALISM IN KOREA

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN KOREA Another "ParrNational" Drive Is Under Way Kang Sin-bok

hysical education and national development is closely related with each other. Physical education provides the nation with a powerful driving force for national development by expanding the capability of the public to the greatest possible extent. The promotion of physical education is a precondition for developing a democratic welfare state.

On the other hand, it can hardly be advanced to the desired level and scope without support from the state.

Physical education. which is indispensable for building the future of the nation, has to be pursued toward the goal of ensuring a happy and healthy life for the individual. The ideal man, pursued through the wholesome physical education, may be defined as "a healthy man who is equipped with a sound and beautiful body and a resistance to physiec~l and mental illnesses, as well as a will power to serve his society and maintain the high moral standard."

Traditionally, youths and children have been the primary target of physical education. No more. Today in Korea the target covers practically everybody- women, old people, even infants. This article aims to introduce the physical education in Korea yesterday and today, with a focus placed on the role of physical education as an integral part of youth education.

P

HISTORY Physical education in Korea met a major turning point with the advent of modern schools in the 1890s. To begin with, martial arts were the thing. Then at the turn of the century, the focus shifted from combat skills to the job of building a balanced personality and the question of what to do for recreational and leisure activities.

The government of the Choson Kingdom issued an edict on education in 189 5, to underline the importance of developing a balanced personality by means of a moraL physical and intellectual education. The school curriculum for physical education at this time consisted mainly of gymnastics and games, though.

Western sports were first introduced in school curriculum around 1927. But health education came to attract increased attention only after the end of World War II. With the rapid economic development since the 1970s. physical education greatly flourished both inside and outside schools around the country. Various programs were introduced to promote the public health and sporting activities.

Physical education programs for youths and children are divided largely into those con-

Kang Sin-bok. born in 1943, is a professor of physical education at Seoul National University. He graduated from the same school in 1966 and obtained his doctorate from the University of Oregon in the U.S. Currently he serves as a member of the Education Ministry's physical education curricula deliberation committee and a policy advisor for the Sports Ministry . He authored Curriculums in Physical Education. and has published a number of papers on the same sub;ect as well as on the higher education and teaching in physical education.

KANG SIN-BOK

63

Primary school physical education class in progress.

ducted inside schools and outside schools. School education includes regular classes and other physical activities that school authorities consider necessary for a sound development of the personality of students. Inter-school sports programs and special training sessions for gifted students are included in this category.

Most schools from the elementary to college levels offer an average of two to three hours a week on physical education. The curriculum usually includes theory. actual training and health education. Of course. actual training is of the greatest importance. Similarly. the tendency now is to make it all coeducational.

Extracurricular lessons take place about once a week in the form of optional activities in most schools. But they are yet to achieve the intended goals due mainly to the poor curriculum planning and lack of facilities. The traditional knowledge-centered educational atmosphere also plays a role in hampering these activities by students with special interest in sports. Inter-class or intramural athletic meets are held mostly in spring and autumn. These occasions generate a remarkable enthusiasm on the part of students. ¡ Inter-school athletic meets are held on regional or national basis. or on the basis of individual sports. With a view to increasing the competitive ability of future athletes. the government actively supports athletic training in schools under the motto of "One Sport Each School." Schools at all levels have opened assorted sports clubs. granting scholarships to talented students. Those with outstanding records are allowed the privilege of advancing to upper-level schools without taking written tests for admission. Most of tliese sports clubs make it a rule to have training sessions after school so as not to interfere with academic activities of their members. In practice. however. they miss their classes frequently.

Social changes today take place rapidly and extensively. Excessive expectations and overprotection by parents - and the general educational atmosphere that places an extraordinary emphasis on scholastic achievements - have led to the growth of individualism and exclucivism among many youths.

64

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN KOREA

WORKING YOUTHS On the other hand, working youths, often toiling under poor working conditions and living in inadequate housing, could feel socially alienated and abandoned. The result is often unwholesome. This is one of the raisons d'etre of the Sports for All program.

The Sport for All programs for youths in Korea are coordinated by assorted organizations including the concerned government offices, schools and social organizations.

The Ministry of Sports, the government agency responsible for guiding and assisting the movement offers diverse menus for the leisure activities for children and youths, like camping, athletic meets and other sporting events. As the ministry was only recently reorganized to take charge of all affairs related with youths and children, we may expect that its activities in this area will grow increasingly diversified and brisk in the days to come.

A large number of schools are taking part in the Sport for All movement now gaining considerable force across the country. The school authorities open their sports facilities for use by community members in the early morning and after-school hours, or even run various sports classes for these non-students. During vacations, the schools organize cross-country hikes for student:s under the guidance of teachers. They also encourage their students to take part in various sporting camps in an effort to guide them to spend their leisure time in wholesome manner.

Various social and religious bodies, youth organizations and the sport for all centers provide assorted sports activities for youths and children. YMCA is among the organizations most active in offering regular programs of this kind. Mountain climbing, maritime expedition, walk travels and campings sponsored by these organizations contribute to the courage and personality cultivation of the younger generation to a great extent.

Regrettably, however. working youths have not been given enough chances to benefit from these programs. They certainly need sound physical activities to maintain their physical and mental health and elevate their productivity. The need must be met even in the light of our basic principle that guarantees an equal opportunity of education for all. It is recommended from this point of view that industries employing juvenile workers expand their in-house welfare facilities and improve their operation, while providing their youthful employees with more opportunities for athletic and leisure-time activities. Employers are also advised to pay more attention to the operation of educational facilities for their employees, whether inside their workplaces or utilizing the existing schools in their neighborhood, in order to encourage sporting activities among their employees.

SWEEPING CHANGES Korean society has experienced a rapid economic development as well as sweeping changes in all aspects of life since the 1970s. Such an overwhelming wave of changes has brought about serious mental gaps between the old and the young. Of course the younger generation seeks to liberate itself from the yokes of existing social structure and seeks a new environment. Therefore, whatever new programs are drawn up, they must be appealing to youths around the country.

The Ministry of Sports, which was created in 1982 , is responsible in the government for all affairs related to sports and physical education. The ministry divides its duties among four departments: the Sports Promotion Department Sports Guidance Department International Sports Department and the Youth Affairs Department. Among these, the Youth Affairs Department was created most recently in 1989 to take care of all affairs related to

KANG SIN-BOK

65

youths and children. The job had previously been shared by various government agencies.

The Korean Youth Affairs Research Institute operates under this ministry and develops youth policies.

The Youth Affairs Department handles. among other affairs. the job of raising funds for the development of youth and supporting youth organizations. It also constructs and subsidizes facilities for youths. assists leisure activities of youths and trains leaders for youth programs.

The physical fitness test was introduced in I 97 I for students of elementary and seconddary schools for the purpose of measuring their physical strength and abilities.

Since the results of the test were reflected in the admission to upper-level schools in I 972. however. the system has been revised several times. It now is divided into two categories: I) a general physical fitness test for students from the fifth grade in elementary school to the third grade in high school. and 2) the test for applicants for high school and college admission. a part of their entrance examinations.

The test comprises six items: a standing broad jump. ball throw. chin-up. sit-up. distance run and I00-meter dash. These items were developed on the basis of the traditional concept of physical aptitude so they differ from most of the latest tests devised in other countries in relation to health care. The test is considered necessary because. among other reasons. it enables students to take a minimum amount of physical exercise needed to maintain their health under the nation's competition-oriented educational system focusing upon entrance examinations. which is often dubbed an "exam hell."

On the other hand. there is also the criticism that the regular physical education classes at schools are conducted solely to prepare students for the test because of its importance in entrance examinations. The results of physical fitness test account for I 0 percent of the entire marks in high school admission and 5. 9 percent in college admission under the current system.

Students with outstanding talent in sports are admitted to upper-level schools regardless of their academic achievements. They are exempted from admission and tuition fees and further granted scholarships so that they can devote themselves to improving their athletic potentials. The system aims at discovering sports talents at an early stage and helping them receive specialized education in order to increase their ability to compete in domestic and international meets. Many students have benefited from this system. contributing remarkably to Korea's rising reputation in international sports meets.

STAR ATHLETES In spite of its efficiency in training elite sportsmen. the system has caused worries over its excessive concentration on the improvement of athletic skills. The nation's universities and colleges have admission capacity for only about a quarter of annual high school graduates. Sports talents who fail the final screening for admission privileges find it extremely difficult to apply for normal college courses because of their insufficient academic ability.

It seems obvious that the system needs better methods of implementation combining development of athletic skills and the basic scholastic achievements necessary for leading normal lives in society.

Korea has three middle schools. eight high schools and one college dedicated to elite sports education. These schools offer free classes and dormitories to all of their students.

Students of Korea Sports College have been displaying their prominent abilities in various

66

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN KOREA

international competitions including the I 988 Seoul Olympics, attesting to the high efficiency of the elite sports education undertaken by these schools. However, long-term job place-

ment programs are required for graduates of these schools in view of their limited chances to find jobs with regular payments. Recent statistics showed that only I 0 percent of all graduates of Korea Sports College were employed for jobs ensuring regular incomes.

The evaluation of physical fitness is necessary for panning the sports program of individuals. The physical fitness test also helps increase the public's interest in health and sports.

