Tag: motherland

Nos vemos en cuatro años, Copa Mundial de la FIFA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And just like that, the World Cup is over.  Este fue un viaje hermoso.

Not really, but with the eliminations of Los Estados Unidos, as well as Mejico, within the span of the last 48 hours, and even Canada, all host nations are eliminated from the tournament, as are their Cinderella dreams of deeper runs, and general interest in the World Cup, I would predict are about to take a massive hit, with most casual futbol enthusiasts seeing little reason in continuing to watch.

I know it’s arrogant to predict such things based on the continued participation of the United States as well as Mexico, but I’d be curious to see the Fox One data for the rest of the World Cup, compared to when the US and Mexico were still in it, once the tournament is officially over.

But not only is it a sad albeit inevitable fate that the host nations are all out, but to the point of my general criticism of the state of futbol globally and the World Cup, the remaining teams are mostly the same pool of countries that always remain, including France, Argentina and Spain; Germany and Brazil were unfortunate victims to some upsets courtesy of Paraguay and Norway, but for the most part, it appears that the general script of the World Cup is still on course to have a rematch of 2022 in the finals, between France and Argentina, primarily the matchup between Kylian Mbappe and the MJ of futbol, Lionel Messi, over who can extend their all-time World Cup goals record, and if Messi can presumably go out as a two-time champion, seeing as how he’s possibly done with World Cup competition after this one.

I’m not going to say I wouldn’t watch any more World Cup now that all of the teams I’ve been generally supporting are out (Korea, USA, Mexico, Brazil), but personally my general enthusiasm for the rest of the field is mostly depleted, with a lingering hope for countries like Norway and laughably Egypt, to disrupt the status quo, but once they’re out, it truly is just another copy/paste field of World Cups prior and I can’t say that I’d have much interest if the finals do end up being comprised of France or Spain vs. Messi.

Circling back to the USA vs. Belgium elimination game, man I just knew, I knew, that the United States was fucked as soon as the red card suspension controversy swirling around Folarun Balogun started, with our sad sack excuse of a dear leader meddling around and somehow got FIFA to allow him to play against Belgium in spite of the red card he had drawn against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The narrative powering the United States went from being the Greatest USMNT in History that was actually starting to garner some respect from the global futbol community, to [Orange fuck] Meddles with World Cup to Give USA Unfair Advantage and it was back to everyone hating ‘Murica again; but more importantly igniting a fire under Belgium and giving them all the motivation in the world to shake off the nerves that got them to the Round of 16 looking vulnerable with just two wins and two draws and 4 goals allowed, to looking like a top-10 FIFA ranked team in the world again.

Not only was the motivation real for Belgium, but the distraction was palpable for the United States, who basically played like shit for 80 minutes against the Belgians.  They couldn’t pass, they couldn’t touch, they lost seemingly every 50/50, everything was challenging, they couldn’t get the ball to the Belgian side of the field, much less have any attempts at goal.  Pulisic was shaky and invisible, Dest couldn’t dribble, Balogun being allowed to play was a complete non-factor, Remm was getting worked the whole match, and the whole team couldn’t handle Belgium’s pressure, and I can only imagine how pitiful their pass accuracy looked.

The Greatest USMNT in History looked completely outclassed and overwhelmed, and the prevalent thought going through my head throughout the whole match, as well as the Mexico vs. England match was that futbol of the Americas, unfortunately still has a long way to go when it comes to being able to compete with futbol from Europe.  Both the US and Mexico were completely defeated by higher-tier European squads, and it’s like they’ve both figured out how to dominate against the CONCAF, but are completely clueless on how to compete outside of it.

Sure, Mexico defeated Czechia, and the United States defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the US also got exposed by Turkey, and the conclusion is that European futbol is still in a class above North America, and this World Cup ends with continued head scratching on wondering what it’s going to take for the US to ever catch up to Europe, if they ever can.

