When the Olympics or any other world competitions come near, East Asian countries are sparked up in cheering on their athletes. Especially swimming, figure skating, baseball, and soccer are the big events for Koreans.
In the swimming competitions, there is a fierce rivalry between Korea and China. Tae Hwuan Park, a South Korean athlete and Jiang Lin, a Chinese athlete have been big rivals in swimming. During the Beijing Olympics and the Guangzhou Asian Games, all Koreans watched the games and cheered for him to win a gold medal. East Asians in general have great competition in sports. The sports competitions are not a simple game but it also includes the national pride of the country.
Another major event for Asians is baseball. The strong baseball teams in Asia started with Japan's baseball team, which started to appear during the period of western imperialism. Korea, after gaining their independence, also started to support baseball and formed one of the world's strongest baseball teams. Korea and Japan continuously met each other in world wide baseball games, proving that the Asian baseball teams have dominated the world.
Although Asians are not very good at soccer, it became very popular in Korea and Japan after the World Cup in 2002. During the time, Korea made it to the top four and it was the hottest event of the year. All television programs, commercials, songs, and other things revolved around the world cup and thousands of Korean and Japanese citizens came out to the streets and cheered for their teams. From 2002, soccer has become one of the most popular sports in Korea.
The most competitive of all is the figure skating season. From Korea, Yu-na Kim and from Japan, Mao Asada and recently Miki Ando are competing for the top figure skater. During the Vancouver Olympics, Yuna Kim won a gold medal and Mao Asada won silver. During this game, all of Korea and Japan was watching the game and cheering for the skater representing their country. I remember the same happened in our school. Yuna Kim's long program was on during our passing period so nobody moved even when the bell rang. Moreover, students were secretly watching Mao Asada's skating during class on their computers. When we watched Yuna's performance, everyone was not even breathing. They were all frozen and praying that Yuna wouldn't make a mistake and win gold medal. Yuna wining gold was not just about wining a gold medal in the Olympics, it was a kind of evidence that Korea would show to Japan and prove that they were not inferior to them in any way and take revenge on the Japanese for what they have done during the period of annexation.
