Koreans' Response to Mao Asada Beating Yuna Kim

          Mao Asada won the World Championship, with a score that was higher than that of Yuna Kim's score at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. In addition, she has pushed off retiring, and the decision for retirement will be made in May. 

          With this recent accomplishment of Mao Asada, the Koreans' response were not all that welcoming. So then Japan responded by asking Korea to respect Mao Asada. But upon further research, I found out that Koreans do indeed respect Mao Asada and here's why.

          First off, Koreans respect Mao Asada because she reminds them of Yuna Kim, naturally because they're rivals but also because they share the similarity in that they both are hard-working to the end. It can't be denied that Koreans were miffed at the fact that Mao Asada came out with a higher score than what Yuna Kim had at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. But hey, Koreans had to suffer the loss of Yuna Kim's deserved gold and the fact that Mao Asada came out like this is like rubbing salt on the wound.

         In addition, Koreans are busy criticizing Sotnikova, rather than Mao Asada. Let me state a disclaimer here though, that does not necessarily mean Sotnikova has a whole country of haters, because I have seen blogs posted by Koreans admiring her. But a "webtoon" (Konglish for cartoon on web; comic strip) outlined what Mao Asada has that Sotnikova doesn't. This webtoon came about particularly because Japan held an ice show to commemorate Mao recently, and invited other figure stars, including Sotnikova. However, Mao Asada declined in going to the event and instead wowed everyone at the World Championships. Sotnikova however, chose to skip the World Championships, where she could have redeemed herself in the face of all her critics, but instead, went to the Japan ice show. Koreans praise Mao Asada because actually, she's had a lot of scandals or something of her own, yet she still faced the crowd and went on to a big event, the World Championships, while Sotnikova appears to have escaped from it.

        Personally, as a Korean myself, I'm also... disappointed with Mao Asada's latest feat because, Yuna Kim was robbed of her gold metal and now her title as the figure skater with the highest point ever. However, Mao Asada's last performance at the Olympics moved me along with other Koreans, I could link the same look of relief that "all of this is over" while she shed hot tears reminded me of Yuna Kim. Yuna Kim went through lots of arduous training and physical pains for over 10 years, and it's all the same with Asada. They're kind of in the same boat with this. So that makes it hard for me to hate her. 

        I know I keep bringing this topic on my blog again and again, but I don't think I can ever really get over Yuna Kim's loss. But there's great news in the Korean Sports world that I'll be posting about next, so stay tuned! :D

(502)