[KS] Re: Olympic Partners?

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Eugene Y. Park wrote:
> I'm very surprised by the topic all together.  Isn't it simply to be
> expected that whatever country you're in, you're most likely to get TV
> broadcastings of that country's athletes?  At least this has been my
> experience watching the Olympics in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and, yet,
> South Korea too.  But then maybe I should't be surprised by this
> discussion, given how some of our colleagues on this list conveniently
> ignore to put things in a comparative perspective when commenting on
> Korean society, culture, etc.

Well said. So much so, that I shall not comment on your point.

In fact, this ties in with what I was going to write in response to one
lister's succint comment about this not being Moogoonghwa.

True enough, a thread about the overabundance of Koreans in Korea's coverage
of the Olympics is much more mundane than it is scholarly. Some of the
topics here may not be strictly academic, but, I would submit, even our
academic opinions are formed by our impressions regarding these mundane
things. I myself am preparing to do an epidemiology-oriented thesis for my
graduate studies at Yonsei, and the recent non-scholarly topic on childbirth
practices provided me with information and insight that has actually
supplemented it. 

Likewise, impressions of the Korean media -- with the biases or xenophobia
or close-mindedness that we may agree or disagree is rampant there -- help
form a larger picture of Korean society that we utilize when engaging in our
academic endeavors. My point being, it does have it's place as a piece of
the larger puzzle.

And in turn, list members' comments such as these about Korean society, and
the scrutiny brought upon them by Dr. Park's comment above, help reveal to
us and others our own prejudices about Korea's prejudices (and that is why I
say his comments tie in with what I had earlier planned to say).

This may be the opinion of a minority of one, but I think the nature of
lists and newsgroups allows for this kind of thing. This is a Korean studies
list (and it's not mine alone, so I apologize in advance if I am way off
base with my opinions), and as long as the posting members are following the
prescribed rules and are posting about things relevant to Korea, I don't see
what's wrong with it.

We are not in a "town hall meeting" or a lecture, where participants are
competing for scarce time resources. A list has room for everyone to speak,
but if another member doesn't have time to listen, he or she at least has
time to press the delete key and, effectively, ignore threads not of
interest to him or her.

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