Korean Professional Volleyball Game: A Story of Foreigner Privilege in Korea

When living in a somewhat homogenous society such as Korea, it is inevitable that I will experience some special treatment.  This treatment is usually unsolicited and innocent in intent.  However, on rare occasions it is nice to be able to use the "foreigner card" to get special treatment.  Whether its getting a little extra food at restaurants (or the occasional free beer), getting out of minor trouble by simply pleading ignorance, avoiding conversations by pretending to not know any Korean or English if that fails, or going onto the court to celebrate the championship of one of Korea's top professional sports with the team that won.  That is what this story is about.

So this Monday, one of my rugby teammates invited me to watch a professional volleyball game with him because he got free tickets.  Apparently the Croatian community in Korea is so small that whenever a new Croatian comes to Korea they instantly bond, because this professionally volleyball team recently got a new Croatian player and my teammate is Croatian and they found each other on Facebook and became friends just because of their shared nationality.  Anyways, he got us free tickets to sit with his wife and child.  Upon arriving at the game I learned that this was the championship finals with the series tied 2-2 in a best of 5 series.  Winner takes all.

The match was pretty intense with each set being very close, but in the end the Croatians team won it.  It was very exciting.  At this point I was ready to pack it in and go home as it was a weekday, I had work the next morning, and still had about an hour long commute to get home.  However, my Croatian friend said, "I want to get on the court and congratulate him."  Speculative in nature, I told him that I don't think we could do that, as it was only for players and families.  This is because I did not yet know the power of the "foreigner card" because I had never tried to use it.  Now I think my "card" will come into play a bit more often, because as we were walked towards the court and were inevitably stopped by security, my friend just simply said, "we are family".  At this, the security stepped aside and we walked past all the adorning fans being blocked off by security right onto the court.  Once on the court we were handed the same championship t-shirts that were passed out to the players.  Being feet away from these professional athletes, dressed in the official championship gear, and being showered in confetti as a part of this championship celebration was a cool experience, and I don't even care about volleyball.