Regardless of the conclusion of Cinderella(s), I can still fondly opine that this has been the most beautiful and entertaining World Cup that I can remember since like, 2002, when Korea (and Japan) captured the imagination of the world when they hosted.

The amount of wholesome and wildly entertaining content to come from this World Cup have been stuff of legend, with tourists and visitors foreign to the Americas coming in and documenting and sharing their amusement, wonder and culinary discoveries with the internet, and there’s been no shortage of happy entertainment over the whole tournament.

Mexico welcoming everyone, and making BFFs with everyone from Korea, Japan, Czechs, Uzbeks and even the English has been a delight to watch.  Tourists from all over Europe and Japan making their journeys into the United States, and experiencing quintessentially American things like fast food, Buc-ee’s, barbecue, Tex-Mex, ‘Murican portions, MLB baseball and of course, ranch dressing, have all been amusing and helpful as an American to see what others actually don’t hate about our country.

There was a great meme narrative that summed it up pretty well, along the lines of that the World Cup is showing that we don’t all hate each other, we just hate our world leaders, and the World Cup is like a giant fun gathering of cousins where the parents all hate each other, and it really couldn’t be any more true.  The amount of unity, acceptance and general copacetic peace shown by so many throughout the United States, Mexico and presumably even Canada has been genuinely the best part of the whole tournament, completely regardless of the outcomes on the pitches, and even if the end result is yet another boring France or Argentina win, it doesn’t change that this has still been the best World Cup ever.

Seoul Searching, circa 2026

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I feel like there’s got to be an industry for creating end-of-vacation travel packages that help mitigate the downward emotional connotation of a conclusion to a trip.  Not sure how it would entirely entail, but stuff like low-stress return travel, not having to do death marches at inconvenient times, and any methods of help reduce the strain of time changes and logistics.

Of course, this is a hypothetical thought that comes to mind while mythical wife and I are en route home after two weeks without kids, as we’ve traversed through Seoul, Singapore, the ambiguous open seas somewhere between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and wherever else, before a crash course through Hong Kong, and on our way back to ‘Murica, while trying to fight the feelings of dread of returning to normal life although we’re both looking forward to seeing the girls again.

This was, for all intents and purposes, the first true adults-only vacation that we’ve been on, since, our honeymoon, due to the unintentional expediency in which our kids came into the picture, as well as a fucking pandemic.  Not necessarily by design, during the course of our trip, a lot of shit happened, noteworthy to me, like the Knicks winning the NBA championship while we were in the air, missing ALL of the World Cup group stage, while trying to catch some action while hilariously on the other side of the planet, Father’s Day, and our anniversary, where we entered year 8 of marriage dear god where has the time gone

But, in true autist fashion, of course I jotted down notes and blurbs of things and thoughts that came to mind during travels because of course it’s got to become shit for me to write about in the brog that nobody reads except for me.

The last time I was in Korea was nine years ago, when I came with mythical wife on what was her first-ever visit to the Motherland. She has since been back a few times without me because she hates traveling with me, but I was excited to return because it has been quite some time since I’d been.

I didn’t think that much would be different since my last visit, but I suppose it was naive of me to think that, because it was almost culture shock to count all the ways things had changed since my last time out here.  If I had to try to nail the reasons, I would say that it’s probably a combination of boy band BTS going globally mainstream, K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the general mass popularization of Korean culture on a global scale, because for the most part, Seoul was absolutely crawling with foreign tourists.

Naturally, this is me saying that it was at times, uncomfortably and inconveniently crowded at times, and I’d be lying if I didn’t think to myself thoughts about how Thanos Was Right and other nihilistic things that stem from my general aversion to crowds.

Continue reading “Seoul Searching, circa 2026” →

O PILSUNG COREA, MOTHERFUCKERS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time every four years, where large swaths of the world suddenly becomes experts in futbol, and everyone is talking about the World Cup as if they’ve been paying attention to global soccer on the regular and not just what ESPN has been Cliff’s notes-ing for everyone over the previous week.

