Korea came of age with 1988 Seoul Olympics

More than 8,400 athletes from 159 countries took part in the opening ceremony of the XXIV Summer Olympic Games at the Main Olympic Stadium in Jamsil, southern Seoul, on Sept 17, 1998. / Korea Times file

By Michael Breen

"North or South?" the London cab driver asked me after I told him I had flown in that day from Korea. "You know North Korea is communist?" he added when I said I had come from South Korea.

It was early 1988 and the world was hearing more about the country in the build-up to the Summer Olympics in Seoul. Although the TV reports and newspaper articles most people paid attention to were about sports, little bits of information about the country, like the fact the South was the non-communist part, were creeping through. Then the driver imparted some knowledge that really surprised me.

"You know the South Koreans will walk into the stadium last in the opening ceremony?" I had by that time been a correspondent in Korea for six years, but, no, I didn't know that. "That's because they spell their country's name with an 'h' and 'h' is the last letter in the Korean alphabet." He pronounced the word 'haitch' with an initial 'h' as some Britons do.

A few months later, I was sitting in the stand of the main Olympic Stadium in Jamsil, Seoul, watching the opening ceremony of the Games and, sure enough, the Korean team came in last. When they entered, a row of 20 Seoul-based foreign correspondents who had been given VIP tickets by the organizing committee for the occasion, spontaneously rose to their feet. Soon the entire stand had followed our lead.

This gesture of respect for the country by a group which was widely misunderstood by the authorities as "anti-Korean" for its critical reporting was a minor moment in an event which had taken on far greater significance, as the Olympics so often does, than sports itself.

Seoul was chosen to host the 1988 Games at a vote by the International Olympic Committee in 1981, defeating the only other bidder, the Japanese city of Nagoya, by 52 votes to 27. For Koreans, the choice was remarkable, a stunning endorsement of their country that in their own assessment was still poor and, in many ways, backward.

The idea the bid was first raised in the late '70s before the assassination of then-president Park Chung-hee. His successor, Chun Doo-hwan, gave the go-ahead hoping the Olympics would showcase the country's economic miracle and thereby legitimize his own rule. Chun had come to power via a mutinous military coup in the wake of Park's death.

Reflecting this priority, he put fellow coup-maker Roh Tae-woo in the charge of the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee. Seoul telescoped 20 years of development planning into seven years. Throughout the decade, every government press release and news event involving the international media, it seemed, began with a reference to the Olympics and to the city's planned hosting of the 1986 Asian Games.

In an unanticipated irony the Olympics not only helped Korea develop and showcase itself. It also contributed to democracy. When nationwide pro-democracy protests broke out in the summer of 1987, the threat of a marred Olympics helped Chun’s decision to concede and allow a direct popular vote to replace the indirect, and government-controlled, electoral college system in the election at the end of his 7-year term.

Then, after so many years, so many words, and so much preparation, the Games were upon us. The whole country was behind them. Even students stopped protesting to avoid giving the country a bad name. By this time, Roh was the president, democratically elected in December 1987 in the country's first free vote. As he opened the Olympics, the rest of the world had its first good look at modern Korea.

Although foreign correspondents had been reporting on the economic changes for years, the greater emphasis had been on the absence of political development. Images of student protests and labor unrest and the “dark side of development” conveyed the sense of a still backward nation.

The Olympic Games brought in the largest influx of foreigners since the Korean War and most of them, athletes, officials and sports writers had little interest in political demonstrations and sweat shops. To them, the modern stadiums and facilities and the ability of the Koreans to organize what at the time was generally recognized as the best Games to date, was nothing short of astounding, compared to what they had been led to expect. This was a developed state as far as most were concerned.

In a broader sense, this event marked the moment of South Korea’s ascendancy over North Korea in the minds of all Koreans. Korea had split into North and South in 1948 and the rivalry was deadly. One was destined to win and the other to lose. The symbolic importance was not lost on North Korea. It tried to demand co-hosting but failed to understand that the Games were awarded to a city, not a country. Then it sent terrrorists to put explosives on a Korean Air flight and create security fears on the eve of a vote by its east bloc allies about whether to boycott the Games. The plane crashed into the sea and all on board were killed but the terrorists were caught and revealed as North Koreans.

Southerners continued to be paranoid beyond a reasonable level of fear about the North, but the contest was over in terms of which system would win. The telling measure of this was the decision by the North’s east European allies to participate, ending a run of Games marred by boycotts (Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984).

The Chinese, who were participating for the first time, refused to join a North Korean boycott and got a stirring welcome when its team entered the Olympic Stadium. There was more than sports and symbolism in the east bloc decision. Beijing had already developed a significant trade with Seoul and other states were taking a particular interest in how South Korea had grown so remarkably under strong authoritarian government. Only Albania, Cuba, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Nicaragua, and the Seychelles joined the North Koreans and stayed away. They were not missed.

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