About Jong Tae-Se, a representative soccer player of North Korea in the World Cup 2010

Why did he cry?

For the first time, I thought he was crying for his country, North Korea, but now I think the Seoul Searcher's guess may be right even though I don’t know about hime at all.
He would have been discriminated a lot by Japanese, North Korean Zainichi, South Korean Zainichi, South Koreans and North Koreans in Japan.
Moreover, it would be also difficult for him to be a representative of North Korea, because he’s officially a South Korean!
He would have thought those things there, I guess that’s why he cried..


Why did he choose North Korea instead of South Korea or Japan?

The first reason is that North Korea is more familiar to him.
His mother from North Korea sent him to North Korean school in Japan, so he had a lot of opportunities to contact the culture. That may have made him feel more comfortable from North Korea than any other country.

Second, he said he wanted to keep his promise.
When he was in high school, he went on a school trip to Pyeongyang. It was the first time that he visited his homeland. He was very impressed at that time, so he promised in front of all his schoolmates that he would visit there as a representative soccer player of North Korea. From that time, he always desired to be a representative of North Korea.

Third, the Korea Football Association(South Korea) didn’t accept him by the reseon of school relations.
They probably wanted to select those who are from specific schools. Actually, I’m not sure about this, because I just saw it on someone’s private site without any evidence. It might be a rumor.

That’s what I found.

This post that the Seoul Searcher wrote made me think about him in another way. Thanks, the Seoul Searcher!


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