Obviously, I’m no expert myself, but I’m innately aware of who’s good, who’s that second and below tiers where simply winning a match or two, or even getting out of groups is sufficient enough, and enough to remotely believe I can fill out a competitive bracket at my office’s pool.

Anyway, Korea was lucky enough to get real action on the official Day 1 of the World Cup, and it was what I felt was a winnable game against Czechia.  And despite the dreadful 0-1 deficit that Korea fell into early in the second half, they got their shit together, scored twice, and came away from day 1 with a critical W, much to my elated delight.

It’s no secret that I’m a sports fan of a pretty wide variety, and when the day is over, I’m always happy with a win from the Braves, Virginia Tech sports, and other athletic organizations that catch my fancy at various times.  But few things ignite a level of elation in my sports fandom than Korea, be it in baseball, professional League of Legends, and of course, futbol.

Needless to say, I was quite thrilled with Korea’s match 1 win against the Czechs, because in the grand spectrum that is the World Cup, each individual team doesn’t play that many matches, unless they advance deep into the tournament, and usually that distinction is reserved for a small number of national teams despite the fact that there are 48 countries represented.

Realistically, I do believe that Korea can get out of the group stage, and depending on the draw for the round of 32, a Hail Mary’s chance of 16.  But more than likely no more than that, so any win is worth celebrating, if there’s only going to be 3-5 games for my boys.

Anyway, how about my boy Hwang In-beom???  Man gave a stop and juke that would have made peak Allen Iverson stop and clap, en route to lofting the critical equalizer and bring hope back to Korea.  And when Oh Hyeon-gyu delivered the eventual game winner, it was ecstasy.

Frankly, this iteration of Korean futbol that we witnessed against the Czechs was so refreshing and exciting, and it gives me hope for their future.  The aggression and the attacking of their opponents was so unlike all versions of Korean futbol of the past, that relied so heavily on defense, stamina and counter attacking.

It was so fun and like I said, refreshing, to see Korea on the offense, putting pressure on the Czechs, and they have a level of touch and passing precision that just seems to different from Team Koreas in the past.  I don’t think this is going to immediately make them world beaters like they were in 2002* but it definitely looks like it puts them into a tier above a lot of the lower-tier teams I’ve seen in some of the other matches I’ve watched.

*as exciting and memorable as 2002’s run was, I’d be remiss to not acknowledge the tremendous amount of referee assistance Korea enjoyed

It’s going to be interesting for the rest of groups, considering I will be in Korea for at least the next match, which is against Mexico. Circling back to 2002, it was one of the best memories of my life going to watch parties with my dad, in parking lots in Annandale in the middle of the night, since the games were in Korea.  I’ll definitely be on the lookout for watch parties in Seoul in the am hours to compensate for the opposite time change, with Team Korea playing in Guadalajara, against host Mexico.

And shout out to all the Korean fans who ventured over to Mexico, and the Mexican fans who have welcomed them all with open arms and gracious hospitality.  I love that it’s these two cultures, who have developed one of the most beautiful cultural bromances, showing the rest of the world what world peace could look like. 

Even thought they’re opponents next, I really hope the friendship continues on, because win, lose or draw, it’s what world needs, what people need to see, and a great demonstration of the positive power of sport.

Beef S2: Everybody sucks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was a big fan of the first season of Netflix’s Beef which starred Stephen Yeun and Ali Wong.  The writing was strong, the acting superb, but above all else, it was a show by Asians, starring Asians, but not explicitly being “an Asian show.”  It was a fantastic piece of representation, while still having the storyline and relatable appeal to those that weren’t Asian.

But the thing is, the way the show concluded, I was thinking that there probably wasn’t going to be a second season.  That is, unless they conclude the original storyline, create a new one that’s similar in some aspects but is different, with a new cast.  And when I heard that Beef was getting a second season, I figured that such was going to be the case, and I looked forward to it.