With this in mind, the Korean government has been conducting physical fitness tests for the general public on an experimental basis since I 982 . Currently, the government is working out evaluation standards to introduce the standard criteria before long. But uniform criteria for the entire public will not be enough because separate standards are required for different groups like workers in specific industries and especially those with various physical handicaps.

A number of fine sports facilities were constructed in Seoul and its neighborhood for the I 988 Seoul Olympic Games. Also, the government's blueprint for an integrated sports park and the large-scale international sporting events held in the country over the recent years have stimulated the construction of various sports facilities across the nation.

SPORTS LEADERS The role of sports leaders is crucial to increasing the effect of physical activities and guiding them to the right direction. Physical education teachers and leaders of the Sport for All programs are two representative professions in this area.

In Korea, physical education is undertaken by class teachers in elementary schools and physical education teachers in middle and high schools. These physical education teachers are recruited from among those who have finished four-year college courses or more. They undergo frequent reeducation programs while in service to up-date their knowledge and teaching skills.

Leaders of Sports for All programs are trained through spedal courses offered at five universities and colleges across the country under the government assistance. Upon completion of the courses, they are required to take qualification tests to acquire a license. Presently, the nation is faced with a shortage of qualified Sport for All program leaders. Training and assignment of qualified Sport for All program leaders capable of high-quality service is needed to bring about an overall development of sound physical activities of the public.

Korea's physical education policy has had a rapid development in recent years. Rapid progress in any human activity is doomed to be confronted with problems. The nation's physical education is faced with not a few problems. But I feel confident that these problems will be solved, one after another. with experts in and out of government pooling their wisdom and working harmoniously with. each other. And that definitely is in the national interest.ÂŽ (The text of this article was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation.)

KANG SIN¡BOK

67

WORLD'S WNGEST SPORTS TALKS Thirty Years Spent Talking,

And No Goals In Sight Lee

Ta~young

North Korean sports delegates face their southern counterparts at Panmunjom early in 1990.

he ultimate goal of international sports meets is the realization of world peace. That must transcend all ideological. racial and religious barriers.

Many world sports leaders contend that sports should be freed from politics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has struggled to defend its Olympic Charter and has succeeded in preventing politics from tearing the boycott-ridden Olympics to pieces.

The 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, in that sense. opened a new chapter in the annals of world peace by bringing together 160 countries in the first boycott-free Olympics in 12 years.

The world was surprised by the success of the Seoul Olympics, an occasion that tool< place on the divided Korean peninsula, a victim of the Cold War. No one doubts that the Seoul Olympics have contributed to world harmony.

The cruel irony is. in spite of such a marvelous Olympian feat. Korea remains divided against itself. Confrontation continues between south and north Korea. The Seoul Olympics have laid a solid foundation for the establishment of diplomatic relations with most of the East-

T

Lee Tae¡!JOung, one of Korea's best-known sports editors, was born in Seoul in 1941. He started his ;ournalistic career as a reporter for the Kyung-hyang Daily News in 1961 . and served as sports editor for Hankook Ilbo. The Daily Sports. and the Joong-ang Daily News from 1978 to 1987. Since 1988 he has been working as sports editor for the Joong-ang Economic Daily. He formerl!J served as president of the Korea Sports Press Union. vice president of the Asian Sports Press Union . and a member of the competition committee under the Seoul Ol!Jmpic Organizing Committee.

68

WORLD'S LONGEST SPORTS TALKS

bloc nations with which south Korea previously had no ties. In spite of a sweeping movement for reform and openness in the East-bloc countries. north Korea has been keeping its door firmly closed to sports exchanges with the south. And the formation of a single Korean delegation to international meets is not in sight.

The first face-to-face sports talks between Seoul and Pyongyang was held as long ago as 1963. Sports officials from Seoul and Pyongyang then sat together at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne. Switzerland. to discuss the matter of fielding a unified team at the next Summer Olympics in Tokyo. However, political differences between the two sides were too great for the delegates to overcome.

When volleyball players from the two Koreas first met in December 1963 in New Delhi for the men's and women's regional qualification rounds for the Olympics. they fought to the last with incredible animosity- without even shaking hands with each other. The world was dismayed at such a fierce brand of mutual hostility pervading the two Koreas. Things have much changed over the years. Athletes from south and north Korea nowadays exchange friendly greetings when they run into each other at international events, though a psychological barrier still remains high between them.

TWO GERMANYS East and West Germanys dispatched their single teams to three Summer Olympics. But Korea has not succeeded in forming a single delegation to any international meets despite a total of 24 rounds of inter-Korea sports talks held since 1963.

The main reason for the failure is the north's determination not to produce any accord with Seoul. When viewed from the south, it's as simple as that. North Koreans seem to have been dead set on exploiting sports talks for political propaganda. Therefore, the interKorea sports talks have failed to live up to the popular belief that once a unified team is fielded. Korea will win far more medals than otherwise at major international sports events, including the Olympics and the Asian Games.

Let us now take a look at the history of inter-Korea sports talks.

The IOC in 1957 tentatively recognized the North Korean Olympic Committee as a regional representative with the consent of the (south) Korean Olympic Committee (KOC). Sports talks between south and north Korean officials began after the IOC, during its 59th general session in Moscow in 1962, urged the two Korean NOCs to send a unified delegation to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

In their first sports talks in January the following year. in Lausanne, south and north Korea agreed to adopt Arirang, the time-honored popular song in both Koreas, as the official song for their unified contingent. Such an agreement heightened the national hope of seeing a unified team. But the hope was shattered at the Hong Kong talks in July that year when Seoul asked for an official apology from Pyongyang for the north's false reports on the process of the talks and its slanderous remarks about the south. The mediating efforts by the IOC ended in failure, and south and north Korea sent separate delegations to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The discord and tragedies resulting from the national division resurfaced in Tokyo. North Korea 's Shin Kum-dan. then one of the world's top women sprinters, and her father Shin Moon-jun from Seoul had to part minutes after their dramatic reunion in Tokyo. As an expression of their strong displeasure over their team title. the authorities in Pyongyang had ordered the withdrawal of the north Korean delegation from the Tokyo Games shortly beLEE TAB-YOUNG

69

fore the opening.

Four years later. north Korea again instructed its delegation to the 1968 Mexico Olympics to return home via Cuba. once again bitterly disappointing the IOC.

MUNICH MEETING Sports officials from the south and the north met again during the Munich Olympics four years later. For the north . the Munich Games were the first Summer Olympics in which it competed. Its performances were good. Now north Korean officials showed a positive attitude toward another round of inter-Korea sports talks. The two sides. headed by their respective NOC presidents. agreed on September 8 to issue a joint communique on sports exchanges.

The two-point statement said that south and north Korea would invite each other's sports officials to their respective capitals for talks on sports exchanges between the two divided parts of the country. It also noted that the two sides would continue contacts on the question through the South-North Coordinating Committee (SNCC), set up in accordance with the South-North Joint Communique issued July 4. 1972 by the two governments. The communique included a mutual agreement between the two Koreas to put sports in the vanguard of efforts towards creating an environment conducive to national harmony and unity.

However, the communique was only rhetoric, leading to little progress in sports exchanges between the two Koreas. It left us convinced that an agreement among sports officials without political backing was little more than an illusion. The situation on the Korean peninsula in the early 1970s following the issuance of the South-North Joint Communique appeared amicable and peaceful. But reality was something quite different.

The north seemed worried over the possibility that mutual visits by athletes and the formation of a unified team might disturb its closed social system. Pyongyang also seemed wary of the danger that partial opening of the country to the south might touch off an avalanche of popular movements for freedom in the north.

Germany was in a different situation concerning the formation of unified sports team. The IOC, however, seemed to be believing that similar sports exchanges between the two Koreas could lead to the formation of a single team. Nothing of the kind happened.

UNIFIED TEAM Let's take a brief look at the German efforts to form a single team for the Summer Olympics. Once a resolution was adopted by the IOC, East and West Germany lost no time starting talks for a single team in 19 55. and the two sides dispatched a unified delegation to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics for the first time. The two sides agreed to use the German flag hoisted before World War I as their team's official banner.

They also agreed to organize their Olympic squad with the best athletes. regardless of which side of Germany they might belong to. For the next Olympics in Rome in I 960, the two sides agreed to add the Olympic emblem to the original three-color German flag for their team flag and chose the "Choral" from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 as their team song.

The two Germanys participated in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics again with a unified delegation. Afterwards. the IOC allowed East Germany to participate in the Summer Olympics as a separate nation with the name of the German Democratic Republic. Since then East and West Germany have fielded separate teams. but their sense of unity seemed to show

70

WORLD'S LONGEST SPORTS TALKS

little change.

Behind the dramatic measures now taken for unification between East and West Germany. and the destruction of the Berlin Wall as well as the use of a single currency. are these contacts and exchanges in sports back¡then. and they were based on a strong sense of unity. The formation of three unified Olympic delegations necessitated about 200 meetings and a total of around $5 million in cost.

In the I 970s. East and West Germany. riding the wave of detente. again made frequent contacts to reach an accord to hold competitions and exchange athletes and sports officials for mutual cooperation and development of sports. A unified Germany. which is expected to be realized this year. is sure to produce a formidable team at future international sports events.

Korea and Germany in a way shared the same fate after World War II in that external powers divided their countries into two parts. But in the case of Korea. a brand of emotionalism has always interfered with sports talks. thereby even sharpening the edge of animosity between the two sides. Recent inter-Korea sports talks produced ugly scenes as delegates from both sides exchanged abusive language and rudely behaved to each other.

