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Soojichim, or Korean hand acupuncture was very popular with the German team, which had its base camp in Jeju. At the Soojichim Treatment Clinic, within the German team's media center, 40 to 50 reporters, players, and players' family members came each day to receive treatment. German newspapers, broadcasting stations, and magazines competed to introduce Soojichim with titles such as "The Mystery of the East" and "Soojichim Number One!"
Public broadcast stations ARD and ZDF each did a feature on June 18 on the work of Soojichim therapists working at the German camp, at 4:00pm and 6:00pm, respectively.
The Soojichim clinic became popular after the German World Cup Organization Committee's Korean representative Shin Kil-sun, a Koryo Soojichim Institute academic member, treated ARD executive member Thomas Eiderman when he fell ill on a bus.
After recovering from the emergency situation where he could hardly breathe, Eiderman proposed that a clinic be opened within the camp and four Soojichim experts from the institute were dispatched.
Regular patrons were mostly broadcast reporters who had to run with heavy cameras. Newspaper and magazine reporters, team personnel, and players' family members have also "fallen" for the efficacy of Soojichim. Shin said, "We treated goalkeeper Oliver Khan's parents and wife, and other family members of the players. We also treated players with ankle wounds and other injuries, but we can't reveal names."
In Jeju, almost 5,000 Germans including 120 or so television and radio reporters, 200 newspaper and magazine reporters, the players and their families were staying, but most had left for Seoul on Monday morning for the semifinal against Korea. The Soojichin clinic was only to operate two hors a day at first, but as there were so many people, it was run 24 hours a day and also treated many "emergencies."
(Lim Ho-jun, hjlim@chosun.com )
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