Yon-Go Jeon: Day 3

The YonGo Jeon adventure finally drew to an epic close on Saturday. Going into the day we only had to come out victorious from one of the two events to win the whole festival, either rugby or soccer. Everyone was really excited to see Yonsei victory for the third year in a row.

The stadium that both the events were being played in was the Olympic Soccer Stadium, a giant bowl that offered both a view of city and of mountains over it's rim. Even once the soccer game started and all of Yonsei and Korea University were in attendance the stadium was only half full. There were lot's of regular people spectating from the other half of the stadium, but it still wasn't anywhere near to brimming.


Rugby was the most pathetic display on Yonsei's part the entire weekend. We lost 27-3. Need I say more? It was in some ways beneficial though, since afterwards it was tied 2 events to 2 events. With only soccer left, the outcome of that last game decided the fate of the entire festival. If we had won rugby then soccer wouldn't have meant anything, but the game was so much more intense because of all the pressure.

As for soccer, Korea scored an early goal in the first half. After the half went and it still remained 1-0, the Korea university students got increasingly more loud and excited while we got equally more quiet and depressed. The loudest noises we made were in the last 3 minutes, when Yonsei missed two shots on goal. The disappointment was thick, especially among us internationals, who won't have another chance to be victorious. After the clock ran out everyone was already packing up and getting ready to leave. There were a few extra fleeting moments of stoppage time that weren't even worth watching, so were wanted to get out of the stadium to beat the rush. As I stand up I look down onto the field to see a miraculous, Red-Sea-parting, Yonsei goal. At this point all of Korea University sat down and shut up. Yonsei conversely made more noise than I thought was possible. I made more noise than I thought possible. We rushed the field, where we danced and cheered for the next hour. The referees had decided not to continue the game into overtime but rather to call the soccer game and thus the entire festival a tie.


In all there were some very strange things about this festival. First, no one watched the games. Sure, winning was important, but how they got there didn't matter. Only the outcome and the resulting pride (or shame) seemed to be important. Most of the Koreans knew so little about the sports that they thought rugby was in fact American football. In America if a player was down the entire stadium would fall quite until he got up, but here it was entirely different. If players went down the crowd would continue on with there cheers until the cheerleaders silenced them.















Speaking of the cheerleaders, those outfits were outrageous. The guys had teal and pink clown jumpers on, and it was manly! "My outfit has tassels. Where are your tassels, girly man?"

If a team goes for an hour and a half without playing, as the Korea University team did, that's called forfeiting in America. There would be no negotiation. If you refuse to start on time then you are forfeiting. That negotiation stuff would never fly in the states.


The cheering and unified spirit was incredible. People where school colors in the States and all, but for every single person to turn out, where the same color, and cheer there heart out is unheard of.

All in all I don't expect to experience anything remotely like YonGo Jeon for the rest of my life. It was incredible.

아카라카! 아라칭! 아라쵸! 아라칭칭쵸쵸쵸! 랄랄라 시스붐바! 연세선수 라플라! 헤이 연세 야!