A couple of years ago I heard a story about “jung”. A middle-aged woman (I’ll call her Sun-mi) spoke of a friend who had emigrated to the U.S. with her family and lived there for about twenty years. One day her friend’s husband died. The woman’s children had grown up and moved back to Korea years earlier, so the woman was alone. Neighbors knew of her situation and often dropped by to check on her and help out however they could but, unable to shake her feelings of isolation, she decided to move back to Korea. Sun-mi met her friend at the airport and, at a loss for words upon seeing her, walked up to her and simply gave her a hug. Her friend broke into tears and told her that Sun-mi had helped her when no one else could. This, the middle-aged woman told me, was “jung”.

When I heard her story I was cynical. I thought, “Neighbors (some of whom she likely knew for twenty years) offered this woman help and sympathy to no avail, yet a simple hug from a friend cured her ills?” I concluded that jung was nothing more than a crutch created by people unable to assimilate with other cultures. (At least this form of jung. Jung has evolved into many variations as it’s been passed down from generation to generation.) But the more I thought about her story, the more I realized that indeed most of us take special comfort in being around those whom we have known from early in life. It’s just that for Koreans, for a variety of reasons, the comfort is more intense.

I think this particular concept of jung has played a role in the success of the Korean team in the World Baseball Classic (WBC). Though certainly most of the Korean players haven’t known one another since childhood, they do often come from similar backgrounds. Korean athletes do not normally attend traditional high schools. If they are deemed talented enough, they are placed in special schools where academics take a back seat to athletic competition. In my opinion, these similar backgrounds combine with the natural tendency for Koreans to gather together to provide the necessary formula for the team to conjure up some jung. In the WBC, Koreans whose playing careers are in the U.S. and Japan have figuratively stepped off of the airplane and into the waiting arms of a friend.

One might wonder, even if the Korean team has somehow managed to slip in a little jung next to their bat rack, how could something so abstract give them an edge? I would suggest that it’s much like the role faith plays in self-healing. Our minds are affected deeply enough to allow something mysterious to transpire that in turn leads to accomplishments beyond expectations. I believe that the comfort level of playing with other members from the homeland has allowed a team of lesser (though obviously underrated) talent to collectively lift their individual games even higher. If you disagree, then you try explaining how Park Chan-ho (5.74 ERA in 2005) and Kim Byung-hyun (4.86) have been able to dominate in this tournament.

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