NATIONAL UNIFICATION One thing is plain. National reunification should be preceded by exchanges in culture and sports as well as material exchanges. Cultural and sports exchanges. which are less political. could lead to a more amicable atmosphere for inter-Korea talks and would serve as a catalyst for the success of the talks.

Just as the 1988 Seoul Olympics have laid the foundation for Seoul's diplomatic ties with socialist nations. the realization of inter-Korean sports exchanges would speed up. we believe. the process of a national reunification. From this perspective. a majority of Koreans wished for the co-hosting of the Seoul Olympics by south and north Korea.

Such a co-hosting would amount to a violation of the Olympic Charter. whick stipulates that one city should host the Games at a time. So it is impossible for two NOCs to hold jointly the Olympics at the same time. The Korean Olympic Committee {KOC). however. agreed to the IOC's proposal to allow the north to stage some Olympic sports. By granting some Olympic events to Pyongyang. south Korea hoped to create a favorable climate for inter-Korea sports talks. thereby bringing north Korea to the Seoul Olympics. North Korea. however. insisted on co-hosting the Games. and all the efforts of the KOC and IOC brought about no results.

In August 1984. Chung Ju-yung. a well-known businessman and president of the south Korean Olympic Committee. sent a message to his north Korean counterpart Kim Yu-sun and proposed a meeting for sports talks at the truce village of Panmunjom to discuss the possibility of forming a single team for future international athletic events. including the I 986 Seoul Asian Games and the I 988 Seoul Olympics. The Seoul initiative aimed at enhancing harmony between the two divided parts of the country by participating in the two sports festivals in Seoul side by side. But Pyongyang had other ideas. It was no surprise for the south that the north should have rejected the offer. as it indeed did. because it had boycotted the I 984 Los Angeles Olympics. IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch's mediating efforts failed to bear fruit.

Next came the issue of co-hosting the Seoul Olympics proposed by the north. Primo Nebiolo. president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation. thought that Seoul and

LEE TAE¡YOUNG

71

Pyongyang might hold an international cross-border marathon in 1987 before the opening of the Seoul Olympics. But this again was turned down by Pyongyang.

SAMARANCH Under the chairmanship of juan Antonio Samaranch, sports officials from Seoul and Pyongyang got together in Lausanne in 1985 to discuss the issue of allowing the north to stage some Olympic competitions. The focal point of the talks was the number of competitions to be given to the north.

Kim Chong-ha, president of the KOC. offered the north the chance to conduct handball, football and volleyball preliminaries along with some portions of cycling. Kim Yu-sun of the north rejected the offer and maintained Pyongyang's demand for half of the 23 Olympic sports. The north even insisted on setting up two organizing committees for the Seoul Olympics. one each in Seoul and Pyongyang, and sharing profits from the Games.

Such demands were against the Olympic Charter and the IOC could not accept them. At the urging of the IOC. south Korea made further concessions by giving four sports to the north. but Pyongyang asked for nine. The north's demands for a change in the title of the Olympics, shared control of television rights and Olympic profits rather than the number of Olympic sports were interpreted by the south as nothing but a scheme to discourage the Seoul-Games.

In response to the north's proposals, the IOC made its position clear by announcing that every NOC should strictly abide by and respect the Olympic Charter and the IOC decision in Baden-Baden in 1981 to award the 1988 Olympics to the city of Seoul.

The north's proposals were regarded by many foreign officials as a mere tactic to prevent East-bloc nations from participating in the Seoul Olympics. As many East-bloc countries did not make their stance on the Olympics clear, the north's threats caused Seoul some concern. As feared, the Soviet Union and its allies voiced their full support for the north's position at the early stage, putting considerable pressure on the Seoul side. But the north's insistence on co-hosting the Olympics on a so-so basis between Seoul and Pyongyang failed to receive a favorable reaction from world opinion. The Soviet Union announced its intention of participating in the Seoul Olympics and other socialist countries followed suit.

The north, by insisting upon co-hosting the Games, seemed to have aimed at disrupting domestic opinion in the south about the hosting of the Olympics. Some radical students in the south actually staged rallies against holding the Seoul Games.

IDEAL & REALITY Four series of inter-Korea sports talks, which started in October 1985 and ended in July 1987 without any tangible results. hovered between ideal and reality. only wasting time and energy. Just as East Germany participated in the 1972 Munich Olympics as a separate nation, Seoul expected to the last moment that north Korea would dispatch its delegation to the Seoul Olympics along with the Soviet Union and its allies. But Seoul's dream was dashed. The north, in an effort to get out of its international isolation, showed a sincere attitude at first towards the formation of a single delegation to the I 990 Beijing Asian Games.

It would certainly be an unbearable thing for the north if the south Korean team were to produce excellent results in Beijing as it did in the previous Asian Games and Olympics.

The north seems to have been nervous about the rapidly developing ties between Seoul and Beijing after the 1986 Seoul Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Beijing partici-

72

WORLD'S LONGEST SPORTS TALKS

pated in the two sports festivals in Seoul despite a lack of diplomatic relations with south Korea.

The inter-Korea sports talks took a dramatic turn as the two sides agreed on the team flag, team title and methods for selecting athletes for the Beijing Asiad. But the talks broke down with the north's rejection of a proposal from the south to allow mutual visits for the formation of a Beijing Asiad delegation.

The 1982 New Delhi meets were the last Asian Games where both Koreas competed.

Since then, south Korea improved its competitiveness so much as to finish fourth at the Seoul Olympics. If south and north Korea meet at the Beijing Asiad, it is clear that Seoul will surpass Pyongyang in skills and strength.

The past Asian Games showed the ever widening gap in the medal tally between Seoul and Pyongyang: 16 to 15 at the 1974 Tehran Asiad, 18 to 15 at the 1978 Bangkok Asiad, and 28 to 17 at the 1982 New Delhi Asiad, all in favor of Seoul. Korea finished second at the 1986 Seoul Asiad with a haul of 93 gold medals following China's 94 golds. Such a gap is certain to appear again in Beijing, and the general view in Seoul is that if a strict selection trial were to take place, the ratio of athletes accepted between the two sides would be four to one in favor of Seoul.

NORTH'S STARS North Korea is strong in such sports as table tennis, shooting, gymnastics, weightlifting, boxing and wrestling. North Korea has also produced good results, comparable to those of China, at recent international competitions in gymnastics and table tennis. Particularly, the north is superior to the south in boxing and wrestling as was shown at recent international bouts, and boasts the world's top-class athletes in shooting and weightlifting.

North Korea holds better records than its southern rival in track and field , marathon and long-distance running. The north's woman marathon star Moon Kyong-ae holds better records than any woman in the the south. The north's Yoo Ock-hyon is the Asian defending champi-

North Korean girl serves refreshments to reporters from Seoul as another round of South¡ North sports talks gets under way at Panmunjom.

LEE TAE¡YOUNG

73

on in the men's I 0,000-meter race and Kim Choon-mae was the runner-up in the women's 3,000 meters at the Asian Championships.

Among world-class athletes in the north also are wrestlers Lee Hak-son and Kim Yongshik, boxers Kim Duk-nam and Lee Yong-ho, gymnasts Choi Kyong-hee, Kim Kwang-sook and Kim Myong-hwa, weightlifters Kim Jong-nam, Lee Jae-sun, Kim Myong-nam and Chon Chol-ho. North Korea's table tennis players Lee Kun-sang and Lee Bun-hee stunned the world as they defeated Seoul Olympic gold medalists Yoo Nam-kyu and Hyon Chong-hwa of south Korea at the TSP World Team Cup Table Tennis Tournament in Tokyo last May. When these strong athletes represent "one Korea" together with stars from the south at the Beijing Asiad, it is not difficult to imagine that such a team will do very well indeed.

There is still a possibility of dispatching a single sports delegation to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. No one knows how the political situation surrounding the Korean peninsula will change before the Barcelona Olympics. Idealists contend that sports should be free from politics. Nobody would or could in public refuse to agree with them. But that ideal always seems to be one thing and reality another.ÂŽ

Chronology of Inter-Korean Sports Talks Date

Site

Title of Meeting

Agenda

Jan. 24, 1963

Lausanne

Talks for forming a single team for the Tokyo Olympics

Possible team compositions.

Failed to reach any accord, two sides sent separate delegations.

May 17, 1963 July 20, 1963 Sept. 8, 1972

Hong Kong Hong Kong Munich

First working-level talks Second working-level talks A joint communique on sports talks

Feb. 27March 12, 1979 Aprii9May 25, 1984 Oct. 8, 1985July 15, 1987 March 9, 1989Feb. 7, 1990

Inter-Korea sports exchanges, mutual visits to Seoul and Pyongyang, contacts through .

South-North Coordinating Committee proposed (failed).

Panmunjom Single team for World Table Ways of forming a single team Tennis Championships in Pyong- (failed). Seoul failed to paryang (four meetings) ticipate.

Panmunjom Single team for Los Angeles Ways of forming a single team (failed). Pyongyang boycotted Olympics (three meetings) the L.A. Olympics.

Single team for the Seoul Ways of co-hosting Seoul OlymLausanne pics (failed). Pyongyang boycotOlympics (four meetings) ted Seoul Games.

Panmunjom Single team for Beijing Asian Agreed on 10 points for formaGames (nine meetings) tion of a single team. But talks broke down as the north refused to assure their execution.

