By Kim Ji-myung
"Do you ride horses?" I asked the man next to me, to break the ice. A group of Olympic leaders were on a tour of European cities to promote the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, about a year before the games, and an after-dinner performance of dressage was just about to start for the guests of honor from Korea.
The performer sitting on horseback just then was the daughter of the host, a German businessman, and the Olympic-standard riding ground could be viewed through a glass wall from the audience seats inside the dining hall. The young woman was a dressage athlete hoping to compete in the coming Seoul Olympics.
"Well, yes, sort of …" was his answer. At that moment, I realized that I had absolutely no knowledge of riding, raising or breeding horses; and so I could not think of a following question.
Someone nearby then told me he was Dr. Reiner Klimke, the famous and legendary winner of six gold medals at the Olympics. If anyone does not recognize a person, "he must be a spy from the north" in a South Korean-style expression, and I felt perplexed in this way.
My German friend, who was working at the Korean Embassy in Bonn at that time, found the situation hilarious. She even commented, "Good for you! Why should everyone on earth know his name? It is absolutely fine for you to ask him if he could ride a horse!"
After adding his sixth gold medal in the Seoul Olympics, Dr. Klimke died in 1999.
The recent scandal in Korea refreshed my memory of that dinner in (then West) Germany as the video clip of eventing skill training of another young woman, also an aspiring dressage athlete, appeared numerous times recently on our TV screens. She had posted nasty and churlish comments about her privilege and her parents' wealth online, which unleashed a storm of criticism.
I have searched the history of horses in Asia and particularly in Korea. Contrary to my vague guesswork that the traditions of equestrian sports, golfing and hunting ― that required vast green spaces for practice by a small number of aristocrats in Europe ― had not existed in East Asia, horses have been a very important part of Korean life throughout history.
Records say that when the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan attacked Europe, they arrived riding so fast and deftly on horseback that the Europeans thought the man and horse were one body.
Western missionaries who travelled in Korea some 100 years ago attested to the powerful and persevering Korean horse, with short legs like a donkey. It was so small as to be called an "under-the-fruit-tree horse" but knew no fatigue at all.
Before the Korean War, people remember that some rich families in the northern part of Korea had horses for family use, and sometimes their sons had their own horses, to the envy of neighbors.
The presence of many proverbs about horses is evidence of the intimacy of that animal to the Korean people. "When you get a horse to ride, you want to have a boy to pull him." "Send a boy to Seoul and send a horse to Jeju Island." "Better to be alive in this world, even lying on horse dung."
Horse riding has never been a popular sport among Koreans. But since a few decades ago, there have been riding tracks or grounds for guided riding programs for tourists and riding schools. Some elementary schools even run weekly special horseback riding lessons.
A Corpus Search of four major newspapers shows no word "horse" in 2000. But beginning in 2006, there is an increasing number of occurrences, often with "horseback riding" and "school admission," and "special talent student."
It was interesting that "horseback riding for rehabilitation" and "horse riding for treatment" began to appear from the mid-2000s, and this trend is likely to continue.
It is welcome if our nation's culture includes a love of horsemanship again, unless it is misused as an illegal bypass to gain privilege for those in the powerful and influential class of people.
The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.
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The performer sitting on horseback just then was the daughter of the host, a German businessman, and the Olympic-standard riding ground could be viewed through a glass wall from the audience seats inside the dining hall. The young woman was a dressage athlete hoping to compete in the coming Seoul Olympics.
"Well, yes, sort of …" was his answer. At that moment, I realized that I had absolutely no knowledge of riding, raising or breeding horses; and so I could not think of a following question.
Someone nearby then told me he was Dr. Reiner Klimke, the famous and legendary winner of six gold medals at the Olympics. If anyone does not recognize a person, "he must be a spy from the north" in a South Korean-style expression, and I felt perplexed in this way.
My German friend, who was working at the Korean Embassy in Bonn at that time, found the situation hilarious. She even commented, "Good for you! Why should everyone on earth know his name? It is absolutely fine for you to ask him if he could ride a horse!"
After adding his sixth gold medal in the Seoul Olympics, Dr. Klimke died in 1999.
The recent scandal in Korea refreshed my memory of that dinner in (then West) Germany as the video clip of eventing skill training of another young woman, also an aspiring dressage athlete, appeared numerous times recently on our TV screens. She had posted nasty and churlish comments about her privilege and her parents' wealth online, which unleashed a storm of criticism.
I have searched the history of horses in Asia and particularly in Korea. Contrary to my vague guesswork that the traditions of equestrian sports, golfing and hunting ― that required vast green spaces for practice by a small number of aristocrats in Europe ― had not existed in East Asia, horses have been a very important part of Korean life throughout history.
Records say that when the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan attacked Europe, they arrived riding so fast and deftly on horseback that the Europeans thought the man and horse were one body.
Western missionaries who travelled in Korea some 100 years ago attested to the powerful and persevering Korean horse, with short legs like a donkey. It was so small as to be called an "under-the-fruit-tree horse" but knew no fatigue at all.
Before the Korean War, people remember that some rich families in the northern part of Korea had horses for family use, and sometimes their sons had their own horses, to the envy of neighbors.
The presence of many proverbs about horses is evidence of the intimacy of that animal to the Korean people. "When you get a horse to ride, you want to have a boy to pull him." "Send a boy to Seoul and send a horse to Jeju Island." "Better to be alive in this world, even lying on horse dung."
Horse riding has never been a popular sport among Koreans. But since a few decades ago, there have been riding tracks or grounds for guided riding programs for tourists and riding schools. Some elementary schools even run weekly special horseback riding lessons.
A Corpus Search of four major newspapers shows no word "horse" in 2000. But beginning in 2006, there is an increasing number of occurrences, often with "horseback riding" and "school admission," and "special talent student."
It was interesting that "horseback riding for rehabilitation" and "horse riding for treatment" began to appear from the mid-2000s, and this trend is likely to continue.
It is welcome if our nation's culture includes a love of horsemanship again, unless it is misused as an illegal bypass to gain privilege for those in the powerful and influential class of people.
The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.
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