Quiet in Korea
Korea’s 2-0 loss to Switzerland in what was, locally, the early hours of Saturday morning, is good news to me. In fact, I’m rather overjoyed. Korea is now out of the competition. That means that my neighborhood goes back to being peaceful and quiet.
On a side note, my wife and I went out to see Aeon Flux Friday night (it only recently started showing here) and I saw something I had never seen before in Seoul - an empty cinema. There were three other people watching the movie with us. The particular theater we went to that night is generally less crowded than others (meaning, the ticket lines aren’t long and they don’t sell out two hours before show time) since there is a bigger, franchise cinema practically next door, and I’m not sure how big of a deal Aeon Flux is to Koreans, but this was just mind boggling. Friday night at 7:30 and there were three other people in the cinema. My wife, being more in tune with the soccer craze than I am, said it was because of the World Cup.
It all made sense then. While waiting to see their own team play, Koreans across the country would be eating dinner and getting home early to catch any other matches, news, and forecasts. For some of them it would be because they are true soccer fans, but for the vast majority it would be to predict what their national team could be facing down the road after sinking the Swiss. The 2-0 loss must have been devastating to the latter group.
So I’m sure I’m not the only one in Korea smiling at the natinal team’s misfortune. Theater operators across the country must have let out a collective sigh of relief when the final whistle was blown. They’ll be getting most of their customers back now.