Not going to lie, upon seeing that the core cast of S2 was Oscar Issac, the cute girl from The Great Gatsby, some other white girl, and a guy that looked like he might possibly have a drop of Asian DNA in his 23andMe, it was a little bit of a turnoff from the fact that S1 was this speeding Humvee of representation, and now we’ve got another clear instance of white folks latching onto a success story and sequel-izing it, but with far less representation, and far more white people.

The show dropped, and it went from something I was interested in, to something to catch when I get a chance.

Thankfully, it’s as if Netflix really is mainlined into my feelings, and when I turned on Netflix to watch WWE RAW is Commercials, I saw that the thumbnail for Beef S2 had Youn Yuh-jung (from Minari fame) front and center, looking like a powerful queen and not just some meek Asian background character, and it renewed a little bit of interest to the point where I would eventually start watching it.

The thing is with me lately, is that I feel as if I’ve become even more neurotic and temperamental when it comes to television watching, and that if I’m not in the right mood or mindset, there’s almost no point in watching television, because I just won’t give it adequate attention.  But as far as Beef S2 was, it was like, if I don’t get to this now, I won’t ever get to it, and then it’ll just get backlogged and never seen, and this property doesn’t deserve that.

That being said, I was probably like 75-80% prepared to watch the show, and I admittedly had a harder time getting into it, than I had gotten into the first season.

Frankly, it kind of felt like the show was taking a page out of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None property, where the last season had nothing to do with the original seasons, and was more of a case of latching a name with equity, onto a season of television that has nothing to do with it, solely to help bring eyes to it in the first place.

The black comedy genre seems to be hipster enough to just try and spin that as viable and justifiable tactic, and that’s kind of what S2 of Beef felt like.  Sure, there were conflicts, in fact, many conflicts between characters, but save for the first 20 minutes of the show, few were to the explosive magnitude that was remotely close to S1, much less warrant even being called something like “Beef.”

What I’m trying to say is that S2 didn’t really feel like there was much beef between characters, but other than the fact that it’s the same creator, could probably have easily been called something else, but obviously they want eyes on it and fast, so it’s just slipped into the Beef umbrella as Season 2.

Anyway, semantics aside, the show wasn’t that bad.  It kind of goes without saying that it’s not as good as the first season, but that’s an unfair standard to chase after considering just how good S1 really was.  The writing was sharp, the cinematography was crisp and noticeable to even my novice eyes, and there was a lot of subtle, situational humor throughout.

The show was really heavy handed with their criticisms of Gen-Z and considering creator Lee Sung-jin is close to the same age as me, it’s evident who his target audience is, and was probably cognizant that his digs at the youth of today would be watching, and would probably feel targeted, and that’s probably the point.

Regardless of the contrasting ages of the characters, there was one consistent theme throughout the show: everyone sucks.  Not in like an X-Pac Heat kind of, I hate them and they make me not want to watch the show, sucks, but in the sense that every single character has some serious flaws, baggage and personality traits that amount to them all, sucking.

Whether it’s being a workaholic, dabbling in flirtations over social media, projecting insecurities over inadequate education, persecution complexes, lack of accountability, just about every character in the series had multiple prevalent flaws, and they would all act out and take it out on everyone else, and everyone made their problems everyone’s problems, and such is kind of triggering to me, especially these days.

Also, the Koreans that were in the show, are all corrupt and up to no good, and I’m just kind of like, couldn’t we just swap these alignments to the white folks instead??

As a result, it wasn’t a season that I could actually binge or watch too much of at once, because regardless of the time that I don’t have that much time I want to dedicate to watching television, at the very most, I only watched three consecutive episodes, before I felt like I needed to take a break.  Mythical wife, who caught some of it, only needed to half-watch two middle episodes to come to her own conclusion about just how much all of the characters just sucked, and I wasn’t far off from that assessment myself.

It made it sometimes feel like a chore, and by the time I got to the final episode, I had the attitude of simply wanting to finish what I started, versus bating my breath for the season finale on pins and needles.