(The original text for this article was written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation.)

74

WORLD'S LONGEST SPORTS TALKS

TALKS ALSO CONTINUE ON POUTICAL FRONT First &N Premiers Talks Held Sept. 4-- 7

North Korean Prime Minister Yon Hong-muk (L) toasting with South Korean Prime Minister Kang Young-hoon

orea, as everybody knows, is not Germany. Divided against itself after World War II , Germany is fast achieving reunification in every sense of the word. Not Korea.

It still remains divided. Attempts, though , have time and again been made to explore ways and means of making Korea one. The painstaking efforts have finally culminated in an unprecedented get-together in Seoul. Yes, the prime ministers of two Koreas early in September had talks for the first time in 4 5 years.

Epochal? Yes. Historic? Yes, too. Small wonder. Hopes ran high on the eve of the first two-day session at Seoul 's swank Inter-Continental Hotel.

Declared South Korean Prime Minister Kang Young-hoon: "I eagerly expect that we erect . a glistening milestone in our long march to cast off the shackles of division."

Responded North Korean Prime Minister Yon Hyong-muk: "We hope to meet and exchange greetings with political personages, organizations and individuals from all walks of life."

Did the outcome of the talks live up to the towering expectations? One thing was inevitable. The result was sadly mixed.

Both sides readily accepted the urgent need for Korea to be reunited through peaceful means, reduce therefore military strengths mutually and even initiate, among other programs, measures towards working out a nonaggression pact or declaration.

On the other hand, the meeting showed that both sides had to agree to disagree on a number of issues.

Consider the matter of Korea's future representation for the United Nations. While the south's premier Kang tactly made no reference to Seoul's long-standing policy of separate U.N. memberships for the two Koreas, his northern counterpart Yon pointedly insisted on a joint (single) membership.

K

75

That was not all. In contrast to the south's I (}-point proposal that covered the elimination of mutual mistrust as a prerequisite to arms reduction, the northern view was downright specific: to cut down military manpower in both countries to a I 00,000 in a set time span of a mere three to four years.

So went the first round of talks at the highest level ever conducted between the two sides of divided Korea. If the south's offers were conciliatory and humanitarian (topping the list of its priorities was the job of reuniting family members separated in two Koreas). the north's propositions often sounded completely uncompromising.

Still and all, this was the very onset of the exceedingly sensitive prime ministerial talks that presumbly would last long,with the venues alternating between Seoul and Pyongyang.

The visiting north Korean delegation was sizable enough. In addition to seven full-fledged delegates, there were 3 3 staffers and 50 journalists.

Once home, they should have a lot to talk about. Among the probable topics: Seoul's jungles of neon signs (in full view from their hotel), dissenting students who clashed with police (right in front of the stunned northern reporters) and even the city's famous flood of traffic.

These kinds of things are literally nonexistent in the capital of communist north Korea.

Comparison in Proposals • • • • •

Common Proposals Declaration of non-aggression Installation of a hotline linking top military authorities Discontinuance of slander and vilification Genuine demilitarization of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) Permission of mutual public access to printed materials

Entry into the U.N. Mitigation of military confrontation

Confidence-building measures

Mutual exchanges

76

Differences South * No utterance in keynote speech (Seoul's long-held position is to seek separate memberships or a unilateral joining.)

• Arms control through three stages • Political confidence building • Military confidence building * Arms reduction

• Establishment of liaison missions in Seoul and Pyongyang • Mutual recognition • Mutual public access to radio and TV • Free travel by dispersed families older than 60 • Direct inter-Korean trade • Joint development of resources • Reconnection of broken-off railroads and roads between the South and the North • Adoption of an agreement on traveL communications and commerce

TALKS ALSO CONTINUE ON POLITICAL FRONT

North * A joint entry sharing a single seat

• Arms cut in 3-4 years • Withdrawal of the U.S. troops from the South * Removal of nuclear weapons • Cessation of the Team Spirit military ex· ercise • Stoppage of slanderous social and political activities

• Free travel by political circles and peopie from all walks of life

She is one of the personages so fondly remembered in Korea. Sure enough, On August 15. another anniversary of her violent death. many Koreans once again paid a tribute to the memory of Madame Yuk Yongsu. Kim Seong-iin. president of the International Cultural Society of Korea. ;oined them by recalling her in the following article. For long. he served her husband. President Park Chung-hee. as an aide and came to know and admire the lady deeply.

KEEPINC A CREAT LADY IN REMEMBRANCE Madame Yuk Yong-su (1925-1974) Kim Seong-jin

Madam Vuk Vong-su

t's always hard for me to forget so many things about the day when the assassin's bullet intended for her husband ended up killing his wife-August I 5. 197 4. Of course. I talk of Madame Yuk Yong-su. the wife of President Park Chung-hee. About as hard to forget is what ensued.

Just before the funeral. a panic of sorts was triggered in a section of the government.

As it transpired. a number of patients from leprosariums in the countryside had begun converging on the city of Seoul.

Seoul's health authorities immediately mounted a surreptitious surveillance on the movement of these unexpected visitors. As it turned out though. once in town they all did but one and the same thing. In tears they offered prayers in front of the funeral altar and headed pensively back to their respective hospitals.

The question then posed by these health officials was somt:thing inevitable: why? Why

I

KIM SEONG-PN

77

Madam Yuk talking with Hansen's disease patients.

should these patients attend the funeral. as though they were making a pilgrimage? Only then did it come to be publicly known that for years on end the First Lady of the country had been among the most dedicated supporters of a drive for intensifying the care of Hansen's disease patients in Korea.

That. in hindsight is strictly typical of her. With the wives of state heads in the west it might well be considered de rigueur to engage in charitable activities and do so in public.

Not with Madame Yuk. Never did she do it in public.

She was devoted to the eastern value system. Though a public personage, she persisted in making her personal activities painstakingly private. She did all her work for these patients so privately that except for a couple of secretaries of hers and her husband, few outside the Blue House were aware of it. In the end it turned into an unclassified sort of a state secret.

As I have subsequently come to know, Madame Yuk did much for the patients. Perhaps she had personally visited all leprosariums around the country by the time she violently died. Once at each of the hospitals. she always shook hands warmly with the patients and tried to do her best to comfort them. Where possible at all. she also did her best to help improve facilities in these very special medical institutions.

Beside. she was constantly on the lookout for jobs that could be done by the patients themselves to gain at least part of their subsistence. With her. all this compassionate endeavor was almost an obsession-a passion.

But that was not all. She also went all out trying to help old people, orphans and mentally retarded children. As though she were on a clandestine mission, the president's wife busily paid visits to a long list of old nursing homes for the relief of the elderly. That too, was typical of her. Typical also was another fact: here too she totally shunned publicity.

Born on November 29, I925 , she came from the background of a middle-class family.

78

KEEPING A GREAT LADY IN REMEMBRANCE

On graduation from high school in SeouL young Yuk for a while taught home economics at a middle school. She intended to remain a teacher. but fate had decided otherwise. In 1950 the handsome schoolma'am married an up-and-coming army officer by the name of Park Chung-hee. And her life was never the same again.

Eleven years later her husband. now a major-generaL engineered a bloodless coup that catapulted him to the throne of power. Then in 1963. with her husband inaugurated as Presi· dent. she found herself turned into none other than the mistress of the Blue House and the First Lady of her country. If Madame Yuk were stunned by the sudden change of her own status. there are no quotes recorded in the annals of her husband's administration.

Well-known is something else. Deep down she never changed. She was a devout Buddhist. By then a mother of three-two daughters and a son-she remained a person of prin· ciple with a formidable willpower. And then through her visits to these hospitals and old people's homes. she kept herself in dose touch. mentally and physically. with common people.

One outcome was predictable. When her views on welfare and politics ran counter to those of her husband. often an authoritarian president. she made no bones about coming right out to criticize him. Not in public of course but in the privacy of the Blue House. But that kind of confrontations at home by no means was rare. Small wonder. In no time. many members of the opposition parties conferred on her an affectionate moniker: "The Blue House Oppositionist. " To make sure that she was fully informed of grassroots opinions. Ma· dame Yuk kept the switchboard of her secretariat open to calls from anybody with grievances to air or constructive suggestions to offer.

Sure enough, Madame Yuk became one of the most beloved of the first ladies. the reason behind the overwhelming display of regrets touched off around the country when she was shot during the Liberation Day celebrations on August I 5. 197 4.

Soon after the tragedy. I ran into the widower. President Park. Not surprisingly he looked dazed. chagrined and crestfallen. I still remember what he then told me: "So often did she ask me to shake her hand with which she had just had handshakes with patients at a leprosarium. Even now I feel as though she is about to do the same to me. So often at public functions did she ask me to walk slowly lest she be left behind. Now she has all but left me behind and gone so much ahead of me."

Alas. the couple was destined to violent tragedy. as often the case with great personages in history. A half decade later. Park too went- assassinated.®

The River X Goo Sang (1919-)

In the valley here and elsewhere We leave ourselves in the handful of earth Where we shed our scars, Before passing with this river.

So flows the river Bearing our wishes and our moanings.

KIM SEONG·JIN

79

[ REVIEW/ART -

- --

- - - --------1

PANMUNJOM AND BRANDENBURG Oh Kwang.-su

"I

94 5- I 990: Panmun;om and Brandenburg" was the title of an exhibit that was held at the Shi Kong (Space Time) Gallery in Seoul from June I 5 through August I 5, I990.

