There are several reasons I know I can't understand the motivations of anyone in the Kim family. One is that I don't understand family dynamics in traditional families (not just Asian, I hasten to add). In Canada and the States, kids are encouraged to find independence from their families early, and rebellion is understood as a natural and even praiseworthy process. Our way of doing things is unsettling and even alien to a large part of the world, and it would do us well to remember that. Two generations back in my own family (from Eastern Europe), someone found her husband through a matchmaker--in this country, might I add. The girls in that generation lived at home until they married--some into their thirties. So the path YuNa, her sister, and her parents figured out among themselves is not something I can competently make any statements about. Maybe this lady is a voracious stage mother as Pat Lipinski was said to be, or maybe she's just a traditional mother with an unusually strong personality. I have no way of knowing.
The other factor is even more rarefied. What YuNa and her family achieved is not even like the achievements of most other skating families. The kid is the most famous person in any field in Korea--and a Korean is currently the U.N. Secretary General. Who know what kind of bubble she lives in? Who knows what kind of pressure she feels every day of her life? Who knows how many clues she misses about the actions of the people around her? Who knows how many clues they miss about her actions?
And then there's the language and culture barrier. An Asian poster on another forum pointed it out with an effective metaphor: in the West, we put the personal name first and the family name second: Brian Orser. In Asia, the family name comes first and the personal name second: Kim YuNa, Asada Mao. In the West, we put the date first and the year last. In Asia, the opposite. Lots of things are opposite in East and West. It makes many actions and reactions between the two spheres hard to understand.
This is why I can't side against either her or Brian. (And why I can side with both of them without contradiction.) There were certainly mistakes from both camps--golly, how much messier could this breakup have been? But both sides have done each other great good through these past years. As several of you point out, Brian may have helped make YuNa a champion, but YuNa equally made Brian a premier coach. How many decades did Frank Carroll have to wait for a gold medal winner from his students? Didn't he start coaching when the plane crashed in 1961, killing his own mentor Maribel Vinson Owen?
So when the dust settles, I hope both sides can remember how greatly valuable and fruitful their relationship was. And I hope we remember it, also. What good skating they gave us, out of the depths of their hearts.
Many posts I've read mentioned the communication problem between the two sides regarding this ugly break-up and....Yuna's mother...
But I think the cutural difference was the main cause which made many things much worse.
I'm Korean, just a few years younger than Yuna's mother.
Revealing all the reasons / details of the break-up on media is supposed to be inappropriate in our culture.
Yuna shouldn't talk directly about the contract with Brian who's her teacher AND who's much older than herself. If she had done so, she must have been much more criticized because that sort of act's supposed to be very rude in Korea.
I think what she wrote in twitter was not adequate, either, but I could understand her frustration ( she couldn't speak out anywhere else.)
Many also said Yuna's mother has been involved in the life of her daughter too much. As far as I know, she's far from being a 'skate mom' we easily imagine. She had to sacrifice too much to make her daughter's dream come true. That's why she said she majored in Yuna.
Her father also mentioned that Yuna was very determined to be a skater, controlling herself exceptionally well ( training, diet..etc.) even when she was a kid. He added that he did not expect she could be a top-level skater(the interview was about 3 or 4 years ago, I think)
The environment for skating here in Korea is too different from that of other countries. There was no systematic coaching system, no financial aid from the skating federation, no sponsors for figure skaters, no international level skater,esp. no rink for the figure skaters.
Yuna also used the cold ice rink of an amusement park midnight for training, and that's why she got injured so much when she was junior, along with the boots problem. I've seen a documentary a few years ago in which Yuna's mom herself showed how to repair Yuna's skating boots at home. She was the driver, the training coach, the physical therapist, the agent...and more..(Personally, I don't want to live like her, and I can't live like her.). No one cared about the young skater, and her mother had to do it all.
When I heard the news that she started a management company this year, at first, I thought that might not be a good idea. However, I heard that she did so not only for Yuna but also for young korean skaters who confront the same difficulties as Yuna has been through, I got to support their decision, even after this mess.
I think what bothers Yuna most now is not the break-up, not finding a new coach and an ice rink for training, but putting up with all the criticism against her mother in silence.
Too long.. sorry about my English.
It would be bizarre to pick a name as a nickname if it's not my name.
