In the past week, I’ve sort of taken it upon myself to get
acquainted with figure skating, specifically women’s. The cause for the
fascination? Well, I happen to be born in the same country as the former
Olympic champ, Kim Yuna. (In retrospect, isn’t this the whole of the connection
that 50-some-million Koreans have with the Queen?)
Now I find it a little irksome that so many Koreans are
signing that petition on Change.org urging the IOC to overturn the decision. Is
it really a surprise that 90% of the signatures are coming from South Korea?
Now I’m not a skating expert, but I would say a great deal
of the sport serves an aesthetic purpose; that is, excellence in women’s
skating is not exactly quantifiable; it concerns itself with the beauty of
motion, not necessarily athletic feats on the ice. That said, it seems though
any attempt to quantify beauty—to measure the aesthetics of any particular
performance—is at best misguided and at worst impossible.
What is so irksome to me about the petition is the
undercurrent of extreme nationalism. Koreans (and many Korean Americans) seem
to have this attitude any win from a South Korean athlete is cause to
celebrate: no, to be invested in.
We love athletes. We love them for their excellence and
their effort. We love our teams. I’m a Warriors fan, partly because I live in
the Bay Area, but also because I like many of the players on the team: Stephen
Curry, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguolada. Sometimes, Oracle Arena (where the
Warriors play) becomes extremely energetic: you see a sea of yellow shirts and
hear ‘oo’s’ and ‘ah’s’ with each make, crossover dribble, dunk, or Curry
three-pointer. But I don’t kid myself: I have nothing to do with the team
itself. Any bad call against the Warriors—doesn’t affect me personally. It’s
one thing to be mad at a blown call; it’s another thing to take it as an
affront to one’s character. Don’t get me wrong—Yuna Kim’s performance was
incredible; but that’s all it had to be: incredible. We can judge performances
on their merit alone, not necessary by their scores. That’s why I have a
problem with those who said: Yuna skated more
beautifully than Sotnikova. Beauty—aesthetics—cannot be measured, and it
sure can’t be reduced to a number. It’s a feeling. It’s love. It’s enough to
enjoy the show.
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