As the title indicated, the exhibit spanned a period from the end of World War IL when Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule. to the present. The subtitle. Panmun;om and Brandenburg , named the point of Korea's territorial division along with the corresponding symbol of that which has also dMded the peoples of East and West Germany during this era.

Korea during this era. which corresponds to its modern history, has witnessed some horrendous events and upheavals that surpass those of other areas, accompanied by harsh and severe circumstances, which the Korean people have managed to survive.

The age span of the participating artists ranges from those in their late forties and fifties , who spent their childhood or youth during the period following the liberation from Japan, to those who were born and grew up amidst the misery and deprivation of the Korean War and the ensuing postwar period following the signing of the armistice agreement in I 953.

So the title I 94 5- I 990 not only represents the modern history of Korea but the life history of the participating artists as well. The subtitle Panmun;om and Brandenburg, which symbolizes the division of Korea and Germany respectively, deeply expresses the significance of these divisions, along with other inherent implications that these divisions hold.

Though there is a latitudinal difference in the North and South division of the one and East and West division of the other, the artificial walls and borders dividing the nation and the people bear equal significance. Notwithstanding, following the events of recent days, one now finds an enormous difference existing between Panmunjom and Brandenburg.

That is, while on the one hand Panmunjom still remains a door that is tightly shut and locked, the crossbar that bolted the Brandenburg Gate was thrown open in November I 989, resulting in great strides and speedy progress toward making the eventual reunification of East and West Germany a living reality. ¡ Accordingly, the subtitle of this show arouses all the more in the Korean people an awareness of history and a cognizance of the gloomy reality that confronts the nation in comparison with the bright prospects and future that the people of Germany have the pleasure of looking forward to.

Oh Kwang-su , one of Korea's best known art critics, was born in I 939 and studied at the College of Arts.

Hongik University. He served as editor of the art magazine Space and as an advisory member of the National Museum of Contemporary Art. He was a member of Korean delegations to the Sao Paulo Biennial in I 979 and Cagneur-Mer International Painting Exhibition in I 98 5. Currently he is a member of the International Art Critics Association, editor-in-chief of the quarterly Art Now and teaches at the graduate school of Hongik University and Ewha Womans University. His ma;or publications include Art in a Period of Transition, History of Contemporary Korean Art and Understanding Abstract Art. 80

PANMUNJOM AND BRANDENBURG

History may be considered to be both an abstraction and a reality as well. Though it may not be witnessed by our own eyes, it nevertheless has often been substantiated by a horrendous concrete mass placed before us. Although the North-South division and the desire for reunification are often spoken of in the abstract sense, they are brought home to the Korean people in the form of a painful reality, as was seen in the whirlwind "campaign for finding dispersed families." The long wire entanglements at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) stand in the way as one of these realities.

Recently, a variety of exhibitions have been held under the theme of liberation, division, internecine warfare. and the desire for reunification. In content. 194 5-1990 differed little from these exhibitions, but it did contain some differences in regard to the characteristics of style and method, as well as possessing distinctive features.

That is, while the other shows consist of concrete and consistent thematic material together with conceptual representations of such themes as liberation. division. internecine warfare. and reunification, this exhibition manifested nothing along these lines. One did not find. for example, any repulsive wire entanglements symbolizing division. any soldiers glaring at adversaries with hostile eyes. nor any ruins of the Korean War in the works of this exhibit.

Neither did one find a deeply moving scene of the liberation from Japanese rule nor any expression of the tragedy of internecine warfare. Nor were any banners or slogans to be seen.

Therefore, some may raise the question as to whether this exhibition went too far toward being a mere form of conceptual amusement. They may assert that the significance of historical events can only be represented through a method of concrete and down-to-earth realism.

Because an overly simplistic way of thinking in which situations should be classified and value should be created based on the logic of black and white still prevails in artistic circles, differences of opinion on matters such as the above are often apt to arise. But because works of art are tools through which artists express their ideas and not realities of concrete facts, there may be many methods of interpretation and presentation of the same subject and experience in various ways. And since there are many methods, it stands to reason then that there are also many different types of artistic creations.

Accordingly, it is a gross misunderstanding when some people say that modern artists can not deal with the previously mentioned historical subjects, or when their treatment of them is itself denounced as a mere form of conceptual amusement.

In this point. this exhibition instilled an awareness of the importance of various methods used by different artists.

The 15 artists who took part in this exhibition are not. as I have said. of the same age, nor do they employ the same genre in their works. The works displayed were divided into various genres such as Oriental painting, Western-style painting, sculpture, installation. and performance. Differences also existed in the' way of content. Some works adopted a narrative style while others employed a symbolic style utilizing allegory and metaphor. Even in dealing with a single subject, one could also find the existence of various genres and characteristics.

But if one condenses the contents into several large-scale groupings, he finds that there are those dealing with the division of the Korean peninsula, those dealing with the contrasting situation of the North and South and the dramatic disintegration between them, and the desire for reconciliation amidst the severity of the cold war.

The division of the Korean peninsula was portrayed through the divided shape of the land along with symbols and descriptions representing the division by the artists Suh Jung-tae.

Uhm Tae-jung, Chin Young-sun, and Lee Chong-sang. The shape of the Korean peninsula

OH KWANG-SU

81

was easily found in the works of Suh Jung-tae. Uhm Tae--jung. and Lee Chong-sang, while the dividing border line was delineated more in narrative style in the works of Chin Young-sun.

Expression of contrasting situations and dramatic disintegration was symbolized in the works of Cho Sung-mook. Lee Doo-shik, Moon In-sao. Won In-jong, and Kim Tae--ho. Through their works. one became cognizant of division through the sudden contrasts that arose between different forms. and one recognized the metaphor of disintegration through the medium of forms: that is to say. forms which permeate one another.

This could be seen. for example. in the works of Cho Sung-mook. in which different objects made of natural rock and bronze were entwined with one another. and the compositions of Moon In-sao. in which cement and iron plates were contrasted. They conveyed the concept of how ideologies. symbolized by different media. confront one another. and. where contrasting objects permeated one another. the suggestion of a dramatic situation in which two opposing forces are reconciled.

In the breathless strokes and fresh colors of Lee Doo-shik and Kim Tae--ho. it was not difficult to find the passionate gesture of artists who embrace history and reality in one lump.

One also found the desire for the thawing of the cold war expressed in the works of Yun Myong-noh. Oh Soo-hwan. Lee Hyung-woo. Choi In-sao. and Shin Chong-joan. works which utilized more abstract and symbolic expressions.

To begin with, one found that the intentions of the artists were revealed in their respective subjects. Yun's work. From Winter to Spring , Oh's composition.There's No West or East to Begin With. and Choi's creation. Breathing in the Dark pointed the way to a bright direction that leads to escape from the cold war. Shin's composition. The Road to An-shi Fortress was a dramatic creation of the dream of reunification in which one is guided through the experience of antiquity. In Lee's work. Installation. the artist attempted to create the atmosphere of a ceremony being held at a festival by pladng "fire flowers" (fireworks) in the narrow passages along the four sides of a simple square iron plate.

Lee Kun-yong's Performance. held on the opening day of the exhibition. was a one-man drama symbolizing the collapse of the wall dividing the two Koreas in which the artist penetrated a wall made of strong rubber bands with his body.

The works created by the above-mentioned I 5 artists were assembled under the title I 94 5- I 990. but from the viewpoint of the contents. it should be pointed out that. rather than creating new works for a specific title, they absorbed and assimilated the subject title through compositions that characterized their own methodology and means of expression.

These forms of expression are apt to give rise to criticism that the artists could pursue their own styles in displaying their works at this exhibition only because the subject title was so broad. But. from a different point of view. their attitude that the theme should be positively expressed and assimilated through their own methodology was the most common trait characterizing them all.

By having observed how the dark history and the pain resulting from the division. accumulated during 45 years from the liberation and 37 years from the Korean War. were symbolized in these formative creations. we were once again afforded the opportunity of becoming aware of our history and cognizant of the stark reality that confronts us. ÂŽ

(The text of this review was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREAN A. This is a translation .)

82

PANMUNJOM AND BRANDENBURG

tREVIEW/ DANCE- - - - - - - - - - - - - - i RED AND GREEN UGHT Rhie Sang-il erformances on the theme of "fire" dominated dance scenes here in the first half of the year. The Seoul Contemporary Dance Company performed The Torch of Koguryo May 26-27, the Seoul City Dance Company, A Journey of Fire June 27-28, and Ballet Blanc, Flames of the Green June 29-30 The words torch , fire and flame in the titles of the th,ree pieces signify a burning passion because in Korean, unlike in English. they do not have different nuances: they all mean fire.

Burning energy and the soaring for Heaven of the body and spirit are expressed in the three works in three different styles. That is, the image of fire is expressed through Korean traditional dance. modern dance and finally ballet.

The Torch of Koguryo, choreographed by Pak Myong-suk, head of the Seoul Contemporary Dance Company, is the second part of The Day of Dawn, which Pak also choreographed. Pak's plan is to complete a tetralogy based on the myths surrounding the birth of Korea.

A Journey of Fire is a large-scale creative production. It is the result of a year-long endeavor

by Pae Chong-hye, director of the Seoul City Dance Company.

