https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hueb91TcB0Q
For my second cultural post, I decided to watch a professional Korean basketball broadcast of an all-star game three years ago. Everything is in Korean except for the title of the YouTube video. The title of the video is, “KBL All Star Full Game Highlights,” and is around ten minutes long. They separated the two teams as Seniors and Juniors, compared to the NBA where it is the Team X and Team Y. Based on the speaker, the game is being held in Busan in South Korea. The highlights go by quarter to quarter starting from the tip off. It was interesting to see some English words being used during the broadcast, such as “fadeaway” and “all-star.” It is interesting because they pronounce it as a Korean word with different characters and syllables, but it sounds like the English word. Most of these “English” words I am hearing are cognates in the Korean language. It was cool to see common phrases such as “catching fire” in Korean. I was able to understand what the broadcaster was trying to say based on the context clues and words like fire in Korean. What I have recognized in the KBL league is that the fans are much louder and more enthusiastic to simple three-pointers or simple dunks when compared to NBA fans. This might be due to the fact that the NBA has much crazier and athletic dunks when compared to the KBL. Another cognate I heard a lot was “double clutch,” which is referring to the movement in the air while taking a layup. It is kind of weird hearing it because the broadcaster emphasizes the syllables of “double clutch” a lot stronger than the other words in the sentence. I feel like the broadcaster tries to emphasize every cognate too much, so it sounds weird. Similar to the NBA, there are a lot of ads on the court in the KBL broadcast. There are banners are such on the floor in Korean that advertise big name companies in Korea. What is interesting is that the advertisements are not as flashy or colorful as the NBA ones. They are simple and sleek and doesn’t really obstruct the view of the game. Overall, I think there was a lot of things to learn from this video. By comparing the similarities and differences between the KBL and NBA all-star game, I was able to understand a little more about Korean culture. The biggest thing is that the KBL is not as popular in Korea as the NBA is in America. Basketball isn’t really a big culture in Korea, and you could tell by the amount of advertisements and the amount of people in the stands. Furthermore, I was able to gain a better sense of a Korean broadcaster accent and learn some new sports terminology throughout the video. I was also able to read some of the banners and advertisements that showed up throughout the video and it was cool to finally be able to read and understand the words.
Comments
Hi Jiwon, I think that is cool that you were able to watch a game in Korean and write about it. I think there were a couple variety shows that focused on basketball that I remember watching as the differences were that Korean basketball is more focused on fundamentals and plays rather than more athleticism as in the NBA. The shows I remember watching are Our neighborhood sports, buzzer beater, and Handsome Tigers. All of them were pretty fun and each team had different players with different strengths which was cool to see in Korean!
Hi Jiwon, thanks for sharing this post! I agree that basketball isn't as popular as sports like baseball or soccer in Korea. I also think that most sports fans in the U.S. have a favorite player/team because of their story or history while most fans in Korea cheer for the their city team. I know that the halftime show is a big deal in the NBA All Star Games, so I wonder if the KBL has one too.
Hey Jiwon! That’s cool that you got to watch Korean basketball and compared it to the American NBA’s. I do agree with your observation that the KBL is not as popular in Korea as the NBA is in America, and I think that’s just due to a general country-wide preference of certain sports. I think soccer is way more popular in Korea than basketball is, whereas in the US, most people have a basketball team that they’re loyal to.