Finally finished wiping away the tears from the opening ceremonies?
To be honest, the only reason I did watch it is because my students are going to bug me about it tomorrow. They’ve been taken in by the nationalism side of things (due to the fact that Ryu Seung Min — a South Korean — won the gold medal in table tennis four years ago).
My question is, did the BOGOC guys have a bet with someone at the IOC to see how many performers they could cram in a 10′ x 10′ square? Scarce on space… and I was hoping for some dancing lions that juggled iron bowls.
Aside from the two bright yellow back-flip artists (man they had to be dizzy), the only brief segment I kind of liked was the kung fu exhibition. That is more martial arts than I’m used to seeing.
Okay, not totally true. But in all of my travels I’ve seen very little to justify the stereotype that everyone knows karate or some such. In fact, I have only seen one fight, ever, here. It was after 4 am in Hongdae (outside of clubs NB and Harlem). Two Korean guys were very drunk and kept trying to do round-house kicks against the other. They quit after they bloodied themselves a bit.
Oh, and of course you see people doing slow-motion stuff but as we’ve seen in the past, that doesn’t help in a real fight.
Speaking of which, many Koreans and Chinese have asked me if I studied any martial arts and assume that many young Western men do. Why? Because they see movies with Chuck Norris, Keanu Reeves, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme. So comically, they fear that I will open up a can of MMA.
A quick refresher:
Tae Kwan Do is Korean
Judo is Japanese
Karate is Okinawan (neither pure Japanese or Chinese), a la Mr. Miyagi