Pak Myong-suk specializes in modern dance whereas Pae Chong-hye concentrates on traditional Korean dance. Pae has been going all out to J!>reserve folk dance traditions while constantly striving to realign and refine the dances. In choreographing new numbers, she always tries to project a touch of the modern into them. Thus a grafting of Korean shamanism on modern life is seen in A Journey of Fire.

A Journey of Fire is the story of Princess Pari, who was abandoned by her parents as soon as she was born, and the journey on which she went to the underworld to get for her dying father the flower that sprouts life and the water that restores life. and the hardships she underwent to get hold of them. That flower of life embodies a message of salvation for today's man who. is undergoing the temporal pains of modern life.

The main premise of A Journey of Fire is a belief in man's ability to sublimate himself. In' that sense, it is more than a recreation of a shaman myth; it is a work of modem universality employing modernized traditional dance movements.

And. in that sense. it could be said that Pak Myong-suk's Torch of Koguryo is a typical recreation of a Korean myth using modern dance forms. However, this attempt to present the epic of Chumong, the founder of the Koguryo Kingdom, is not like a dance. The problem is how to convey the universality of Korean mythology through modem dance forms. Pak Myong-suk succeeds in conveying the essence of the epic by showing, through the deeds

P

Rhie Sang-il. 57, studied at Seoul National University's Department of German Literature and Language, and took up drama and ethnology at Zurich University from 1967 to 1969. He has served as head of the Society of Germanistik and of the Korean Society for Performing Art Critics. and director of tfte Songgyungwan University Library. He is currently professor at Songyungwan University and presides over the B. Brecht Society. He is active as a performing arts critic.

RHIE SANG¡IL

83

Ballet Blanc's Flame of the Green, choreographed by Hong Chong-hui.

of the hero Chumong, the antagonism and conflicts involved in the founding of a country.

However. she does it by neglecting to give enough form to the dance. Of course. even if more attention were given to the epic story. it would be difficult to avoid abstraction. because it is not a dance drama. As it is. even the all important mythological motifs are lacking in unique Koreaness as well as universality because of a poor attempt at modernization.

The duet performed by An Chong-jun. who plays Chumong, the hero. and Mun Chong-un. who plays the girl who loves him. is very lyrical and the highlight of the whole production.

However. the conflict between Taeso. the antagonist. played by So Pyong-gu, and Chumong is rather weak because of Pak's insufficient understanding of the mythical motif.

In A Journey of Fire. Pae Chong-hye also relies on the waving of pieces of red cloth by male dancers. which is supposed to symbolize pain and anguish. to express fire. The dance comprises three parts: "The Rainbow of Life-giving Flowers. " which expresses a yearning for the flower of life: "Life-giving Sounds." which describes the consumption and waning of life; and. "Where Flowers Bloom." which delivers a message of salvation that is symbolized by the flower of life.

The group dance of flowers . which describes the reviving of the dying life. is too long.

However. the ensuing group dance of blue dresses. a modern rendition of a traditional Korean folk dance. is very beautiful and symbolizes a stream of life-giving water.

While there is some methodological difference in the concepts of fire between Pae Chonghye and Pak Myong-suk. the choreographers have one thing in common: they are both trying to express sufferings by means of dance. either traditional or modern. The sufferings are seen as an initiation through which body and mind are sublimated to achieve salvation.

In that sense. red is used to express fire which symbolizes sufferings and glory.

Ballet Blanc's Flames of the Green. on the other hand. depicts hope rather than sufferings and glory. While Pak and Pae's productions are both based on Korean myths. it is difficult

84

RED AND GREEN UGHT

to tell which one is a modern dance performance and which one is a traditional dance performance. However, Flames of the Green, choreographed by Hong Chong-hui. is clearly a Koreanized version of a classic ballet with a highly creative theme. It was presented to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Ballet Blanc, the only privately owned ballet troupe in Korea. The benefit of its experience is clearly evident in its attempts at blending Korean elements with Western ballet styles.

The highly creative ballet depicts a Utopian world where life is based on nature. Nature is green and it is represented by green flames.

A yearning for life drives a man to share the sufferings of his fellow men who are disoriented by modern civilization. The dancers were thus inspired by their participation in this sufferings to depict salvation through the vehicle of ballet. .

Professor Hong, the choreographer and "Godmother" of Ballet Blanc, has done much to root classical ballet in Korea. Thanks to her, Flames of tfre Green has a delicate and dramatic composition. The women, played by Kim Son-hui, An Un-hui. and Shim Chong-hui. and the men, played by Chong Hyon-su and Kim Son-ho. symbolize peace.

The environment. evocative of paradise or Utopia, is equated with happiness or life itself.

Happiness is expressed by means of duets by Kim Son-hui and Chong Hyon-su as well as dances for three and five. The peace is eventually broken when eviL symbolized by shadows of eagles, invade the green paradise and kidnap the three women to an arid desert. Confined in the sterile environment. the flames begin to devour their lives. Such is the beginning, Although the development of the story is rather simple. choreographer Hong refrains from making the dramatic development complicated, while promising the triumph of the green with this delicate torch of ballet. Even after the green flames have flickered out in the struggle in the sterile land, a hope remains, the hope for peace and life.

The fires of red and green are the fires that cleanse our blemished bodies and minds.

Praise is due to Hwang Byong-gi and Kim Yong-dong whose music made the fires.to flare up in A Journey of Fire and Flames of the Green . ÂŽ

(The text of this review was originally,written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation.)

From Flame of tfte Green

RHIE SANG-IL

85

tREVIEW MUSIC- - - - -- - - - - - - - - - l

Chung Myung..whun's Homecoming Han Sang-woo he reason a certain city or country which has a good orchestra is called a "city of culture" or a "nation of culture" is because to produce and maintain a good orchestra requires a sophisticated public understanding of what it entails and a certain degree of cultural affluence to enable the general public to love and enjoy music. In other words. in order to have a good orchestra. there should be good musicians who are wellequipped with good instruments, there should be good funding for them. there should be good performance halls where they can perform, and there should always be good audiences to listen to them perform. However. even if all these conditions are met. there can not be a good orchestra without a good conductor.

It is quite clear what kind of cultural make-up a city or nation must have in order to fulfill these requirements. Conversely. a dty which has a good orchestra can be said to be a city that is alive with a beautiful spirit.

Last July 18-31 , the Bastille Opera Orchestra of France. under the baton of Chung Myungwhun. performed for the first time in Korea at the Sejong Cultural Center and the Seoul Arts Center. It was the orchestra's first overseas performance.

To be very judgemental. the performance by the orchestra. which is in its beginning stage and specializes in opera. could not be said to be perfect. However, it is true that our attention was focused on conductor Chung Myung-whun.

In retrospect, we couldn't help being surprised at the French Government's announcement of its plan to construct the Bastille Opera House to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution. We were surprised because the construction of an opera house seemed rather anachronous and nonproductive especially when the world is actually led by the nose by materialism and, as a symbolic structure, it was to commemorate none other than revolution.

But it is now clear that the Bastille Opera House is a declaration of man's spirit shining above the materialism that grips the world, that man's spirit can be not overridden by materialism. In short. the French transcended the meaning of revolution by putting it in the form of the arts and thereby announced to the world that it is the spirit of France. With the creation of the Bastille Opera House. Paris reconfirmed that it is still worthy of the name "City of Arts."

In a way, it was certainly amazing to hear that Chung Myung-whun had been chosen as the music director of the Bastille Opera House which many say is the very embodiment of French culture. On hearing this news. the music community in Korea and the world over

T

Han Sang-woo. 52. graduated from tfte College of Music, Seoul National University. From 1969 to I 984 . he taught at Kyonggi Middle School and served as a member of the broadcasting commission at Munhwa Broadcasting Co. He currently serves as the director of music at Seoul High School of Arts and Music, a director of tfte Korean Music Association, and a member of the Korea Public Performance Ethics Committee.

86

CHUNG MYUNG-WHUN'S HOMECOMING

wondered if he could manage the job.

Actually. the international press first reported that Daniel Barenboim had been chosen its first music director. No one doubted his ability to handle the job as he had been working a long time as the music director of the Paris Orchestra and he was already known as a top conductor. Then one day it was reported that Barenboim was no longer the music director of the Bastille Opera House and presently Chung Myungwhun was chosen to succeed him. The general opinion was that his appointment was rather premature given his young age and inexperience.

Such was the general opinion when the curtain went up for the opening performance of the Bastille Opera House last March and Chung surprised the world with Berlioz's grandiose opera People of Troy. By staging this eight-hour opera over two days.

Chung made it clear that he is a first rate conductor and music director and demonstrated that he also has superb rapport with the performers.

Some say that Chung's success with the Bastille Opera House advanced his career at least ten years. So. for Koreans. Chung's success was an overwhelmingly pleasing event. Personally I think that Chung chose Korea for the Bastille Opera Orchestra's first overseas performance in order to pay tribute to his countrymen.

The repertoire of the five performances in Seoul. two in the Sejong Cultural Center and three in the Seoul Arts Center. consisted mainly of Berlioz's Fantasia. Dvorak's Sympfwny No. 7. and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Chung delighted the audience by having Korean soprano Kim Yong-mi, tenor Pak Se-won and baritone Ko Song-hyon perform.

During the five performances. Chung appeared to be a very natural. confident and charismatic conductor. befitting one of the world's best opera houses. The powerful beat and delicate musical expression he

Conductor ¡Chung Myung-whun.

