INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA: ‘Diversity shines here’ is the main theme of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games and perhaps it is due to this that people have connected among themselves during the course of the 15-day competition here.

Such a connection was most evident during the North Korea versus Japan women’s football final on Wednesday, as the ‘North-South Joint Cheering Team’ of around 300 people supported the North as their neighbours upset the defending champions 3-1 at the Munhak Stadium.

After their gold medal effort, the North Korean players showed their appreciation by jogging towards the stands and bowing before them in thanks as the supporters unfurled a banner that read ‘We Are One’.

However, word has it that the actions of this group have not gone down too well with the government and security forces present at the Games. In the past, the same group has been stopped from entering the stadium, indicating that the government is unwilling to put up with protests from South Koreans over this thaw between peoples.

Cash flush

However, on the other hand, the South is planning to foot the entire bill of their North Korean neighbours for the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. The South is expected to offer as much as 1 billion won (Dh3.5 million) to financially support North Korea’s participation at the Games.

The money will cover the rental of satellite broadcast equipment and the cost of its athletes’ stay. The North had sent a 273-member delegation to Incheon.

Such an overture is nothing new as South Korea had paid up to 870 million won to help the North participate at the 2002 Games in Busan.

The word search

Which are the “most searched for” words on the internet in South Korea? A survey organised by the Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) has concluded, after analysing 200 tourism-related key words through three major search engines — Google for English, Baidu for Chinese and Yahoo Japan for Japanese — that the most searched words are ‘Gangnam’ for the English-speaking, ‘Jeju Island’ for Chinese speakers and ‘Bulgogi’ (Korean barbecue) for the Japanese.

The survey was conducted over 12 months, starting in August last year. Gangnam was the most searched for word on Google due to the manic global popularity of singer Psy and his 2012 mega-hit ‘Gangnam Style’.

This surge in popularity has worked well for the Gangnam district in southern Seoul, as it aims to attract 10 million visitors by 2018. Figures state that 850,000 foreigners visited Gangnam in 2012 and this figure went up to 5.11 million last year. Now the local government has got even more ambitious.