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Thu, July 7, 2022 | 01:39
Guest Column
Escape to the slopes
Posted : 2021-12-30 16:30
Updated : 2021-12-30 16:30
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By John Sheridan

Once I took up skiing in South Korea, it made being here in winter so much better. I went from enduring cold winters to anticipating ski season. I often wondered why more ESL teachers didn't ski, especially since it used to be very good value when I started in 1983. They didn't know what they were missing.

Skiing the slopes of the Gangwon Plateau was not only great fun, it was also an escape from polluted Seoul. Pollution in 1980s Seoul was vehicular, because Pony taxis, public buses, big trucks, private cars and other vehicles were without an emission control device.

The congested streets of Seoul were toxic, with the Gwanghwamun intersection being one of the most polluted places in the world. There were certain locations around Seoul which I used to call "toxic zones" because of the acrid air I was breathing there while hailing a taxi.

Pollution got so bad there that a band of environmentalists climbed the Admiral Yi Sun-sin statue, unfolding banners protesting Seoul's pollution. Most Seoulites, however, accepted pollution as a fact of urban life.

When I'd suggest in class replacing the aging buses and trucks, the worst polluters, my students were against it, saying that that would be too expensive. Nothing was to interfere with South Korea's economic development, not even everyone's well-being.

Seoul's air began to improve when the U.S. required all imported vehicles to have the same emission control device as vehicles made in America, compelling Hyundai to implement American standards to its cars.

Eventually the polluting vehicles left the streets, replaced by much cleaner ones. (Now I even notice a polluting vehicle.) So, by 2000, there was a noticeable improvement to Seoul's air. An Irishman who returned to Seoul in 2000 after a 10-year hiatus, commented immediately about the improved air he was breathing when we met in Gwanghwamun.

Since the countryside wasn't plagued by pollution in the 1980s, going there was always a breath of fresh air, an escape. There was no better escape than skiing Gangwon's slopes and luxuriating in its pristine environment.

There were so many days when I felt so much alive while skiing under a bright blue sky and breathing fresh mountain air. Every once in a while a low-hanging cloud would blanket the slope, leaving exposed mountain tops looking like islands in a sea of cloud, a captivating mystical landscape.

Frenetic Seoul was out of sight, and out of mind. One Korean woman said that when she's skiing she forgets about her job, her boyfriend and all her other problems.

Likewise, the great downhill racer Lindsey Vonn said that skiing freed her from her marriage-divorce stress, as well as from the problems she had before breaking with her father-cum-coach. Once Lindsey was on the slopes, all that was forgotten.

That's because skiing requires total concentration; there's no room for distraction nor daydreaming when skiing down a slope. Tell that to Tony Danza, who survived a near-fatal encounter with a tree while skiing in Utah, the U.S. The popular American TV actor later admitted that he had a lot on his mind that day and wasn't concentrating on skiing. Indeed.

I just wish that downhill racers got more recognition in America, that more couch potatoes knew how special these racers are. Which is why Lindsey Vonn's top endorsement money for a single year was $1 million, albeit not much compared with Tiger Woods' money when they were one of sports' celebrity couples. A klutzy cameraman following Tiger around one of Lindsey's World Cup races got too close, actually knocking out one of his teeth.

In fact, I have more admiration for female downhill racers than I do for guys given that some girls go almost as fast as boys, sometimes going 60-70mph on a downhill run. That's right. They are "bold, courageous and brave."

An American downhill racer I met at Yongpyong Resort told me that he was clocked at 92mph during a race, and he was only ranked 100th in the world. When I asked him how it is humanly possible to actually ski that fast, to physically do that, he said, "You just let it rip." Amazing.

"Downhill Racer," a 1969 film starring Robert Redford about the glamorous lifestyle and fierce competition of the World Cup circuit, was shot on location at some of Europe's and America's fabled ski resorts, introducing me to an Alpine wonderland that I knew nothing about. Still, I didn't take up skiing until 1983, at 35. I'm most grateful to South Korea for this.

Anyone in fair-to-middling physical condition can ski, boy or girl. Nor does one have to be athletic. The snow and angle of the slope propel you; all you have to do is control the skis.

What's more, today's skiers don't have to worry too much about the ankle and knee injuries which used to discourage people from skiing. One high school buddy, for example, broke his ankle the first time he got off a ski lift in the mid-60s. But that was then. Now that they have developed high-tech bindings, those common ski injuries have been greatly reduced.

And then there was Johnny Carson, the legendary American talk show host, who often said that he didn't ski because he didn't want to get injured, as if it were a foregone conclusion. Well, you didn't know what you were missing, Johnny.


John Sheridan (sherbo77@yahoo.com) calls himself an "urban flaneur" living in Seoul.


 
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