HAN SANG-WOO

87

achieved vividly demonstrated why he was chosen as its music director.

Because there are more than one factor that determine the ability of a conductor. one can not simply say that a conductor is good or bad. But. judging from Chung's conducting ability. leadership ability. and his orthodox approach to music. he is certainly capable of leading the Bastille.

While it is true that Chung left Korea at a very early age and all of his musical training was done abroad. it is also true that he is a Korean and loves Korea. Koreans. on the other hand. take great joy in his success as a conductor and believe that it is a good opportunity to make the rest of the world aware of their artistic spirit.

Chung is certainly a giant of our time. an outstanding musician. and a man of great understanding and virtue. His success is a great joy for all of us today. ÂŽ We hope that his future will be just as bright and we also hope and pray that there will be a second and a third Chung Myung-whun.

(The text of this review was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation.)

88

CHUNG MYUNG¡WHUN'S HOMECOMING

tRE~/THEATER----------------------~ RUSSIANS BRING DOWN THE HOUSE Han

Sang~chul

he year 1990 will go down as an epoch-making one in the history of Korean theater because for the first time local theatergoers could see. on stage in their own country, performances given by two visiting Russian theatrical troupes.

The impact of this was by no means confined to the sphere of culture. In our country it had to make itself felt also in the realm of politics as well. There even was something of a spiritual overtone on the result of the performances.

Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. But what followed was the division of the country against itself. And the two Koreas found themselves involved in a bitter ideological confrontation between East and West. And then came the iternecine war. the Korean War. The outcome? Even now soldiers from both sides continue to glare daggers at each other across the military demarcation line.

What took place against this background was something inevitable. For long, not even cultural contact was possible with any of the countries in the communist bloc. For half a century, that is to say, no actors from these countries were able to perform in our country.

The ban was there too on the publication, let alone performance, of dramas even by Bertolt Brecht, one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century.

This taboo has indeed been mitigated since I 988 when, on the occasion of the Seoul Olympic Games, some performing arts of the Soviet Union and East European countries were presented for the first time in Korea. However, this did not include drama, but only music and dance.

This year, two representative theatrical troupes of the Soviet Union, surprisingly and unexpectedly, made their debut on the Seoul stage. They left Korean theatergoers at once amazed and excited. One company came in May and the other in July.

The great Russian theatrical tradition has for over a full century deeply influenced the art of play writing and stagecraft in many countries. Of course, Korean experts have known a great deal of it through books. But to know it through books is one thing and to see it on stage with your own eyes is another. That is the very reason behind the excitement caused by the visits in our country.

And small wonder. One of the troupes came from the Maly Theater, with all its great reputation in classic Russian dramas, and the other from Yugo-Zapad, the highly innovative company that is turning even more innovative thanks to perestroika and glasnost. The performances given were indeed excellent, living up to their respective company's fame in every sense of the word.

T

Han Sang-chul. a well-known drama critic who was born in I 936 and graduated from the E'llglish Department of Yonsei University's Graduate School. presently is a professor of English at Hallim University. He has co-authored such works as Understanding Modern Drama and A Collection of Works by Korean Dramatists of Today.

HAN SANG-CHUL

89

MALY Korean audiences were able to gain a much clearer perspective of Russian theater when they witnessed the vivid brand of characteristics and individuality manifested in each performance and in both classic and modem idioms.

The performance of Anton Chekhov' s all-too familiar Cherry Orchard by the State Academic Maly Theater left a deep and lasting impression on the Korean audience. As director !gory Iljinski said. the performance was "faithful to Chekhov, the idea of Chekhov, and the truth of Chekhov. not just as a serious drama but as a human tragicomedy."

Although Korea has a long history of drama and indigenous theatrical tradition, the history of its dramatic literature only began in the early part of the 20th century. It is indeed a belated takeoff when compared with the theater in Western Europe.

From that time, Korean drama started to undergo the process of its modernization and did so entirely under the influence of West European realism. Among the European playwrights with whose work Korean theater experts became most familiar is Anton Chekhov. As the Koreans respect his ideas for drama and play writing more than any other writers of Western Europe, they have tried hard to develop the Korean drama through intense studies of his works. Although the Korean theater has been determined to emulate Chekhov, it has failed in its attempt because it lacks a Stanislavsky or a Nemirovich-Danchenko.

If a Russian theatrical troupe such as the Maly Theater with its long history and tradition had visited Korea and performed the realistic dramas of Chekhov or other playwrights long ago, the situation would have been very different from what is today. As a drama only displays its true worth on the stage, one performance has a far greater value than a hundred books written on it. In this regard, the performance of the Maly Theater in Korea had a tremendous impact on Korean drama circles. It is in ~ituations such as this, that the significance and necessity of international exchange in drama lie.

Cherry Orchard was staged most faithfully to the original by the Maly Theater members, whose effective performance brought true life to the drama. It should be pointed out first of all that the performance, through the producer's splendid interpretation, did present a human tragicomedy intended by Chekhov. Quite differently from Stanislavsky, who angered Chekhov (into saying, "he killed my work") by produdng it as a tragedy, Iljinski's superb harmonization of comedy and tragedy approached the true picture of life by maintaining a delicate balance which prevented the performance from sliding too far into either side.

The sorrow of the heroine who loses her manor with the cherry orchard is balanced by the comedy created by her own stupidity, while one feels sympathy for Ranevsky who loses his manor and a compassion for Lopakhin who takes possession of it.

Accordingly, rather than judging the characters who appear in the drama as being either good or bad. we regard them, very much as we do ourselves, as ordinary people who, though wishing to improve themselves, continue to drift along on the sea of life bungling everything through mistakes and errors and never finding anything that is helpful to them.

Perhaps it was the intention of Chekhov to show here what may be regarded as true humanism in every sense of the word.

The actors' presentation of Chekhov's ideas to the audience was practically faultless. Particularly Victor Ivanovich as Lopakhin and Valery Venediktovich as Firs created two characters that were truly unforgettable. The last scene in which Firs remains alone in the manor awaiting his death after everyone has left was, to say the least. moving.

90

RUSSIANS BRING DOWN THE HOUSE

YUGO-ZAPAD In contrast to the Maly Theater, Yugo-Zapad excited the Korean audience by rendering a unique performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet in the manner of a studio theater.

Although these days experimental productions of Shakespeare's works are very popular throughout the world, Yugo-Zapad's innovative interpretation of Hamlet and the characters around him was executed without making any new adaptation of the text itself. The production in a modern style on a stage without any settings was truly novel and unique.

Valery Belyakovich, the producer, created a Hamlet to whom young people today in the Soviet Union relate instantaneously and give their sympathy; he turned the play daring, fresh, and energetic ..

He carved into relief the image of young people who fight actively and ardently against political evils in a Russia that experienced a long period of political darkness. Thus Victor Avilov, playing the role of Hamlet, actually had long hair and a husky voice. He resembled more than anything else the most typical of antiestablishment youngsters - a farcry from the traditional image of the noble prince. He played an active and violent Hamlet, not the contemplative, indecisive, melancholy one defined by Coleridge.

Ophelia was also a woman who was not beautifuL but possessed a strong will rather than being beautiful and weak. The creation of the most interesting character was done through that of Claudius. He was lucid and cheerfuL and wandered about the stage in dire agony when Gertrude drank the poisonous drug because he loved her very much. It also was beyond the expectation of the audience that Polonius turned out to be young and not old.

Belyakovich seems to think that human beings are not born to be evil, but that politics and society make them evil. And so, as the world is wholly dark, the stage for this performance was entirely black in color. As the only light shining down upon the stage floor came from five black round tubes, the sole light given the actor on stage was a pooled light which, due to the surrounding darkness, isolated him from the other actor with whom he was engaged in dialogue.

In this performance, Hamlet. who did not know his fate, foretells his death for the first time prior to the duel with Laertes. So, contrary to the original text, he delivers his soliloquy, "To be or not to be," just before the duel.

One of the factors that made this performance a success was that it never failed to hold the attention of the audience, even for a brief moment. thanks mainly to the rock music played throughout and the rapid changes of scenes. Also, a dynamic element was added to the performance by shaking the backdrop and five round tubes, thus avoiding the occurrence of any type of monotony.

However, in this performance, the poetic beauty of the lines and the profound meaning of life inherent in Shakespeare's dramas were difficult to discern. It was in this respect that the audience was somewhat disappointed. But at the same time, the performance delivered Hamlet from the heaviness and tediousness of the classic drama and had power strong enough to fascinate a contemporary audience. And the Korean audience received this power with an ardent fervor. ~

(The text of this review was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation.)

HAN SANG-CHUL

91

tREVIEW/CINEMA---- - -----------1

A SAGA OF PARTISAN FIGHTERS Lee Seung-ku hree Korean films recently released, Mayumi directed by Shin Sang-ok, The Son of a General (Changgun-ui adul) directed by Im Kwon-taek and The Southern Anny( Nambugun) directed by Chong Chi-yong, are all enormously expensive productions by local standard. All of these three films are characterized by spectacular scenes and gripping stories offering plenty of cinematic fun. The Southern Army is particularly worthy of mention: the film had been an object of hot concern even before its release on account of the big figures: three years spent to shoot two million US dollars raised to cover cost and over 30.000 persons mobilized to complete it. No doubt these are all record-setting figures in the local filmdom.

