Wonju Dongbu Promy is the local basketball team. A couple other native teachers and I saw them play against Busan KT Sonicboom on Friday night.
Korean basketball teams are sponsored by large companies. Dongbu group is a large chaebol (South Korean style business conglomerate) dealing with shipping, insurance, banking, chemicals, etc. and KT is a telecommunication company.
Some interesting aspects of the game are as follows:
1. Koreans like to use English chants. While "DE-FENSE!" can be transliterated into Korean simply by exchanging the F sound for P sound, Koreans have a notoriously hard time NOT pronouncing silent Es. Therefore, Koreans would ruin the rhythm of the chant by shouting "DE-PEN-SEH". To get around the problem, the chant has been altered slightly to "DE-PEN". It's quite adorable to hear.
2. The cheerleaders suck. No joke. All they do is clap, wave their hands, and walk in circles.
3. Whenever Wonju scored, a snippet of the song "Swing" by the rapper Savage was played. Namely, the part that goes...
"OH SHIT, shake that ass ma, move it like a gypsy
Stop, whoa, back it up, now let me see your hips SWING"
(I've actually heard many inappropriate English songs in public settings. The best was "Fuck You" by Lily Allen in a coffee shop a few weeks back. The chorus to this song, as you may have guessed, goes, "Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you very very much". While my mouth dropped open, these lines went completely unnoticed by the group of old ladies sipping their cappuccinos at the table next to me.)
4. A lot of the basketball players were American. Don't cut it in the big leagues in the US? Not to worry...you can be a super star in Korea! One of the reasons Wonju's team is so good is due to foreign players.
5. Tickets could be purchased at the door for 8,000 won (around $6). Awesome.
Overall, Korean basketball games are not quite the spectacle that American games are, but it was still lots of fun and served as a little reminder of home in a world where most things feel utterly foreign.
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