In the Pantheon of Western holidays, Christmas/New Years stands head and shoulders above the yearly competition. The Undisputed Champion of ‘Glad Tidings and Good Cheer’.

            This most righteous of seasonal/religious vacations finds much of Korea’s foreigner community back home for the holidays, to such exotic locales as Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States, myself included. The time of year is special to foreigners for a variety of reasons: giving and receiving gifts, eating an abundance of sweet and fattening foods, and reflecting on the year behind us and the year ahead.

            One of the peculiar ways Westerners like to reflect is by making top fill-in-the-blank lists as a means of taking the pulse and capturing the vibe of our times. Every year, and in all the major categories of human experience from politics, to sports, to movies and music, to life as a foreigner in Korea, experts compile lists of the most influential, substantive events of the previous year for the sake of posterity.

Nothing brings closure to our year better than a top five list of whatever it is you want a list of… for example, “Top Five Korean Stories of 2002.” So in deference to that tired, time-honored convention of “year in review” lists, here’s the top news stories from the Peninsula, foreigner or otherwise:

1)     Most Hyped Event—Spectator category: World Cup. It’s tempting to add a “need I say more” exclamation mark after this one and move on to the next news story, but there are a couple of observations worth mentioning. First, South Korea distinguished itself as much for its fans as it did for the team’s run through the tournament. For me, the scene that lingers is the 100,000-plus mesmerized, painted faces, “Be the Reds” T-shirts, and Daehan-Min’guk flags swaying in front of a giant-screen TV in downtown Seoul. I also carry the more personal memory of standing against the concrete retaining wall at Daegu Stadium during halftime and saying a tiny prayer that Korea tied up its qualifying-round game with the Americans so that 60,000 irate fans wouldn’t burn the real me in lieu of effigy.

2)     Part II—Participatory category: Death of the Schoolgirls. Sounds like a B-movie horror flick, doesn’t it? Certainly had similar shades and undertones. In the middle of World Cup fever, a U.S. Army vehicle on maneuvers crushed to death two middle-school girls on their way to a birthday party on a country road near the northern border. Just about the time the traffic accident was moving off the front pages to make room for the thrill of sports, the U.S. Forces Korea decided to try the two enlisted men operating the vehicle for negligent homicide. The court acquits, the people throw fits, and Uncle Sam comes off looking like a nit with no wits. In a land rife with conspiracy theories, let me throw another log on the fire. The “show” trial was all an American plot to get an anti-American president elected in Korea so that Cheong Wa Dae would toss out the U.S. grunts. What… !? That’s right, in the true spirit of contrariness I offer up this chestnut that the Washington suits wanted out of Korea but with the locals handling the “here’s-your-hat-what’s-your-hurry” end of it. In support of my conspiracy thesis let me just say two words: The Philippines. ‘Nuff said.

3)     The Spirit of Democracy Award: Yes to Roh. Roh Moo-hyun, a well-groomed, mid-50s Pusan-based civil rights lawyer, the very epitome of a Korean Horatio Alger’s story (or maybe just a Bill Clinton), twisted and turned his way into the Blue House… and I mean that in a nice way. Like bottles of beer on the wall, all of the candidates save one happened to fall, so Koreans took Roh, the last Bud standing, down and passed him around, thus signaling a sea-change in Korean politics. Although the Jeolla provinces continued the tradition of regionalism by polling in the upper 90s for the standard-bearer of the legacy of the Southwest’s number one son, Kim Dae-jung, the rest of the country split along generational lines. The kids dug Roh, Gramps thought Lee Hoi-chang was swell, and the middlin’ ages, who usually vote with their bank accounts in mind, swung ever-so-slightly over to the former. My prediction for a Roh presidency: It’ll last five years. Yep, that’s as far out on a limb as anyone should be willing to go on this one. Korean politics is so squirrelly, shifts and re-shifts so frequently, even Roh probably doesn’t know which way the north winds will blow, you know?

4)     Best Forgotten: Foreigner Drug Bust. Hard to believe that that rather uncomfortable event happened this year. For those of you who experienced it firsthand, especially from the inside looking out, it was a bummer, the details of which are not worth repeating. There is, however, one snippet of the whole messy affair worth retouching on: those glorious few weeks I call “Out on Bail!” For the first time in the history of Pusan, the Korean criminal justice system released all the prisoners, both foreign and domestic, while they awaited sentencing after copping a plea. For almost one month, several of our friends who later were deported, spent their restored freedom on one helluva bender. There were magic moments when we all got one more chance to dance together, sing, make music, laugh, cry, vomit, and nurse debilitating hangovers. On New Year’s, be sure to raise your glass for the brothers and sisters who are no longer with us. Their holiday vibe is sorely missed.

5)     Sex and Violence Award: Nukes and Cheerleaders. To keep it to five so the last entry has been doubled up. True story: The sister of a Korean friend of mine drew tour duty on one of the buses that brought part of the squad of North Korean cheerleaders from the ship to Sajik-dong everyday to root, root, root for the home team. I heard indirectly several tidbits about those fabulous “Pukyo” babes from the North. For instance, the girls loved to sing odes to the two northern Kims, Il-sung and Jong-il, on the rides to and fro’. Although such ditties were banned by the South Korean government, those feisty gals just couldn’t resist murdering a few bars of those great revolutionary standards. Seems they really were enamoured with their leadership. It wasn’t just a front for the cameras after all. Ah, better living through propaganda. Also, on a few occasions when the girls let a verbal faux pas slip instead of towing the line about how dreary life was in the South, those girls would go missing the following days and, according to the sister, turn up later with welts and bruises on their arms that would be covered strategically by their “hanbok” costumes. Spooky. Regarding the other story, the “nukes” in the North stuff that’s been on the front page of my hometown newspaper every day since I’ve been home. Also spooky.

6)     Bonus – Breakthrough Performance: Eminem. In the interest of promoting cross-cultural dialogue, here’s an extra one thrown in from the purveyors of American culture. This was a banner year for the bad white boy of rap. Dr. Dre disciple, Motor City movie star, and the single biggest reason for censorship drives in music, E made all the right moves in 2002. Scored a huge box-office hit with “8 mile,” nominally the story of his life as an aspiring white rapper from Detroit costarring Kim Basinger. The shirtless, bleach-blonde “real Slim Shady” also captured three MTV Awards for Best Rap Video, Best Male Video, and best of all, Video of the Year with his in-your-face rebuke to his critics, “Without Me.” MTV is the arbiter of what’s hot, hip, and in with American youngsters. To top that off, the CD on which the song appears, “The Eminem Show,” sold 285,000 copies in one day, making E the first artist to hit No. 1 on the first day of sales.

So what’s the Korean-foreigner zeitgeist for 2002? The year was a pretty big one for Korea, and if the daily front-page news stories about North Korea in my hometown paper are any indication, the year 2003 holds more of the same. Happy Holidays.

Spooklarsen@yahoo.com