The Southern Army is based on the best-selling memoir of a former north Korean war correspondent Yi Tae, who became a partisan fighter while covering the Korean War (1950-53).

The story focuses on desperate struggles waged by pro-north Korean guerrillas based in Mt. Chirisan in the south Korean territory during the three-year-long internecine military conflict.

The reigning theme behind a realistic depiction of the process of the birth of a guerrilla army and their bloody struggle of life and death seems to be the haunting question about how a war can drive man into an inhumane state and how tragically man can be sacrificed under the name of political ideology.

The territorial division and ideological confrontation between the two Koreas following the national liberation in I 94 5 have touched off the conflict among individuals on whether to choose the rightist or the leftist wing. Consequently, most south Korean cinemas have advocated the anticommunist point of view or similar lines of thought thus far. The Southern Army deserves attention in that it takes a neutral standpoint. taking side with neither the rightists nor the leftists. It evades the ideological conflict to proclaim humanism, an attitude involving the strong point of being objective but failing to fully observe either sides.

At first glance, the movie overwhelms the audience with an excellent photography, directed

by Yu Yong-gil, presenting the majestic beauty of Mt. Chirisan through the four seasons.

Against the breathtaking scenery around the mountain changing its appearance from one season to another, the film realistically depicts the hard-fought struggle of partisan troops against the biting cold of winter, the pains of hunger and the ever narrowing encirclement by the subjugating forces.

Despite all these outstanding efforts, however, the film fails to reach the heart of the matter. The question presented in the original story is, what made an intellectual young man turn an partisan fighter and inspired so many of his comrades to engage in such a fierce

T

Lee Seung-ku is a professor of cinema at Chung-ang University. He has been extensively writing about cinema in various publications in Seoul. Currently a member of the Korean Film Academy, he won his M.A. from Columbia University in 1980.

92

A SAGA OF PARTISAN FIGHTERS

battle as to result in more than 20,000 casualties. It is sad that. for all the realistic depiction of the pains and frustration of the isolated guerrillas, it still remains elusive on what makes them refuse to surrender to the last minute in the face of all manner of unbearable hardship.

Cinematizing an autobiographical account of a living man who took part in a major event in recent national history should be different from making a film based on fiction. It has to be faithful to facts above all else, restraining as much as possible employment of the entertaining elements of cinematic fiction. From this point of view, the still pictures of some shocking and tragic events from recent Korean history used for the title backdrop made an effective introduction to the sad and shocking episodes to unfold throughout the film.

In spite of its failure to present a clear theme, the film deserves special attention for making some unprecedented achievements in Korean cinema. It is an important work for the following reasons: First. it made a fresh and brave attempt to deal with a serious subject matter related to political ideology, a time-honored taboo among Korean filmmakers. Problems concerning ideological conflicts have been among the subjects most carefully avoided in the local film industry in view of the sensitive nature of the problems under the unique circumstances deriving from the territorial division of the peninsula.

MT. CHIRISAN Second, all participating in its production did their very best and the outcome of their devotion and enthusiasm is clearly shown. The film attained a superb estheticism of photography, thanks particularly to the outstanding beauty of natural scenery around Mt. Chirisan. which was pictured through the four seasons without artificial manipulations. Pictures of outstanding estheticism contributed to the overall realistic approaches of the film, though from time to time an excessive emphasis on the pictorial beauty appeared to undermine dramatic tension.

Particularly impressive was a scene of hundreds of male and female partisan fighters taking bath together in a valley. The naked fighters wave their hands in a gesture of wild welcome for their commander of legendary reputation, Yi.Hyon-sang, when he appears on the mountain edge. A snowstorm toward the end is another unforgettable scene. Actor An Songki, who plays the role of the journalist-turned-guerrilla Yi Tae, plunges himself into icy water to avoid capture while being chased by the south Korean troops.

As mentioned earlier, political stance of the film remains kind of ambiguous as it intentionally avoids getting entangled with any ideological conflicts. However, the natUre of humanity in a desperate situation is portrayed with remarkable success. Pak In-ja, nurse for the guerrilla troops and Yi Tae's girlfriend, confesses that she believes it is her duty to look after all suffering from pains with no regard to their political standpoint. While defending a boy partisan who lost his gun in action, Yi Tae argues that the value of human life can never be compared with a gun, no matter how urgent the situation is. Finally, a notice from Pyongyang that it was giving up partisan forces in the south destroys the last hope of the desperate fighters, awakening them to the meaninglessness of their struggle and political ideology itself.

The film succeeds in implying that survival was the proble~ of foremost urgency for the partisan fighters by portraying vividly the painful process of their dehumanization in an extreme situation. And so painful again is their eventual awakening that they had been forced into such an incredible situation by nothing but fetters of history.

LEE SEUNG-KU

93

The Southern Army, for all the pros and cons as to its political approach. has garnered a remarkable box office success. The audience responded favorably to the spectacular scenes. incomparable to any on the limited scope of television. that resulted undoubtedly from the serious efforts exerted by all who took part in its production. A new material handled with a fresh perspective left the audience with a novel impression. ÂŽ (The text of this review was originally written in Korean and contributed for exclusive use by KOREANA. This is a translation .)

Versatile actor Ahn Song-ki in The Southern Army.

94

A SAGA OF PARTISAN FIGHTERS

Tidings from International Cultural Society of Korea (ICSK)------1

GYPSIES, ARTISTS FROM BUDAPEST Seoul Hosts Hungarian Week Last September a Korean Week was celebrated in Hungary with panel discussions and a gala European premiere of the classic musical drama, Tale of Shimchong, by the Korean Folk Opera Company (see the winter issue of KOREANA for last year: Vol. 3 No. 4 1989). This time it was for Korea to reciprocate the honor.

And so under the same co-sponsorship of the Hungarian International Cultural Institute and the International Cultural Society of Korea (ICSK), the Hungarian Week was observed in Korea from July I 2 with an avant-garde Hungarian art show and performances of an internationally known gypsy ensemble.

The art show took place at the Space Gallery. Displayed were a selection of 37 works - paintings, sculptures and photographs - by six Hungarian artists in their 30s. They are: Marton Barbabas, Laszlo Feher El Kazovszkij, Laszlo Lugosi-lugo, Gyorgy Paraszkya and Istvan Regos.

These artists were all selected by the Young Artists' Club of Hungary. Among the featured artists. sculptor Marton Barbabas, born in Budapest in 19 52, is known to many Korean art lovers. In the mid-1980s, he thrice took part in the "Impact Art Festival" that toured Korea and Japan.

With the art works from Hungary came Ildiko Klotz. director of the Young Artists' Club.

He said that his club, observing its 30th anniversary this year. had all along been encouraging avant-garde efforts of young Hungarian artists and experiments with their "different ways of thinking."

The gypsies performed once at Pusan's Munye Theater and against at Seoul's National Theater. The group, the Kalyi Jag Ensemble, is well known in Europe. Founded in 1978 in

Ribbon Is cut for the opening of a Hungarian art show in Seoul.

Poster for a Yugoslav print show in Seoul.

Budapest. it has appeared before TV cameras and on recital stages more than I, 500 times in and around Hungary. Kalyi Jag, the name of the ensemble, is said to mean Black Fire.

WORKSHOP The ICSK invited 41 high school teachers. textbook writers and editors from the U.S. for a Korean studies workshop that lasted from July 4 to 19 in Seoul and elsewhere around the country.

The annual workshop, inaugurated in 1989, has but one purpose: to have Korea accurately taught at high schools in the U.S. The participants attended a series of lecture meetings and were taken on a succession of field trips to some of the most significant historic sites in Korea.

A similar workshop has been held for teachers and textbook writers from around Asia as well as Europe.

PRINTS Under the aegis of the ICSK. a show of prints by Yugoslavia's artist Joze Ciuha was held at Seoul's Walker Hill Art Gallery in August. ¡ Exhibited were 70 works by the renowned Yugoslav graphic artist including silk screens and collages. His works fascinated many Korean gallerygoers because of distinctly Oriental elements that marked many of them.

In fact, the artist has extensively traveled through Asia and Latin America and has come to absorb exotic motifs from various countries he has visited. says Yugoslav art critic Zoran Krzisnik.

Indeed some of his works amount to a haunting mix of cultures in many parts of the world, including Asia.

96

TIDINGS FROM ICSK

IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND KOREA, YOU SHOULD TRY JINRO-SOJU. Jinro-Soju-Korea's traditional liquor Soju was introduced to Korea more than 600 years ago from Mongolia ich was also the country that first introduced Islamic culture to Asia.

Soju has for centuries been considered a premium quality liquor because of its mild and refined taste.

Why does Jinro-Soju taste so good?

Jinro is the largest integrated liquor maker in Korea, and has for over sixty years produced only superior quality liquor.

As Soju is a pure liquor made from natural ingredients such as rye and sweet potatoes, the taste is simple and clean.

Other products In addition to Jinro Soju, we produce ginseng wine, fruit wine, vodka, scotch whisky and dry gin, and export these products to 50 countries, including the U.S.A. and Japan.

The high quality of Jinro liquor has been recognized worldwide v1ith the winning by Jinro of the lnternatior al Wine & Spirits Competition Award and the Monde Selection Award, three ye: :s in a row.

Soju¡ aworJdcJass Jiquor

@

jiNRO UMITED