By Jason Lim
As a Duke University alum, I am no stranger to the emotions that accompany a sports rivalry. So, it hurt when Duke lost to the University of North Carolina this past Saturday, but I know that it's a pain that's shared by a few colleagues at work who also share my Duke affiliation. We will make a concerted effort to see each other the first chance we get and commiserate together, vowing to ourselves that we will get them the next time when the game is played at home, solemnly swearing our oath under the college banner that reads, "Go to hell, Carolina."
This is the most natural thing in the world: conducting essentially a group therapy session for a bunch of work colleagues who chose to share a common identity around a sports team. It will happen on a far larger scale next Sunday when the Superbowl ends. In Korea, the same phenomenon will repeat when Korea ends its run in the AFC Asian Cup, whether as a semi-finalist, finalist or winner. As before, throngs of strangers will come together in drunken camaraderie and performative patriotism in central Seoul or gather in sports bars to cheer on the Taeguk Warriors, who themselves are a hodgepodge of professional soccer players from all walks of life helmed by a German coach.
Looking at how sports is such an ingrained part of our everyday life, I am constantly amazed at its power to bring people together who otherwise might not even walk on the same side of the street. Who can forget the the 1980 U.S. "Miracle On Ice", Korea's 2002 FIFA World Cup performance, Jesse Owens' electrifying run in 1936? Even the years are part of our collective memories.
But how do sports bring strangers together regarding who they are and whom they should root for? Conversely, how do they divide similar people into different tribes with passions as visceral as anything else we experience in our everyday lives?
What makes a Duke student living in Durham, North Carolina, despise his fellow student eight miles away in Chapel Hill, where UNC is, just because their respective basketball teams happen to be playing? These students have more in common with one another than they are different, probably having come from fairly well-to-do families with good support. They are likely intelligent, diligent, ambitious and articulate. They should be dating one another, which they do, but not on the days when the Duke Blue Devils play the North Carolina Tarheels.
It's the same thing with international soccer. Science tells us that the Japanese and Koreans share the highest percentage of genetic makeup with one another. Yet, a soccer game between the two countries always turns into an epic occurrence that serves as a proxy battle in which the thought police is out in full force to ensure cheer discipline. Heaven forbid that a Korean would cheer for the Japanese team for whatever reason. That would actually be so rare as to be fodder for the front-page news.
What about the players themselves? Son Heung-min, the most accomplished soccer player in the history of Korea, declared that fatigue is just a poor excuse when one is playing for his country. He said this after running around the soccer field for over 120 minutes and leading his team to victory over Saudi Arabia. He was so tired after the win that he couldn't even get up from the field for a good while. Son should actually be taking it easy and playing so as not to get hurt and damn his chances in the English Premier League, where he is being paid to play. But he seems perfectly happy to grind himself into smithereens to help the Korean team win, knowing perfectly well that the Korean fans' loyalty will last as long as the next penalty miss.
It's not rational. But, as in Son's case, it's sometimes noble. Often, it's cruel and catastrophic, as we see every day with the wars and violence that one tribe perpetuates upon another, driven by competing stories.
In short, we invest our time, efforts and resources into a collective membership that we have either inherited as an accident of birth or chosen as a result of belonging to some organization or another. Membership becomes our social identity, which becomes our identity that shifts and varies according to the types of battles that we happen to be fighting at the time. Our identity is fluid, a product of the narrative we tell ourselves within the prevailing context of whatever issue we find ourselves in. Ironically, the context is in itself another narrative woven by someone else. Our lives are self-telling narratives within narratives shaped by other narratives that all conspire to control our behavior against our better judgment. Neo would call this the Matrix. A Zen Buddhist would call this karma.
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect The Korea Times’ editorial stance.
Go to hell, Carolina
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0
12.02.2024
By Jason Lim As a Duke University alum, I am no stranger to the emotions that accompany a sports rivalry. So, it hurt when Duke lost to the University of North Carolina this past Saturday, but I know that it's a pain that's shared by a few colleagues at work who also share my Duke affiliation. We will make a concerted effort to see each other the first chance we get and commiserate together, vowing to ourselves that we will get them the next time when the game is played at home, solemnly swearing our oath under the college banner that reads, "Go to hell, Carolina."
This is the most natural thing in the world: conducting essentially a group therapy session for a bunch of work colleagues who chose to share a common identity around a sports team. It will happen on a far larger scale next Sunday when the Superbowl ends. In Korea, the same phenomenon will repeat when Korea ends its run in the AFC Asian Cup, whether as a semi-finalist, finalist or winner. As before, throngs of strangers will come together in drunken camaraderie and performative patriotism in central Seoul or gather in sports bars to cheer on the Taeguk Warriors, who themselves are a hodgepodge of professional soccer players from all walks of life helmed........
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