Hot New Sports! Come Read All About It!

This month, I Dig Culture is celebrating Sports, a rather exciting topic to tackle. Here is an opportunity to cover the history, the physicality, the winning, the losing, the traditions, and the power of sports. But, haven't we seen all of this in previous films and live broadcasts? Remember the Titans, Miracle, ESPN, The Waterboy... Perhaps what is more important is the is opportunity to share some unique sports which exist from opposite sides of the globe. For anyone who is like me and has never really cared for sports of any sort - perhaps this short article will give you a little inspiration, a little kick in the pants to care about a new sport. So, let’s explore two very unique sports that exist on completely opposite ends of the globe, shall we?

Dog Dancing: A Human’s Best Dance Partner?

The sport, or perhaps the art, of Dog Dancing originated in Canada during the mid-1980's. From there, the idea of dogs’ freestyling to music with their handlers quickly spread to other countries such as England, the Netherlands, the United States and various others. The dancing participants, human and canine alike, have gained popularity for their talents, tricks, and rhythmic show of companionship. How could I forget to mention the various styles of freestyle dance that the dogs and their handlers get to explore? Some of my favorites include the Salsa, Meringue, and Swing.

Uploads of previous filming induce heart-warming feelings for the goofy and cutesy routines between handler and show dog while also leaving the viewer amazed at the almost telepathic connection between the two stars. This sport not only awards its participants with physical trophies and world recognition via the Internet, but also the feeling of becoming one with your freestylin’ doggie.

To learn more about what it takes to become a world-traveling, freestyle-competing, handling team of two, view this YouTube video of trainer Carolyn Scott and her dog Rookie performing a dance routine to a song from the classic movie ‘Grease’. 

If that isn't enough, there's also an entire website devoted to dog-dancing routines.

 

 

[caption id="attachment_3553" align="aligncenter" width="460" class=" "] Buzkashi Gangtas[/caption]

Buzkashi: Afghanistan's Life-Threatening National Sport

Dating back to the reign of Genghis Kahn and his fellow traveling Mongols, the game of Buzkashi was born in Northern Afghanistan and Eastern Turkey. Today’s current riders of the surrounding communities treat the ‘game’ as a traditional sport with high hopes of someday competing in the Olympics. So, what is it exactly?

In the simplest terms…
a. Men ride the strongest horses they can buy; the more horses a man owns, the better and richer he is.
b. Once on the horse, the men pick up a dead carcass---usually a goat with its head and hooves cut off---from a designated circular area.
c. While holding the carcass in one hand or with it wrapped up in a whip, the man and his horse ride around until they make it around a pole and back into the circle originally containing the carcass.

Two points to remember:

1. Buzkashi requires men and their horses to work together, either in teams or individually.


2. Buzkashi is extremely dangerous.

It has been previously asserted that “in Buzkashi, human life counts less than the result” [1]. This is certain. Humans and their horses are battered up and even trampled at times just attempting to retrieve the stone-cold carcass of the headless goat. It is really hard to watch footage of the sport if you are not used to this type of competition.

Today the sport itself is evolving along with the Afghan culture and region itself. Since 9/11, The United States has been pouring hundreds of billions of US dollars into the country Afghanistan but also apparently its national sport of Buzkashi. One analysis from ESPN reflected on the new wealth of current riders who often make big money from their sponsors and through gambling. It was stated by current professional rider, Mohammad Hasan Palwan, that in the past, if you won, it was “for the province. Now, the sponsors have changed the allegiances, the pride. Victory is no longer for your community.” Now the sport is won for power of the individual [2]. It is apparent that today’s riders are playing the game for more than the revival of traditional sport, but for the power and money available to win. Gambling goes anywhere from $20 to $17,000. It is all seemingly aggressive and involves a lot of different high risks.

A short YouTube video which visually aides one into further understanding into the sport of Buzkashi and its dangerous reality is listed below.

Buzkashi: A Dangerous Game, The Death Game, A Real Sport

It’s apparent that these two ‘sports’ are completely different from one another. Dancing, happy dogs versus life-threatening danger and the high stakes of gambling. In Buzkashi, the rider is putting himself, his horse, other players, and even his family at serious risk. The actual sport involves a dead carcass being carried and dragged across a rugged, dirty surface.  The game itself is, safe to say, brutal versus the extremely quirky yet heart-warming groovy sport of Dog-Dancing. In dog-dancing, there are rarely any dead animals that we know of yet, and the dogs seem to be enjoying themselves for the most part. Whereas the horses, being thrown against one another and clunked amongst hard shoes and kicking.

Despite their many differences, these two unique sports can appear similar in a few ways. For instance, both require the acquisition of personal talents and the talent of a live, animal companion to get their ‘routine’ awarded and as a means to win the competition or sport. Both sports require a form of companionship. In dog-dancing, the owner and the live dog must use their companionship to work together to win. In Buzkashi, the riders use connection with their horses to work together. Their companionship has to be on a higher and more spiritual level. How the individual performs with the animal, connects with the animal, takes care of the animal, and uses the animal are all quite similar. In both sports, the riders and the dog owners must learn to accept and deal with both victory and defeat, not just the competition itself. However, those who love sports often love the thrill of a competition and thus world riders, trainers, handlers, et al, are all viewed as competitors in the end. They want to win; they want the cheese, or goat cheese.

So, there you have it. If you're not into football, soccer, baseball, volleyball, weightlifting, or any 'mainstream' sport - you can be a good sport and check out the trying and telepathic sport of dog-dancing or let yourself and horse get rustled and toughened up in a game or two of Buzkashi. Hey, it's all about learning another's culture and their interests isn't it?

Curb your enthusiasm: Korean internet is not all it's cracked up to be.