Don’t get me wrong, such reactions aren’t indicative of the quality of the show, so much as I feel like such was how it was designed to make viewers feel, and it was working on me.  it was still a good show that I’ve clearly given a tremendous amount of thought and reflection towards, but it’s also definitely the type of show that needs a palette cleanser, or at least some Ted Lasso or Batman the Animated Series for me to kind of let me get the stink of all the Beef S2 characters out of my head.

Either way, characters sucking by design not-withstanding, S2 of Beef wasn’t bad.  Not nearly as good as the first season, but I’ve definitely seen worse things that commit the biggest sin for my preferences: making me feel like I’ve wasted my time.  Beef did no such thing, but like I said, it definitely has a droll outlook of the world that tends to affect my mood adversely, and it’s just one of those stories that requires a pick-me-up afterward.

The black sheep (family) of the family

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

All while growing up, I often thought to myself that I was the obvious black sheep of my family.  Not just because I was a little edgelord growing up, but just the fact that just in general I was always kind of off from the general consensus of everyone else, primarily my cousins, for whom it was like our entire generation was always measured and compared amongst one another, in a very typical Korean way.

For starters, I’m the youngest among all of my cousins and my sister, and the age difference from me to the eldest in the generation was around 20 years.  My mom is the youngest of five sisters, which means I was the youngest kid from the youngest member of the generation before, not that age is the only thing that really matters.

Unlike some of the older cousins of mine, I wasn’t born and had lived some time in Korea, and it’s clear there’s a lot of Korean-isms that I just didn’t adopt as fervently as some others did in the family.  I grew up entirely American, with video games and comic books, and developed defiance and the want to be contrarian and just generally being a smartass.  I still had respect for my elders and most of the time looked up to my older cousins, but it was primarily because they all treated me well, and did not feel an automatic obligation to give them respect and reverence for no other reason than their age.

But it was clear that I was the weirdo of the family as I entered adolescence, with my pierced ears, colored hair, typical various 90s fashions.  All at time where many of my cousins were finishing college, some were already married, the next generation impending.

Eventually, I would not finish college, I’d move far the fuck away from my immediate family, and my choice in women was decidedly not Korean.  I still maintained decent relationships with those in my family, but it was distant, and not just in a physical sense.

Today, I still have good relationships with everyone, but it’s clear just how different of a position I am from everyone else.  Lots of their kids have just begun to graduate college or are basically young adults across the board.  My niece and nephew are on the younger side of the next generation, but they still have at least 8 years on my kids.

Seeing as how we’re all adults now, I don’t feel quite so black sheep-y around them, but the fact remains that I am very much not like a lot of my family members.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations over the phone with my sister lately, mostly venting about our parents; I have my dad as my third child these days, but my sister has been dealing with a lot of my mom’s own incapabilities these days, and her general reliance on others when it comes to things that adults of my generation are all expected to be able to handle on their own.

Long story short, I came to the realization that perhaps it wasn’t just so much that I’m the black sheep of the family, as much as my immediately family of my parents, my sister and I, are the black sheep family, of the rest of our family.

There are a lot of circumstances that exist solely within our immediate family unit, that don’t exist anywhere else, in either my mom’s side or my dad’s side of the family.  My sister is a widow, I live further away from the rest of my family than anyone else.  My dad has deteriorated into my third kid from a variety of reasons where a lot of my uncles and elder men my family are all still sharp, spry and capable adults.  My parents are the only divorced couple, and my mom is oft-reminding my sister and I that she’s the only mother among the fam whose children don’t live within 15 minutes away.

My dad had a shitty relationship with most of my aunts and uncles, and he’s basically the responsibility to my sister and I, primarily me due to proximity, and despite the fact that for decades, I’ve tried to tell him the importance of making and having friends and people in his life besides just his kids, but he’s so old thinking and set in his ways, that he is where he by no fault of anyone by himself.

