[PHOTO] Me vs North Korea
Jun. 15th, 2010 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldBack on the 30th of May, when Andrew and I made our walk east along College Street from its western to its eastern ends, we stopped off at Kensington Market in time for the engibhourhood's first Pedestrian Sunday of the year. As a neighbourhood with heavy Portuguese and Latin American presences, soccer is naturally big there; as a neighbourhood in a city with connections of one kind or another to all of the participant countries, there's naturallty a market in the national flags of the World Cup participant teams. All of the World Cup participant teams.
Andrew snapped a picture of me looking at the North Korean flag, the red, white and blue flag visible in the upper right corner with the red star on a white circle. I wasn't feeling surprised--I've known that North Korea is taking part for a while, I've seen its flag gathered with the others. I was feeling, mainly, sympathy for the players who certainly are going to have to do as well as they can if they are to escape unfortunate fates.
After the Choenan sinking, Toronto's Korean-Canadian community seems to be disinterested if not hostile to North Korea's World Cup hopes.
Do you know what the sad thing is? As Andrew pointed out, North Korea's flag is actually pretty attractive, with a colour scheme and layout that reminds me favourable of the flag of Thailand. Would that North Korea called forth similarly pleasant associations.
Andrew snapped a picture of me looking at the North Korean flag, the red, white and blue flag visible in the upper right corner with the red star on a white circle. I wasn't feeling surprised--I've known that North Korea is taking part for a while, I've seen its flag gathered with the others. I was feeling, mainly, sympathy for the players who certainly are going to have to do as well as they can if they are to escape unfortunate fates.
After the Choenan sinking, Toronto's Korean-Canadian community seems to be disinterested if not hostile to North Korea's World Cup hopes.
When South Korea plays its first match on Saturday, many Koreans in the community will head to the Korean Canadian Cultural Centre to watch the game. But when the North Koreans take to the field on Tuesday, the centre has “no plans” to screen that match, said Michael Adler, executive director of the Korean Canadian Cultural Association.
Likewise for a popular senior’s centre on Grace St. on the edge of Korea Town. When Hak Huwan Koh, president of the Korean Senior Citizens Society of Toronto, was asked whether he plans to screen the North Korean games, he turned to his colleagues and held a prolonged discussion in Korean before answering that he will not.
“As South Koreans, currently, we are not really in the mood to cheer for the North Koreans,” he said through an interpreter.
These sentiments were echoed by Min Gu Kim, a camera operator/editor with Arirang Korea TV, who said South Koreans would not feel comfortable celebrating a North Korean win.
“There’s tension between North Korea and South Korea,” he said. “And if we celebrate North Korea, then people will think, ‘He’s a spy from North Korea.’ ”
Do you know what the sad thing is? As Andrew pointed out, North Korea's flag is actually pretty attractive, with a colour scheme and layout that reminds me favourable of the flag of Thailand. Would that North Korea called forth similarly pleasant associations.
