Baseball seems to have this steady position
for the most popular sports in Korea. It has the most steadfast fan of all
time. Since 1980, about 60% of people are choosing it as the most existing
sport event. Still, they play, chant, and cheer in the stadium for few other
games. Let’s see what are those games except the KBO League-
Soccer
In Korea, people call it ‘chukgu’. The portion
‘gu’ basically means ‘ball’. There are many sports name in Korea that contains
‘gu’ in their name. They play this game with a ball, hence it is called chukgu.
In 2002, South Korea hosted the world cup of the soccer game.
There are some other sports that they play with balls. For example, baseball- it’s called
‘yagu’. Then we have basketball which is known as ‘nonggu’. So, from now on,
from Korea, if you come across any word that has ‘gu’, you will know it
requires a ball to play.
Hiking
This is interesting because hiking itself is a
game in Korea. People usually play games while climbing up to a mountain, but
this literally a ‘game’ for them. People call it ‘deungsan’ in Korea. ‘san’
means mountains and ‘deung’ climbing up.
Well, it more of a light sport and has the
most popularity as a light sport. People seem to decide to go hiking a lot.
And, in the weekends they don’t miss it! Moreover, Korea has some great
mountain views and you will find the mountain easily somewhere near you. Maybe
that’s why people like this sport so much.
Basketball
This is most popular among high school kids.
We already mentioned earlier it is called ‘nonggu’. All the school in Korea has
a spacious basketball court. In relation to baseball, kids play it more because
getting a field doesn’t seem as feasible as getting a court for basketball. It
more like a go-to sport for the kids if they are in a mood of playing something
outside.
Korean Wrestling
This is their traditional games and it is
called ‘ssireum’. Seemingly, it a lot like sumo, that’s played in Japan. But,
they have certain variations in terms of rules. It is happening in the country
quite often. Whenever you turn-on TV you probably catch an on-going tournament
somewhere.
Martial Art
This is another traditional game in Korea.
It’s a martial art game that was originally developed in Korea. The name was
coined by Choi Hong Hi. There’s a controversy regarding coining the name. The
International Taekwon-Do federation says it was coined by Choi but the World
Taekwondo Federation claims it was rather group effort of nine original nine Kwans
to come up with this name.
This game requires a mat of 10m square. There
are some fixed areas where the players can hit. You won by kicking and blowing
on the allowed body parts of your opposition as many times you can. You get 1
point for when you strike in the body and you get 2 points when you kick on the
face.
Jokgu
It is fundamentally a mix of football and
volleyball. It is also similar to football tennis, which is another game from
Korea. Sounds quite interesting, isn’t it? Korean militaries made this game up
originally for the leisure time. As time passed, it gained popularity
throughout the country. This game is played in junior, amateur, and
professional levels, and it is played between 2 teams that consist of 4 players
each.
The ball that is used in this game is 20cm in
diameter. It’s slightly smaller than the ball used to play volleyball. The
court for this game needs to be 16m/7m in proportion and 1.1m in height. By the
by, the height particularly is similar to the tennis game.
Final Thoughts
As you can see from the popular sports in
Korea, there are mainly baseball, basketball, and soccer. You can visit this
site 슈어맨, to get the latest analysis for all the
sports and games.
