Today was the opening ceremony of the epic 연고전, or Yonsei-Korea Festival. Over the course of Friday and Saturday five different sports matches will be played between the number two and three universities in Korea (Yonsei and Korea University, respectively).
This rivalry is the biggest and most well-known in the whole nation, and this festival will be attended by people from all around Korea. Friday will be the baseball, basketball, and ice hockey matches, and Saturday wraps the festival up with the big boys, rugby and soccer.
We the international students have spent the entire week learning the complex cheers that the whole university already knows. When you go to a Braves game, there are all manner of little sounds and shouts and cheers that the audience does to stay interested.
When I went to such a game with a Korean, they lamented the fact that the cheers are so short and uninvolved. I was forewarned that day about the level of intensity of Korean cheers. We jump, sway, kick, twirl, wave, flap, pump, flail, clap, scream, sing, curse, and rap. There is no sitting down. Today's opening ceremony was an amphitheatre packed with Yonsei in blue and Korea in red, alternating back and forth doing these crazy cheers for four hours. This is just the warm up too. Rumor has it that at a Yonsei victory the streets, restaurants, bars, and every corner of the arena explode with a non-stop marathon of victory cheers and anti-Korea University songs. I can only imagine a street full of Asians in blue and red dancing and spinning and singing at the top of their lungs.
I don't have to imagine for long, however. Day 1 has already ended, after an exhaustive and exciting opening ceremony "pep rally" we're already for the sports action tomorrow! 사랑한다 연세! 고대바보!
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