Danny ChaiHats off to the Seahawks. I hate them, but they were the best team in the league this year and deserved to win. As a 49er fan I’m just gutted because now it seems clear they were the 2nd best team in the NFL.
I cannot express how annoying the UK coverage of the Super Bowl was. The announcers kept making really bad mistakes: one repeatedly referred to Seahawks receiver “Daniel Baldwin”; the main (Scottish) guy claimed at halftime that Seattle was winning because Russell Wilson was “on fire”. Uh, was he watching the same game? Seattle’s D (and special teams) utterly dominated. That was the game. Sometimes we complain in the US about announcers saying dumb things, but the UK just takes it to another level.
I enjoyed Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner)’s tribute to Candlestick Park. It made me realize one reason why I love football so much: it’s probably the first thing in my life that made me feel really American. Asian-Americans have these complicated issues of feeling split and mixed identities. In my early childhood, I was raised Korean. I spoke only Korean at home, ate Korean food, went to a Korean church. So I remember feeling really out of place when I first attended school.
But once I got in the 49ers, I felt a commonality with my “American” classmates. I might eat weird food, they might think my house smells funny, I might have a bad Asian bowl haircut, but we could at least relate with the 49ers. I think that bond with my schoolmates is one reason why football means so much to me.
Speaking of identity, I realized something interesting about being a Korean-American in the UK. Being here, I’m kind of forced to choose which side – Korean or American – I identify with most. And I was trying to figure out why that is. And I figured out it’s purely for other people – like it or not, other people need some sort of framework to understand who I am. And here, most people don’t understand the nuances of being Korean-American; saying that confuses how they understand me rather than clarifying. So I have to choose. And which one I identify with subtly affects how people relate to me. I would be treated differently in the office if I categorized myself as Korean. Not necessarily badly, just differently.
But I identify myself as American, because of the two, that’s closer to who I really am. And here’s the weird thing – since that’s how I categorize myself here, I find myself acting more “American” here than in the US. Like, I think I’m vocally louder here. Still not at all loud, just louder than I would be in the US. Because I’m playing the role of an American. Because that’s how I identify myself here. Because I need to identify myself in one category to help others understand how to relate to me. It’s weird.
Anyway yeah, Super Bowl. In the local papers the Super Bowl got news coverage but I’d say roughly equal (or slightly less) than the 6 Nations Rugby Tournament. It’s still seen as an American curiosity more than anything else. People who think London can support an NFL franchise full time are delusional.
Also, are the Winter Olympics big news? I feel like it’s hardly mentioned here, probably because Great Britain is not that good at winter sports. If it weren’t for the ads on US TV shows, I wouldn’t even know when they were starting.