Being an international student requires adjusting to a new culture, but international students also face an interesting dilemma during Olympic season, a time when patriotism is most clearly present and cheering on your country’s team is a sign of loyalty and national pride. Having to decide which team they want to support isn’t always easy, but international students at Union have found that some things change and some things stay the same.
Haeun Shim, junior graphic design major, and Yoo Lim Moon, sophomore art major, are both from Seoul, South Korea, a city just hours west of the current site of the 2018 Winter Olympics, Pyeongchang.
Shim and Moon both say that they have been approached by many people asking their insights about this year’s Winter Olympics.
“A lot of people have asked me what I think about the joint Korea team because North Korea and South Korea walked in as Korea and not as separate countries,” Moon said. “A lot of people have asked me about that, and I was like ‘Well, I haven’t really thought about that’, but I guess I’m their go-to person if they’re curious about it. They come and talk to me.”
“Everyone before the Olympics was like ‘Oh, do you know the Olympics will happen soon?’” Shim said. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I do know.’ They’re like ‘Do you know that it’s in Korea?” I’m like ‘Yes, I do.’ Everyone came up to me and was like ‘Oh, are you going to watch the Olympics’ and I’m like ‘Yes.’”
Although Shim is Korean, she grew up in China, where her parents are missionaries. She likes to visit South Korea from time to time on vacations and breaks, but her most recent visit was last year, when she completed a seven-month internship. Shim grew up watching the summer and winter Olympics, although the summer Olympics are her favorite.
“I love figure-skating,” Shim said. “Figure-skating is definitely my favorite to watch, but I literally love almost everything. Hockey’s fun, skiing, snowboarding. Snowboarding is kind of like ‘uhhh… what if they die?’ Speed figure-skating is really fun to watch too.”
Whenever she’s not watching the Olympics, she still keeps up with the latest news and scores, especially if they pertain to South Korea.
“I downloaded this app, and it reminds you of which game is on right now,” Shim said. “So I used to have the app so that I would be able to watch it at the right time. I always do the medal count if I’m too busy to watch, so I’ve been doing the medal count all the time. South Korea is in the top 10 right now.”
Watching the Olympics in America has been a different experience for her, largely because of America’s “advanced” technology.
“We had this huge antenna that we had to, like, move around to get the right signal,” Shim said. “This is a whole different world. To get Korean cable, we have to pay extra money to watch Korean stuff, and we had this huge antenna that you had to try to make it work to get it right. Like one person will be outside, and one person will be inside saying ‘oh no it’s coming… no it’s not!’ When we could get it perfectly right, we would be so happy to watch it.”
Shim also misses the relational aspect and the traditions that the Olympics fostered when she was overseas.
“For Olympics, Koreans love to gather as a family or friends,” Shim said. “They’re really into fried chicken and beer. We just, like, hang out in a restaurant, kind of like a Buffalo Wild Wings environment. And we just watch the Olympics together. It’s more of a family and friends gathering kind of a time than only about the sport. I do miss that part for sure.”
Shim recalls watching the Olympics as a child with her mom and singing along to the Korean anthem whenever a Korean won. However, she doesn’t limit her support to just one country.
“I really love watching the Olympics because I get to cheer for my country, which is awesome, and we always compete with Japan because they’re rivals,” Shim said. “Even right now, when I did the medal count this morning, Japan was right beneath us, and that somehow made me happy a little. I cheer for China too because I lived there and I have close attachments there. I also love America, so I cheer for America, China, and Korea, not Japan [laughs]. My parents are in Russia right now as missionaries, so I kind of cheer for Russia too. So it’s like I cheer for everyone.”
Moving to America didn’t change how she cheered on Olympic teams because, she says, she still cheers for all of those countries that she loves.
“I cheer for America too,” Shim said. “I grew up in an international school where almost all of my teachers were Americans. I definitely grew up knowing the culture really well. I don’t consider myself, of course, American. But if I have to give a percentage of who I am, then I consider myself maybe 40% Korean and 40% American and maybe 20% Chinese. It’s a mixture of everything.”
Moon grew up around Seoul until first grade before she moved overseas. Although she has been watching the Olympics this month, she didn’t watch them much growing up.
“We didn’t always have access to Korean TV,” Moon said. “When I was young, I didn’t know how to stream and my parents didn’t really let me.”
This year, Moon has been watching the Games by streaming Korean TV from her computer onto a mini projector. She has found that watching games taking place in Korea while being in America is strange but also fun. While she doesn’t have a favorite sport, she has been watching a lot of curling and a bit of figure-skating.
“They usually air [events] that they know we’re going to get medals in, so that’s what you watch,” Moon said. “You watch what they give you.”
Moon was in Korea during the last summer Olympics, but she says she barely watched it. She has spent the most time watching the Olympics this year, which she says is likely in large part due to the fact that they are being held in her home country.
“[There’s just] something about it being held in Korea, I guess,” Moon said. “And just not having anything else to watch right now. Me and my sister were saying that we should have just taken off a semester and volunteered in Korea just for the Olympics.”
Being in America hasn’t influenced the way she cheers on the teams. Unlike Shim, she cheers more exclusively for Korea.
“It’s weird that I left Korea in first grade, but usually in general I would cheer for Korea in really any kind of game,” Moon said. “[I] almost cheered for them more when they were against the States because, I don’t know, I feel like I’m going against the general public, which is weird. Maybe I just care about it more that I’m overseas. We got more interested in it as we moved overseas, like watching sports and cheering for Korea in more global sports.”
Moon has found that she now almost exclusively talks about the Olympics with her sister more often because they share a common bond when Korea wins.
“If I was in Korea and had friends in Korea, I would be talking with them about the Olympics,” Moon said. “I just talk about it with my sister. I talk about it with a few of my friends, but it’s not like we can talk about ‘oh, Korea did this’ and ‘Korea did that’ and ‘we won a medal in this.’ So I guess that’s different. But at the same time, when I talk with my other friends, they talk about other teams.”
While Moon has taken a bigger interest in Korea’s victory, she has learned to support other teams as well and has found that there’s a balance.
“I pay more attention, but at the same time I look at other teams in the Olympics as well,” Moon said. “Being interested in other teams as well and being able to not just focus on how well Korea’s doing, but also being proud that it’s held in Korea.”
