When I first arrived in Korea some two decades ago, the Miracle on the Han River was still an exhausting exercise in Confucian patriarchy. A kind of systemic "No" directed at anything female that dared to deviate from a very narrow, very silent path. Not just in the systemic way academics like to talk about, but in the day-to-day life people experience.
I remember standing in Gwanghwamun with Yujin, the summer sun bouncing off Admiral Lee Sun-sin with oppressive clarity, smoking cigarettes. That in itself was a transgressive act for a woman at the time. Holding hands in public with foreigners was also apparently dangerous. She told me, with a flat, terrifyingly pragmatic sort of dread, smoke coming out of her nose: "If anyone looks at us, just keep speaking English. Tell them I’m Japanese." The implication being that a Korea woman smoking in the public square, particularly with a foreigner, was an invitation for some self-appointed guardian of the national morality to berate, threaten, or physically assault. I didn’t want to believe her at first but I caught her tone and quickly understood she meant what she said.
I realized I was a long way from home.
Fast forward twenty years, and culture has changed dramatically. So much so that it’s easy to forget where we have come from. Fake DVDs are no longer sold on the streets. People preaching their weird branch of Christianity have been removed from the subways. And American soldiers no longer patrol the late-night streets of Itaewon with their guns looking for people breaking curfew.
Since 2007, I’ve been working at Seoul Women’s University out in the northeast of the city. That provides a sort of sociological dugout to the evolving interior lives of the country’s young women. I’ve seen croptops rise. Jeans get progressively baggier. Piercings emerge. More and more tattoos on wrists. Far more visible smoking. And a growing number of people talking about baseball. Not just a few though. An outrageous amount.
While many might have an image in their head of all Korean women being obsessed with K-pop idols and the surrounding fandom culture, the moral quandary of Jungkook’s latest live, or the legal battles of NewJeans, the reality is very different.
“I am a big fan of Hanhwa Eagles,” they tell me during their introductions. So frequently, in fact, that I could no longer pass it off as simply one or two people. “Samsung Lion’s new uniform is amazing,” others say. They speak of players. Attending the stadiums. Their team’s chances at the title this season. Their hometowns. It feels like K-pop is being out-competed for brain-space by the Doosan Bears and LG Twins in many of my lecture halls. Yeah, the BTS comeback is big news and everyone’s seemingly dragging BLACKPINK’s new album. NCT and all their subunits are popular. But baseball feels like the national conversation.
It is also a statistical reality that is bordering on the surreal. According to the KBO, women made up 48 percent of spectators in the 2024 season. Think about that. Nearly half. And the 20-somethings? They accounted for roughly 30 percent of the total gate.
This provides a new challenge for me because having educated myself on the intricacies of “business gay performance,” fan labour, and streaming practices, I now have to learn about this sport that I’ve never really played or watched.
Growing up in England, football stadiums were sometimes scary. Tens of thousands of men, screaming, swearing, drinking. Atmospheres were intense. Cocaine-fueled. Of course all this added to the experience, but it wasn’t somewhere you would think about going on a date. Cricket, on the other hand, was just five days of drinking often only to see the two teams play out a draw.
Source: Korea Times News