My mom is the divorcee that basically got walked all over by my dad, but she was so desperate to get away from him that it was still worth it to her in the end.  But she’s in this awkward position where she’s all along among her sisters, whose own adult children all live within the same county as they are, and is often this odd wheel that I’m sure she feels self-conscious about, but my sister and I aren’t going to pick up our lives and move back to Virginia solely so she can feel good about herself.

As a result, my mom ends up leveraging a lot of assistance from our cousins, and my sister and I feel like we can sense the general annoyance and resentment from them, when they have to help out our mom because they’re close and local, but it’s not like we can always do things from afar.  My mom shoulders some responsibility for needing so much assistance too, because not unlike so many elder Koreans, they simply hit a ceiling in which they stop wanting to learn how to do things and generally function without needing people to hold their hand.

So ultimately, it’s not just me being the weirdo of the family here, because it’s evident when I talk about it and write it all out, that it’s not just me, but my immediate family that all seems to have a lot of baggage that nobody else does.  Why this matters is that my sister and I are often given a lot of unsolicited advice from other family members who can’t relate to our circumstances, and their opinions only hold so much weight.  As is often spoken out there in the world, you just never know what kind of battles every individual is going through, and in the case of my sister and I, nobody in our extended families can really relate to what we’re going through, and not getting any grief for the things they may or may not get drafted into doing in the name of family, would greatly be appreciated.

Ironically, I asked for this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the big selling points I used on my dad when I was arduously trying to talk him to move down to Georgia, other than the fact that everything made sense, was that with him being somewhat in the Metro Atlanta area, not only could I see him with tremendously more regularly than any member of his family had been able to see him over the last 10+ years, he could now participate in things like holidays, events and milestone occasions, like the Pre-K graduation of his granddaughter.

Yes, I know that in the grand spectrum of things, Pre-K graduations are pretty much important only to the parents of the children ‘graduating’ from preschool, but it’s one of those things where I’ve been to enough children’s things over the last six years to understand and have witnessed all sorts of healthy family dynamics where grandparents often show up to events as such, because it’s what family does – show up.

Because graduation day was kind of hectic on account of an altered schedule and in-laws visiting, I didn’t want to have to wake up at like 5 AM to drive the 40 miles to my dad’s facility to pick him up, and then weather the teeth of Atlanta morning traffic to get back 40 miles, I opted to just hail an Uber for my dad, and bring him to my side of town, and then we could go to graduation, and either I drive him back, or I send him home in another Uber. 

We’re adults, and we throw money at obstacles.

I call him at 7 AM, to find out if he’s ready to go, and naturally he doesn’t pick up his phone because communication with my dad is basically a one-way street where he will blow up my phone whenever he wants to ask me a question that I’ve already answered for him at least 15 times previously, but when I need to get in touch with him, he never fucking picks up the phone, and I can usually expect to get a callback in a minute or two, like he’s a fucking ER doctor being paged.

Anyway, when he calls back, I ask him if he’s ready to go, and he says he wants to have breakfast first, which is a fair accommodation, his place has set meal hours, and he’s entitled to get his meals.  I tell him to call me when he’s done eating, and I’ll hail an Uber and let him know the make and color of the car, like we’d been doing for rides to church the last few Sundays, and he gives me an affirmative.

20-25 minutes later, I call him back because now I’m sweating the time, because if he doesn’t get into an Uber soon, he’ll definitely already be in morning traffic, but there would be no guarantee that he’d make it to my side of town in time to make it to the graduation, which I would later discover security was following rules to a T, and basically barring anyone who didn’t check in prior to 10 AM, wasn’t getting in.

My dad basically tells me that he doesn’t want to come, that it’s too far, too long of a car ride, and he actually wasn’t planning on coming.  Immediately, my mind quips that in one hand, I’m actually pretty relieved that he’s bailing, because this means I won’t have to babysit him all morning and afternoon, and seeing as how I was skirting work for the day, I would have my job to tend to, as well as the want to do certain errands, such as vote and go help mythical wife with another errand.

