While jogging around Accra, I found a street soccer game. The game itself is ubiquitous as the fist nation in Africa to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Ghana lacks no soccer games around corner of the capital city the same meaning for table tennis is to Chinese. However, the bright yellow jersey shirts the players of one team wear attract my attention. Every shirt has Korean characters on it, as I don’t read Korean, I can’t tell what each word means. From what I observed, it seems the team and each player’s name. Out of curiosity, I approached one player wearing the jersey and asked him. He looked at me, stretched out his arms and shrugged, “I don’t know”.
It is not the first time I spotted Korean presence in this Africa country, every week day night around 9pm, there is a popular Korean soap show showing on the local TV stations. There are total three free TV stations for everyone who can afford a TV to view without a cable, so the chance of people seeing the Korean show is fairly high.
Then you got Korean electronics makers such as LG or Samsung who establish their showrooms prominently in the main drag of the city, home appliance such as flat large screen TV sets and new mobile phones are promoted as better life.
Back to Soccer, in Asia, both Koreas are qualified for the finals next year in South Africa. Will there be any softpower showing from North Korea as well? At least they got a embassy here.
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