美国国家公共电台 NPR The Science Behind South Korea's Race-Based World Cup Strategy

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The sports behemoth known as the World Cup is underway across Russia. Sweden played South Korea today.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED BROADCASTER: And Sweden have their first goal of this World Cup.

KELLY: And Sweden won. That goal did it - 1-0. That's despite South Korea being especially secretive about trying to keep prying¹ eyes from learning much about its strategy. It all started prior to the first real match when South Korea played an early friendly match against Ghana.

TYLER NGUYEN: The manager was very paranoid about Swedish scouts² or any of their other opponent scouts potentially watching it. So it was played behind closed doors.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

That's sports writer Tyler Nguyen of the Stumptown Footy in Portland, Ore. He says the paranoia³ was justified⁴. It turned out the Swedes admitted to spying, renting a house across the street to look at South Korea practicing.

NGUYEN: The coaches decided⁵ to instruct the players to swap⁶ jerseys⁸ to confuse them because he felt that the scouts being Westerners wouldn't be able to identify which player was which and would have to rely on the jerseys.

CORNISH: Sports writer Nguyen thinks this was a crazy strategy for South Korea to use because soccer involves defending areas of the field more than knowing what individual players are up to.

NGUYEN: I thought it was funny. I thought it made people aware of something that is not uncommon⁹ - an experience for people of Asian descents in Western countries.

ALICE O'TOOLE: Your brain and your cognitive¹⁰ system tune¹¹ to the information that helps make individual faces unique, and so the nature of that information is simply different as a function of the race of the face.

KELLY: That is Professor Alice O'Toole of the University of Texas at Dallas. She has written a number of papers on race and facial recognition. She says it's not just Westerners who confuse Asian individuals. Every race has the same deficiency when it comes to races different than their own.

O'TOOLE: And you categorize them all as the same because they're from another group, and they all are categorized as being kind of an outgroup.

KELLY: The South Korean team coach, Shin Tae-yong, tried to capitalize on that. He admitted he ordered the jersey⁷ swapping¹².

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SHIN TAE-YONG: (Foreign language spoken).

CORNISH: He said, quote, "it's very difficult for Europeans to distinguish between Asians, and that's why we did that."

KELLY: Nice try South Korea. But in the end, it didn't work.

(SOUNDBITE OF IKEBE SHAKEDOWN'S "OUT OF THE SHADOWS")

1 prying   

adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• I'm sick of you prying into my personal life! 我讨厌你刺探我的私生活！
• She is always prying into other people's affairs. 她总是打听别人的私事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 scouts   

侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员

参考例句：

• to join the Scouts 参加童子军
• The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组，然后开始巡逻这个地区。

3 paranoia   

n.妄想狂，偏执狂；多疑症

参考例句：

• Her passion for cleanliness borders on paranoia.她的洁癖近乎偏执。
• The push for reform is also motivated by political paranoia.竞选的改革运动也受到政治偏执狂症的推动。

4 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 swap   

n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易

参考例句：

• I will swap you my bicycle for your radio.我想拿我的自行车换你的收音机。
• This comic was a swap that I got from Nick.这本漫画书是我从尼克那里换来的。

7 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

8 jerseys   

n.运动衫( jersey的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The maximum quantity of cotton jerseys this year is about DM25,000. 平方米的羊毛地毯超过了以往的订货。 来自口语例句
• The NBA is mulling the prospect of stitching advertising logos onto jerseys. 大意：NBA官方正在酝酿一个大煞风景的计划——把广告标志绣上球服！ 来自互联网

9 uncommon   

adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的

参考例句：

• Such attitudes were not at all uncommon thirty years ago.这些看法在30年前很常见。
• Phil has uncommon intelligence.菲尔智力超群。

10 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

11 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

12 swapping   

交换，交换技术

参考例句：

• The slow swapping and buying of horses went on. 马匹的买卖和交换就是这样慢慢地进行着。
• He was quite keen on swapping books with friends. 他非常热衷于和朋友们交换书籍。