I don’t make a big deal about his abrupt bailing because of the relief at not having to babysit him, but subsequently, my mind started unpacking the underlying messages of his decision, and as pretty much is the case with everything my dad does to me, it began to aggravate the piss out of me.

I had reminded my dad well in advance of this date, and at no point did he ever express any sort of lack of want to come to my daughter’s graduation.  I made him write it down on his white board in his own handwriting, because I believe that even those with deteriorating recollection, if they see things written in their own hand, they’re more apt to be able to recall it.  So it’s not like he didn’t know this was coming, and he waited until the eleventh hour and 59th minute to bail on me, which in most cases, wars have been started for less offensive acts.

Continue reading “Ironically, I asked for this” →

Been a rough year for Kim Hye-song already

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Prior to the season in the WBC, Kim had to be a part of the Team Korea that sure, finally managed to get out of groups for the first time in an eternity, but they also took some embarrassing losses to Japan and Taiwan.  Capped off by getting mercy-rule walked-off on by the Dominican Republic to end their run.

Comes back to the United States to finish up Spring Training, only to be told that despite hitting .407 with an OPS of .967, he is being sent down to start the season in the minor leagues, citing his WBC commitment taking away from a proper preseason preparation regimen.  I didn’t really say anything over social media platforms because I frankly didn’t want to deal with the likely outrage of Dodgers fans, racist weebs and all other pleebs of the internet, but I found it suspicious that Kim would get such rationale as justification to send him to the minors, despite the fact that all of his Japanese teammates were in the exact same boat, and weren’t getting demoted, but that I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise to see a team full of Japanese players and constantly on the country of Japan’s dick 25/8 sending their lone Korean teammate away. 

Because it’s one of those things that nobody that isn’t Korean would really understand, and it wasn’t worth the aggravation of triggering the ire of the internet, but it’s definitely something that nobody would be willing to admit to probably being the case.

Anyway, Kim dominates Triple-A because it’s too easy for the caliber of player he is, in spite of the limited Spring Training, hitting .346 with an OPS of .822, and at the very first injury reported to the Dodgers, he’s immediately called back up, where he’s already hitting .308 with a .796 OPS.

And six games in is all it takes for Kim to be given the all look same treatment, and be mistaken for one of his more famous Japanese teammates, as SNY’s Gary Cohen states “Yamamoto looking on” when the camera panned to Kim watching in the dugout.

Like I said, it’s slights like these that nobody who isn’t Korean would really understand just how aggravating they can be, and why Koreans like me have these chips on our shoulders when it comes to rolling our eyes at the insufferably weeb-ey excessive praise for anything Japan that Weeb-ey America is so subject to falling for.

The tiny, in all fairness, factor to this is the fact that it was from the visiting team’s broadcast, and seeing as how the Mets haven’t had a Korean player since like Koo Dae-Sung, they’re less educated when it comes to disambiguation between Asians, but if I had to put money on it, I can’t imagine that this racist bungling of telling Asians apart hasn’t happened among Dodgers media either.

But the point remains it happened, it’s embarrassing for those who were apart of it, from Cohen, as well as the cameraman who put the camera on Kim after being prompted by discussions of Yamamoto.  And like most incidents that are insensitive towards Koreans and Asians in general, the backlash for this will be vastly less severe, acknowledged or taken nearly as seriously as if it would be if it involved black people or Hispanics.

If it hasn’t happened already, I don’t imaging there will be any sort of apology from Cohen or SNY, and while everyone is laughing about it, I can lighten up and see the humor in it, but also still remain disappointed and feel dejected by the continuous failure of white people and white people media who love to police others and tell them to be better, while continuously failing to take their own fucking advice.

It doesn’t matter how well Kim Hye-song plays or doesn’t play, if people keep getting him mixed up with the other Chinamen on his own team, I’d rather see him go elsewhere, where he might actually get some fucking respect.