‘Red Wave’ Fever Is Sweeping Korea

On Tuesday night, the whole country was filled with the loud roars of people cheering the Korean national football team in its first FIFA World Cup match with Togo.

From around 4:00-5:00 p.m., long before the match started, until midnight, around 1.5 million people (police estimation) gathered on the streets in 146 small and big cities across the country. Whenever the Korean players played, people went crazy, cheering like thunderbolts.

Downtown Seoul—the Seoul Square in front of City Hall and the Cheonggye Plaza—as well as campuses, bars, and restaurants were filled with excited cheers.

A “Red Wave” –

Around 100,000 people in red t-shirts gathered in Seoul Square, Cheonggye Plaza, and near Gwanghwamun.

Concerts by famous singers including Jeong Su-ra, Clone, Insooni, and Jang Yoon-jeong started at 5:00 p.m. at Seoul Square, where an extra-large screen and stage were set up.

A cheering show was held in the Seoul World Cup Stadium in Sang-am, Seoul, where Yoon Do-hyun Band, Psy, Seven, Tae Jin-ah, Lim Hyeong-ju, and other top singers performed in front of 50,000 cheering people watching the game via four big screens.

Bars and pubs around the country were also packed with people enjoying the match with cold beer. Some of the bars provided customers with cheering tools, such as cheer towels, balloons, and horns, and some even gave beer for free.

“Dae-han-min-guk! (Republic of Korea)” at Schools-

Colleges prepared various events for the students who couldn’t make it to the street cheers.

The student union at Sungkyunkwan University prepared 1,000 red T-shirts, muffler, and hair bands, and gave out 10 official World Cup balls, the “Teamgeist,” for free. Hong-ik University’s student union prepared a cheering session in front of the school gates, and Sogang University students watched the match at the Youth Square inside the school, eating rice balls.

Foreigners Participate in the Cheers Also-

Foreign laborers in Korea also joined to cheer the Korean squad. Around 100 workers from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other Southeast Asian countries gathered together at the Migrant Workers Center in Korea in red T-shirts with Korean traditional instruments and a rousing chorus of “Oh Pilseung Korea! (Victory Korea).”

In accordance to the Justice Department’s policy, prisoners at jails and detention houses also watched the game through TVs set up in each of the 12,000 rooms.

Religious Circle Not an Exception-

Monks practicing summer asceticism and churches were excited as well.

The Baekyang temple in Jeonnam Province allowed monks practicing asceticism to watch the Togo match. It is an exceptional case, given that the monks originally do not go out and only concentrate on Zen meditation for three entire months. During this period, they confine themselves in the room and are not allowed to contact any communication medium, such as TV or newspaper.

Priests and believers at a Catholic church in Gwangju all gathered together after the seven o’ clock mass to watch and cheer on the match. They had a beam projector installed in the church’s education hall for the match.

The Palbong Catholic Church in Jeonbuk Province also prepared a cheering session along with a bazaar for the church construction. Around 300 believers gathered in front of a large screen and shared food that the church prepared for them.