Seoul Mood Surprisingly Flat : Olympics Mania Takes Its Toll on Jaded S. Koreans

To Min Hyoung Cha and many other South Koreans, the 24th Summer Olympics has become a bore.

Banners hanging from virtually every office building, floral displays, welcome arches, fireworks, parades and festivals all have been organized by the government, said Min, a marketing specialist.

“None of it is spontaneous,” he complained.

One disgruntled hotel hostess agreed, declaring: “It’s as if the country existed for the Olympics.”

Indeed, the mood on the eve of Saturday’s opening ceremony in Seoul, a city of 10 million, is surprisingly and distinctly flat. Government propaganda for the Games has been so overwhelming that many Koreans feel saturated.

Countdown clocks--today they show a big “4,” the number of days left before the opening ceremony--were set in motion so long ago that few can remember exactly when. In fact, it was two years ago, after the 1986 Asian Games.

TV networks have been broadcasting hour after hour of Olympic specials--on past Olympics and on Olympic preparations. An Olympics quiz show is on the air every day, and the Olympics song, “Hand in Hand,” is repeated with maddening frequency.

Kim Jun Hyeon, an editor of the English-language student newspaper at Korea University, said that “to Westerners, the Olympics is being held in 1988, but to Koreans, it’s been going on since 1981.” In that year, the unpopular regime of former President Chun Doo Hwan succeeded in getting approval to put on the Games.

‘Watching, Not Participating’

“The people are just watching, not participating in the festivities,” said another student editor, Koo Dae Shik.

To the average South Korean, fear of post-Olympic political trouble, or regret that North Korea is not to be represented here, prevents a full savoring of what even critics acknowledge will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Four years ago in Los Angeles, there also was a noticeable lack of advance enthusiasm for the Games as residents focused on potential problems. But when the Olympic torch arrived on the outskirts of the city, the attitude changed dramatically, and people became involved in the festival atmosphere.

The torch does not arrive in Seoul until Friday, but at least out in the South Korean countryside, its passage is whipping up enthusiasm.

Torch Draws Crowd in Rain

When it reached the southern island of Cheju on Aug. 27, about 5,000 people stood in a steady rain at the airport to watch its arrival. Security personnel were unable to manage the crowd, which stormed the basin where the flame was to be lighted.

And on Monday in Wonju, a commercial center of 160,000 people in central South Korea, crowds gathered hours before the flame arrived and cheered lustily as it passed through the streets.

Kim Bum Il, director of marketing for the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee, acknowledged recently that the mood in Seoul seemed somewhat low-key. But he said that Koreans tend to put on sudden displays of emotion, and he predicted that the Olympics will provoke this kind of passion when they begin.

“Once people become excited, they become crazy,” Kim said. “Just wait--you’ll see.”

Dog Meat Less Obtrusive

While the Games are in progress, universities will be closed to discourage radical students from demonstrating. Professional baseball is taking a two-week holiday. Dog- and snake-meat restaurants have been moved off main streets, away from the eyes of foreign visitors. Peddlers have been forced to relocate. Drivers are being asked to leave their cars at home every other day to reduce traffic congestion. And the major political parties have declared a moratorium on bickering until after the Games.

Reporters at MBC, one of the two nationwide radio and TV networks, ended their recent strike with a compromise, citing hostile public opinion that accused them of trying to sabotage the Games. Leaders of a union of subway workers cited the same factor in delaying their walkout, which they rescheduled for Oct. 5, three days after the Games close.

Park Shin Il, director of the Korean Overseas Information Service, predicted that once the Games have been successfully concluded, “the people will be in a forgiving mood and will be embracing each other because we will have accomplished something to be proud of.”

Brief Moment of Glory

One waitress at a Seoul hotel, speaking on the condition that she not be identified by name, agreed that the Games should give South Korea its first moment of glory in the eyes of the world after “nothing but a dark image of war, authoritarian rule, demonstrations and tear gas.”

“But I fear that this favorable glimpse will be only momentary,” she said.

Also, complained hotel maid Kim Jung Ja, too few visitors are coming to Seoul to see the Olympics.

“We need more tourists,” she said. “The athletes don’t spend any money.”

Nonetheless, ticket-scalping is booming, with first-class seats for the opening and closing ceremonies, which originally sold for $210, being resold for up to $5,500. Nearly a million people applied for 20,000 opening-ceremony tickets, and lucky recipients were chosen in a lottery.

Price Tag of Billions

To put on the Games, according to the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee, will cost $3.1 billion, of which $1.4 billion will be contributed by the South Korean government. But a committee staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the total cost will probably be closer to $5 billion and that the government will provide about $3 billion.

“So much money is being spent, and there are so many poor people who aren’t benefiting from it,” the hotel waitress said. And, reflecting persistent fears that a new political clash will erupt once Olympic restraints are lifted, she said she was apprehensive about what might happen after the Games.

For now, Saturday’s opening ceremony promises to produce one of the most remarkable displays of national unity ever seen in the usually quarrelsome and divisive world of South Korean politics.

All the members of the National Assembly have bought tickets, and the leaders of the three major opposition parties are expected to attend. When President Roh Tae Woo was inaugurated last Feb. 25, all three snubbed that invitation.

Huh Kyung Man, chairman of a National Assembly committee and a member of the opposition Party for Peace and Democracy, said he could not recall a recent event that had brought all the political leaders together.

Policies Tied to Olympics

Indeed, first Chun, who sought to use the Olympics to legitimize his seizure of power in 1980, and now Roh have sought to explain virtually every policy decision as “needed for the Olympics.”

But last week, 16 dissident groups demanded the release--before the Games--of about 700 political prisoners and charged that the Games were being used to enforce dictatorial rule.

The dissidents also denounced Communist North Korea’s “exclusion” from the Olympics, called for reunification of Korea and demanded withdrawal of the 42,000 U.S. troops based here. They said the troops are an obstacle to reunification.

Kim Hyun Jin, editor of the English-language student newspaper Granite Tower at Korea University, charged that Roh “is using the Games to justify his half-legitimate government.” It is half-legitimate, he said, because although Roh, a former general, was elected by popular vote last December, his regime “is still a military government.”

Koo, one of Kim’s sub-editors, declared: “We should have achieved democracy first and then reunification, and after that the Olympics.”

Peddler Is Proud

But an old woman hawking dried squid in the Myongdong section of downtown Seoul had no such reservations.

“Certainly, for a small country like ours to stage the Olympics, I’m proud,” she said.

And shoe salesman Kim Jae Hyuk said the Olympics “may be the moment for Korea to move into the ranks of the world’s advanced nations.”

Perhaps the post-Olympic feelings that will last for most Koreans are similar to those felt back in 1981, before all the hoopla soured much of the public on the Games.

Lew Hwan Kyu, director of international activities for the Korea National Tourism Corp., recalled being mobilized at that time by the government as one of a delegation of lobbyists sent to promote South Korea at an International Olympic Committee meeting in West Germany.

No one, including the South Korean lobbyists, Lew said, expected Seoul to beat out Nagoya, Japan, the only other candidate for the 1988 Summer Games.

“Even on the day before the vote, we didn’t think we would win,” he said. “When we did, I broke into tears.”

Staff writer Karl Schoenberger also contributed to this story.