Meditations: Khölbömbög!

Okay, I admit it: this has very little to do with Mongolia. But it is related to traveling (marginally)…

Part of the privilege of being abroad in even-yeared summers is the World Cup. I know, I know, you can see it in the States on TV, and I’m sure there’s bars that get really into it, but it’s not the same as all the bars setting up screens and crowding with people for a few hours every evening, and hearing collective citywide cheers from my window, and having a go-to conversation topic with just about anyone in the city. Although I should admit, as much as I like the idea of the World Cup, the first real (start-to-finish) match I saw and paid attention to was the Japan-Paraguay match last night. And it got me thinking…

 

In the first few minutes, a Japan player ran into a Paraguay player and the latter fell down for a minute. It was pretty clearly an accident, and when the Paraguay player got up, the Japan player seemed very apologetic and even helped him up a bit. Immediately, my loyalties shifted to Japan. (They were less enthused about their anthem than Paraguay, but this made up for it.) It was so nice to see an athlete actually be polite and helpful in the game.

Alas, though, this was not to be the norm. The rest of the game, I was shocked by how the players seemed so unconcerned for their opponents. As professional football players, they all have something important in common; they all know what it’s like to fall and/or be hurt and also tired and stressed. So why couldn’t they extend a little compassion, share a joke, anything? Prove that people basically good, or something. But instead, (and this is really what got to me), they were 100% only out for themselves and their own team. Of course, I understand wanting to do your best and win, but what about when they protest perfectly fair calls? What about a specific moment when the ball went out of bounds, and both the Japan player and Paraguay player who’d been with it raised their hands to claim their own possession? In the replay, it was pretty clear that Japan had kicked it out, so why did he even try to claim it? Isn’t it just as bad to win because of an unfair call (where’s the merit in that?) as to lose?

I want to see a team (or player) who tries to correct the ref when ref makes un unfair call in their favor; I want to see someone who, if an opponent goes down and the ball goes out, stops to help up the opponent and brush off the grass; I want to see a winning team who shakes hands with the losers before they all get together and shout and celebrate and do whatever it is winning football teams do (I shudder to think). One of the things that I love about tennis is that the players (Federer excepted, of course) tend at least to appear to be good guys. I know there were players in the past who were famous for their tempers and foul language and general jerkishness, but what I remember (and love best) about tennis was watching Blake and Nadal (or whomever) be polite to each other, and express their admiration for the player who just beat them or lost to them or whatever. I think I may have cried because there was just something so beautiful about athletes saying, “We’re opponents, but we’re not enemies, and competition is not as important as being a compassionate and courteous human being.” I miss that. And I think football could use that.

But perhaps I’m being too idealistic—maybe it is too much to expect players to strive to be the best and compete, and then risk a loss over courtesy. And I don’t think that the players protest fair calls knowing they’re fair; I think probably they convince themselves that the call is unfair, or that the other guy really did kick the ball out. But that is a problem. Something in the sport is wrong if people actually actively convince themselves that they are always in the right.

So what is this? What about football breeds such behavior? Is it that good playing requires aggression, and aggression and courtesy are too hard to reconcile? Is it because these athletes are treated like they’re the tops, so they get that idea into their brain and can’t discard it, even when they’re playing someone who is playing better than they are? Or is it that the guys who are jerks and push and trip and yell are the ones who tend to succeed? Like in politics, does all the scum float to the top, leaving clearer water at the bottom where no one sees it?

That’s Meditation #1. The second thing I was thinking about was loyalties, and from where they come. If your nation’s playing, it’s pretty easy, obviously. But what about those games (most of them, especially if you’re USA) where your team isn’t playing. Brazil or Portugal? England or Germany? Japan or Paraguay? A game isn’t fun unless you’re cheering for someone, so how does one decide for whom to cheer? In some cases it’s obvious. Sports history might influence you (e.g. I will never root for Ghana), and in some cases maybe real history or politics influences you (I was glad to see N Korea lose to anyone), but it’s not always that clear.

For example, in the Paraguay-Japan game, for whom was I to root? I didn’t have language or geography favoring either, I’d never been to either, and I didn’t really know who was a better team. So the passionate anthem got me for Paraguay, but the courteous player and efficient playing in the first few minutes switched me wholeheartedly (and tragically, in the end) to Japan. But, fresh off my readings of the Crusades and Holy Wars, etc., etc., watching the Paraguay players cross themselves or pray, I thought, “Oh wait, should I be rooting for them?” …No… Religious affiliation, which was a pretty strong binding factor 5-10 centuries ago, is no longer taken into account much; “Christendom” as an entity no longer exists like it used to. So that’s out. East vs. West? But, no, not that either. Apart from the fact that it was always a pretty fuzzy categorization anyway, it doesn’t really apply at all now. Korea and Japan are considered by some to be more “Western” than “Eastern” in culture, values, and whatever else people use to classify. (I’m aware of the absurdity of categorizing “culture and values” at all, much less into such arbitrary categories as “east” and “west.”) So that doesn’t work… Geographical proximity? No… The English I’ve talked to cheer for Brazil over Portugal and Argentina over Germany. Some people choose based on whether they want an underdog or a winner, I guess. But for those of us who are football-clueless, that’s about as helpful as “East” vs. “West.”

In a flattening world, where do our loyalties lie? When we have so much in common with everyone, and still so much that is different, whom do we consider close to us?

The Mongolians were all rooting for Japan, and one guy we talked to said it best when we asked him why: “Japan has good team.” I think that works perfectly—Choose the “good” team, however you want to define “good,” and cheer away.

 (Who even produces knockoff flags?)