{"id":33813,"date":"2015-12-06T02:00:42","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T07:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=33813"},"modified":"2015-12-02T10:01:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T15:01:14","slug":"cleveland-the-factory-of-sadness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/12\/06\/cleveland-the-factory-of-sadness\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland &#8211; the &#8220;Factory of Sadness&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mattwaldmanrsp.com\/2015\/12\/02\/returning-to-the-factory-of-sadness\/\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Waldman<\/a> tries to get to the root of the problem &#8230; the problem of being a Cleveland Browns fan:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Seahawks\u2019 exploits have been a thrill, but I\u2019ve never hung on every play with the same passion I did when I watched Steve McNair and company in Tennessee. You see, Titans and Seahawks fans got a taste of <em>Han<\/em> in those games, but by the time that happened I had already been marinated in it in Cleveland: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em><strong>Han<\/strong> or <strong>Haan<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Han_(cultural)#cite_note-Luke2012-1\" target=\"_blank\">[1]<\/a> is a concept in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Korean_culture\" target=\"_blank\">Korean culture<\/a> attributed as a unique Korean cultural trait which has resulted from Korea\u2019s frequent exposure to invasions by overwhelming foreign powers. <strong>Han<\/strong> denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of insurmountable odds (the overcoming of which is beyond the nation\u2019s capabilities on its own). It connotes aspects of lament and unavenged injustice.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Minjung\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>minjung<\/strong><\/a> theologian <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Suh_Nam-dong&#038;action=edit&#038;redlink=1\" target=\"_blank\">Suh Nam-dong<\/a> describes <strong>han<\/strong> as a \u201cfeeling of unresolved resentment against injustices suffered, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against one, a feeling of acute pain in one\u2019s guts and bowels, making the whole body writhe and squirm, and an obstinate urge to take revenge and to right the wrong \u2014 all these combined.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Han_(cultural)#cite_note-2\" target=\"_blank\">[2]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In some occasions, anthropologists have recognized <strong>han<\/strong> as a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Culture-bound_syndrome\" target=\"_blank\">culture-specific medical condition<\/a> whose symptoms include <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dyspnea\" target=\"_blank\">dyspnea<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heart_palpitation\" target=\"_blank\">heart palpitation<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dizziness\" target=\"_blank\">dizziness<\/a>. (Wikipedia)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Whether they know it or not, the Browns are the unofficial NFL team of Korea. Cleveland embodies <em>Han<\/em> more than any team \u2013 and possibly, city (Detroit gets props) \u2013 in American sport.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s what happens when your team is <em>this close<\/em> to it all coming together and its spirit gets kidnapped to Baltimore.<\/p>\n<p>Baltimore Colts great Art Donovan got it right when he said that he had mixed feelings about the Ravens\u2019 arrival in Charm City. He was happy for the fans to get a team, but not at the cost of another great fan base losing theirs.<\/p>\n<p>The Ravens still have the soul and guts of the real Cleveland Browns. They\u2019re Mickey Rourke\u2019s detective Harry Angel from<em> Angel Heart<\/em>. a war veteran kidnapped by crooner Johnny Favorite, who, to avoid paying up his side of the deal he made with the devil, performs a gruesome ritual on Angel to inhabit the detective\u2019s body and hide from Lucifer \u2013 and himself.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>I wish I could say <em>Angel Heart<\/em> only applies to Art Modell performing his satanic ritual on Cleveland and hiding in the Ravens purple and black. Then it could make DeNiro\u2019s Lucifer the collective embodiment of vengeful Browns fans everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>But I experienced my own personal horror of discovering who I was in the wake of the Browns 42nd last-minute loss since 1999: Despite 20 years of trying not deny it, I\u2019m still a Browns fan. I\u2019ll always be a Browns fan.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not a choice. It\u2019s part of who I am.<\/p>\n<p>I had this epiphany last night while watching defeat snatched from the foot of victory against the team that made off with our mojo. Watching my shitty team lose a game to its mortal enemy that\u2019s so deeply wounded that it\u2019s starting an ATM for interceptions, pissed me off more than the Titans and Seahawks\u2019 one-yard debacles in the Super Bowl.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tRBDMMVctu8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Waldman tries to get to the root of the problem &#8230; the problem of being a Cleveland Browns fan: The Seahawks\u2019 exploits have been a thrill, but I\u2019ve never hung on every play with the same passion I did when I watched Steve McNair and company in Tennessee. You see, Titans and Seahawks fans [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,57],"tags":[634,156,279,179],"class_list":["post-33813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","category-humour","tag-cleveland","tag-fail","tag-korea","tag-nfl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8Nn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33815,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813\/revisions\/33815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}