Roughly two years ago I moved from a country where net neutrality is implemented by law (the Netherlands) to a country where the freedom of the Internet is under pressure (South Korea). It has been a world of difference using the Internet in both of these countries. To give a feel for how bad the situation really is in South Korea, I will first describe the situation in the Netherlands as a contrast.

The history of how net neutrality in the Netherlands came to be is a fairly recent one. I vividly remember the time when the news leaked that one of the Netherlands' biggest Internet providers had admitted to its investors it was using a technique called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), with which they could differentiate what the customer was doing on their network. Basically it meant the company was spying on its customers. The plan was to charge extra for certain VoIP and message services because the company was losing money due to decreasing use of SMS and regular calls. The indication that they soon had to pay extra for their WhatsApp use was too much to handle for the Dutch, being the frugal people that they are, and caused such an outrage that the telecom company had to cancel its plan to use the technique. In addition, the Dutch society is also an open one where everybody has the right to express themselves and press freedom is being held in high regard. Therefore, the more informed people worried that the Internet would be controlled by several companies. With these two main arguments, the people urged the Dutch political parties to take action. On 22 June 2011 the Dutch parliament decided to include net neutrality in the new telecom law, and by ratification by the Dutch Senate on 8 May 2012, the Netherlands became one of only two countries in the world (the other being Chile) where net neutrality is guaranteed by the legal system. Thus mirroring the democratic principles of Dutch society in cyberspace.

The benefits of the Dutch net neutrality law for the consumer are many: Internet providers can't limit or charge extra for certain services, the contents of your Internet traffic can be accessed by your Internet provider only in certain extreme cases, your Internet connection can be disconnected only if you don’t pay your bills or you commit fraud, and you have to give explicit permission to let tracking cookies be installed on your computer, which in turn makes it difficult for advertisers to track your behavior on the Internet. All in all it was and is a huge victory for freedom on the Internet. Although at the time I realized to some extent that this was a big deal, since roughly two years I really know by experience how fortunate the Dutch are.

When, in August 2012, I moved to South Korea, which has a reputation of being the Internet capital of the world, I thought I was going to live in the Valhalla of the Internet. Due to several news stories, I thought positively about the South Korean Internet, which seemed to dazzle the world with not only the fastest download and upload speeds around but also nearly universal LTE and WiFi accessibility. Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the South Korean Internet that don't get the attention that they deserve in the news, because of the focus of Western media on the speed of the Internet here. I quickly found out that a new 5G network isn't the most important thing about Internet usage.

A fast Internet connection doesn't get you anywhere if you're not able to access everything you want. Sadly, like in the Netherlands, South Korean cyberspace mirrors its society as well. Internet censorship is common: blocking everything from North Korean sites and materials harmful to minors to pornography and even simple nudity. If the government deems it inappropriate, you won't be able to see it without using a workaround. Unfortunately, blocking some sites is not all the government does; commenting on the Internet isn't anonymous anymore, since you need to register with your social security number to be able to comment on any Korean Internet portal. That makes it easier to extensively monitor the Internet on anti-government comments. Sometimes action is being taken to cut of the perpetrator's Internet or even making arrests in some cases. For example Chung Bong-ju, one of the four hosts of the popular South Korean podcast "Naneun Ggomsuda" (나는 꼼수다) and national lawmaker at the time, was found guilty in 2011 of spreading false rumors, accusing then-presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak in 2007 of being affiliated with a company that forged stock prices. Critics have claimed that it was a political motivated sentence, because of its timing just before the presidential elections. The podcast was a very influential channel of anti-government views. All of this is very serious, but the by far most annoying thing on the Korean Internet ever is Active-X.

The country that has the reputation to be years ahead in technology relative to the rest of the globe relies on this archaic 90's program for its entire e-commerce economy. Forget buying something on your iMac if you're not willing to partition and install Windows as well. Not only that, Active-X is Internet Explorer only, hence the biggest market share of Internet Explorer in the world. Being the Apple fan boy that I am, this frustrates me immensely. I refuse to install Windows on my iMac and if I would, I don't want to have anything to do with Internet Explorer. Fortunately, I have a workaround: if I spot something I want, I'll ask my wife to buy it at her office where she uses a Windows machine. Also I found a bank that has Internet banking for OS X. Well, had Internet banking for OS X.

As a Mac user, you're such a rarity in this country that you're met with a lot of misunderstanding and disbelief. When my bank updated their security protocol they somehow forgot that they used to support OS X as well. As a result the site stopped working on an Apple computer and I had to contact the bank's service center. Their solution was to take over my computer to take a look by sending me an .exe file. When that didn’t work they were genuinely surprised and apparently had no alternative way to access my computer. Not much later after the service center employee promised me she would get back to me and hung up the phone, I got a message that they were unable to solve the problem. So now I have to use my workaround for my Internet banking as well.



Having lived here for two years, I now know that not South Korea, but the Netherlands is the real champion of the Internet. Although the overall Internet speed isn't as fast as that of South Korea, it's close enough. There is no monitoring, no blocking (although there was one issue with Pirate Bay being blocked), and no Active-X. All government websites have to be accessible by all major browsers and all purchases can be done with any operating system. You can criticize the government without being afraid of being cut off from the Internet. While Dutch cyberspace is a free and open world, South Korean citizens have no access to unfiltered Internet. I have not been homesick often in the two years that I lived in South Korea, but when I stumble on news of Internet censorship being used or when I get confronted by the limitations when browsing the web on my iMac, I long for the possibilities of net neutrality in my own country. I secretly wish South Korea would implement it too. Unfortunately, with democracy more and more under strain, I don’t see that happening in the near future.