Many South Koreans Unhappy Baseball Team Won Gold at Asian Games
This is probably the first time I have heard of Koreans unhappy with one of its national teams winning a gold medal:
The South Korean baseball team Sunday clinched the gold at the Incheon Asian Games, but a lot of people here seem to have more reasons to mock their achievement than celebrate or be proud of it.
They think players will enjoy greater benefits than they deserve — exemption from the country’s mandatory two years of military service. Ironically, their gold has also led to fierce discussion about abolishing such rewards to athletes.
“I wish they lost the game,” 29-year-old baseball fan Park Tae-yang said. “I do not understand why Korea, in the 21st century, still has to give military exemption for athletes on the grounds that they help promote the country.”
Such harsh feelings against the national team are also based on the fact that South Korea is the only country that sent professional baseball players, who appeared desperate for a military exemption, and let them compete against teams consisting mostly of amateur players. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but it does seem kind unfair to all the other males in Korea that they have to do their mandatory service obligation while these professional athletes now will get out of it because they blew out a bunch of Asian amateur baseball teams.
This kind of reminds me of in the US where people don’t say anything about the “Electoral College vs. Popular Vote” until it’s right after an election where it came into play. Or pretty much like anyone arguing a speed limit is too low after they’ve just been caught speeding and are signing the ticket. Many if not pretty much all of them are the lazy type of humans who will only b*tch after the fact but could care less any other time and actually shut down anyone who complains about said issue because it doesn’t immediately affect them.