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Last weekend I checked out a basketball game with Cindy and her kid in nearby Anyang. The KT & G Flying Kites were playing the KTF Magic Wings, and the team names alone were enough to convince me that Korean basketball was a mindfuck to warrant attention. And the price was definitely right: courtside seats for 10 bucks!

Now there's one key thing you need to know about the KBL (Korean Basketball League... did that acronym really need explanation?). Each and every corporate-sponsored entity has a restriction of two foreigners per team. This makes sense I guess, as a lack thereof would certainly result in 100% imported Africans and basketball would become some weird gladatorial thing. On a side note, I really dig these cultural mandates for protection of an independent Korean lifestyle, from sports to movies to auto economics... Canada could definitely take similar steps to ward off diluting American fingers. But I digress.

Despite the insurance of Korean participation in a Korean basketball league, each game plays out rather hilariously like two matchups running in parallel, interweaved and yet seperate. The black guys score a vast majority of the points and, since they are hugely overpowering, have to guard each other exclusively. This results in a feverish game of foreigner 2 on 2, while the extra Koreans flit around the perimeter of the action, hustling their asses off to run formations and such. I felt a bit sorry for them, since it basically seemed like it was their job to feed the ball around until they could dish it to one of their gigantic teammates waiting in the key.

The crowd waited with baited breath for two treasured rarities: the black guys dunking the ball or, less frequently, one of the Korean players actually scoring a point. The three-point line was a lot closer than it is in North American basketball, and the nets even seemed to be a bit lower. Even with these child's play advantages, I didn't notice any Korean sharpshooter heroes: all they did was pass pass pass to the imports. I hope they've had better days.

We had accidentally seated ourself in the small but vocal cheering section for the Busan KTF team, and a crew of teenaged girls behind me were just nuts. "DICK SUN! DICK SUUUUN!" one would scream hysterically, every few seconds, for a great lazy lout evidently named Dickson. It felt like my ears were being pierced by great big knitting needles so I tried to taunt her every time Dickson screwed up, which was often.

I noticed the foreign players were pretty laid back about the whole game. Oftentimes all four of them would hang back while the Koreans led a rush down the other end, trying to give their teammates a fighting chance to score. They were consumate showmen. One Flying Kites import, Dante Jones, or "Dontae Jone", according to a fan-made banner, was especially great. He kept me in stitches by complaining loudly about foul calls to the ref (who couldn't understand a thing he was saying), and then going to the opposing bench to complain some more to the KTF team (who also had no idea). "Fuck that shit, that's some bullshit man. You hear what I'm saying? Yeah, you know. You know, baby. You know it." Then he would slap hands with them all and go back to the game. I guess you need to have a sense of humour if you're going to be playing ball in exile.

The game had all the usual sporting features gleaned from the NBA: mascots, cheerleaders, fan contests and a halftime show. The Flying Kites mascot was this big dancing bird, which confused me until I realized that sometimes a Kite is a bird and not a kite. As mascots go, he was pretty quality, at least compared to the Magic Wings mascot who was fat and blue and spent most of his time sitting in a folding chair and holding his big anime-style head. He looked retardedly hung over and I really wanted the Kite mascot to fight him, but sadly they seemed to be friends and the Kite even went and got him some water or maybe some soju.

The halftime show was a bunch of elderly folk filling the floor for a stately dance. I thought it wildly inappropriate, sorta like line dancing at the Superbowl, but the Korean crowd seemed to dig the performance and I'm pretty sure there was line dancing at the Superbowl recently, so what do I know? Anyways, there was a shortage of men because some women had to dance with other women dressed like men. It was a little creepy, but they danced and then they stopped dancing and that was that.

In the end, the game ended happily for the locals with Team Dante Jones scoring a bajillion points versus Team Dickson, who only managed to score half a bajillion. Screeching Girl Behind Me left quietly, which was a shame because I wanted to pop a balloon in her ear in retaliatory celebration. I was satisfied with the overall experience because now I've confirmed that basketball is not always basketball as we know it. Cheerleaders, on the other hand, are universally hot.

Posted by Chris at 12:28 AM >> Commentations (1)