Should I ask around?
In the summer of 2022, while I was unemployed, I met a college friend and we happened to talk about basketball. Our memories of our brilliant basketball-crazy college years have already become a thing of the past. After graduating from school, I naturally got a job, and then the coronavirus outbreak occurred. I had to stay away for a while, not even thinking about watching basketball. They say that when the body becomes distant, the mind also becomes distant, so I forgot about the joy of basketball for a while.
The more I talked with my friend, the more we wanted to play basketball again like we did back then. From time to time, we talked about playing basketball or gathering people together, but it passed as a joke, but now we were both serious. My friend, who is ESFP, suggested that I invite people around me who are interested in basketball, and I, who is ISTJ, strongly supported her comment, thinking that as long as I had people, I would take responsibility for the rest.
It was the first historic exercise where people gathered in groups of twos and threes at a basketball court in Gangnam, including friends’ older sisters and older women who played basketball together in college. Afterwards, there was no proper practice space, coach, or manager to grow a club hastily, and creating a fun basketball atmosphere was the most important thing, so we decided to run an acquaintance business for the time being. More college friends and juniors joined our club, and college friends’ high school friends and juniors’ high school friends also joined our club.
That was the beginning of ‘KINONG’.
Kinong is a combination of ‘KIN’ and ‘NONG’ in basketball, and its motto is ‘Let’s have fun playing basketball.’ Do those born in the 90’s remember? We are a generation that grew up pursuing ‘fun’ dozens of times a day during elementary school. Have fun with greetings in the online world! Enjoy as a rejection! Even when you want to return a curse, have fun! We are the ones who always lie on our side and say ‘KIN’ because we are so happy. With a desire to go back to my childhood and pursue pure joy, the name of our club was Kinong.
The octopus style business continued to flourish. My college friend’s friend from another department and that friend’s younger sister also became our members. I even have a friend who joined with two co-workers. One of the co-workers brought a hair designer teacher from the beauty salon she went to. It is said that he was introduced to Kinong after seeing the entire volume of Slam Dunk on display in a beauty salon. Every time a new member joined, they made a name for themselves by adding an acquaintance with whom they had a connection, such as ‘friend of ㅇㅇ’.
I wasn’t good at sales, but I focused on ‘customer management’. He sincerely taught basketball to new members who had just started playing basketball. With cheat keys for ice breaking – “We are not a multi-level marketing company~” Now, two years later, the basketball club that started with two people has grown to 20 people. Whether you’re good at basketball or not, skill doesn’t matter. The important thing is to let go of all your worries and anxieties for the time you gather together, run, laugh, and play basketball.
On the court, we throw away all conditions such as occupation, age, and rank insignia. I don’t care about the result of the game either. I run only for pleasure. Then, the court is filled with laughter. A place where basketball skills gradually improve, but the threshold for happiness quickly decreases, Kinong shouts out again today.
“Let’s have fun!”
