Transforming Sedentary Subjects Into Active Athletes: the Promotion of Baseball in Taiwan During Japanese Occupation

Sport History Review, 2007, 38, 40-54 © 2007 Human Kinetics, Inc. Transforming Sedentary Subjects into Active Athletes: The Promotion of Baseball in Taiwan During Japanese Occupation Junwei Yu Shu Te University When the Taiwanese first saw the Japanese tossing and hitting baseballs, they were fearful and perplexed. The locals dubbed the game caiqiu (wooden-ball) and worried that the ball was so solid and hard that it might cause fatalities.1,2 Heavily influenced by Confucianism, which valued academic study and shunned physicality or martial prowess, Taiwanese people had little regard for physical exercise. The Japanese occupiers were amazed that the Taiwanese had no folk dancing, which seemed to exist in every nation in the world. Nor did they have modern sports.3 It is interesting to examine how the Japanese transformed sedentary subjects into active athletes through physical education (PE) policies. The author argues that education policies were not developed endogenously, but rather exogenously out of necessity, to implement assimilation and accommodation that fit their national interests. The promotion of baseball is a perfect example. This paper is divided into five sections. Following a brief historical overview of Taiwan, anti-physical Confucianism will be analyzed in order to present the fac- tors contributing to the sedentary culture in Taiwan. The third section examines the evolution of Japanese colonial government’s PE policies, which were influenced by international and domestic circumstances. The next two sections explore the significance of Nenggao and Jianong baseball teams, which are important indicators of Taiwanese acceptance of modern sports, as a result of assimilation policy. The former demonstrated that aborigines were transformed successfully from “violent barbarians” into “modern citizens.” The latter proved that Han Chinese could also play good baseball as well as the Japanese. The era of Japanese occupation not only toppled the anti-physical culture, but also laid the foundation for a baseball- playing environment on the island. Historical Overview of Taiwan Originally, Taiwan was settled by people of Malay-Polynesian descent (now called aborigines), who initially inhabited the low-lying coastal plains. They called the The author is with the Department of Leisure, Recreation, and Tourism Management at Shu Te University, Taiwan. 40 Baseball in Taiwan During Japanese Occupation 41 island Pakan. Beginning in the 14th century and continuing into the 18th century, large numbers of Chinese settlers (now called Taiwanese) from the Holo-speaking province of Fujian and the Hakka-speaking province of Guangdong arrived on the island, thus escaping from harsh local living conditions and taxes. Throughout the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Taiwan’s position was insignifi- cant in the eye of the ruling imperialists, for whom the northern nomads were the greatest threat. As a result, the Dutch colonized Taiwan in 1642. But a leading Ming general named Zheng Chenggong (also called Koxinga) decided to cross the Straits to occupy Taiwan, hoping to use the island as a base from which he would recover the Mainland from the Manchus, who established the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). His fleet landed on the island and eventually drove away the Dutch in 1662. The reign of Zheng’s family finally came to an end after their surrender to members of the Qing Dynasty, who carried out a surprise attack on the island in 1683. Over the next two centuries, the increasingly sinicized Manchus continued to adopt the Confucian way of life, and so did the Chinese settlers living in Taiwan. After nearly two hundred years of peace and self-sufficiency, China’s conceit and complacency suffered a huge blow in the Opium War against the British in 1842, after which the series of humiliating agreements were imposed by the foreign powers. In 1894, China was defeated by Japan. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed the following year, forcing China to give up Formosa and Penghu islands to the victor. As a result, Taiwan entered a sphere of influence completely different from what it had known under Chinese rule. It was during the Japanese occupation that the notion of modern education was introduced to the island. Japan’s reign in Taiwan was brought to an end with its defeat by the allied forces in World War II. On October 25, 1945, Taiwan was officially handed back to the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang [KMT]) government (which had overthrown the Qing Dynasty in 1911), after fifty years under Japanese rule. This day is remembered as Retrocession Day. Unfortunately, less than a year and a half after Taiwan was returned to China, a bloody conflict occurred between Taiwan- ese and Mainlanders brought by the KMT. The elite of Taiwanese society was purged, and there were heavy civilian casualties. The resulting fear and lethargy of the Taiwanese toward politics was advantageous to the minority Mainlanders to uphold a one-party dictatorship, and hold back the development of democratic, constitutional government for thirty-eight years. As a consequence, Taiwanese turned to nonpolitical activities, such as economy, music, or sports. Baseball was one of them, thanks to the solid foundation that had been laid during Japanese occupation. Chinese Education and Recreation Before discussing the Japanese occupation and its impact on Taiwan, it is important to pinpoint the tenets of Confucianism, whose philosophy and ideology had been followed by several Chinese dynasties. Confucianism sees the world in a hierarchi- cal order in which the son has to obey the father, women obey men, subjects obey imperialists, and so on. Peace and harmony are maintained if everyone sticks to his position and does his job. Citizens revere their governmental leaders, and the leaders treat the populace with fairness and dignity.4 The Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 219) especially welcomed the idea of Confucianism and embraced it as an .

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